This interview was done in 2001. Some info may have changed since then.
Nickname?
TheGoat
Real Name?
Erik
Your main site?
http://www.bloatedgoat.com
Your other sites?
http://www.teenagernudes.com
Staff Size?
2 people full-time other than myself
Staff Nicknames?
n/a
Family?
I’m 33, married for 11 years with two young kids that I am home with every day. A 6 year old son and 17 month old daughter. We live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Hobbies?
I spend a ton of time at my cottage 3 hours north of Toronto on a small quiet lake fishing and recently got into astronomy. Being a stay at home Dad is also a full-time hobby :o)
Favorite movie?
I wish I had time for movies hehe. I don’t really have an all time favorite but I like just about anything with Arnold, Tommy Lee Jones or Tom Hanks in it. That kinda covers a broad spectrum huh.
Favorite music style?
Classic Rock and Alternative. My all time favorite band is Yes but recently I listen to stuff like Staind and Godsmack. Another broad spectrum huh (o:
Someone you admire in the industry?
Al4a, TheHun, Tommys-bookmarks, Snakesworld and PersianKitty have all had big influences on me and are all wonderful people. The entire Maxcash crew are a class act and I’ve known Aly and Jeff since shortly after I started in this business, long before they made the shift to RJB Telcom. There’s really too many people to list since I started around the same time as many of the larger sites and became friends with lots of good people.
Your Industry History?
BloatedGoat was actually sort of started by accident. In 96 I was working as a railroad conductor here in Ontario, Canada. I had some surgery gone bad, I’ll spare you the details :o) , and was on disabilty for a while so I got a computer and hopped online. I didn’t have a clue how to use a computer nevermind how the internet worked. I started chatting on IRC and eventually helped run a channel on efnet. Some friends and I would surf sites like thehun and have a laugh. As a favour to those channel members that missed our surfing each day I started posting a list of the pages visited on my personal webspace. At the time there were not many adult link sites online and within a week I had over 500 people a day using my link list I had up for my friends. I placed a banner ad on the page the next week, got my first check a couple weeks later, the check cleared, my brain clicked and I saw the potential for making a real living from the net.
I continued running my links list from my personal webspace for the next year and a half ( it was free bandwidth on a cable provider ) until finally it grew to the point where I quit my job at the railroad, bought my primary domain, bloatedgoat.com, and started working full-time on the Web. BloatedGoat started out as an adult link site and grew to be over 150 different pages, completely categorized and kept very clean on a daily basis. As my family, number of sites and income grew my time spent online became much more limited and BloatedGoat made the transformation to it’s current form of being a TGP.
I suddenly went from working on my own 12-18 hours a day to hiring a full-time person to help me and only spending a couple of hours online myself each day, primarily chatting and networking. I value my time I have now to spend with family and friends, doing what I want when I want, and I wouldn’t trade that for all the money in the world. I now own many domains and small sites and have the freedom to have and do just about anything I want.
Your goals?
I’ve pretty much met most of my goals online. Working as little as possible while still making a lot of money. Numbers really mean nothing to me unless they have a $ infront of them.
Favorite quote/motto?
Live for Today because Tomorrow may never come.
Your favorite site?
Joe Cartoon floors me. http://www.joecartoon.com/
Any other info you’d like people to know?
I’ve probably gone from being known as one of the friendliest webmasters out there to being called an asshole by lots of people. I’m still just as friendly, I’m just not as involved and don’t have the time required to deal with hundreds of emails each day and over 1500 page submissions a day.
I rarely answer emails now for that one reason…I don’t have time. If someone is persistent they will eventually get a reply from me and get to know me for who I am. I still spend a majority of my time online helping newbies get started. I wish I could get more Webmasters to use my philosophy but I don’t think that will happen, I’m as bad a workoholic as anyone when I get going..so I just try not to let myself get going any more hehe. Step away from your computers more than most people do and spend time with your families. Money and websites will always be around but family may not be.
Always think about the big picture, it doesn’t matter how popular your site is or how many visitors you get. I know you hear it everywhere you go but many people don’t listen…build, build, build and then build some more…eventually you won’t have to build very often :o) You are far better off having 1000 tiny sites making $1/day each than having just a few sites making $1000/day.
Use lots of different sponsors, I use over 50 myself, to create a steady and stable flow of income.