I’ve been doing this since before “digital marketing” was a phrase anyone used seriously.
I started out running an Apple dealership in Surrey in 1991 — long enough ago that I once fixed Douglas Adams’s Mac, and spent years looking after the computers for Pete Townshend and The Who. When hardware margins shrank, I moved into web design and Google Ads, building sites and running campaigns for everyone from multinationals to a man selling t-shirts online.
In 2005 I got curious about affiliate marketing and bought a $30 eBook. It didn’t make me rich — I earned about £50 a month for years — but it taught me more than any client work ever did.
By 2009 I’d turned that hobby into a full-time income and stopped taking on clients for good. I’ve been doing this ever since: testing what works, dropping what doesn’t, and writing up the useful bits here.
Most advice about making money online is written by people who make their money teaching people how to make money online. I’ve tried to avoid that.
What you’ll find here
This site is about the practical side of building an online income: which tools are worth paying for, which aren’t, and how to actually get a passive income project off the ground rather than just reading about one.
Start with Tools I Use (and Why) for the shortlist of what I actually pay for. Or head to Passive Income if you’re at the beginning.
The other thing I write
Alongside this site I write Tim’s Wealth Letter, a newsletter for UK investors who’d rather manage their own money than pay someone else to do it badly.
It’s a separate thing to this site and a separate audience — nothing to do with affiliate marketing or building an online income. The connection is only that I ended up needing both: working for yourself means nobody handles the money side for you, and I got tired of paying people who weren’t much good at it.
If that’s of any interest, the free primer on how I invest and what it’s returned is the place to start. It’s investing content, not personal financial advice.
Want the longer, stranger version — Amsterdam, eBay, a German affiliate making €50,000 a week? Read my full story.
Questions or feedback? Contact me — I read everything.