How To Start a Successful Online Business, Chat With Pete McPherson

Yasi: Peter McPherson is the founder of Do You Even Blog, an award-winning blog, podcast, and YouTube channel dedicated to helping creators build impactful and profitable businesses on the internet. He has interviewed some of the top entrepreneurs and creators in the world, including Seth Godin, Matt Muellenweg, Brittany Mueller, Neil Patel, and so are many, many more.

So, today he will share with us how he built his online business and how you can create freedom and money from an online business. Hi Pete, welcome to the Fast Track Podcast.

Pete McPherson: Well, first of all, that was a lovely intro. And thank you so much for having me, Yasi. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Yasi: It’s my pleasure to have you. And you have built such a successful online business since you have a very wide presence on the internet and build a great community, it’s called Do You Even Blog. And also, you started this online community in 2017. So, I wonder how did all start? Where did you come up with this idea of doing what you’re doing now?

Pete McPherson: That’s a great question. So. I will try not to spend three hours telling you the full story, but I’ll tell you I have been creating blogs and podcasts and products on the internet and all my businesses since about 2009, which is kind of, it kind of makes me a dinosaur in the internet age.

Like the internet was completely different back then, and of course, I had no idea what I was doing, no idea. 2009, my first blog and my first podcast, which was just helping some friends out who wanted to start a sports podcast. And I don’t watch sports, I’m a nerd. I’m not a sporty guy, but I was like, Oh, podcasts, yeah, that sounds kind of fun, I’ll try that.

Well, I kept trying this and trying that, and I would have new ideas, and I’d try that. None of them ever made any money, never gained an audience, anything like that, but it was just a hobby. Doing fun, creative things on the internet, I was into that. I actually went into corporate accounting.

That was my career. I went to college and… Well, I won’t tell you all about my college career, but let’s just say that I went through five different majors, including music, business, Italian; I studied Italian, the language, and marketing and then sociology. I eventually graduated with a degree in sociology.

I didn’t actually want to be a sociologist or a sociology professor. I just thought it was interesting. And right when I graduated, that was 2008, 2009 recession here in the United States, especially, but all over the world, really, and I couldn’t find a job.

So, I ended up going back to school for accounting. I didn’t really want to be an accountant either. I wasn’t passionate about accounting, it just felt like a way to get a job. And that’s what everybody was telling me to do — Pete, you need to get a job. You’re sturdy at this time, you’re a sturdy 23-year-old or whatever, you need to get a job.

That’s what grown-ups do, get a job. And so I did, I went back to school for accounting, I got my degree, I was actually pretty good at it. Again, I didn’t care about it, but I was pretty good at it, I studied to do my homework. I got my CPA license, which stands for a certified public accountant, which basically just means I can get the big, fancy accounting jobs if I want to.

And so I did, and I got my first grown-up job, quote, unquote. They paid me 52,000 US dollars a year, which is more money than I’d ever heard of at that point. I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’ve hit the jackpot of life, I have a job, they’re paying me money, this is fantastic. Well wrong. I did that for a number of years, and you can kind of see where this is going.

Probably I hated it. It was so bad. I had to commute, drive for hours every day. And I worked in a very boring, lonely office. And I didn’t see other human beings like I had coworkers, but I didn’t really need them for my work, and I was just staring at a computer all day, which, come to think of it, isn’t that much different than what I do now, but we can talk about that. But it just meant not meaningful work. I didn’t get to see any impact that I was making on the world or even my company. It was just boring, and I want it out. So a couple of years into this, I started creating blogs again. This was 2014. I got back into blogging, I got back into podcasting, I got back into entrepreneurship and side hustles because I was trying to find a way out. It was like, I got to get out of this corporate accounting thing, they’re paying me great money, but I just can’t, I just can’t do it.

This is heart-wrenching as candid. So, I ended up finding a different job, a start-up job that was going to pay me, not quite as much as I was making accounting, but pays me a decent salary to work half-time, and I’d still get benefits and health insurance, and salary and all that stuff. But I only had to work like 20 hours a week.

So in my head, I’m thinking, this is perfect. I’m going to take this other job with a start-up, they’re going to pay me a little bit of money, and then with the other time that I have now, I’m going to do this full-time entrepreneurship thing. I’m going to start the side hustle and make it work. And by this point, I’d already created 50 + blogs and online business, as I’ve done over the years.

So, I took that job, I moved my family, I have two kids, I have a wife. We packed our stuff, we sold our house, we moved, I took this job, my wife quit all of her jobs, she was a music teacher. And I got laid off after one paycheck. They paid me one paycheck and then a new city, a new house, everything. And they’re like, we love you, Pete, you’re the most incredible work we have ever seen. They didn’t actually say that, but they said like, we like you, we just don’t have any money, the company doesn’t have any money to pay you.

So, at this point, I had to make a decision on what to do. I could go back to accounting, I could find another corporate job, or what I decided to do is give this full-time entrepreneurship thing a chance. It was a really long way of answering your initial question, which is how I got into online business and how I got into Do You Even Blog, but it was at that point early 2017 for me, where I was just stuck in that place like I have to make this work, I have to. No more trying and failing and then moving on to a different idea and then trying a different idea, none of that stuff, you have to make this work, or else you’re going to have to go back to accounting. And I did the one thing that I always wanted to do, but I never let myself do, which was talk about online business.

So, that’s how I got into Do You Even Blog. I was like, you know what, screw it, I just got laid off, I have to make this work. The only thing I’m sincerely passionate about is talking about marketing and digital marketing and selling things on the internet and online business. I am sincerely passionate about it, I always have been. And I let myself do it.

I started the Do You Even Blog podcast right then and there in mid-2017, and that was almost four years ago now. And I’ve never looked back. Well, that answered your question with my long spiel there.

Yasi: I really love the story because you actually turn a bad situation into an opportunity, which worked out for you in the end.

I think many people are sucked up by their full-time job. They’re just being comfortable and never had the, how to say, opportunity or the drive to just give it up and then try something new. That’s like it was like something unfortunate, but maybe it’s yeah, it’s something that is good happened to you.

Pete McPherson: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. It’s also worth noting really quick that that was 2017, and I mentioned right when we began talking, I’ve been starting blogs in my businesses since 2009. It’s also worth noting that there were over literally like 50, 60 different projects that I start started and completely failed out.

There was maybe one or two that kind of generated revenue and actually had a customer or two, but for the most part, there’s a lot of failure in that eight years right there. Before, I just like, you know, quit a job and then got laid off and then started something that ended up being fairly successful, I just want people to know that.

For those listening to this podcast, thinking I would love to do something like this full-time, I would love to work for myself, I would love to quit my job, or whatever. For me personally, I can attest to the fact that it took me years and years and years and failure and failure and failure before I hit anything considered a success.

That’s all. I just want to underline that really quickly.

Yasi: Yeah. You have to make all the mistakes, and you learn from them. Some people can make success overnight, but you really just have to gain experiences from your mistakes. But that leads to another question. I was wondering that given the opportunity that you could give it a like full time, try to start your online business, and then you went to, you know, continue over the years, what is the factor that you think that helped you make it successful that try and make it successful compared to the all the mistakes you’ve made in the past?

Pete McPherson: That’s actually a great question. So, I mentioned a second ago that marketing and online business was actually what I cared about. I mentioned that I didn’t care about sociology when I was in college, I didn’t care about accounting really when I was getting accounting degrees and starting to work there. And my first blog ever in 2009, well, actually it was a personal journal sort of blog, but the one after that was on bluegrass music. And then I had one, I get the sports podcast that I mentioned earlier, and then I talked about personal finance for a couple of years.

I did something in travel, and I did chalkboard company. I’m not joking. It was bad. I started a chalkboard company making and selling chalkboards. The point is throughout all of those projects over eight years, the thing I found most interesting was the behind-the-scenes stuff. I like talking about the blogging part of it, I liked learning SEO, I liked learning what a webinar was, I liked learning copywriting and how to sell things on the internet. I liked all that stuff, but this is the answer to your question. But the thing that was going through my head was it’d been done before. There’s already the Pat Flynn’s of the world.

There’s already the Amy Porterfield’s and the John Lee Dumas and the Gary V’s and the Tim Ferriss and the Seth Godin’s and all of these people who talk about entrepreneurship, self-improvement blogging, podcasting, YouTube, anything. It’s already been done before. The world doesn’t need Pete to talk about that stuff, which is BS, by the way, and I learned that the hard way. So, fast forward through 2017, what made it actually kind of work or what gave me, you asked what was the factor? What was the factor that greatly increased us? I wanted to talk about it, and when I started my podcast, it was so clear when people listened to it, looking back now, even that I loved talking about it.

I love talking with my guests about blogging and entrepreneurship, as I love talking to Yasi right now about it. It just came through, and people can sense that, people can sense it from public speakers, people can sense it from podcasters, from bloggers, from authors, from anything. People on TV can sense when somebody is passionate about it and really dedicated to helping them. And quite frankly, I’m going to brag a little bit. I am and was in 2017, sincerely dedicated to helping people with their blogs and my business because I was fired up about it, I was passionate about it, and that was the factor right there.

When I started my podcast that people actually started to comment on, I would get emails even really early on. I never got any emails from any project that ever started, but doing a blog, I was like, Oh, I actually enjoyed your podcasts, like I just tried it out, and I didn’t think I was going to get anything out of it, but it was kind of fun. Like that was kind of interesting.

So, I did what I was passionate about. After eight years of telling myself I couldn’t do it because there were already people talking about the subject, I let myself do it. I got past that fear of nobody wants to hear from me when it comes to that. I did something I was passionate about, and I think that was shown through. That’s kind of a non-answer to your actual question, but I truly think that was kind of what made this work.

Yasi: Yeah. But I understand, like when I watch your YouTube video, you are very passionate about, you know, teaching people using Descript, teaching people SEO, teaching people sales funnel.

I mean, it’s very engaging because you are talking and teaching the audience with the knowledge you already know, and you’re passionate about talking about it. I totally understand what you mean.

Pete McPherson: That’s it. I still am. It’s the only thing that I’ve done that lasted more than a couple of months, 2017.

That was almost four years ago. And at this point, if I didn’t care about this like I didn’t care about accounting like I didn’t care about sociology like I didn’t care about a sports podcast, there’s no way I would have quit already two months in Like it’s the only way that I was able to persist until something actually worked and made money.

Yasi: Yeah. And on the other hand, maybe you have seen a lot of people trying online business, trying to start an online business. What do you think are the common mistakes they are making?

Pete McPherson: Well, a lot of mistakes for sure, as we all do. I truly think that people look at… Also, you’ve been podcasting for a while.

They look at Pete, who’s been podcasting and creating for a while, and they think that they can get to where we are sooner rather than later, they think they can make money faster, they think it can grow an audience faster. So, just that expectation right there has always been a mismatch. I’ve always, in years and years and years, I’ve seen this.

I suffer from this as well, by the way, I’m not excluded from these people, especially beginners, especially beginner entrepreneurs, they tend to underestimate the strength required to make something successful, they underestimate the time commitment required to make something successful, they’re impatient. They have this mismatch between what they expect to happen and how it actually ends up happening. That’s number one.

And number two, I’m actually just going to do a little cop-out and I kind of already mentioned this, the fear of not doing what they want or the fear of not doing what they think needs to be done.

It’s so funny how people start blogs and businesses, and they have these business ideas or anything like this, and they go into it, and they’re completely free. They get the, make their homepage look exactly the way they want it. And they get to talk exactly how they want to talk, and they get to talk about the topics that they want to talk about.

And then inevitably, at some point, they find people like me who talk about SEO and email sequences and all this other crap. And then they find people like everybody, they start learning more about marketing and writing and everything like that. And their personality starts to go away. Now their homepage looks better, but it’s not quite them anymore.

They kind of rounded it off to be more acceptable to more people. And then they send out email sequences with the create products, they write blog posts, and it starts to sound a little less like them and a little more like everybody else on the internet. They have this fear that they can’t be themselves.

They’ve never said this, but that’s what they feel. They have this fear. They need to make it sound like this other person in order to work for SEO, they need to write this type of blog post in order to get more traffic, they need to create this type of product, so it’ll sell more. And what ends up happening is, of course, growth is slower.

Growth is slower cause they’re not standing up. They’re not actually acting the right people to their brand or whatever that is. I’m going a little bit deep here, but the point is a lot of people in their first start-up into this business let their personality get away from them real quick. They try to conform to what other people did that worked and, you know, SEO, traffic, and sales of products or whatever, and they kind of lose what makes them interesting and unique and special and that sort of stuff.

So, kind of already talked about that a little bit, but that’s my second answer for you.

Yasi: Yeah, I really agree with you because I read this book, the Dotcom Secrets, and the inside was written that you need to have an attractive character. You have to be distinguished from the rest either.

There are people liking you, or there are people hating you, but it doesn’t matter. As long as you have a group of people, they like you. But if you are in the middle, nobody will hate you, but nobody will like you.

Pete McPherson: Yeah. It’s funny, here’s a real example of that. So, I update my website now, roughly once a year, maybe twice a year, I’ll change themes and some of the design, and I’ll update my homepage, my about page, and whatever.

And this has happened like five times, I swear I will have somebody come on the podcast. Most recently, it was Hillary Weiss and Kira Hug. These are two incredible women, brand strategists to throw a fancy word at you and copywriters. Basically, what they do is they’re highly paid, they’re incredibly successful.

They help companies stand out by, you know, showcasing their unique personalities and mission statements, yadda, yadda. Both of these women have come on my podcast in recent months, and every time I hang up on the podcast, I’m like, Oh crap. I go and look at my homepage, and I’m like, I did it again. I went back to the middle, like you said, the middle of the road.

I took away my personality, and I made it more conforming to everybody, which really just means I’m reaching nobody as well as I could. So, I’ll have these people on the podcast and immediately changed up my to-do list. Like, Oh, okay, I need to go back to my website and stop being afraid of looking like how I want it to look, of saying what I want to say of, you know, doing all these things, letting my personality actually shine through.

Yeah. It happens every time. I’ll have a copywriter on the podcast, and then I’ll end up going back to my site and making it better. But yeah, that’s happened a lot.

Yasi: That’s very interesting advice. I do agree with you. That’s when people started, you know, if you have no clue where to, you know, how to write your copy, how to do your website, you tend to look at how are other people doing, and they tend to look professional, tend to look nice, tend to look… You know what you’re doing, but in the end, you lose your personality through the design, through the copy.

Yeah, as you said, it’s less authentic. I think for online business owners is important that you can connect with the audience and like for you if you… How would you describe when people talk about Pete McPherson, what would you say are the characteristics of your online presence?

Pete McPherson: Oh, you’re putting me on the spot, that’s hard. This reminds me, one time. I opened up a Google Doc, and I tried to write about my own brand. I tried to create brand words, like when people think of Do You Even Blog, like what do they think of, what do they see, what do they hear? That sort of stuff. So, I think passion and transparency were the first two things I wrote down.

I even remembered this. Those two things come surprisingly naturally to me. I’ve always shared hardships as well as my wins. Like I’m not one of the people who just come out and be like, look how amazing my business has become, I made bajillion dollars last month, here’s my monthly income report.

You should follow me because I’m amazing. I have some of that stuff, but I also have stuff that’s like, wow, I tried launching this product. I even talked about this. This is one of the most successful blog posts I wrote about. The year 2019 for Pete personally was a massive failure on every front, 2018 was so much better, and my blog was newer than 2018. I should have done better in 2019. Well, I failed, and I ended up writing about that, I talked about it a lot. So I think vulnerability and transparency have done me very well. When people think about Do You Even Blog, if you’ve been following me for a while, especially, hopefully, you’ve started to see that. And if you haven’t, I haven’t done my job. Right. But I think vulnerability and transparency. And also, again, we already talked about this, but just passion. I want people to watch my YouTube videos and not think but know that I sincerely care about what I’m talking about. I’m not putting on a front, I’m not acting the Pete that Yasi is talking to right now is the same Pete for when I produce courses, for when I sell products, for when I send sales emails, from wanting to do webinars, create YouTube videos, interview people for the podcast to just send a newsletter update. Like I am this person, I care about this stuff, and I want that to shine through because it doesn’t work with everybody.

I’m not going to like name names. We all suffer from this occasionally, but there can come the point where it seems kind of fake. People can tell from your social media posts or your blog posts or your blogs or whatever that maybe this person did some copying and pasting, or this doesn’t actually sound like an original idea, or like, I don’t know, this just seems like everybody else.

I just Googled this topic I landed on, I’m just gonna throw you under the bus. I landed on Yasi’s podcast, and as sounds like every other piece of advice I’ve heard on this. I think showing up with passion and transparency, at least ideally, that’s what I want my brand to be about.

Does that answer your question?

Yasi: Yeah, I think it links back to earlier what you’re saying is be you being authentic and connect with your followers, your audience.

Pete McPherson: Authentic, that’s a good word. That’s what I should’ve said. I like that one better.

Yasi: Authenticity. Yeah.

Pete McPherson: Yeah. I should’ve asked you about my brand. Yeah. I like that word. I’m going to add that to the list. Transparency, passion equals like authenticity, check. I like that.

Yasi: And then your YouTube videos, I’m so amazed that, you know, so many digital marketing tools, and there are so many different skill sets. How did you learn about these things?

Pete McPherson: Yeah. That’s actually been part of my downfall as well, by the way, that I’m a generalist. I’m generally good at everything, I’m not really great at any one specific thing, but to answer your question.

Yeah, I’ve been doing this for 12 years. I’ve written. I don’t even know how many blog posts. Easily thousands of blog posts over the years, I’ve recorded hundreds of podcasts interviews, I’ve made, not just YouTube, but I’ve only done about maybe 120 to 150 YouTube videos, but I’ve also done videos for online courses. Also, just hundreds. I’ve produced a lot, I’ve written a lot of emails, I’ve built a lot of automation. When you mentioned the tools and email marketing and SEO and copywriting and webinars, I’ve just done it a lot.

That’s the only real answer. I’ve been doing this for 12 years on and off, but I tell this to everybody too, how are you so good at producing podcasts? I just do it a lot. How can you write a blog post in like an hour or two, like that’s, this is foreign to me. I’m like, I’ve done it a thousand times.

It’s like riding a bike. It’s like skateboarding, like people try and pick up skateboarding, and of course, they stink at it at first, but you asked the people out there who are just crushing it at the skateboard park. This is relevant, by the way, cause I’ve been watching these skateboard videos. I’m terrible at skateboarding, but you ask those awesome people skateboarding.

They’ll be like, yeah, I’ve been out here every day since I was like 13 years old, like experience. That’s kind of a crummy answer, and no one really likes to hear it, but that’s the answer. Oh wait, can I just riff for a second?

Yasi: Yeah

Pete McPherson: And I don’t know, maybe you were going this direction anyway, but I do think

We talked about the fear of putting yourself out there. This is something a lot of new creators suffer with, even on a blog post level. I got an email yesterday; I was going to pull it up. I should, I’m just going to pull it up just cause it’s fun. Basically, it was a new blogger who’s just saying like it takes me weeks to get out a blog post. It basically just said, like, I’m just struggling with doing all the research, and I’ll even get the blog post to like 95% done. But I’m having trouble pushing it over the edge. How on earth do you get to that point where you can just produce content, and you can just send emails to an audience, and you can just do this stuff.

And the answer is experience, like we already mentioned, but the one point I wanted to add is that the only way to produce a thousand blog posts and get really good at it, or at least, you know, really fast at it is to do the first one and then do the second one and then the third one, and then do the fourth and so on, as fast as humanly possible.

Everybody stinks when they first start at anything, skateboarding or blogging, but the only way to get good is to do it again and again and again. And I tell people this, the faster you can get to a thousand, the better. Produce, and then write another one the next day and just hit publish.

They say what’s the quote that you hear a lot done is better than perfect. I’m one of these people. I’m one of these people that say done is better than perfect. The faster you can produce a thousand blog posts or a thousand podcasts, the faster you’re going to be really good at it. So, if you really want to be good at selling things, creating online businesses, reaching an audience, get to a thousand as soon as humanly possible.

That’s my soapbox. That’s my preaching for today, Yasi, thanks for letting me rant here on your podcast.

Yasi: Yeah, you have to put in the work. If you do 1000 in, let’s say half a year, you are going to get to the skill level within half a year, but if you do a slower in a year or two years, then you’re going to get there the same place, but two years later.

So if you want to become successful and get this online business going, yeah, you have to put in the work as you said. You generate so much content, exactly, that was my question. How did you produce so many content podcasts, YouTube videos, blogs, online courses? It was amazing. Is it just you, or you have a team?

Pete McPherson: It’s just me. Well, actually, I just hired an assistant two weeks ago who does some work on my funnels, my marketing funnels, or whatnot, but it’s just me

Yasi: Okay

Pete McPherson: The short answer. Sorry, go ahead. Say that again.

Yasi: You alone, having family, having kids, and you still managed to put this out. So I think if anyone wants to sincerely start an online business, there’s no excuse, just put in the work. Are there any resources you would like to share with the audience, maybe they can, you know, find somewhere to get started if they want to create an online business, side hustles?

Pete McPherson: I’ll self-promote here for a couple of minutes. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Let’s talk about my own stuff for a while now. So, I have two places that I’d like to point people. Number one would just be my own homepage doYouEvenBlog.com. I spent a lot of time and effort on my home page trying to help people find what they need.

So, if you go there and you scroll down half the page, I have stuff on starting a blog. Like if somebody is brand new and they don’t know how to set up a WordPress website like I have stuff there — the same thing on starting a podcast. I have loads of materials that I’ve refined over the years, and you can find it right there.

Same thing about producing content quicker, which is one of the main topics that I talk about all the time. There are one-hour blog posts. It’s a $27 product I have, and it’s a little short and sweet thing that really helps people. That was my savior of 2020, I think, sold like hotcakes, it’s right there on the homepage. Like people can find it.

DoYouEvenBlog.com will hopefully point you to where you need to go, to learn more about whatever it is you want to do: blogging, podcasting, online business, I got my stuff there. And the only other thing I’d say just follow me on YouTube, it’s not monetized, or I show ads on my videos, but like, I’m not selling things, there is nothing but tons of free content.

I think it’s probably like youtube.com/doyouevenblog, I think that URL works, I don’t know. I’ve just seen the

Yasi: I’ll put in the show notes.

Pete McPherson: Okay. Yeah, that works. Come follow me on YouTube, I’m having a lot of fun there, it’s my main marketing channel, It’s my main content channel these days. Yeah, from that point, it’s just jumping in, as you said, a minute ago, just getting started, doing the work that is required to get better and find success, and yadda, yadda.

Yasi: Thank you so much for coming here today. Thank you so much for the great advice and for sharing your personal experience. I’ll make sure that I put all the links in the show notes. If anyone in the audience wants to start an online business, create side hustles, make sure to follow your YouTube channel. It was amazing.

A lot of free content, great tutorials, and visit your website. There are lots of also online courses that you can learn from Pete. Yeah. Thank you for coming here today.

Pete McPherson: No, that’s, it’s my pleasure. I sincerely love doing these sorts of things, and it’s fun. So, thank you for asking fun questions.