Hi! I'm David and I just hatched in the Internet Marketing Industry.

[David Ionesi]

Hello everyone,

My name is David, I'm 25 and I'm from Romania. Let me tell you my story of how I got into Internet Marketing. 2 years ago I was introduced to freelancing by a freelancer friend. After exactly 6 months of extra grinding when I got home from my 9 to 5 at a gas station, I was able to go full time as a virtual assistant.

This is a picture with me in the middle and my bosses before I left. It was at the end of August that year.

I had two clients at the time, one was a Local SEO from the US and the other was building affiliates sites and he was from the UK. As a matter of fact, the latter recommended me this forum.

I managed to gather some money and I moved to another town, something that I really wanted to do for a while.

That's almost $1.000 there which was enough for me to do that.

Sorry for the low quality pics, I didn't have a good phone at the time.

I was living in a really small one room motel before, the kitchen was a shared kitchen and overall it wasn't that great.

I finally got myself a nice two rooms apartment like I wanted for quite a while.

This is the living room where I was usually working.

Things have slowly gotten better and better, I had ups and downs but the downs weren't actually downs, they were a part of my growing process. I changed clients due to a lack of synergy, I had moments when I was overburned, things that didn't go as planned but all in all I was definitely learning and getting better, professionally and as an individual.

Overall I'm doing great. I managed to pack enough value as a professional that I earn the minimum wage in the US, which isn't that great but neither a small feat looking through the lens of my fellow people. I know that with my skills, knowledge and my worth I can find a new client in less than a week. I actually did this a couple of times with ease. By this I mean that I never have worries that I won't be able to find a client, worries that I had in the past and once I actually had to rely on a 9 to 5 again for a couple of months until I got back up.

I'm still doing VA, Admin support and stuff like that but I specialized myself in SEO so I'm a very SEO friendly assistant. It just happened that many of my clients needed or was in SEO. There is always a big need for it and I genuinely like it so I decided to walk this path. I won't call myself an SEO, even if some clients do, I know what I need to achieve in order to allow myself to use that title. Build an affiliate site from 0 that earns at least $1.000 per month. This is what it means for me at least. Be able to rank something on your own and actually make it profitable.

This is also why I'm here, I'm feeling that my days as a freelancer are getting to an end and it is time for me to start doing my own things. I have great plans for that, actionable plans but the one that's most relevant to this discussion is a niche site project that I'm currently undertaking. I decided to start using my account on this forum more actively and tap into the power of communities to ask for guidance and help.

This is my introduction, my motifs and my intentions. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is a pleasure to meet you all, I can't wait to get to know you all better and hopefully I can too contribute back to the community sooner or later. I've read the rules but if anyone has any other advice and tips for me about this forum or in general I'll be glad to hear them. Cheers!

 

[ToffeeLa]

Hi David, good to see you here. Sounds like you are at the stage that a lot of us have been through when you start to question why you are making money using your skills for other people when you could be doing it for yourself.

Of course, you have to be the right type of person to be happy doing your own thing - but I think if you have the urge to do it, it shows that you are and professionally you will never be happier than when you take that step.

 

[David Ionesi]

Hi David, good to see you here. Sounds like you are at the stage that a lot of us have been through when you start to question why you are making money using your skills for other people when you could be doing it for yourself.

Of course, you have to be the right type of person to be happy doing your own thing - but I think if you have the urge to do it, it shows that you are and professionally you will never be happier than when you take that step.

Exactly. To be blunt about it, yes, you're completely right about using my time and skills for me not someone else if I'm capable of doing that. I heard something once "Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs." Thank you for taking the time to write.

 

[bernard]

Welcome to BuSo, David.
In my experience, it's always a good sign when a non-english speaker is fluent in English anyway. The guys who made BaseCamp (the project management software), wrote in their book, Rework, that if they were in doubt who to hire, they always went with the person who wrote better. In their experience, it correlated the strongest with being smart and capable. I recommend that book actually ("ReWork"), I thought it was an excellent book and it is exactly about the kind of thing you do, outsourcing, building a location independent business and all that.

 

[Poplanu]

Great photos bro! Good luck with your projects and keep hustling. Don't overlook local opportunities - Romanian affiliate/lead gen/ecomm websites. I'm also from Europe and I wish my country was as big as yours.

 

[David Ionesi]

Welcome to BuSo, David.
In my experience, it's always a good sign when a non-english speaker is fluent in English anyway. The guys who made BaseCamp (the project management software), wrote in their book, Rework, that if they were in doubt who to hire, they always went with the person who wrote better. In their experience, it correlated the strongest with being smart and capable. I recommend that book actually ("ReWork"), I thought it was an excellent book and it is exactly about the kind of thing you do, outsourcing, building a location independent business and all that.

WoW, thank you for the encouraging words man. You really made me curious about that book. It's interesting how the hardcover is cheaper than the Kindle version. I invested time in my typing skills and I pay attention to the format. I also prefer all my books to be written in English, it enriches my vocabulary.

I won't be a hypocrite and admit that I use Grammarly but all in all, yes, I'm confident in my English.

Considering the profession, I saw the way I write as the impressive "handshake" you make when you first greet someone. I also prefer all my books to be in English, this enriches my vocabulary. Once again, thank you for the kudos and for taking the time to write.

Great photos bro! Good luck with your projects and keep hustling. Don't overlook local opportunities - Romanian affiliate/lead gen/ecomm websites. I'm also from Europe and I wish my country was as big as yours.

I never take the country I was born in for granted. I live in a democratic state, there aren't people running in the streets gun blazing, I can get on a plane and pretty much go anywhere in the World and living here is pretty cheap.

Of course, there's some degree of corruption like in any place on this Earth. Some places might be better than this one from some points of view but it definitely doesn't deserve the hatred that it gets from most people that live here.

I believe that if people would resign the victim mentality and get off their butts and do something everybody would be a lot happier.

Thank you for taking the time to write. I appreciate it and wherever you're living look at the bright side, also if you're here you'll most probably earn more and could be living anywhere you want soon.

 

[BCN]

Welcome to BuSo. I used to do some consulting for a company in Bucharest -- so I was there a lot over a year.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Welcome, thanks for taking the time to post such a great introduction. Client work is a great asset to have, one that I still haven't let go of even after having been full time for over ten years with my own projects. As your skills and reputation grow you can be far more selective about which clients you take. I only offer high-priced, high-value offerings with unmatched communication. Successful people are happy to pay more to someone who doesn't waste their time or need hand holding. I think you'll do well with both your own projects and continued client work. We're here to help with anything and soak up your knowledge too. In that way, we all win.

 

[David Ionesi]

Welcome, thanks for taking the time to post such a great introduction. Client work is a great asset to have, one that I still haven't let go of even after having been full time for over ten years with my own projects. As your skills and reputation grow you can be far more selective about which clients you take. I only offer high-priced, high-value offerings with unmatched communication. Successful people are happy to pay more to someone who doesn't waste their time or need hand holding. I think you'll do well with both your own projects and continued client work. We're here to help with anything and soak up your knowledge too. In that way, we all win.

Thank you for the warm welcoming. Yes, exactly! I want to offer top notch services, overdeliver and exceed expectations. If generally people sell Bronze, Silver and Gold packages, I want to sell Diamond ones. Of course, for the fair price that it deserves.

I find it interesting that you still do client work after such a long time especially when having your own successful projects that I believe they do more than well, you wrote the whole 101 30 days on Affiliate Sites that I read when I first registered this forum. I believe you like client work or at least some part of it if you're still doing it.

We're here to help with anything and soak up your knowledge too.

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

 

[Erayz]

Hi and welcome.
Doing work for a variety of clients is the best learning experience.
It's also a way of keeping an ear to the ground for what's happening in industries other than your own.
I do work for others as well.

 

[Janiform]

My name is David, I'm 25 and I'm from Romania.

Welcome David! Great to see more Europeans here. I'm from the Netherlands myself.

And I have to say: people that talk shit about Eastern Europe are dummies. I went to Poland, for example, and it was one of the most memorable trips I've ever been on. Romania, BTW, is on my bucket list! Can't wait to see it for myself.

I decided to start using my account on this forum more actively and tap into the power of communities to ask for guidance and help.

Good idea. I definitely recommend starting a journal in the Labs section so you can hold yourself accountable, learn from others and make progress more easily.

 

[David Ionesi]

Romania, BTW, is on my bucket list! Can't wait to see it for myself.

I recommend you try Sibiu, Brasov, Transylvania generally. The mountains are breathtaking. Also, Constanta (The Black Sea in particularly) and try to visit some popular villages to get a feel for the cultural roots. Just type something like "popular villages in Romania" in Google and pick whatever you like or makes sense to visit. As a general rule, there isn't much to see in the north part.

 

[affinewbie]

Hi, @David Ionesi! Nice to meet you and wish you good luck