Hi, my name is Drazen and I’m an online entrepreneur from Croatia, welcome to my blog 😊
I started my online journey a long time ago, around 2004. (still in high school) when I launched my first blog (not about internet marketing). At the same time I was learning HTML & CSS, WordPress, Joomla, and SEO.
The rest is history.
Now I’m the founder of Sonix Media web design agency and blogger here at Affiliate Firestarter.
Blogging has always been my passion, I love to write, and even more than writing I love to make money with my writing. It’s a great feeling to be able to make some passive income on the side (or even full time).
This blog, Affiliate Firestarter, is my come-back to the blogging world and I can’t wait to write again, help you learn new things, and show you how to make money with a blog and affiliate marketing.
I’m not bragging about the things I’m going to mention below, I just want you to know me better. That way you’ll know you are taking advice from an experienced blogger, not some newb.
Timeline of my online projects and accomplishments:
2007. – Started a blog on the Croatian language (doesn’t exist anymore), mostly covering topics around PTC (Paid To Click) programs (very popular at the time) that paid you 1 cent for clicking on commercials (and being on their website for 30 seconds).
Doesn’t sound like much but my blog was nr.1 on Google for various keywords and I was making (through a referral system) around $500-$1000 per month. It was fun while it lasted, especially for someone who just finished high school.
2008. – Founded the first and the largest online marketing forum in Croatia and beyond (the Balkans area). It had over 10k members and it was a very cool community and very active (this was before FB groups guys).
In the time of being the owner of the forum, I created and sold my first info-product called E.T. Method. It was about making money with ebooks (E.) and torrents (T.). It helped one member of the forum make over $10k with it 🙂
Long story short, since I didn’t have time to manage it anymore nor monetize it enough, I sold it in 2012.
2013. – Chinese smartphones were starting to get more and more popular but there weren’t any online media in Croatia covering it properly (except for people talking about it on forums), so I decided to create a website around those topics, making reviews and writing news about it.
Within 3 months it became really popular, getting over 12k monthly views. Sold it 4 months after the launch with 500+ email subscribers on the list and 14k+ monthly traffic.
2014. – Started my first proper blog in English called Income Mesh. Wrote some really good and popular review-type articles, eventually generating $1k+ of monthly revenue all from affiliate marketing and passive income. Sold it in 2018.
*Quit my job in March 2015 and never looked back.
2016. – Created a blog called AzonHacks about making money with the Amazon affiliate program. Sold it in 2017.
2016. – Launched The Landing Factory (differently called at that time), a web templates marketplace for templates made with WP page builders.
2016. – Co-created a free SEO tool with Paras Shas which got a great response but was shut down due to lack of time and resources for development.
2022. – Created the Affiliate Firestarter blog (and hopefully in time more than just a blog) but haven’t done much about it (see 2023).
2023. – Sold The Landing Factory, launched a web design agency under a new brand, and finally launched the Affiliate Firestarter blog properly.
2024. Plan to make Affiliate Firestarter profitable, launch a YouTube channel or several, and create some kind of SaaS business. Will be updated in the future…
*In between my online adventures (and sometimes at the same time), I worked full-time for several companies as an SEO and Marketing assistant and Content Writer. I also did web design as a freelancer on Elance (now UpWork) on the side, where I made over $7k in total.
AFFILIATE MARKETING EXPERIENCE
Again, not bragging, just want to show you my experience with affiliate marketing and that I actually made some money with it 🙂
Affiliate marketing is great, especially when you have a website or a blog promoting products and services, eventually, it really becomes passive income in some months, plus even if you stop publishing new content, if you get enough Google traffic, you can keep making money on auto-pilot while taking a break or concentrating on other projects.
That’s especially true for affiliate programs that have longer cookie tracking (let’s say a year), sometimes you’ll get a commission months later even if you decide to completely shut down your blog. Neat, right? Not to mention SaaS tools with recurring payments, now that’s the real cash cow!
Below are affiliate revenue screenshots from some of the tools and products I promoted and still promote.
There was a lot more, maybe not that significant, but a couple of hundreds or thousands of dollars here and there, it all adds up pretty quickly.
Finally, with Affiliate Firestarter I want to get back to blogging and affiliate marketing properly while teaching you how to do the same and have a successful, profitable blog.
I’ll also be documenting my journey over time so you can track and know exactly what I’m doing and why and how all of it benefits my blog.
P.S. If you are just starting with your blog journey let me know. I might include you at some point on this blog or my social media channels. In any case, I’m always interested in connecting with like-minded people and online entrepreneurs like myself.
Now let’s get back to work and write some exceptional money-making content together!
P.P.S. If you need to contact me you can do so via this link.
