About Steve

Hey there, my name is Steve West, I’m an English guy who has been involved in the online marketing world since 2011. However, my entrepreneurial journey really began around age 11 when I started a car washing business with a friend from my neighbourhood.

We initially washed cars at the weekend for extra cash, but we were so good at it we quickly built up a steady stream of regular customers 🙂

My next venture came when I was aged 15. A friend and I would go up to London on the weekends to check out wholesale warehouses for stock we could sell to the kids at school.

We bought watches, novelty lighters, and key rings and then took them to school to see what would sell best. The novelty lighters were a big hit, and we made a nice little profit on them.

Unfortunately, this venture came to an abrupt end when a kid set fire to one of the seats on the school bus. Lucky for us he didn’t say where he got the lighter from! We thought it was probably a good idea not to sell lighters at school anymore and lay low for a while.

My Journey Into Online Marketing

I first started working online in 2011 when I learn how to build WordPress websites. I needed one for my therapy business, but once I learned how to build them I started a side hustle building them for small businesses in my local area.

Soon after, I became obsessed with SEO and was determined to get my therapy site featured all over Google, which I eventually did after some trial and error.

I then tried my hand at selling on Amazon, eBay, and also drop shipping via Shopify. Although these can be great business models, I didn’t have much success with them so I decided they weren’t for me.

Enter Affiliate Marketing

I discovered affiliate marketing in 2013 and was immediately interested in how a person can build a passive income selling other people’s products online. The thought of passive income was a huge appeal, and I began to imagine how I might be able to make money even while I was out enjoying myself.

Personally, I believe affiliate marketing is one of the best business models around. I believe with a little discipline, focus, and hard work, anyone can build some level of passive income as an affiliate. And with a lot of focus and hard work, you can build a job-replacing income.

To say I had instant success with it though and was making loads of money quickly (like many of the gurus say) would be a total lie.

In fact, it was quite the opposite for me. I made a lot of mistakes in the early days and so, it took me a long while before I was making decent money. In fact, it took me several years to make a job-replacing income, but I did it.

And if I can do it, I think that probably almost anyone can do it with the right mindset.

The issue was, that I was trying to learn affiliate marketing through free content online, and also listening to too many people with very different opinions. While there is absolutely a ton of great info out there online, the problem is;

1. It’s very hard, in the beginning, to know who is legit and who is fake until you have some experience yourself
2. If you end up listening to too many different people you’ll likely just go round in circles
3. No one reveals everything they’re doing to make money online for free
4. Most people need a clear and detailed blueprint to follow in the early days (myself included)

Once I realized this, I decided to look for a course that could help me.

One thing that all the gurus agreed on was that email marketing was one of the most important parts of an online business. So I first invested in a course that had a heavy emphasis on teaching email marketing.

The course basically taught you how to set up a squeeze page connected to an email autoresponder to build a list, and then run traffic to the squeeze page using solo ads, YouTube videos, and blogging. This method worked and I made my first affiliate commissions online.

Since I was only having minimal success with affiliate marketing in the early days I decided to learn more about SEO and focus most of my energy on predictably ranking websites on Google to drive traffic.

I joined a couple of courses, but only got a few nuggets of good info from them. Finally, I decided if I was to do this properly then I should invest in my education.

I joined a very expensive SEO course and learned loads of great tactics, but most of the emphasis was on local SEO and building an agency. Since I needed to build an online income quickly I decided to start an SEO agency while working on my affiliate business part-time.

SIDE NOTE: The above does not mean that you also need to join a very expensive course to have success online. I actually spent way more money than I should have done on courses over the years. While it is very difficult (not impossible) to make good money online without any help from anyone, you don’t need to spend a fortune on courses to have success either.

My SEO Agency

In 2014 I set up my one-man agency and started doing SEO for local businesses. While this was a financially successful venture for me, I soon found myself sometimes working 16+ hour days with my attention split between my agency, my affiliate business, and my therapy business.

After a few years of this, I reached burnout. Since my SEO agency still made me feel like I had a job and wasn’t a passive model, I decided to fold it in 2017.

Fortunately, I started having consistent success with affiliate marketing by the end of 2015, and by the end of 2016, I was doing around $5K per month in affiliate commissions.

Collapse & Rebuild

Finally, I was feeling like I was getting somewhere with affiliate marketing, and it was time to let go of my SEO and web design clients, and also cut back on the days I was working as a therapist.

That’s when the shit hit the fan…

Unfortunately, I had built my main affiliate site on rocky ground, and when Google’s “Fred” update came around in early 2017, the site rankings and the bulk of my affiliate income disappeared.

I decided going forward to only put my focus on building sites with a firm foundation and with longevity in mind.

I have since rebuilt my online business on a solid foundation and continue to grow my passive income through affiliate marketing. I am now also planning to create my own products to complement my business.

My mission on this site is to help you to avoid the mistakes I made in my journey so you can build your online business 10X faster and with much less hair-pulling!

About Me When I’m Not Working Online

Besides my entrepreneurial endeavors, I’m into Martial Arts, keeping fit, mountain biking, hiking, bouldering, and hanging out with my friends, family, and my partner.

I try to get away with the guys once or twice a year for a few hiking trips, usually in the Snowdonia area of Wales.

Over the last few years, my girlfriend has become very successful with her investing portfolio. She’s learned the game very well from her uncle, who is a seasoned investor and I’m now also starting to learn the ropes of the investing world.

How I Create Content

All the content on Entrepreneur Nut is planned and edited by myself because I want to ensure this blog remains high quality.

While a lot of the articles are written by me, I do also use freelance writers to help with the workload, but nothing gets published without the green light from me as chief editor. This helps to ensure the info we publish on this blog is accurate and trustworthy.

While a lot of the content on Entrepreneur Nut is informational, some are also review-based. Products, services, and courses I have used myself are written by me.

However, if a review needs to be written about a product I haven’t personally used then I will either find someone who has used the product to write the article, or base the content on extensive research based on customer reviews and feedback.

I also spend a lot of time networking and talking with colleagues about online marketing as well as various products, services, and courses in the online marketing space.

Overall, I want Entrepreneur Nut to be a site you can trust so you can use our info to make good, solid decisions for your online business.

What’s In It For You?

So why would you want to read Entrepreneur Nut, anyway?

I would say the main reason for checking us out is because I am planning this site to be a detailed resource to help you grow your business more quickly and with fewer headaches.

If any of the following statements resonate with you then you will enjoy and benefit from the content on this site:

• You want to build a passive income online
• You want to learn how to do affiliate marketing effectively
• You want to explore different online business models so you can choose the best one for you
• You want advice on products, services, and courses that are essential to your business growth
• You want to learn strategies to help you become more efficient and effective workmen online

If this sounds like you, then I look forward to having you absorb our content, benefit from our guides, and maybe even interact with us in the comments!

To your success,
Steve West

Founder and Editor at Entrepreneur Nut