Pre launch / Niche Selection (2018)
Organic seo niche research
Identified telehealth/telemedicine as a high-margin, high-momentum category with almost zero existing review content online. Deliberately avoided crowded niches where a new, low-authority site couldn't compete. Targeted longtail, low-competition keywords around specific brands rather than broad category terms.
→ Established a content beachhead in a wide-open niche before large publishers entered
Launch / Months 1 6 (2018)
Seo content production
Alex personally wrote the first 60 articles while simultaneously learning WordPress. Each article targeted a specific brand or 'best X for Y' query, aiming to be either the most thorough or the most concise and intent-matched piece on that topic on the entire internet.
→ Site made $0 for months but built foundational organic authority
Month 6 — First Monetization Breakthrough
Direct brand partnerships cold outreach
After ~6 months of publishing, once meaningful organic traffic had accumulated, Alex cold-pitched brands he was already ranking for, telling them he believed he was driving them sales and offering to formalize the relationship. Brands set their own commission terms. This replaced reliance on third-party affiliate networks.
→ First significant affiliate revenue; described as 'shockingly good' and the turning point that showed it could be a real business
Year 1 2 — Income Replacement
Seo content production
Continued scaling content production in the health and wellness niche, maintaining topical authority by staying within the lane Google associated with the site. Focused on covering brands likely to survive 3+ years rather than chasing every trend.
→ Annual earnings from the site reached $150k, replacing his full-time salary
Year 2 — Going Full Time
Operational
Quit his full-time job after ~2 years and bought out his business partner who wanted to keep it a side hustle. This freed him to focus entirely on partnership development and content strategy.
→ Sole operator; business continued scaling toward 7-figure revenue
Scaling — Portfolio Expansion
Portfolio site expansion
Built a portfolio of ~6 niche affiliate sites, each more narrowly focused than the flagship. Leveraged existing brand partnerships across all sites simultaneously to generate economies of scale — one partner deal could be placed on five sites.
→ ~6 sites in portfolio; business reached $1M+/year revenue
Scaling — Team Building
Content operations
Sequentially outsourced: (1) article writing to freelance writers, (2) publishing/admin tasks to a virtual assistant, (3) full-time editor to remove editing from Alex's plate, then (4) a designer and web developer. This freed Alex to focus exclusively on brand partnerships, his highest-leverage activity.
→ Freed founder time; enabled content output to scale without founder bottleneck
Diversification — Paid Media
Paid advertising
Approached existing brand partners with a paid media proposal: offer to run test ad campaigns driving incremental customers, funded by a small test budget from the brand. Pitched it as low-risk for the partner and highly scalable if it worked. This diversified traffic beyond organic SEO.
→ Described as 'scalable to the moon' if successful; specific revenue figures not stated