Michael Jarocki – CreditCardFinder

Name: Michael Jarocki
Age: 19
Field: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Internet Marketing
Interests: Music (Metal, Electro), Guitar, Snowboarding, Cricket, Internet, Late Nights with Friends.
Website: http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au
Contact: mike@creditcardfinder.com.au

High School Boredom – Year 12, 2007

Throughout high school, although I had interests and hobbies, I lacked any sort of educational or career-based direction. While this is fairly normal for the beginning of school, by the time Year 12 rolled
around, it was becoming a worry.

At one point I wanted to be an actor. Then a professional snowboarder. Followed by a musician. Anything that came to mind was fairly short-lived.

Plain and simple, I was bored at school. The only one of my subjects I had relative interest in was English, and even then it was completely subjective to what we were doing. Crime fiction for instance held little interest for me, so I practically stopped attending my extension english classes, and the whole unit went to waste.

One day during a typical dreary economics class, I noticed my friend browsing some forums. Gladly diverting my attention to his laptop, I questioned him about the forums he was browsing – they were internet marketing forums. At that moment I had an epiphany – I can make a career on the internet, moving at my own pace and enjoyment.

I knew making money online was possible, but had never really considered doing it myself till that point.

That night at home I suggested my new found interest to my parents. To say the least, my idealism was not met with the same enthusiasm. Just like the majority of Australian parents, they wanted nothing more than
for their son to attend university and settle down in a nice respectable job. I told them I wasn’t interested in university, and as expected they commenced a furious rant of how I wouldn’t achieve anything without educational credentials.

While it was a blow to my excitement, it didn’t hinder me from my new career adventure.

In 2007, the year of my Higher School Certificate, I spent July to November studying the basics of internet marketing and seo, instead of studying for my HSC.

When my UAI of 68.8% came, I tossed it aside as it held no relevance to my career choice. My parents weren’t too phased about my results – they figured I could work my way at a lower-grade university up to achieve anything English/Journalism related with my mark. However, they did rage when I told them I hadn’t submitted any uni applications for 2008.

Excited Entrepreneur – 2008

Fresh on the internet money-making scene, I was super keen and enthusiastic to absorb and learn all the knowledge I could. While I used to play video games, they didn’t hold any interest or procrastinating value anymore – the internet was (and still is, in a way) a video game to me. To beat the first level, I set a goal at
making $10 solely online.

To achieve this, I began creating niched sites, such as Eye Diseases and Mobile Phones with Google advertisements, or ‘Adsense’ on them.

For those unaware, Adsense places advertisements similar to your site’s topic and you earn money everytime somebody clicks on them.

The sites were up and running, and spammy to the max. I spent up to 10 hours each day writing content and experimenting with my websites. I frantically logged onto my Adsense account by the hour to see if I’d
made any money.

Shock! A click! 18 cents! MY hard-earned 18 cents!

Grinning ear to ear in pride, I show my girlfriend, who replied with a blank face of dissatisfaction, maybe even a hint of embarrassment. But I didn’t care. I didn’t expect to retire at 19 after a couple of months work. As long as I was making progressively more money, whether it was cent by cent, I was pleased.

April rolled around and my parents were beginning to probe and doubt my line of work.

“How much money did you make today, 32 cents?” my dad would ask mockingly.

He revived his rant of how I should be studying at a university. I retorted that this is what I’m interested in, and YOU don’t have to pay $18,000 in uni fees for me to do it.

“No one will ever take you seriously without a degree. You need one to be successful” he stated.

“Are you saying no one without a degree has never achieved success?” I replied. He shook his head and walked away.

Nevertheless, I carried on. I knew at this point my skills in the field were above average and I could possibly get employment. While it was my dream to ultimately work for myself, I was desperate to show my parents I could make more than $2 a day.

In early May, one of the my friends replied to me with interest for me to work for a website and I was on board after an interview. I began making some respectable income, and I was on top of the world.

I was given the reigns of Credit Card Finder, which I still administrate to this day – which allows me to now work comfortably from home. Since I began working, editing and improving the site, revenue has increased by approximately 2400%, and growth is set to continue.

Reflection 2009

As you may have picked up throughout my story, the approval of my parents was, and still is a very important factor to me. To this day, while my parents are pleased with my success, I know deep inside that they would prefer me to still go on secondary education. Fortunately, my own drive for entrepreneurial success outweighed any lack of support.

I did not expect to reach the level I have in such a short period of time. If I had only increased from $2 a day in 2008 to $6 in 2009, I would still be stoked. I take great pride and satisfaction in any of my self achieved results, no matter the rate of progress.

For anyone interested in making a career online – there is no easy money. While it can come to you quicker or slower than most, ultimately you’ll need to put it in the hard work and originality to rake in the revenue.

Why Do I Love My Job?

There’s nothing more satisfying for me than seeing my hard work reflect in the search engine rankings. The basis of my job involves me targeting specific Google search terms, i.e “credit cards” and aiming at making that term the #1 result for when Australians ‘Google’ the term. The thrill of achievement motivates me to maintain the ranking, while there are still endless other search terms to become #1 for.

From time to time I browse university courses to see if there is something that would interest me, but to no avail. I imagine even if there was, It would be like year 12, where only certain units and topics would interest me enough to attend and excel. That’s the wonder of making money on the internet – there’s a thousand ways to do it, and you have the freedom to attempt any you wish, at your own rate.

The internet is always changing, and thus I can never truly be bored when I have to re-learn and be on form with its changes, in order to stay on top.

I would love for anybody with any questions or queries about my line of work, Credit Card Finder or anything else to contact me. My best wishes to any of you who personally wish to go down the path of an internet entrepreneur. Maintain the interest and you’ll get the results.