We have had a short, very general overview about Wealthy Affiliate Platform in the last article. We now move on the next segment, an overview about Kyle and Carson, the owners and founders. Who are these people and how have they affected the lives of many who have been (or are still) in the Wealthy Affiliate membership community?
Kyle and Carson as College Students
There are no definitive stories on how Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim found each other in an institute of higher learning, but from what I can gather, these two were both majoring in computer science, apparently in the same school in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.
That they met each other comes from snippets about themselves found in the early editions of Wealthy Affiliate.
They were, as most college students do, struggling, from their own words, ” We were poor students with little money and a lot of homework.”
As some students toyed around with finding ways to make extra money, some in work-study programs, others working for local folks looking for hands to help out on farms, businesses and even baby-sitting, Kyle and Carson, having been exposed to the developing online affiliate marketing business model, took interest in this and after having met, teamed up on getting involved with businesses using this method of marketing and advertising.
This move would have profound unexpected results within months of trying to break the code. The information about affiliate marketing of the time was divers and often contradictory. Working together, Kyle and Carson managed to break that code…
Kyle and Carson: The “Wealthy Affiliates”
Kyle and Carson teamed up. Not sure if they did this when they were working in other business’s affiliate programs, which ones they were doing whether together or solo, but one thing is for sure – they became known as the wealthy affiliates in their home town. Within months after going into this venture, they became wealthy by most people’s standards.
Their new nickname amongst the locals would become the name of their brand new membership website, Wealthy Affiliate.
They unofficially opened the doors on September 7, 2005 but the official launch date was three days later.
They figured out the mess and knew they had what it took to go above and beyond everybody else. The original Wealthy Affiliate Platform came with a weekly (if I have this correct) keyword list. Albeit, this is what all the others were providing. They went beyond the rest from the start by setting up a forum, making themselves available to help any member needing instructions and help with keywords. They also didn’t limit their services to keywords, but offered instructions on:
- Any question by members on affiliate marketing topics answered
- How to set up an Adwords account and how to work it
- Affiliate marketing tools, which ones to use, and how to use them
- The best advertising methods and how to use them
- The weekly keyword lists, and of course, how to use them
Note the list from which I derived the above to the right. Notice the wording, the tone behind the words. From an early snapshot of the Wealthy Affiliate sales website very shortly after its founding, there is an aire about it that shows the sincerity of these two young men – a trait that not only put them and their new keyword list site above and beyond all the rest, but would soon overtake every affiliate marketing online training platform, program and course. What happened from this point on up to the time of this writing is not short of amazing.
As aa long-time member, I have experienced this growth since 2008, when I first laid my eyes on the already highly successful site as it stood at that time.
Not only did Kyle and Carson provide the above platform with all the personalized training not found anywhere else at the time, Wealthy Affiliate would become a place, even from the start, where prospective students would learn the ways of entrepreneurship…
Kyle and Carson: Truly Entrepreneurs
Though not a new concept, reaching out to others who would be interested in learning about affiliate marketing using the Pay-It-Forward method proved highly successful. Using such a method was not popular (and still isn’t) for fear giving out too much information about how something really works would take money off the table.
This obviously did not happen in this case. In fact, Kyle and Carson became wildly successful in their approach to teaching what they have found in their hard work those first few months. At Wealthy Affiliate you get the steak with the sizzle whilst others were selling the sizzle, not the steak!
Was this a stab in the dark? Was it a longshot?
Only Kyle and Carson know this about their startup. One thing is for sure – most marketers out there approach their customer base as if they were fish to be baited and caught. Not so with Kyle and Carson. There has never been a need to dupe others nor use any means of customer or consumer seduction. This is not found anywhere in the marketing campaigns for Wealthy Affiliate.
To jump into unknown territory in spite of what the popular methodology is, Kyle and Carson used the same entrepreneurial skills that put other kitchen table operations in large corporations. This is certainly the mark of entrepreneurship, along with the fact that Wealthy Affiliate has never been a project in completion.
Since I arrived and became a member, finally joining on January 1, 2010 when I had the funds to do so, I stumbled all over myself to join, and since then, have witnessed update after update, new roll-outs, new services, and then improvements galore. The process is still going on today. Wealthy Affiliate is far from being a mere keyword list site today. Yet buried under it all – you guessed it – they still provide those keyword lists!
This goes without saying that training isn’t limited to affiliate marketing, but on how to become an entrepreneur!
I have been around the block, and my website here has many reviews on it. Not a single training program outside of the one for Wealthy Affiliate comes close, not even by a longshot, to what’s inside this amazing membership program!
Kyle and Carson: The Legacy They Leave Us
First of all, longivity – Almost every other program of its kind, save the very best ones, have long ago died out or are barely existing today. Kyle and Carson shows us how success can be had.
Most so-called affiliate marketing training programs bang it out in a 1-2-3 fashion. Many of these are get-rich-quick schemes that trick many out of their hard earned money and wind up with dated, useless, and false information. One quick look to the right, (again, from the earliest screenshot of the 2005 Wealthy Affiliate sales website,) tells the reader just how it is. There’s work involved. One must be patient and keep at it. Success and income will come to those who put in the effort and required time to make the wheels turn.
No worthy ideal has ever come from a few mouse clicks to success. It just does not happen and to think this way is no different than finding a fortune just laying on a city street or other densely populated place waiting for you to find it. However, those who push this concept are the only ones making all the money and ripping off the unwary. In the beginning, Kyle and Carson laid it all out on the table, including things that would scare most online affiliate marketing training owners away from saying, for fear this would put them out of business.
Look at what Kyle and Carson have to say. You can research this very easily. Note the difference between what they say and what others, in your email subscriptions for example, say. You will be like me – unsubscribing and deleting the hundreds I once had.
Conclusion
Wealthy Affiliate, condeived by Kyle and Carson, is indeed a legacy of our time. You will see that this training opportunity is very different than any other you might be familiar with. Customers are not fish to catch. There’s no bait to cast out. It’s all laid out on the table today, just as it was in the very beginning. What you see is what you get. There are no frills and nothing to hide. There’s no black hat marketing nor any kind of customer seduction.
There is indeed nothing like Wealthy Affiliate. It just does not exist, and I challenge anyone to find it if it there is something out there that comes even with Wealthy Affiliate. I guarantee, something will be missing or flawed. Wealthy Affiliate isn’t perfect, but it sure is the closest to perfection there ever was in this industry. You can be sure of Kyle and Carson – if there is a flaw, they’re on it – and it doesn’t stop there.
We will now move on to the elements that make up Wealthy Affiliate. For a quick overview of what’s inside Wealthy Affiliate, please visit my review: Wealthy Affiliate Review – As I Experience WA. You can also continue with the Series below…
Wealthy Affiliate – An Overview Series << | >> Wealthy Affiliate Overview (Part III) – Wealthy Affiliate Dashboard
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