In 1997 I was working for a regional ISP doing design and html work. A co-worker and I had this idea to search for the best available domain name and I came across hoes.com. Back then, all you had to do was grab some newsgroup photos and setup a "Pic of the Day" script and you could make money off Xpic banners. That experience got me hooked. After that, I just continued to build new traffic sources and multiply my earnings. It was easy to do that back then because of a lack of competition.

I always liked to figure out ways to make a buck or two and the Internet was just a natural fit for someone like me. I've always been attracted to the excitement of instant changes. Very few businesses allow you to freely experiment and test so quickly and easily. I'm constantly making changes and I find the freedom to do so invigorating. I guess the combination of registering hoes.com with the desire to do something on the Internet is what helped me get started in the industry.

My tendency to obsess about details and the fact that I'm a workaholic. I've been in this business for over 8 years and I'm working more hours than ever. Plus I can both design and code. I think it's worked wonders as far as being able to accurately develop exactly what's in my head. It's VERY hard to find a designer that can realize your dream as well as a programmer that can work well with that designer. Good design/technical teams are very valuable.

1. Keep it simple-stay on track, avoid clutter, keep organized, maintain your theme 2. Filter, Filter, Filter-understand your traffic and keep them heading in the most profitable direction 3. Make it surfer friendly-some people could give a fuck about surfers, but that attitude isn't what made my stuff grow.

Some important factors to me: 1. No console tours 2. I don't list sites using the old style "next full page ad" tours. More importantly, I scrutinize my monthly sponsor numbers. After I build my public sponsor stats (http://www.hoes.com/sponsors/), I then change the weighting or even eliminate sponsors based on their previous month's performance. Typically, the top 5-8 sponsors maintain their positions. The rest of them change constantly. Needless to say, I'm very much devoted to my top sponsors because of one key factor "CONSISTENCY". You can have the most kick ass tours and content, but if you can't maintain the success of your program, you will loose affiliates. It's so important to study your numbers over long periods of time. I can't stress that enough. One month isn't even that good. Try looking back 6 months.

TopBucks has always been one of my most consistently better performing sponsors. I'm very happy with the current state of things and really wouldn't change a thing. How about a rewards program?