Hi, my name's Roderick, but on the internet, I usually go by my middle name, “Nathaniell”.
I'm an internet marketer, and One More Cup of Coffee is a website where I teach people how to start an online business and make money from home.
I wasn't always an internet marketer; in fact, I've done quite a few different jobs over the years.
Internet marketing was just the career path that ‘clicked' for me, mostly because I could do it from the comfort of my own home and according to my own schedule.
But let's start a bit further back; if you're going to get to know me, you should know a bit about where I'm from and what I've done.
People always ask me…
They say, “Well, you got started in 2010. Did I miss the gravy train? I'm sure there's too much competition now, so I'd never stand a chance!”
But the funny thing is that it's easier than ever to make money online. Why? There's two simple reasons:
- More products are being sold online now. People are shifting more and more of their shopping habits to the online world and that just wasn't the case even 5-10 years ago. Even small businesses and grocery stores are selling their products on the internet!
- There are more tools to make starting your business easier. Before, you had to code everything in HTML and be internet savvy. Now, there's tools to automate everything. Thousands of people have made the journey before, and you can use their wisdom to make your path easier.
It's kind of like traveling. In the past, you had to take a ship and spend weeks on the ocean to reach far-off places. Once there, you had to make your own adventure! Now, You can reach any destination in the world within 24 hours. There a guidebook for every country in every language, and there are smartphone apps for instant translation to your native language.
Just look at the success stories from the first half of 2018. One person made $4,550 by their 7th month of online marketing. Another made $489 in a single day, and yet another sold their blog for $30,000 profit!
From 2017 you can see that there are people with websites less than 1-2 years old earning $500-$8698 per month. One person even posted about how they had to evacuate during Hurricane Harvey, but their business kept making money in the meantime.
I grew up in California, but left soon after graduating high school to travel in Europe. I was completely bored in the US and wanted to see the world. At the time, I had a friend living in Prague, so used her house as my “home base” between trips. When I needed money or had some down-time, I freelanced as an English teacher.
Eventually I landed a pretty sweet job as a kindergarten teacher, so I was officially getting paid to play duck-duck-goose and hide-and-seek for a few hours a day.
After a few years doing that, I broadened my horizons and set my sights on China. I wanted to learn Mandarin and start the next chapter in my travels.
China was wild. I made tons of friends, traveled all over the country, and became fluent in Mandarin.
But after being in China for a while, I began thinking about my future. It had been ten years since I left the US. I was having a blast traveling, but I had no job security and saving any money very difficult working for low wages.
So I hatched a crazy plan to make US dollars while working in China. I wanted to start an internet based business so that I could work on my computer in China but earn US money. Even just $30 per day was basically a full time income in China.
I made many mistakes along the way. I wasted time taking surveys. Then I joined a pyramid scheme. One time I stayed up until 4AM to watch an educational webinar that turned out to be a total scam.
It took me about six months of fumbling around: browsing around different sites, joining tons of mailing lists, watching hours of promotional videos, and following my share of purported “gurus” before I came across Wealthy Affiliate.
They were the legit online training center I was looking for. After three months of training I had made my first sale through my website. Six months after that I was generating regular sales. After a total of eighteen months working on my website I was earning over $10,000 per month so I quit my job in China and bought plane ticket back to the USA.
By 2013 I owned my own home, a brand new truck, and a motorcycle!
I was actually making money online!
So it's 2018 now, I've returned to the US, and work full time as an internet marketer. I've been running my online business full time for 5 years now.
I've got a couple sites, but what I really enjoy doing is helping people make money online. The website you're looking at right now is my passion.
One More Cup of Coffee is about helping YOU.
After being in this industry for about 7 years now, I've seen hundreds of scams, misleading offers, and hyped sales pages claiming that you can make lots of money fast with a “secret system”. It's all a load of BS.
Making money online is possible, but it takes work. Looking at the big picture, two years is not a lot of time to turn a website into a six figure business, but it can seem like a long time when you're grinding out content day after day.
I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I wasted time, money, and energy over the years. But I also learned a lot during the process!
Now I want to share my knowledge with you and help you start earning money on the internet, through your own website.
- You pick the topic
- You pick the products
- You write the content
- You reap the rewards
I created a free starter course that you can join that is designed specifically for newbies looking to start making money online. I've taken out all the hype and scam tactics that gurus use, and explained the concepts of how I make money on the internet through my websites (I own several now)
You can join the free course below. It includes a free membership account to Wealthy Affiliate, the same place where I got started in 2010. They've updated the training since then of course, so you'll get access to the updated modules for 2017.
By signing up you get a combination of information – the free training inside Wealthy Affiliate, plus my personal insights and tips via email.
If you have any questions or comments about me, my business, or online business you can leave a comment below! I check these weekly, so will get back to you ASAP.
PS. Here's a picture of my new Boston Terrier puppy, Rustin! Points if you can guess where that name is from LOL.
I was curious about you and others and what you do about health insurance.
I am a realtor with no health coverage and that’s a problem.
So I think about trying your product to help me start a “at home” business and then it hits me “same problem” NO medical benefits! 😳 Lol
As an online marketer, you can buy your own health insurance, of course. It’s not as good as a deal as some jobs that have excellent health coverage, but it just depends on what you want to pay for.
Hi Nathaniell ,
My name is Ejaz and i am a passionate essential oil trader, I was going through your article and found it very interesting. I am a manufacturer, trader and exporter of essential oils. Specially pure steam distilled essential oils from India. We are launching our product lines under the name of ‘Aromary’ by the end of this month. What online market place would you recommend and how can affiliate marketing help me when i am operating from India.
Since you’re launching your own product, I’d just create an ecommerce website and do advertisements through Adwords. Amazon and Etsy are also options!
I have a very limited idea about what affiliate marketing is,but I would very much like to learn how to do it. I am older American, not very tech savvy and could not sell a glass of ice water to a man stuck in Death Valley for 3 days. Please tell where is the best place to learn how to do affiliate marketing. I am not interested in selling my own product, I want to promote other vendors’ products.
My recommendations are on this page Pat! It will take some practice writing and gaining confidence if you want to be successful though. You can’t go into starting a business believing that you’ll be bad at it!
Good luck to you.
I, too, work at home and start after 8am, making well over 6 figures. I’m not rich by any means but have the money and time to enjoy life.
I do think seeking a product in the same article as downgrading others puts off most readers with the education and means to engage. But, if you are making it work and and live with it, do your thing, Nat.
Best wishes!
JM
I don’t get why it bugs you so much that I think MLM is a scam and Optavia (specifically) isn’t a great way to make money.
Hi Nate.. My life in corporate is suffocating me to death.. precisely coz of the protocols and decorum that are required to follow.. I cannot wake up, and before even feeling good about a fresh start with a new day, I start panicking about what could go wrong at work today, and how much will I be scolded for it.. Help me fix my life, plz.. I had always dreamt of becoming a writer.. got to live my dream for a short while, but then there also I was stuck in SEO and all..
I can’t deal with 10-7 job anymore.. Plz suggest me something.. in terms of mood upliftment at my present job until I quit.. and how to go about or where all to look for remote writing opportunities.. Would really appreciate ur help..
I can’t comment on the mood stuff, but I do know that if you want to escape your corporate job, affiliate marketing works for a lot of people!
Hi Nathaniell:
I’ve had my website out for almost 2 years and I blog every 7-14 days on weight-loss, health and wellness. I am a Certified Nutrition Educator and Health Coach with (I think) an awesome program I sell on my site….18-DAYS TO MASTER THE ‘FREEDOM’ OF INTUITIVE EATING, with a 7 week bonus series that definitely helps people lose weight naturally. When the program is purchased, the buyer also receives ‘free’ online (weight-loss) coaching from me. The program is integrated within my website and with a password and a $29 purchase they can start the program immediately.
I paid an SEO tech to set me up with Google and other search engine sites to help get me out there and noticed, and it’s working, but very, very slowly. Unless I advertise on Pinterest (for FB sucked) to boost the viewing of my posts, they only get read by about 30 people a month. I know, OUCH!
So, I’d like to drive traffic to my website, but I’m not quite sure how to do that checking the keyword searches on Google, like one of the ways you explained. Do you, for a fee (hopefully not too high) help people do this? Because I agree with you social media isn’t working that well and I am wasting my money.
Please check out my website when you have a chance, so you can get an idea of what I’m about.
Any advice would be great!
Thanks, Dyan
I’m glad your SEO guy is getting you results! I don’t do any consulting right now. I’m just super busy running this website, plus my own side projects to test and see what results I can get from them. I don’t see much results from Social Media either, but lots of people do. Just depends on the strategy you prefer. I like writing/producing content and getting organize search results for passive income!
Hi Nathaniell,
Just wanted to update you on outdated information displayed here: https://onemorecupof-coffee.com/naga-ico-review-investment-trading-underbanked/
Best,
Svenja
Thanks. I updated it.
Hi there Nathaniell! I was searching about “scamxposer reviewer” sites. Unfortunately I found out that they just actually promoting a scam affiliate programs and not actually giving a real review about it. And I was on my way to purchase some products reviewed coming from “scamxposer” called “evergreen wealth formula” which is one of their latest “Top 5 Recommended Programs” Now I feel doubt about it. I don’t know if should I joined them or not. But programs offers great tutorials about how to become and succeed on Affiliate Marketing – specially every step-by-step training on them includes a video tutorial and its break down into chunks-by-chunks so that anyone, specially newbie on Affiliate Marketing can understand. For your case Nathaniell can you give me some reviews about “evergreen wealth formula” or can you create one. Other than, do you have any good alternative affiliate programs that I can replace with Wealthy Affiliate for now. Although I had a day job right now, but $49/month is much for me. I’d only work here as a janitor and my salary isn’t enough for me. I barely save enough money. I just wanna find some affiliate programs that I can join with but with one-time payment only. I hope there’s good one.
Thanks and have a good day! 🙂
Affiliate programs are free to join – do you mean a recommended training guide that’s only a one time payment? Unfortunately, I don’t have a great one right now. There was an good one I used to promote, but it’s no longer for sale. There’s another one that’s also good, but it’s about $5k+ to join (one time fee), so that’s probably not an option for you either.
The thing is, for continued support in building your business, it really does take a lot of resources, hence the monthly fee to join Wealthy Affiliate.
Most other “one time fee” guides are simply a cheap program to get you on an email list, so they can market junk to you privately via emails. Anything that’s “good” for a one time fee will likely be at least $97, up to $497 and beyond. Anything under $20 for a PDF guide probably won’t do much but let you know some basic concepts, the same stuff you get on my website for free.
Hi Nathaniell,
I am a newbie on Wealthy Affiliate, i just made my account and i don’t know where to begin.
But i have a proposition for you. Where can i talk to you more private? . Do you have an gmail account, or facebook?
A “proposition” sounds scary Adrian! Lots of people ask me to fund their accounts until they make money, or to profit share in some way. Unfortunately, these are not options! I also don’t do private mentorships. I’d love to, but I just have no time for it considering I also work on a couple other websites on the side.
However, I’m happy to help you find out how to get started within the WA training and answer any questions you have. Just message me inside WA or here on my website.
Just a quick FYI though, if you click the green “Get Started Here” button inside WA, you’ll be taken to the first lesson. You can also ask in live chat, and someone can post a link for you.
Ok, i understand, i will ask a different question then: who can i make a constant of only 300$ a month – thats the minimum salary in my country – it doesn’t have to be on “wealthyaffiliate” – and i will give you a % from those 300$ for helping me. I am very serious. I tried to make this money on Fiverr but its hard.
Thank.
Starting a business is not like starting a job. There’s no minimum or maximum salary. It’s what you put into the business. Some folks earn tons online, others nothing.
Hello, Nath, thank you for Amazon FBA training courses article.
Well, there is something wrong with your affiliate links.
I followed the link to buy PAC and i’ve got “error – server responce time exceeded”.
This lasts for two days yet.
Which page? I checked my review, and the links are working. It could have been a browser issue, or it could be that you’re talking about a different page and I made the link incorrectly.
Hey Nathathaniell! Great article!
Just one question, is 1000-2000 words enough for each article, because I heard that today you need to write at least 3000-5000 words if you want to succeed with ranking in google??
I would like to hear your honest opinion! Thank you!
There’s no specific rule that says how much. For a super low competition phrase, 500 words is enough. For a super competitive phrase, 5,000 words is just a starting point, and then you need to market the article through social media, as well as gain the “votes” (links) from your peers in the space. I target 1000-2000 words as just an average word count to cover most general topics.
Do you have any thoughts on the Amazing Selling Machine? They look pretty turn key and sharp to me.
There’s certainly nothing “Turn Key” about their business model, but they are a very popular product. Though the product is super expensive, Amazing Selling Machine receives very few refunds, so I assume that means people are happy with it. It has launched and relaunched several times over the past years, and I’ve never received a comment from an unhappy customer or from someone calling it a scam, even 1-2 years after publishing my content about their service.
That being said, you WILL HAVE TO WORK to get your business running! No business will build itself, no matter how hard the sales page tries to imply that.
Hi Nathaniell
I am quite inspired by your journey of making money online. This is very kind of you sharing your thoughts and real experiences over here that can actually help thousands of people who want to get into this.
In your strategy you have mentioned to “Pick a topic”. I understand this point, but my query is, “if an affiliate program has to do with writing and promoting other’s products, how it is possible to stick to one point and writing in different ways to attract traffic?”
There are thousands of products to promote, how to guide the domain name, and marketing strategy that is not specific to one topic?
Your input will be really helpful for me to understand this and may be start something on my own.
Thanks
I’m not sure I understand your questions Vinika.
When writing and article, the way you make money is by delivering information. Sometimes that information has to do with a product. So if your topic is how to cook pizza in the backyard, you can write an article about building a pizza oven. The tools you need to build the oven can be purchased online, so you can link to them, and make a commission from those sales. The same works for any topic, including health, dating, and any hobbies you can think of.
Does that answer your question?
Wow, Nathaniel after 18 months your were making 10k per month.
Was that through amazon.
During the 18 months how many articles did you add,
right now I am adding 3 per week.
I’m on my 3rd month.
thanks.
That wasn’t through Amazon, it was through a different affiliate program. I started earning a little bit after six months, and then income kind of exploded after a year. Actually, it dipped way below 10k a few months later (that’s a long story about bad SEO), but then I brought it back up. The whole thing was a multi-year learning process, but I’m glad I went through the journey and came run this website.
Considering how “average” I am, it’s really exciting to see that pretty much anyone can repeat what I’ve done, with their own websites, with their own interests.
Great article Nathaniel! Two years now researching ecommerce and time to push the button. ImLooking for affiliate advertsing and or amazon affiliate lane. Do you recommend start from scratch or Flippa or leap into web broker listings from a practical not financial sense?
Take care
Kevin
I’d start from scratch if you are just learning. That way you can learn the basics, and understand how things work before spending money on buying a business! That way you can properly assess the value of what you’re buying.
Cool story! Just out of curiosity, what is your other website?
I have a bunch of websites. The main one I use for examples to show is xbrewx.com. I have some other ones that I don’t share for privacy reasons though! I do share some within the context of my email list, or other more private areas so they are not 100% shared with the public. People like to copy stuff, especially if they know it’s profitable.
Can someone sign up with you or do you just refer people to WA?
I don’t run my own program – I refer people to WA. They have an incredible team, program, and system there that I simply could not do better than. Why try to recreate what they have, and do a worse job, when I could just refer people there and help them out as they go through the Wealthy Affiliate Training? That’s my thinking!
I can focus on my own sites, and make sure that people landing on One More Cup of Coffee get the best affiliate marketing training for their money. You WILL get access to me as a WA member that signs up through my link!
Hi Nathaniell,
It has been interesting reading your article and replies. I am looking into starting an Amazon business and looking into drop shipping. If you could recommend two courses for beginners to do which ones would they be? And any books you can recommend? My friend and I have both left our jobs and putting all of our focus on selling online. We would like to do as much research using the best tools available.
I value your opinion and look forward to hearing from you.
Kindest Regards
Laura
Is there a reason you decided on drop shipping? I think a lot of people gravitate towards that because it sounds “easy”, but just keep in mind that it will be just as difficult as any other business out there. I think the best option for learning how to build an Amazon business based around Physical products is going to be Proven Amazon Course. They have many methods of sourcing products available in their training, including drop shipping!
I want to do something similar to you, writing blogs and advertising, etc. But almost everyone who does this it seems is also trying to sell some subscription to some class on how to build your own business, build your own website, etc. Since all this information is essentially given to free through youtube and other blogs, I do not want to become a “guru” so to speak or a “mentor”.
Is it possible for me to do what you do but without having to make up a class and all that stuff? Or is that where you get most of your money? Because there’s like hundreds of people selling their expertise online doing a “course that will teach you how to make money without working a 9-5”. My question is how do I know you’re better than any of the other ones, and why do you do it? Do you genuinely want to teach people how to make money through online businesses, or are you monetizing your viewers to gain extra income?
I don’t mean to call you out but I genuinely am interested. If you do not want to respond publicly, an e-mail would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
I think what you are seeing is a lot of people that had success with their own websites, and are now teaching others to do the same. People who were successful at this enjoy it, and want to share their experiences with others. At least, that story is applicable to me. There are a certain amount of “fake gurus”, but many are legit people who just enjoy what they do.
Picture this – you build a great website on a topic you love, and it’s a big success. Now you’ve automated a lot of aspects of your business, and are looking to start a new website. Will you start ANOTHER hobby website, or will you start a website showing people how to replicate your results? There are a lot of high paying affiliate programs in this space, and a lot of opportunities to start your own web-related services. So, many people choose to go the path I have, which is to start a new website on the topic of building online businesses.
You don’t have to go that route though! Most people do not get into the “internet marketing” space. However, you don’t hear about them because they don’t have a website talking about it!
Hi Nathaniell,
I am a newbie starting an affiliate website with a moderate knowledge in general. I found your website while searching for a good looking, fast and useful Amazon Affiliate theme. The Ultimate Azon really seems a very good choice; thanks for your very detailed review.
I want to ask you about one point that I need to work on. My English is enough to understand most of the written things but producing an attractive article is my low side. Hiring someone from fiverr or else is a choice and I think I will do but my question is the best strategy on how to do a to the point keyword search. For example my niche is on healthcare and I have some subniches. This is not my field of study and I don’t have great knowledge but as an evergreen niche category, I chose it. How should I start the journey successfully. While I am stiil in the beginning nd don’t wan’t to make mistakes, your thoughts are really valuable for me to draw my affiliate road map.
One other point is yesterday I read a very long reddit. The person who is actively doing this job made me a bit disappointed as half of the plugins or programmes he has been using need a good use of coding and computing and many of the plugings he is using are paid. Is this really done only this amount of knowledge and a good budget to set up a working system or still I can do with my limited knowledge and budget.
Thanks & Regards
to make money, you really need good content. You need to write a compelling story about a product, or at least some kind of information they want to read. Yes, some people are able to build large, profitable website with trashy content from Fiverr, but the longevity of such sites is usually very short. They build them up, flip them, then let them go.
Yes, you can outsource, but in my experience, you usually need to pay more money that $5 per $500 words!
I’d pick a subject you are interested in, write to the best of your ability, then hire an editor, You can usually get one for $10-$25 per hour, even as a native speaker. If they are good at what they do and your English is pretty good, then they can usually do a couple articles in an hour. That might cost you $25-$50 per week instead of $25-$50 per article!
Nathanial, I really appreciate your straight forward approach and honesty with starting a business. I have for over 20 years tried various marketing online and network marketing programs only to lose thousands of dollars in the process of supporting them. I will admit I learned a lot about each company, sales and how to recognize their key words. I would very much like to start a home based business using the online community. I am just very skeptical of the online opportunities.
I would like to get some more information on the programs you have mentioned. Who knows! LOL I may become successful yet.
Awesome Debbie, thanks for the comment!
Love your site. Considering getting back in the direct selling MLM again. I have an extensive sales marketing and management background. I just became a single mom of my 12 year old daughter and I’m 51. We are living with my parents. I took a break from a corporate job to take care of my daughter with all her busy activities. Looking again however love the flexibility of mlm but concerned with a steady income. Any suggestions? I do love anything with wellness and empowering women. I did so Avon 9 years ago and did well however the income was not steady and not enough to live on our own. We live in Southern California. Thank you for your time.
Personally, I rarely recommend MLM companies. There’s just too much deception, pressure, and misinformation in the industry. I’d say invest your time in building a profitable website that you can earn from, and take FULL ownership of. Eventually, you can even sell this business for a profit. With MLM, the “passive” side of income can be overhyped, especially if you are not running your team effective, and you still have to follow the rules of MLM.
Network Marketing distributors like to call themselves “independent business owners”, but they are really just sales people for a specific company. Have you ever tried to host a party with multiple company’s products at the same time? I’d be willing to be that violates some policies of the companies because I’ve heard of big name MLMers getting banned and earnings revoked for doing a similar thing on their YouTube channel!
I just quit my job last summer due to the expensive daycare and to stay focus with my younger son who has processing problem. I wanted to work while my kids are at school 9am-5pm. I need to earn pay off my debts and support my family together with my husband. A lot of marketers also asked me to do online business by investing money. However I don’t have excess money to do that. I don’t even know What online business that I can do. I used to be a medical and administrative secretary at office and hospital, I also do Cantonese TranslatIon and Interpretion at work. I’m interested to be a voice over actrist but no experience. What is your advise?? Can you give me some suggestions and help how can I start as soon as possible to earn money??
For pay-by-the-hour work, I suggest UpWork.com. That’s a freelancer-for-hire website that a lot of people and businesses like myself use to find online workers to complete tasks for us. Starting an online business for yourself isn’t free, but it can be cheap. At the very least you have to pay for hosting and a domain, which is about $100 per year for bare bones stuff. Many people succeed with just that. Considering WA training is $49/month and includes hosting, you’ll spend about $400/year for your first year of business operation, which includes training…and that’s wayyyyyyy cheaper than starting any kind of brick and mortar business or at-home-business that requires you to purchase inventory!
Hi Nathaniell, just read through your website and I find it really refreshing.
A question I would like to ask you is, is it possible to join your free starter course without joining Wealthy Affiliate as I do have a Membership with them already, its just I haven`t worked on it for quite a while, but now is my time to get back onto it,
Hope you don`t mind the question.
If you already did the free membership, it won’t be possible to do it again. You’d need to join at the regular price.
Hope this helps Stephen!
Hi Nathaniell,
Firstly, would like to commend that your blog posts are very inspiring.
May i ask if i were to join the free starter membership, can i still be able to make money?
Awaiting for your favourable reply.
Thanks & best regards,
Cheryl
Yes, you can make money on a free starter membership, but it’s more difficult considering you only have access to the support system WA provides for 7 days. Typically, the most successful members are the paying once, since they get daily access to all of Wealthy Affiliate, including live chat, private messages, and the classroom question area.
Hi Nathaniell,I’m interested in joining Wealthy Affiliate.Can you tell me if WA will offer Black Friday membership of $299.00 for 2017?
Yes, the Black Friday deal is coming up soon!
Hi Nathaniell,
I am 65 years old and I would love to start my online site/blog writing about what I love and it is my passion, food. I work online for a company but I need to make more money and enjoy what I do, I can write about my passion. I want to be free to work on my own and make a decent amount of money to live comfortably. I am going to start with WA using their free lessons and take it from there.
Thank you so much for your time here answering our questions.
Awesome. Starting a food blog can definitely be profitable!
Hi Nathaniell
I am a Premium member of Wealthy Affiliate and I am going through the training step by step. I am on the second level of training now but I need to ask you a question about writing content. I have found a good keyword to build content around but I don’t have enough knowledge about the topic to write 6 paragraphs. Would you suggest looking at other related Blogs and paraphrasing their content or is there another process you would go through? Can you suggest any other alternatives? Any help you can give me would be much appreciated.
You should definitely do your research! I can’t recommend “rewriting” the content, but if you paraphrase in the sense that you read, understand, then write your own thoughts, then yes, that’s totally fine to do. 1,000 words should be your target word count for an article!