Today's guest grew his blog to over $100K in revenue in just three years.
In 2016, after side hustling on their blog for about a year, Alex Nerney and his girlfriend Lauren McManus decided to go all in on themselves. They sold everything they owned, quit their full time jobs, and moved in with Alex’s dad in Seattle and became full time bloggers.
When I first heard about createandgo.com, I was on Alex and Lauren’s website, reading their story on their about page, and there were two things that really stood out to me and made me want to invite them on the show:
The first thing was this quote:
“We were blessed and plenty thankful for what we had, but there was one feeling we couldn’t escape. Is this really it?
Really… Is this really IT???
Yeah, getting drunk on the weekends when you’re young is fun and who doesn’t love going to the movies for the bajillionth time in your life, but we couldn’t escape the feeling there had to be more to life than this.”
And if you guys have listened to this podcast for awhile, you know that the exact same thing happened to me when I was sitting at my desk at my day job one day, this feeling of dread just washed over me and I was like, “Is this IT? Is this really all there is?”
I felt an instant connection to their story.
The second thing that stood to me (aside from the fact that Alex and Lauren grew their online business to over $100,000 a month – yes, a month – over the course of span of 2 years) is that they share in detail on their About page every single failure and misstep along the way.
Most people don't share all their mistakes. They just want you to see the good stuff, and they don't talk about all the hard times, mistakes and lessons learned that got them where they are… And then you feel like you're doing it wrong because everyone else makes it look sooooo easy.
That's why I love bringing you stories of people who found massive success AND share all the obstacles they overcame along the way. Those are the stories you can actually learn something from.
So I’m gonna stop here and let Alex tell you the full story.
But what I really want you to take away from this interview is that you gotta try a lot of different things, you gotta make mistakes and learn from them and try something new, and just never stop because you eventually will find your way, just like Alex and Lauren did.
Alex and I talk about:
- How Alex and Lauren quit their day jobs and went all in to run their health and wellness blog full time
- How Alex and Lauren leveraged Pinterest to gain traffic to their blog
- What content does best on Pinterest
- What common themes Alex sees that separates the people that become successful from the ones who flop
- The exact steps they took to monetize their first blog, Avocadu.com
- How Alex and Lauren build trust with their audience by marketing towards deeper values
- The importance of being honest with your audience
- Alex’s advice for starting a YouTube channel
- Alex’s belief that he had to change about himself
My favorite quotes from Alex:
“If people are telling you that you work too hard, you are probably on the right track.”
“You have to give up things that are good for something greater.”
“Growth in anything requires an obnoxious amount of effort.”
“If you feel like you are a hard worker but you are wondering why you are spinning your wheels, these are solutions for you. These are real solutions that literally just take a hustler’s mindset and stickability.”
Links Mentioned in this episode:
- Alex + Lauren's story
- Avocadu.com
- Create and Go Website
- How to Start a Blog Training from Create and Go
- How to Make Money Blogging from Create and Go
- Launch Your Blog Course from Create and Go
- Digital Marketer website
- Create and Go YouTube Channel
- Create and Go Pinterest Page
- Create and Go Facebook Page
Alex's bio:
Alex is the founder of Create and Go, a blog that teaches others how to start a blog and eventually make money blogging. Alex and his partner Lauren quit their jobs, sold almost everything they owned and went all-in blogging. Within their first year, they made $103,000 blogging. By year three, they are currently making over $100,000 per month online! And the best thing is Alex and his partner Lauren live their life completely on their terms!
