Imagine creating a blog where you generate millions in revenue each year by writing about your greatest passion. Timothy Sykes doesn’t have to imagine. That’s what he does at his blog, TimothySykes, where he teaches his followers about penny-stock trading with the promise that they, too, can become millionaires. He expects the site to bring in $15 million to $20 million this year. His company runs a community for traders called Profit.ly and sells products including DVDs and trade alerts to help others use his methods.
Not everyone wants to be a day trader like Sykes or aspires to the brash style of capitalism he demonstrated on the reality TV show Wall Street Warriors, which aired from 2006 to 2008. “Most of the people who turn it on hate me,” says Sykes. “I’m a little too confident and I’m not embarrassed about it.”
But if you’ve ever thought of starting a blog or writing one now, it’s hard not to find his story inspiring.
Sykes didn’t intend to become a blogger. He started his blog to promote his book, An American Hedge Fund, published in 2007. When a publisher offered him a $35,000 advance, he balked. He’d already turned $12,415 of his Bar Mitzvah gifts into $1.65 million through trading and his started his own hedge fund.
“I said screw it: I’m going to create my own publishing company,” he recalls. “That means I need to promote this book like crazy. Self-published books are a harder sell.”
So Sykes embraced the do-it-yourself approach. “My mom and I read some books on how to promote your self-published book,” Sykes says. “We sent out about 300 handwritten letters to business influencers. That did not translate into sales. Six years later, I might have sold 20,000 copies.”
But those failed attempts helped him find his path: “In the process of promoting that book, the blog took over,” he says. “I loved the instant feedback from the customers.”
Posting frequently on the blog, Sykes built it to the point that it attracts about 5,000 daily visitors, by his estimates. His virtual company, which he runs from Miami, now employs almost 30 people, including his mother and father.
Readers, he says, tend to be most responsive to his exposes of penny-stock scams. One of his favorite posts, he says, was How The Risks of Daytrading Outweigh the Rewards 3 To 1."
“You aren’t as smart as you believe and in this economy, you don’t have that great of a future either…the good news is that neither intelligence nor potential is required to be a consistently profitable day trader,” Sykes wrote in November 2010.
He touched a nerve in an economy that, years later, has left many Americans struggling. Still, building his following has taken a thick skin. Many people still think that penny-stock trading or short-selling penny stocks is illegal, says Sykes, so he often finds himself combatting those myths.
“There’s a whole nasty stigma around penny-stock traders,” he says. “To this day, I still get emails from financial websites that say what I do is illegal. It’s based on misinformation.”
So how do your own high-revenue blog? Here is some advice, gleaned from my conversation with Sykes:
Don’t worry about exhausting a subject. “You can never write too much about any topic: mistakes, losing passion, gaining passion, what you’ve learned over the years, interviews with people who have similar experience,” says Sykes.
Be provocative. “Every single day, I get inspiration for more stuff I want to write about and reveal and share my opinion on," says Sykes. "Sometimes, I purposely put forth a very strong opinion to get a reaction from people and create the debate. To start a fire you need kindling.”
Be candid. Sykes believes we should all share more about our successes and failures. “Failure after failure go undocumented” says Sykes. “As a blogger it’s your duty to write about it. Every year I do a whole blog post on my biggest loss. No one else in finance does it.”
Stay alert to new opportunities. “As the internet evolves more experts are going to make money—but screw money,” says Sykes. “You get to focus on what you love. That’s the best part.”
