Why Your Favorite Celebrities Pay Me $20,000 Over, And Over
The 6 Figure Writing Hack I Accidentally Discovered
“I’m Wiring $20,000 to your bank account soon as the plane lands if you accept my offer” I remember reading that email as a 21 year old and thinking “Nigga we made it!”. Wasn’t no we, but I didn’t want to just share that moment with myself.
I use to watch Run’s House all the time. Not because it was good, but because I use to like watchin’ rich nigga shit for motivation, and Rev Run was living lovely. Plus Vanessa Simmons was bad. (Angela look better now, but she look so much like her Daddy and he look like a big toe with facial features. So, nah.)
I remember one episode they was talking about starting a shoe line where all the designs would be based around pastries. At that point I had been fucking around with the internet and made a little money from a site called Dobizo.com. Which basically taught people how to start their own clothing line. So I knew how to make money off a site and I knew that millions of people watched Run’s house so I figured:
- Built in audience.
Bunch of people will be Googling pastry shoes looking for a place to buy the sneakers. I wanted to be the place that popped up when they Googled that shit.
Like back then most people found your site from Google, Yahoo, or they just typed the site in the browser from some shit they probably saw offline or on a commercial. There was no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. None of that.
- Angela and Vanessa were influential
You ever notice every singer/rapper gets a deal. Drops an album. Starts a clothing line. They do that shit, because fans buy anything from people they look up to. So I figured the shoes would be an easy sell. Even though them shits was Flavor Flav ugly.
Not knowing at the time that fan sites were big money makers something still told me to jump on the idea. So, I got to work IMMEDIATELY.
Like i said at that time I had only started one other site so I ain’t even know if it would work, but something told me to jump on that shit and within a week I had it up and running.
I tried to be strategic about the shit. (backed by no real data. Just me ASSuming. ) I figured since most people I knew say shoes and not sneakers I’d buy a domain with the phrase “Pastry shoes” since that’s what most would be searching.
About a month later Russell them finally had a site up the domain was ‘LovePastry.com’.
So not only did I have a better domain, keyword targeted for SEO purposes “Pastry-shoes” (Search Engine Optimization. Helps you rank better on Google, blah blah etc.), but I also got a full month head start of being the ONLY site with a significant amount of Pastry shoes information on it.
Which provided me with free publicity. B.E.T., MTV, and many other prominent black audience sites linked to us. There are benefits to being FIRST.
Links from authority sites B.E.T., MTV, or any aged, highly linked to site weighs more than a link from let’s say a new site like FreddyW.com or a site with barely any other sites linking back to it.
So we easily came up first when searching for ANYTHING Pastry shoe related. Back then if people bought from you, knew about you, or you had a brand? They came to your site from a Search engine, direct or paid advertisement.
So I end up buying pastryshoescollection.com, and by the time they launched their site there were so many clones that nobody knew which was the official Pastry site.
Being slow to market is bad for business for obvious reasons that’s why being small is sometimes a GREAT thing. Only approval you need to make a move. Is yours and your bank account. Don’t go broke making uneducated decisions.
First things first. I wanted to look the part. Most of their fanbase was teen girls so I visited forums with young female audiences, no-R Kelly, just to get a feel of how they spoke, how they buy, why they buy and what would make them purchase these unatrractive ass shoes.
People can sense authenticity and being a 22 year old man wasn’t about to fuck up my Pastry cash.
Many people forget when they sell that they are selling to PEOPLE (Customers have feelings too :/). They have emotions, they want to be a part of something, they want to talk to others like them. The last thing they want is to feel as if they’re being SOLD to and you don’t care about them. So keep that in mind.
So I asked myself, I said: “Self, if you were a Pastry customer where would you hangout? Where else would you spend money? How would you search for things Pastry shoes related?”
That’s how I came up with PastryShoesCollection.com instead of …..LovePastry.com. Which is what that Russell nigga bought.
Yeah they love Pastry, but that’s not what they’re going to TYPE in the browser, that’s not what they’re going to search for on Google.
I created the site under the alias Keke, a young female who likes to talk about her addiction to Pastry sneakers …and randomly fill her site with MONEY-MAKING affiliate links to where you could buy them. (Anytime a shoe sold from a link on my site the retailer would give me a cut $$$.)
From the night of them mentioning ‘Pastry’ to launching my site was a matter of two days. I don’t fuck around when it comes to that money.
What you have to realize at this point:
- I had no website/design/code knowledge.
I built the site myself. Using what was then a very BASIC version of the WordPress Content Management Systeom, that everyone uses from TMZ to the Shade Room.
and
- I didn’t give a f**k. I made it happen, because I wasn’t about to miss out on what seemed like easy money.
I posted basic ass articles like “OMG! Look at these Cupcake Red Pastry Shoes”.
Even went as far as to get a fake forum profile pic of a young girl so they could relate more to the person writing the content.
I was the original catfish, but for a good reason. Money, not vagina.
Who they thought was typing articles:
(This girl):
Who was really typing articles:
(This nigga.)
There were basically 3 ways I was getting money from the site.
- Google Adsense: Fairly simple. Place a piece of code on the site. It displays relevant ads. People clicked I got $$$$$. (usually shoes related to the site. Which were basically the affiliates targeting my site). You can apply for Google adsense by going to Google.com/Adsense.
- Affiliate Networks: I place a link to buy the sneaker on my site from an affiliate network and they’d give me a cut depending on how much they spent. (Later I cut the affiliate out and became one) Affiliate money use to be a part of EVERY major fashion site back then. Google Affiliate Network, Amazon Affiliate, and CJ.com were my two favorites. Amazon paid PENNIES compared to the other networks above. So I used them ONLY when a product wasn’t in stock elsewhere. That could be completely untrue now given this was years ago.
Google Adsense, plus Affiliate marketing was netting me anywhere from $3,000 — $5,000 per month and I believe Russell’s team started to take notice and reached out ….to congratulate me, surprisingly, on the site’s success. They offered me free sneakers, and exclusive content for the fans. Good shit. The only thing they wanted to change was there to be a sign somewhere more VISIBLE mentioning that my site was NOT the official Pastry brand website. Cool, no problem.
But, how could this kid cause consumers to confuse my $6 dollar backed site with their website backed by hundreds of millions. Not to mention one and a half fine ass daughters to promote for free. In front of millions. Every week. ….on Run’s house. How?
Most wouldn’t have even started with that type of shit up against them. But I’ve always been the type to not give a damn about the odds and look forward to the reward.
So I, living with my mother working below minimum wage. Basic ass laptop. No internet marketing past. No connections. No mentors. All Freddy. All Hustle. Beat him at this game.
We were number 1 when you searched any pastry shoes related phrase. Our site had more traffic. Which earned us more money.
$3,000 a month when i was being a slut, flashing money, and driving state to state visiting colleges(women) …Going broke.
… and around $8,000 a month when I was super-focused, sitting my ass down somewhere, working all day, staying ahead/organized and always looking for ways to squeeze every-single-penny I could from the site.
Which led to me selling it 6 months later for a 200,000 percent ROI (You do the real math I didn’t. ). I spent $6 dollars for the domain. I sold it for $19,994 six months later. Plus all the money I made month to month and I got receipts too, lmao.
Which was right around the time Russell looked over at his team and said,: “We f**ked up. There ain’t no kid behind this site. This nigga getting money off of us” I’m 100% sure that’s how the conversation went, because Russell Simmons says nigga a lot, and that’s one of my favorite things about him. Besides the fact that he fucks a LOT of young models at the tender age of old as hell (58).
I also received a letter in the mail. Asking ‘Fredrickus Williford’. (Damn ain’t no mo’ Keke. They using my government) To Cease and Desist or they would be forced to sue me for an unspecified amount.
So, basically, they gave me permission, then REVOKED IT, because my site was kickin’ their Pastry ass.
Good thing for me I sold the site LITERALLY two days before to a rich motherfucker out in California name …we will just call him Brent. (I ain’t tryna burn bridges.) Who bought the site for his wife. While talking to me from a private jet. (Still ain’t got my jet. Dammit!) Point is, the n*gga was on a jet. That’s where we should all strive to be. On private jets and shit. So that was Brent’s problem now. I kindly forwarded the letter to Brent. Who being the brilliant motherf*cker he is. (I’m assuming he’s brilliant, because he’s flying private at a young age and doesn’t rap. Plus buys his wife $20k websites to play with). Brent worked out a deal with Pastry Shoes. What kind of deal? I’m not sure, but he pays them a percentage and offers advertising to them. That’s my guess from changes I seen to the site at the time. So it was a win-win for all.
You can’t let odds hold you back. Your religion, race, whatever. NOTHING. A wise man once said “the only thing you can control is effort”. I believe that sh*t. Actually it was Mark Cuban who said it and I think he’s more goofy/full of sh*t, but I still like him? Idk. Because no matter how financially equipped or successful you are you can STILL be beaten. Somebody is always trying to work harder, smarter, faster, be more creative, plan ahead or do whatever it takes to get a competitive advantage and I think Russell’s team forgot that.
If I had access to millions at that time I would’ve did a lot more damage (to their pockets), but I also wouldn’t involve myself with writing a fan site day in/day out like I did and participate in something that could possibly get me sued.
Last time I checked Russell Simmons had a $325 million dollars head start on my ass. Just because a person is in a position you want to be in or one you admire doesn’t mean they are smarter, or better or any other excuse you can make in your head to not take action. None of that. …Simply means they took more action than you. More consistently.
Now think!
How many opportunities or ideas have you let pass you by, because you were afraid you weren’t good enough? Too much competition? Not enough money?
…You could’ve had these same results with that opportunity or idea.
I went on to flip 10 plus sites using this same method celebrity+clothing line+fan site everybody from TI’s Akoo Clothing to Soulja Boy’s clothing line got this work and I got that money.
