Build Income Streams with Brooks Conkle - AI, Side Hustles, Online Business Ideas, & Work Life Balance
As a full-time side hustler of 15 years, I talk about AI, side hustles, and work-life balance.
I'm testing new AI tools weekly in my online business projects.
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Build Income Streams with Brooks Conkle - AI, Side Hustles, Online Business Ideas, & Work Life Balance
Inside the Mind of a Niche Site Pro: Doug Cunnington (#287)
Doug's a smart dude in the space. He runs multiple podcasts, and he designs his business around his life (not the other way around!) I think there are plenty of takeaways that you get gather. Enjoy!
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So I just had a nice hangout session with Doug Cunnington. Cool dude. In addition to breaking down the brands that he runs, we also talked about not working too hard and building his life around his business, not the other way around. We also talked about what he would do if he were to go back and start all over and do it all again. Enjoy.
Brooks Conkle:man, so you, you and me connected before I, I recorded with you before, but I wanna know, I wanna know about your projects. Like, tell me just in general, like tell me all of your brands or that you want to talk about, like throw'em out. And if you don't mind, I'll probably just jump in and start like pepper you with questions about them, what they do and, you know, just kind of dig in. Perfect. If that's cool.
Doug Cunnington:Yeah. So I have. Kind of two separate areas. So one was the original that I got started with, which is niche type project, the blog, and I blogged about affiliate marketing Amazon sites, Amazon affiliates specifically. SEO kind of topics, a little productivity, but that was the main thing. Couple offshoots after a few years, so I started that in 2013. In 20, say 17, I started doing YouTube regularly. Really just repurposing the content, creating video, which I was consuming a lot of and kind of wanted to get into it, but it just took me a little while to dedicate the time. Video is a different beast and eventually started putting a lot more time into it. There. Let me let,
Brooks Conkle:lemme go ahead and jump in. Did you start the YouTube just as it sound, it sounds like, as like a compliment to the niche site project as a compliment to, like you said, repurpose content. Were you like embedding those videos on that site?
Doug Cunnington:A little bit repurposing content in that I was, I was moving it from, you know, the written word on the blog to, you know, YouTube. So I, I, you know, it wasn't exactly the same, but it was like, that's a good topic. I already have an outline. I was embedding the videos sometimes, but you know, it. Largely didn't matter that much. I mean, technically, you know, that's the best practice, right? Link back to your blog post from the video description and then embed the video. But I, I don't know if it mattered that much. Maybe it did. I'm not sure. So, then a few years after that, in 2019, I started the podcast. It's called the Doug Show. I eventually put the, you know, keywords in the title as a smart SEO kind of person. So I put in, you know, affiliate marketing and side hustles on the Doug Show. Yep. Then the other brand, which is kind of separate is Mile High-Fi. So that is a different podcast, a different YouTube channel. I talk personal finance and financial independence. I have a co-host Carl Jensen, and he and I partnered and we do that show.
Brooks Conkle:Dude, this is a lot. So, so I've got'em pulled up now for people that are listening. I'm just, I'm pulling'em up. But if people watch this on YouTube they'll be able to see'em. And I've got your YouTube channel here. which is awesome, man. So, okay. Which, is the order that you set them in the order that you basically started them in, so was Mile High five, was that the latest brand that you started? Correct,
Doug Cunnington:yep. Okay. And that was 2021? Yep. Early twenties, 21.
Brooks Conkle:Okay. What, what made you want to launch that one? Because you already had the, you know, you already had the other brands, your personal show. what was the kind of thought process? Launching another podcast.
Doug Cunnington:So I love the podcast format generally. Okay. And the other portion of this is like a battle to fight burnout, which I was saying well ahead of. Yeah. And I would, you know, I watched other creators, especially on YouTube. I think YouTube has a high level of, you know, people that just get burned out. And. You know, I saw people ahead of me just kind of fizzle out. They would have like, you know, mental health issues and like, Hey, I gotta take a break. And, you know, I stayed like way far ahead of that. So I, you know, I did my shit. I made my videos and. Realized at some point that if I just followed the YouTube analytics, which are excellent, you have metrics on everything. You could end up in a spot where you're creating content that you don't want to, that you don't care about to get views. Because if you, I mean, if you create more videos and it's the right topic that is hitting on your channel, you're gonna get more views, you're gonna get a positive feedback loop, and you could end up in a very different spot than where you wanted to. So I was like, I'm not playing that game. I'm gonna play my own game and here's what I'm gonna do. And it kills growth, right? I mean, not kills, but it hurts growth. But I was doing exactly what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, and I wasn't, I, I also tried as much as I could to decouple like monetary. Rewards in revenue, basically like earning money from exactly what I was doing. So again, more scattershot approach, but it was exactly what I wanted to do, at least what I thought I wanted to do. And that's, that's served pretty well. So the reason why I wanted to start the other show is it was, it was a different topic area. So I moved to Longmont, Colorado, which is where a lot of financial independence bloggers. Have congregated at this point. So Pete Adney, Mr. Money Mustache. Okay. Lives a couple miles away. Carlin, Mindy Jensen, they're some of the more popular folks that have gotten started. Carl blogs at 1500 days and they live like a couple miles away and I kind of got mixed up in the community, made friends with him and Carl and I had a good rapport when he was on my show. So I was actually itching to start another show. I was either gonna add another. Episode per week to my own show. I talked to another mutual friend out here Matt vei, who he's at Money lab.co. Yep. Currently. But he used to do Listen Money Matters, which was one of the biggest earliest financial podcasts like period. And you know, I actually pitched him and he was like, nah, I'm not really interested in doing a show right now. Some time went by, Carl was down, so I. Let's, let's follow it along and, and see how it goes. So I wanted to start it because it was a different topic area that I, I was interested in. And it was like using skills that I had before. Plus I'd be able to like launch it based on the brand that I already had and what Carl already had too, which is great. You know, after you've done this for a few years, you don't have to start at zero like every.
Brooks Conkle:Good point. So building off, yeah, building off current current levels. You already have to be able to help you launch the new brand. Now that's cool. You said a ton of things, man, I, I didn't want to interrupt you on, but really neat that you're willing to do exactly what you want to do. Not necessarily, you know, put putting money at top really neat that you were very aware of. Staying really far ahead of any chance of getting burnout and being willing to call it pivot or change, or stop what you were doing if you thought you were at all getting close. I think that's the reason, probably why. Oh, and then third, related to that is the thing that you said about YouTube, not just following what was gonna only grow the channel. but which is related to the other two of do doing what you wanted to do, because you're totally right, man. It's really funny. I have a video on my list to make coming up that I'm not saying I'm not excited about it. No, no, no. I, I guess I'm not excited about, I'm not saying I'm like, I hate it. But, but yeah, I'm not like, I'm not pumped to make it. I'm fine, I'm fine to make it, but it's definitely one that is the analytics, it, it is a part of that analytics like game for sure. And so I was kind of smiling when you said that cause I'm like, oh yeah, like that's, that you can totally and, and I could get caught I guess in that trap. If, if it ramped up and went great, then I do have that choice to make, do I keep doing those? Probably not. You know, I, I probably wouldn't. Right. But yeah. No, that's, that's interesting man. Alright, you I, I wanna ask people this question cause this is really interesting. How in the heck did you fall into this stuff? Because, Nobody majored into this. Nobody studied this at college, right? You didn't study how to make a, how to make a podcast and a niche brand website, YouTube channel, at school. So like, how, how'd you fall into it?
Doug Cunnington:One of the, one of the sort of essential gateway podcast, and it was smart passive income. So, I. Was browsing around, I kind of got burned out on listening to a specific genre on like, I, I'm a home brewer of beer, so I was like listening to all these beer podcasts for like five or six years. Like I was deep into that scene. Yeah. And I was like beer judging and all this other stuff. And I was like, ah, I'm looking for something different. And I. Didn't have, you know, a lot of people in our industry, they had like some entrepreneurship ideas. They want, they always knew that they were gonna have a business they like, they were trying to just start businesses all the time. I didn't do any of that. So I had a corporate job. I was doing IT project management for about a decade management consulting kind of stuff. And. Just browsing around, saw smart passive income, listened to a few episodes, thought it was a complete scam, listened to a handful more, and then I got completely obsessed and just listened to everything I could. Was a jumping off point for a bunch of other podcasts, blogs, niche websites in general. And that was 2013. Okay. And I think it was like two, three weeks, maybe a month. I started my first site or two. And I, you know, I didn't know what I was doing, so I made like every mistake in the book, but I was, I was like failing quickly, like testing things. Some stuff was working, some stuff wasn't. And the other key part, is, I didn't have strong communication skills, so I wasn't a writer. Mm-hmm. Some people have like, you know, many years of writing and they were, you know, they minored in English or something. I didn't have that. I had an engineering degree, so like we did like the bare minimum of technical writing that we had to do, but no more and no public speaking, no other communication skills other than. You know, just being able to get a job that kind of that kind of stuff. So, yeah, just kind of fell into it. Well,
Brooks Conkle:ma the, it's like literally everyone's story, right? Everyone at some point did some search online like, hey, like how to make money from home, how to make money online. How do I start a website? How can I make some money? You know, I'm, I'm curious who the first people were in this industry, right? Because smart passive income is obviously old school, right? Pat Flynn is old school. Who was, who was Pat Flynn researching when he wanted to do. You know what I mean? Like who, right. Who and, and then, and then who were those people Like, like who, like someone was a pioneer in this whole, in this whole game. Yeah. You know, so
Doug Cunnington:Well, and I'm, I'm curious, what was your start? And I have the follow up on that too. Yeah,
Brooks Conkle:yeah, exactly. So I, I think I had a website around 2000. 12 or 13 I, I, and I fail. And you mentioned failing hard, failing fast. I think that's, so Im important and I still think that that's important, like to today, to continue to like fail fast and just figure out how to, how to do things correct or whatever. So I had a website I was talking about, like real estate stuff that we were doing. And then at some point I was like, ah, this isn't working for me. It's not, it's not gonna work. I, I'm not getting any traffic. And I literally kind of, my personal brand website, brooks conco.com kind of became almost like a business card, like an online, like cool. I just have this site and it has some articles or something. I didn't get reinvigorated, like reignited until honestly Covid. So when the pandemic came, I circled back around and found a few bloggers that were making crazy money and I was like, holy smokes. People like are still making money at this like online site thing. And then I fell into the whole space and realized that there's tons. all of you guys like I'm like, Thousands of people that are like, that are doing this stuff. And I got just crazy excited about it and that, so that was like three years ago that I got back into it, I guess.
Doug Cunnington:Gotcha. Yeah. And the thing is like when you first got started in 20 12, 13 or whatever, like me, there were people then that said, Hey, it's too saturated. Like this is gonna come to an end. Which at some point I'm sure we'll talk about AI and like yeah.
Brooks Conkle:I was just thinking like that's what we're saying now about ai, right?
Doug Cunnington:Yeah. Yeah. So to jump back about like the, the pioneers, so. I in the financial independence community, I've been able to meet a lot of people now and actually be able to, you. Call some of these folks, my friend, and there's a guy named JD Roth and he has had a blog since like the late nineties, so he's Wow. A little bit older than you and I, he is about 53, 54 and he, he was like OG blogger, like it was right when we had the technology. We had, you know, PCs at home that were able to do some things and he's had a blog, I think since the very late nineties or the early two thousands. And he started blogging@getrichslowly.org, I think in like 2007, sold it. And he was one of the early sort of pioneers of like straight up blogging, but he, he comes from like a writing background Yeah. Versus. You know, an affiliate marketing background. And like I said, eventually he sold a site, bought it back. There's a long history to it, which people can go, you know, dig up other podcasts and hear JD tell it over the years. But yeah, he's one of the, the original folks I think.
Brooks Conkle:Is jd. Is JD the guy with a Mohawk or is that a different, is that a different JD or a different.
Doug Cunnington:That's a different guy. That's Jay Money.
Brooks Conkle:That's Jay Money. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I don't, I don't know why you said JD Roth. And that's the guy I pictured in my head. I was like, he doesn't seem all that old to me. Anyway, Okay.
Doug Cunnington:Yeah. Yeah. Jay Money, he, he, he's a good dude too. I don't know him a quite as well, but he's a good dude. We have talked to him on the Mile High five
Brooks Conkle:podcast before. All right, cool. What are you working on, like right now? Are you working on all of these equally, all of these? Or do you have your, like, focus more on certain projects versus others? What does that look like for you? What's the breakdown?
Doug Cunnington:Sure. So before I answer that, It's probably important to note the context and perspective that I have now because this'll, this'll sound like scattered and like I'm really lazy. So currently I'm trying to do. less work more often than not, and it's been something I've been working on probably for the last three or four years. Currently I'm maybe, I'm working maybe like 15 to 20 hours per week and I try to take big chunks of time off through the year and currently, I am focusing more on podcasting and YouTube and in this short term sort of sprint of work or just, you know, call it this quarter, I'm looking to produce more YouTube content. And part of that is I've kind of neglected YouTube and I have, as I mentioned, avoid avoided burnout. But the way I've done it and still published a ton of videos is I've just done long form interview. It's kind of like this, and that kind of does bad on YouTube, right? People wanna watch like a five or 10 minute video. It's hard to get someone to sit down and watch like 60 minutes or two hours or something like that. But that's, that's worked for me and that's what I want to do. I want to, you know, interview my friends. I want to interview, you know, success story folks, and just inspiring stories. Yeah, maybe just, you know, talk about some random stuff and that doesn't do that well on YouTube it's, it's tough to, to write a headline that like captures it right, and to find enough people. They're out there. There are some YouTube channels that do really well with the long form, but. It's like a little bit of a different animal, so, yep, exactly. As I've tried to work on less, I have realized, okay, I have options on what I can spend my time and energy on. And the other piece to thread in here is, I started following, you know, financial independence stuff and, you know, my wife and I were saving pretty well and once I started working for myself in 2015, my income grew quite a bit. So we were saving, well, kind of lightly followed the financial independence, retire early community fire, is what a lot of people call it. And then kind of slowly figured out that like, oh, we we don't have to work as hard. Like we're in a pretty good spot. My wife still works, I'm still doing some stuff, but largely I can choose what I wanna work on. So with that said, I, that's why I've been like trying to pair things down. So it is interesting cuz in, in the space that I'm in, it's kind of like make money online and like in. Another way, I've sort of like went against the grain. A lot of my friends and peers are like, I wanna make as much money as I possibly can, and I just wanna see what I could do. I don't care that much. Yeah. So I, I'm like, I'm just going to kinda do what I'm doing and, you know, have more free time. You, you
Brooks Conkle:caught my attention. So like, I, I, I think you replied in to an email like one email to me and, and you mentioned that in an email and it caught my attention. Cause you're like, ah, yeah, that sounds like a lot of work. I don't, I don't think I'm gonna do that. And so, but I, I respect that because, That's you choosing how you want your life to look first and then creating your business around that, not the other way around. The bulk of everyone, everyone in society that has jobs or businesses, I mean, typically, you know, the, the job definitely defines what their, you know, what their life is going to look like. But if they're, even if people are independent running their own operations of their own business, a business can definitely swallow you up, right? Like a business can definitely control your life. And it sounds like you have very. Strategically said, Nope, no. And like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna design my life. And then my, what I do for work is gonna work around how I want my life to look. And that's amazing, man. Like, I, I, I think it's awesome. Thanks. Forget anyone that says, no, dude, you should be working harder and doing this. Like, forget them, man. Yeah. Let them design their life the way they want.
Doug Cunnington:Right? Yeah. And, and I don't, oh, right. I mean, I try not to judge other people and, and like, again, a lot of these folks that I was talking about, they're my friends, but I, I'm in this weird spot where I like, have. Entrepreneur friends. And then I have like the retired early friends. A lot of times the, you know, the quote, retired early folks. They're doing some kind of thing where they're earning a little bit of money, but it's like a hobby. Yeah. So, you know, the retired like. Title doesn't matter so much. It's like the people are doing whatever they want. So if they wanna get a part-time job because they like making coffee and they like the coffee shop scene, like that's cool. Like, I don't judge them for that. And then if people are like, I wanna make whatever,$10 million so I can give it to my kids and blah, blah blah, that's great too. although, you know, you're probably stealing some joy away from your kids if you're just giving up a bunch of money. Cause they won't have to solve those problems themselves. But that's another story. I don't have kids. So, ex
Brooks Conkle:ex, exactly. That's a whole, that's a whole whole like debate or debacle or Hey side note, instead of me asking you at the end right now, if people want to find you and reach out and just like connect with you, what, like where, where do you hang out? Like where's the best spot for people to, to do that? I'm just, Yeah,
Doug Cunnington:probably. I would say like YouTube, yeah, is probably one of the best just because you know, you can subscribe. I do a weekly live stream, so Yeah. Oh yeah. You hop on
Brooks Conkle:there. That's right. Yeah. I've been on there, I've been on there a few times. Yeah. I love it. Oh yeah. Cool. That's so cool. It's so cool
Doug Cunnington:you do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that's a good spot. I'm not really on social. I try to stay away. But Okay. You know, YouTube's probably the closest and then get on the email list, so like cool. I have an email list, so it's niche site project.com. Click the green button. Enter your name and email. I'll send you my templates and systems. I have the project management background, so I kind of put together a bunch of tools and stuff like that, and then I send out emails, like new content that's coming out. And then if you hit reply, like I get all of the emails. Yep.
Brooks Conkle:Love it. What is something that's really exciting to you right now? I mean, maybe the answer's to ai, but, but maybe it's not, maybe it's not, I don't know. What, what's exciting you. Lemme not load that question. What's exciting to you in the space right now?
Doug Cunnington:Just in general? Okay. Well, I'll give you, I'll give you a, a slightly personal answer. Nothing crazy. But then, and then I'll, I'll feed everyone's AI hunger here in a second. Yeah, exactly. So like, One thing, like today that we're recording, this actually recorded a podcast episode, so on the Doug Show, I do two episodes per week, and I've done that for four plus years, so I have like That's awesome. 400 audio, is that, is that audio only? Audio and video. Okay.
Brooks Conkle:Yeah. That's what you put on YouTube and it's also Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right.
Doug Cunnington:So, and, and those are great. I've enjoy. When I started and I was inspired to do a podcast, I was like, I wanna do two shows per week. Should be fine and haven't missed a week. And then I, in the last week, even though it was recommended to me a bunch, I didn't read this book, die With Zero. Until last week. Have you read this
Brooks Conkle:already? I have heard of that book. I think I read it a while back. I need to read it again. Okay. Interesting concept. It's interesting. I hadn't thought that way. Okay. Um, But,
Doug Cunnington:okay, so I, I was like, I can, I'll just do one show per week, right? So I, okay. I recorded an episode today where I was like, I'm gonna go to one show per week and see how it goes. So I'm excited about that cuz I like reclaimed some time. And then I realized, you know, I made a great commitment. obviously I could follow through. I've published like over 430 some odd episodes. Like it's not like I'm lazy, it's just like, oh, I could do something else with a time. Maybe it's some kind of work. Maybe it's just me going and for a walk outside or taking a nap. It doesn't matter. But it's like maybe I can get more value from the time. So I'm excited about that.
Brooks Conkle:That is awesome. So again, that goes to that lifestyle and it changed even your thinking further by, by reading that book. That was zero. Let me ask this about the pod, the podcast, or which is also YouTube or whatever. Do those things have a long shelf life? Are people going way back? So now that you have a catalog of like 400 plus let's call'em episodes, even though they're video and audio. If if you just stop publish. What do you think would happen? I'm just kinda
Doug Cunnington:curious. Yeah, I think, I think it would probably sort of stabilize a little bit for a while. And then I think it would kind of just kind of trail off so, I don't get a ton of new listeners, but when people, you know, find the show audio or video, a lot of times they will go back. Now the the tough thing. Yeah. You know, when I would find a show back in the day, I literally, I would get obsessed in like smart passive income or other shows and go back. That was like 10 years ago though. Yeah. So now there's like 500 episodes. Pat's catalog or like, I have 400 and whatever episodes. So it's a bit much now it's a little like you have to compete a little bit harder and I, some people do download like all the episodes, like they'll go back cuz I still get downloads on some of the very early episodes. Yeah. And you know, it's the long tail, like it still trickles in, but I, I think if I just stopped it would. Trail off cuz there's no, there's some shows that I think have good word of mouth. Maybe they're sort of not propped up, but they're supported by like a community or a closely related forum or something, right. Where it's, it's such a good show. People share it and reference it. I don't know if mine fits in that. Generally.
Brooks Conkle:Got you, so, and maybe you hadn't thought this far ahead or it doesn't matter, but I mean, fast forward, five years from now, 10 years from now, if you're like, eh, I just don't feel like recording anymore, do you think you'd try to adjust the format or do something different, or would you just. Just let it let it be done? Or have you thought about
Doug Cunnington:that? Yeah, I would potentially, if I was still enjoying it, I would adjust the format and part of, I said it's called the Doug Show. I could, I mean, I could shift to whatever I want that, that's right. It's not as strong like branding and like if people show up, they don't know exactly what it is. But it's my, it's my show. That's right. And if I win a shift and I'm like, now this is a travel podcast. Handful of people are gonna stick around. So yeah, so I named it that way intentionally, even though it wasn't like the best name from a branding perspective. So I potentially would. You know, change the format or, record whenever I want to, when I was inspired or whatever.
Brooks Conkle:Yeah. On one hand you're saying it's not the best, you know, branding for a specific arena, and I get that. But on the other hand, you're really smart about branding it cuz you were thinking really far in advance saying, well, hey, if I want to, if I wanna pivot and adjust what I, you know, what I talk about, it gives you the ultimate flexibility. Right. That's cool, man. Okay. Alright, so that was personal and I, I like that, that, that excites you. That's, that's really neat. All right, so let's wet the appetite to people with some, with some ai. What's, what's exciting you out there? Just in general, or, or not exciting you? Maybe, maybe, maybe you're like, I'm not excited at all,
Doug Cunnington:so I, I shrugged off. the AI tools for a while and I tested them out, but they just weren't delivering what the promise was. And chat GPT came out the end of 2022 and it took me a little while to like get my head around that. But now I am actually excited because I think there's been enough iterations. The tool is a lot more mature and in my space a lot of people are, you know, just how can. write content and rank in Google, which I don't, I don't think that's gonna be a long-term solution. I don't even know if it's gonna be a short-term solution. However, if you use something like chat GPT as a tool to help you do research, or really is kind of like a general purpose AI virtual assistant, I think you could save a lot of time and maybe come up with like better ideas or refine your idea. To be better. So, quick example, I'm doing podcast on YouTube often, and maybe I know what show or what the topic should be for a show, and I kind of have an idea what I want, but I can ask for You know, a general outline for a given topic, and then ask for more detail. And I'm not gonna use all of it, but it's probably 80 to 90% usable. And then I could put in my own ideas. I'm a slow typer, so just having that typed out is a good time saving measure. And I could put in my, you know, handful of ideas and I think, you know, and I haven't even talked about What you can do as far as getting the tools to code for you some pearl or something like that, or JavaScript or whatever you need. Like there's a lot of stuff that you can do. So I am excited and that is one of the reasons why I was. Interested again in creating some YouTube videos on given topics. And you know, earlier in the conversation we mentioned like potentially you were gonna do a video on a topic that you were like, eh, and I have like, you know, 30 of those ideas and I was like, oh, I just, I need to get in there and grind and do those videos. But I'm like, I don't care that much. Yeah. So I just didn't do it. But now, I have a bunch of post-it notes on my desk where I'm like, I'm excited to do that video. Like I'm thinking about it. I wanna show people like, it's a, things that I thought up on my own. And you know, of course we, we all have like a. the places where we get the ideas from. Sure. And then marinate, combine'em with other ideas, and then you end up with like, oh, this is a little different application than what other people were doing. So I'm pretty pumped about the AI tools now. What about you? What do you Yeah,
Brooks Conkle:so I feel like I'm all in this stuff. Just like in trying to be in the know and what's going on and what's happening. I just watched this morning, I guess, an interview with the CEO of Microsoft, kind of talking about like, you know, their in, in integration with you know, with the chat with Bing and, he literally to, to quote'em, he literally said yes, Google is the 800 pound gorilla, but we look forward to making them like dance a little bit. And so I, I, I don't know, I was kind of excited about that. I was like, oh, that's, that's interesting. He, he also, he also very, very clearly sta this is what he said, but, but he very clearly stated that like, the the goal is to increase. Basically revenue for everyone. He was like, for the, for publishers, for advertisers and, you know, to make search easier and to get people off to those, you know, the publisher information. You know, I, I kind of wonder like. Kind of peppered in what he said. I kind of wonder if they're gonna somehow track where they got the information from and then reward that publisher somehow. I don't know, like it actually opened my mind though, to that being a potential of. The future. People, like literally in the last 24, 48 hours kind of raised a storm about Google's new announcement. And you know, I saw some people saying, Hey, if this is how they're gonna put out their product, and, you know, it w with AI chat, they're like, I'll be the first one to file a lawsuit. And, and I, I thought that was really interesting. I saw some people talking about that. I'm like, man, this is gonna be, this is gonna be an interesting road over the next like 12 months. Like how this stuff rolls out, how people get credit, like, you know, copyright issues and, and all that stuff. Right. So like, that's just AI in general. I'm just kinda excited about like, what, what's happening. You know, I have to remind myself that I've been using, I guess, AI for a long time, right? I mean, I've used Grammarly for some time. I mean, we've been using all, we've all probably been using Microsoft Word with a little squiggly lines that helped us auto, you know, auto correct some, some spelling and stuff. Like we've been, we've been technically using this stuff for a while. I think. I think now it just gets crazy, right? With people being able to hit a button and, and spit out. Spit out some content. But for, for me specifically, I'm, I'm kind of with you. Like I, I'm using it definitely as like a little sidekick marketing person to my side. I'm like, chat, GPT is my sidekick robot, and hey, help me come up with more creative title ideas. This is what I'm doing. Hey, you know, maybe some outlined stuff. Maybe compress some stuff down and simplify some things. and I'm also trying to, Just have a habit of even using it because you know, you have to remember to, hey, use that, use that sidekick. Right? like you may not even think to do that. Yeah. And, and one more thought is that I also have to remind myself that we are in this like top. Small percent of people that are like in this game with tools and that the bulk of the general public isn't changing a thing of how they operate. Now what does all that mean for us and our online brands and ranking stuff? I don't know, you know, exactly, but I'm definitely trying to be in the mix and be in the know And you said, you, you said something earlier, it was kinda interesting. I, I think you said it was something about people in the future, like writing, writing content, and just ranking in Google. I think you were alluding to, you thought that would, or, or, or you were saying that would be different in the future or something. Do, do
Doug Cunnington:you recall what you were, what you were saying? Oh, I think I was just, just saying like, I, I don't think, like, I don't think. AI content is gonna rank very well long term. Gotcha. I think we'll see it follow apart quick. Right. So Bing we'll have chat. G P t Google's rolling out their stuff quickly so you know if, if the search engines are publishing their own. AI content. Yeah. On the page, like then our ours is not gonna work that well. Yeah. It, yeah, and it's interesting too, you know, like you were saying, the copyright issues that we'll run into and, or, or that Google or Bing may run into in Yeah. The thing is, I would love to see like a very big disruption from Google. Like, it, it would be fantastic because I mean, usually interesting things happen. When there's a big disruptive thing, which that's what we're seeing, Google's big, right? And they have AI and they have a ton of data, but there could be issues with the lawsuits, right? And the other thing is like if Google stops sending us traffic, right? And right, let's say they stopped sending us traffic, we would just like say no to the robot, right? Like we'd no index. If we're not getting traffic from them. Anyway, I'm playing this out on like a, a very longer timeline, but imagine you're not getting traffic from Google anymore. You just say, Hey, don't index me. You can't use my content anymore for your ai, for your chatbot. So then they don't have the data anymore. So if we shut them off from the data, that's different. If they
Brooks Conkle:had the data in like chat, g p t, that's all up to like 20, 21 and they've already, they've already scraped it, if you will. I wonder what happens then, and maybe that's where some of these lawsuits come in, maybe potentially. Or people were like, yeah. Where people were like, Hey man I, I told you you can't use that and you, and you're using my content. I, I don't know how that gets proved and how all this plays out, but I, I just, I know that this is gonna happen, right? Like there's gonna be. Weird battles and lawsuits and I'm, I'm, I'm interested. Like, I, like I really am, man.
Doug Cunnington:Yeah, yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty nuts. But like I said, I would love to see some kind of disruption, you know, with Google rolling out the horrible algorithm updates over the last couple years where you get like these big swings and they're like, oh. We hate, we don't want you to publish anything. If you're trying to do it for seo, it's like, what the F? Can we cuss here? Like why? Why are we even doing anything? Like do you just wanna publish and no one come to your site? Like of course you're doing it to get traffic. Very few people are doing it as a hobby just to publish. Right,
Brooks Conkle:it's been very interesting to see the two sides of Google having those chats don't do this. But then plenty of plenty of them allowing that to happen. I guess j just in a general sense, I'm with you. Yeah. I'm totally with you. Alright, let me, lemme switch gears real quick. What is, what are some. are there any tools, are there any tools that you use on day-to-day, week to week, whatever with you, yourself, your team that you're just like, man, I can't live without these. Like, does what pops out as just being your favorite tools that you guys are using?
Doug Cunnington:Right. So I think I will preface this and say I don't think the tools matters that that much, but I can tell you what I'm using. So sure. There's alternatives to all of these, and alternatives are just fine. So Gmail is, where I funnel all of my. Email account, so it's just in one inbox and I don't have to run around too much. And the Google Cloud products, so it's like sheets and docs and whatever. Those are great to collaborate with. And then Trello, so I do, you know, all of my content management on Trello. I used this honor for a little while, but. Kind of got away from it. And I really like the, the Trello board style, the CONBON style, and it does a good job. It's easy to use. I can show my VAs how to use it in, you know, 10 minutes or so, or watch a video. And I think that's about it. You know, everything else is just, I. You know, it's fine, but I don't, I don't re I don't need too much. I like a, a pretty lean very simple
Brooks Conkle:process. Lean is good, man. Simple is good. And, and I totally agree with you. Tools don't matter. You know, if someone else is using something else, stay with that. Don't, don't like jump ship and try to use something else or whatever. But I just find it interesting to just kind of learn what other people's workflows, you know, kind of look like and kind of what, what, what stack they're working with. And who knows. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll hear of some tool or that we haven't heard of or, or something like, So,
Doug Cunnington:yeah. Yeah. And I, I have some friends that are, you know, they have used some of the, the newer tools, so like, once I locked in on Trello, I was like, this does the job. I don't have any specific pain points or problems that make me think I need to switch away. Mm-hmm. But I know there's some other like newer products where people are like, this workflow is great, blah, blah, blah. And they're, you know, I, I don't even know the names of them, but I know that there's more, there's more to it. And I. I don't, I don't have that problem. And part of it is, I mean, I, I think I was influenced a lot by Tim Ferris and I've heard him mention a lot on his show. Like he wants a lean team. I think he may have like one full-time person and then a couple VAs. And I'm like, I, I don't really want more than that generally.
Brooks Conkle:actually, which leaves me. I was kind of curious what, yeah. I'm not sure if I know what your team looks like. Yeah. So like what is, do, do you have people working with you and like what does that look like and how are you kind of structured with, with, with what you do in your projects?
Doug Cunnington:I have one virtual assistant, kind of an executive assistant, so Okay. She helps, I've like trained her over the years in a few different areas. So she does help with like inbox management, podcast production. Production as far as any of the admins, scheduling, setting up the description, thumbnails, that kind of stuff. Okay. And then I have a video editor and I've worked with that video editor for, you know, five, six years at this point. Nice. Kinda Ukraine. And she's, she's great. Found her on Upwork. Found my executive assistant on Upwork as well. Currently right now I have one other writer out of Montenegro that I was, I thought I was gonna need some additional content and some more help in various areas, but looks like I, I won't need her as much potentially. So I'm kind of like in a spot where I'm not sure if I'll have three people or just two, but. me and two other people that work like five to 10 hours a week, basically. Love it.
Brooks Conkle:Yeah. I mean, I, I love that. And that's like perfect for what you're doing and your, your, your business. I mean, that's like exactly what you need. If you were to if you were to rewind back, so let's rewind back to the beginning of when you started. So the first site, so niche site project, or I guess that was kind of the first one, would, would you do things differently? Like knowing what you know now, do you think you would operate and grow differently or do you think you would do it exactly, exactly the
Doug Cunnington:way. Yeah, good question. So the, the first couple sites that I created were, affiliate niche sites. So in both cases, I'll tell you what I would've done. So I would, I would do things differently. So for some of the early sites that I worked on that were, you know, pure affiliate sites, I would have worked on them harder and longer and just stuck with those. So as we get started, we get a little excited and maybe. You buy like 15 different domains cuz you think you're going to do something. That's it with all of'em. That's
Brooks Conkle:it. Just 15. Yeah. Yeah. That's
Doug Cunnington:what everyone does. It's like a hundred percent you can't help it. And then so I, I would've just stuck with like the one or two sites and back in those days, like, you know, from the. People I was learning from and probably the people that you were following back then too. It was what we call like gray hat link building. So it's a little riskier. Google doesn't like it. It's more susceptible to algorithm updates and penalties. And that's what everyone was doing. Pat Fly included and like, you know, all the, all the people that you followed like that was, we learned from each other and they were doing weird link building things that Google didn't like. And then, Generally we've kind of cleaned up, but the point being, if I would've stuck with just like one of those sites that was doing pretty well, I would've doubled down in a few areas that I know. Continued to work through the years, obviously, like now I know more and I just would've gone harder with that. The other thing, and I'm not sure if I would have gone podcast or YouTube, but for Niche site project, eventually I did get around to starting a podcast and YouTube. I'm not sure which one I would have like leaned into, but if I would've started, let's say the YouTube channel, Two years earlier, I had an interest in doing it. I actually have like, I think one of my first live streams was like 2014, which I think is still out there and. It was just a little bit harder back then, but I could imagine if I started and I was producing videos and really went in, doubled down like I did in 2017, if I did that in 2015, there's a good chance I'd be far ahead of the curve and I would've been able to ride a little bit of a wave as popularity in these topics go up and down. Like there was, there was a nice, there was a nice period where I probably could have. I don't know, the channel maybe could be like a hundred k bigger, like, you know, many times bigger just from being out there a little bit earlier.
Brooks Conkle:Yeah. Interesting answer. I feel like, I feel like a lot of us could, could see that, like in our, in ourselves, right? Oh, if I had put in the same effort earlier, basically is Right, right. You know, you're basically saying more consistent effort earlier in things that you didn't know at the time. Could be big, but, but they would have been big or bigger. Right. Or whatever if, if you did. No, that's, that's interesting. That's cool. Yeah.
Doug Cunnington:Yeah. And that's a tough one. I don't think about it too much cuz obviously I can't do anything about it now, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in in Hi. I mean, like I was telling you, I'm excited about like doing less. So there, there's some piece where I'm like, ah, if I would've started a little sooner, maybe I'd be like, the channel would be bigger, which is just like a vanity metric largely. But it does, I mean, once you hit certain thresholds, so if people don't know, like once you hit I think maybe like 10,000 subscribers, like more advertisers will try to find get to you to do brand deals. And I suspect, you know, when you get over 50 and over a hundred thousand, like other opportunities show up, most of them are garbage, but you can find ones that work for you if you, if you have those numbers.
Brooks Conkle:Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Is there, is there something that when you hop on and chat with someone for an interview, is there something that you wished someone would ask you but they, but they don't or they.
Doug Cunnington:Let's see. So I try to, I try like a politician. I try to force whatever it is that I wanna talk about into the conversation. So it's interesting in the, in the sort of make money online area and niche site area, people don't talk too much about the, the financial piece. So we've figured out how to make some money. You're accumulating money, what do you do with it? So, like luckily. We kind of had that problem solved. So I was happy to pull money off the table and put it into other investments and that, that was cool. That worked out well for us. And then on the other side, when I'm talking to the personal finance and financial independence crew, They often don't ask very much about the side hustle side. Sometimes they do. So it's just like kind of a blind spot. These two groups have a lot of similar values. Yeah. But a lot of times they're in opposition of each other. Like they kind of make fun of each other. Like the entrepreneurs are like, wow, those, those frugal fire people, which not everyone's frugal, but they're like, oh, those, those people, they're like eating rice and beans. And they like live in a shack and they never do anything fun. Right. And then the. Fire people are like, oh, those entrepreneurs are like wasting money on this and that. But really it's the same values. And if you look at the entrepreneurs when they're bootstrapping, they are saving money so they can reinvest in their business. Like it's the same, it's the same thing, but like they're just, they're not friends. A lot of times there's a couple overlap, but a lot of times it's just
Brooks Conkle:opposition. Interesting. Do you think do you think there's is there a good way to meld the two together? I mean, is that I don't know. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Or, or should it, they just stay separate and just it is what it is.
Doug Cunnington:I don't know. I think when people. I think it's conversations like this, so there's a handful of us that kind of bridge the gap that have interest in both areas and just making other folks aware. It's like, oh yeah, like it's actually the same value is just applied differently and implemented in a different way. Maybe the framing and the context is a little different, but like largely, It's the same thing. So the other part is I think once you get in the advanced stages of either one of those areas, you're not as dogmatic about the ideas. So you're like, oh yeah, I get that. And you're, you're. You're open to it, but when you're a beginner, you're like, oh, like those people suck. And those those other people suck. And it's really weird. People get, pretty heated about it. And I mean, really, we're all just. I'm trying to have fun. Do our best. Right.
Brooks Conkle:Yeah. The, it's, it's a good point what you said about being a beginner, cuz I've found myself doing that too as like, as things start working or whatever, I've become a little bit more lax about some of the rules that I was a bit more rigid on. Totally. So I think that's related probably to exactly what you're talking about. It's like, eh, I don't know, you just kind of come a little bit more I don't know. I'm trying to be a little bit more fluid, in all of that, so Yeah.
Doug Cunnington:And It might be the Dunning Krueger effect. Have you heard that?
Brooks Conkle:Yes. That, yes, I've heard that. What's the definition? I should know it, but I've definitely heard it.
So,
Doug Cunnington:people fact check me on this, but basically people that are beginners, they get a little bit of knowledge and they think they're really knowledgeable and Yeah. But they're really maybe intermediate, but they're beginners. Right. And they, they're overconfident. about what they know. And then as you become an expert, then you don't give yourself enough credit for how much of an expert you are, and you kinda second guess, and you're not as confident on your knowledge. And it's because right as you become an expert, you realize how much you don't know, even though you know. you may know like a, a vast amount about a specific topic area, but you know, there's so much more and there's so much nuance. So beginners are overconfident, experts are underconfident.
Brooks Conkle:Yes. Well said. That's really good. That's actually that's a perfect spot. That's a perfect spot to lead it. I'm gonna leave it there if people, if people, if you're watching this hang out, you can watch this video next. Doug enjoyed it, man. Hang around for a few minutes. We'll chat a, few seconds afterwards and see you guys soon.