Interview with Darrell Gilmour
1) How and when did your online business get started?
My exchange has been online for about a year and a half. After surfing exchanges for a few years, I decided I should try my own as it seemed like a good business model.
2) Which exchange(s) do you own or co-own?
Currently I own jurassicsurf.com and looking at a second exchange possibly with a partner.
3) Do you currently work exclusively online?
Unfortunately I don’t work exclusively online yet but like all businesses it takes time to build. I hope sometime soon to be able to quit my day J.O.B.
4) How many hours per day do you spend on your exchange(s)?
I try to spend a minimum of 2 hours a day on jurassicsurf.com as I want my exchange to be a good one. I know some of the exchanges I am a member of seem to let their exchanges run by themselves.
5) Do you do support yourself, or do you outsource support?
For the time being I do my own support as I like to be hands on. However should jurassicsurf keep growing like it is, I may have to get some help.
6) How fluent are you with HTML, javascript, and PHP?
I can handle most html for what I need to get by and javascript snippets are available to insert in the html. However php is a language all its own and you either understand it or you don’t and I don’t. I leave it up to the experts to do any fixes I need. If I could get a course that could teach me on a more layman’s level I would take it as its difficult to find good php programmers.
7) Approximately how many members join your exchange a month?
It was a little slow at the beginning but now its picking up and averaging 50 to 100 a month.
8) Does most of your advertising come from members referring, or you?
I would have to say about 50/50 right now. I have some great members who like my exchange enough to do a great job getting referrals.
9) Are you subscribed to any blogs? Which is your favorite?
I am subscribed to a few blogs and my favorite is an ebay one.
10) What would be the biggest tip you could give to readers?
I would say my tip, be TE owner or surfer, would be stick with what you are doing as it will work out in the end.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am
This is the first interview I’ve read. It is interesting how these new exchanges get started. I am wondering how a name is picked?
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October 7th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Margaret has a good question. Many of the new TE’s seem to be using genre themes, Mystery, History, Horror, that sort of thing. What’s in a name? What I look for is something that makes it sort of fun while you are plugging away, so I pay attention to theme’s that might be fun to try out.
In the end its results that matter. but still it could make a fun post.
Nick
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October 8th, 2008 at 3:19 am
I imagine most of us choose a name for our Traffic Exchange based on things that we (owners) like. My exchange Traffic Heroes has a comic book theme and I have always been a collector of old comics. If I open a new exchange it will be comic book related. I have owned the domain TrafficManTraffic.com for several years and that will most likely be my next exchange. I also own the Trafficssolutions.com name for about 8 years now that I need to do something with as well. For years it was a site that sold traffic which were delivered as exit popups on 20 popular traffic exchanges until everyone started using popup blockers making them useless. But for years it was a very profitable business.
Rich Morris
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