Is it really possible?

Millionaires, no. But a healthy living yes!

The fact is it takes a lot of work to upkeep the ammount of sites you need to scale to in order to get that nice monthly income!

All the best,
Johnny

Jimmy, I think part of it has to do with their own personal aspirations for income and time worked (including hiring people, etc...).

Managing a bunch of affiliate sites isn't always (or often) and hands-off job entirely, and juggling more and more of them might just meet more and more crappy ones!

Do you know what I mean?

Great write up J, love the real world examples. Makes me think back to my nightmarish days in retail while I was in college.

Anything is possible, but this business as I see it is not a one dimensional business. There are far more ways to make money that take less time monitoring. I think if you have a well balanced portfolio of products, lists, videos, and on and on you will find it easier to manage. You can set a bunch of these things on auto pilot and continue to build new futures in this game. So in my opinion balanced is the way to go. If for any other reason than to avoid the pitfalls J already mentioned.

Scaling to that extent requires the right kind of individual, a solid team and business model, business savvy, as well as a careful balance of IM skill and technical expertise in the IM space. JaRyCu's brick-and-mortar analogy paints an excellent picture of some of the challenges associated with scaling. To expand upon this, I would add that scaling a venture is an age old business challenge that transcends this industry and there’s no quick and easy answer. There are personnel challenges, increased overhead costs, and higher levels of complexity as JaRyCu states, but there are also methods for managing the increased complexity, creating efficiency and productivity gains, and incenting employees and partners to care more deeply about the business and its success. Not everyone has the drive or knowledge, ability, skills and other characteristics (KASOCs) necessary to scale their business beyond that of more of a lifestyle business type. This difference sets the millionaires apart from those that don’t quite make the cut. Success hinges on a variety of factors and is the subject of countless articles, blogs, books, and case studies.


While this forum is more focused on IM, I would suggest that those looking to scale to this level supplement their IM skills with a solid understanding of traditional business fundamentals and research, including the latest scaling models and techniques spanning multiple industries. There are lots of resources available. I would suggest compiling a list of and tracking some of today’s successful industry/business thought leaders and reading some of the works of Peter Drucker, best sellers such as Good to Great by Jim Collins and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (a few of my favorites) as well as periodicals like the Harvard Business Review that have insightful articles like “Why Entrepreneurs Don't Scale" by John Hamm.


I don’t pretend to have the answer to the million dollar scale question, but there are lots of resources and great minds who can help you to find the right path to scale your IM business.

The whole system can fail at some point...

The more sites you build in your farm... the more risk you accumulate

example: Google Adsense sites network....the more sites you build for Adsense you multiple your risk of getting banned...

How do you know they don't?

If I could make a decent living off of a website, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

I don't have a niche website but I do have "my own product site". I say that because it's a larger companies product but I profit from it as if it were my own and it can be scaled to ridiculous proportions given the right mindset and catalyst. I see the potential in it's ability but finding the right group of people to help myself and others to reach that potential growth is the hurtle I find myself currently dealing with. So yes I absolutely believe the output is there but sustainability is the question with niche sites. That was my initial problem before finding a solid product that converts well.