Kyle Eschenroeder is an enthusiastic entrepreneur who has been running www.StartupBros.com along with Will Mitchell since 2012. Besides, he also runs www.kyleschen.com. He made his blogging career by experimenting and implementing the ideas he truly believed in. For him, blogging is 50% creating posts and 50% salesmanship.
Kyle believes “delivering extreme value” is the best thing a blogger can give to his/her readers. His authentic sense of blogging is worth inspiring to any of us. If you too want to be a blogger of value, get to know him better.
Read an exclusive interview with Kyle
Can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers? List some blogs you own, your personal favorite.
I’m Kyle Eschenroeder and have been writing down thoughts for a long while at www.kyleschen.com. In late 2012 I started www.StartupBros.com with Will Mitchell to help people launch their first businesses. We’re all entrepreneurs now, it’s an uncomfortable leap we have to make, but it’s a necessary one. StartupBros is my favorite.
How you first got involved in blogging?
I was passionate about certain ideas and I believed that others needed to be passionate about them, too. It’s also how I process my own thoughts. It’s how I test ideas and how I keep a record of my mental and physical lives.
What was the most challenging moment in your blogging career and why?
Maintaining integrity while aiming at getting traffic. The lucky bit is – there is no way to sustainably create a following unless you have integrity. Resisting an aspies-like focus on traffic/conversion and remembering that the QUALITY of the connection matters too has taken me a long way.
Follow-up question: What was the most challenging moment in your blogging career and why?
I put ZERO effort into promoting posts. I still don’t do this enough. “It will spread if it hits a nerve.” is a dangerous stance to take. A certain amount of exposure is required to give any post a fair shot at going viral. Half of the art is making the post. The other half is salesmanship.
What do you do constantly that you feel helps your as well as others blogging business?
Focus on honesty and value. I talk about my failures. I don’t pretend to be anything that I’m not. I’m human, I mess up constantly. Half of my work is focused on setting up systems to overcome my weaknesses. I don’t pretend that anything is easy when it’s not. I don’t sell people on a million dollars on a month when chances are they’ll be able to make a thousand. Honesty, value, connection.
How do you keep coming up with material/content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different articles/posts and they only have one blog.
Two ways. I write down ideas every day and I write every day. I write down fifty bad ideas for every decent idea that comes up. I write every day, this makes it easy to keep writing. I don’t have to shake off any rust. I just get up and type. The ideas come. Sometimes I have to write for thirty minutes before anything usable comes out. The important part is getting to the keyboard, shutting out distractions, and putting SOMETHING into that blank whiteness.
What’s your strategy with your blog in general? What’s the best thing a blogger can give to his readers?
We have certain technical strategies that I won’t get into but one overriding one: deliver extreme value. This is obvious but rarely anyone does it. Rarely do bloggers go DEEP into a topic and spend twelve hours crafting a piece that will blow readers away. They just don’t want to put in the effort. I wrote a 7000+ word article “The 7 Motivational Murderers” more than a year ago and it’s still driving traffic. People tell me every day that it’s the most powerfully useful blog post they’ve ever read. Will wrote a post “How You Can Make Big Money Importing From China – The Rise and Fall of My Empire…” that has driven amazing amounts of traffic to our site for over a year as well. He spent weeks putting it together… and now it has over 1000 comments. That post alone has made room for our first paid product. He basically gave all the details that Tim Ferriss left out of “The Four Hour Workweek” and people responded in a big way. Don’t fear giving it all away – because you can’t. Most bloggers write to sound like an expert. Be the guy that focuses on helping.
Do you think Page rank plays a vital role in a blog’s life? What would you prioritize most among content, SEO, traffic and readers? Why?(describe briefly)
Content all the way. With great content, everything else follows. We do some minimal SEO optimization (about 2 minutes per post) but we focus on delivering extreme value most of all.
What has been your strategy for creating visibility to yourself and your blog?
Creating epic content – then showing it to people. Reddit was huge for us early on. We also engaged in related forums and that helped. We do a lot of guest posting to help drive traffic as well.
A lot of people are interested in blogging for the money earning potential. What are some tips for people interested in making money from blogging? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?
The people making real money blogging are promoting real products. You don’t get to sit and pontificate and have money pouring in. Don’t get me wrong, I love pontificating. BUT I don’t expect to get paid for it. The quickest way to get paid for blogging is NOT to blog. Create a thing you want to to sell FIRST. Then start blogging around the idea of that product. Start pushing it. That’s the quick way, not the sustainable way. For someone really focused, a living wage in 6 months is reasonable. Not millions. Blogging is not the best place for that.
Most people are not passionate about something, so they have a roadblock while starting blogging. What do you suggest to these folks, how could they find their passion?
There is no secret formula to finding passion, it comes from within for something you love, it could be music, photography or blogging.
Any final suggestions, tips to our readers? A final note to new blogger, how they too can become a successful blogger.
Get GOOD at writing. Computers are replacing some journalists already. You’re not going to win just by spreading information. You need to be great at connecting with people and motivating them to act. So my advice is to be a little messy. To post content that you’re scared to post (the embarrassing stuff, the stuff that might be wrong). Put in MORE than the other guys. Write bigger posts that will matter in a year. Write posts so technical that people should be paying for them. You’ve got to go bigger, deeper, and harder than the other guys. Most important: this is not a get-rich-quick game. You probably aren’t even a decent writer yet. It’s going to take a while to find the value people need that you can deliver. Persistence is your best friend.