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.
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?
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
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