Media Buzz Gone Viral
Crazy how buzz works, especially with the internet, anyone could get internet buzz if done right. Anyone that has something to share at least, that happens to be interesting. For example, a teenager earning 2.5 million dollars, and blowing it on toys. See, I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart, I have always been driven to do big things, and make a butt load of money. Driven would be an under statement actually, more like fucking obsessed.
Back in December 2009, I wrote a few pinnacle blogs which really raised some noise. They were:
I guess I’ll give a quick run down on how I gained some buzz, and got everything in motion. After I wrote these blogs, I posted the links to my Facebook profile, and Twitter account. That alone raised a lot of action, I mean, a ton of people from everywhere started commenting and interacting on my blog. One of my friends then suggested to Andrew Warner from Mixergy.com to interview me. You can see the video interview here if you would like, it’s one hour long. When Andrew Warner interviewed me, that gave me a lot of buzz, and a lot of traffic. His site probably sent me a good few thousand visits, 100 new subscribers/readers, and a lot of Twitter buzz/retweets. That really put a lot of things in motion for me. Fast forward to February 2010, I was flown out to Yanik Silver’s UG6 in Washington, DC to speak at the pre-day event about my story, and what I’ve learned from it all.
(This room was completely full left to right, maybe about 100 people)
Now that’s a lot of people for me, I have never spoke in front of people, I was horribly nervous. I met a lot of incredible people such as Michael Dunlop, Adam Horwitz, Yanik Silver, Neil Patel, and so on. Coincidentally, Nick Tart was actually attending the same seminar I was speaking at. Nick Tart also interviewed me for his book “What it takes to make more money than your parents.” Nick Tart then submitted my story to Businessinsider.com, which they posted on the front page, getting me a total of 60,000 views in less than 24 hours. Gawker then picked up the article and got me 95,000 views in less than 24 hours. Ninemsn.com.au then picked up the article which is bigger than both of those websites ranking on Alexa at 600. Then my story made it to the front page of Digg.com, that’s huge… BI ranking in at 1,007, and Gawker at 800. All three websites that spreaded my story, are in the top 1,000 websites, which is insanely huge, very high traffic websites. Then digg.com sitting at Alexa rank 117. So a big thanks goes out to Nick Tart!
Although the media does fail to mention all of the hard work I went through, and the years of programming it took to get where I got, to eventually earning all that money. I have been programming websites trying to make ad revenue for about 5 years till I eventually struck gold, luck or not, my constant desire is what eventually got me there. Blowing all of the money, is of course a financial mess on my part. I blame it on my impulse, and never having a father to discipline me, haha. The media also fails to mention the hard work I put in after losing everything to recover, I went through a lot to raise money for a company I am currently building. I was at the point of declaring bankruptcy, and then in the nick of time, I raised $145,000. I saw a lot of comments out there asking questions and making a lot of dumb assumptions, I figured I would answer them for you.
1. I bet his closet is full of Ed Hardy. Do I look like an Affliction UFC figher, or buff meet head? No, I actually hate loud clothing of all kinds, I wear blank white Wal-Mart V-Necks and quality pairs of denim from Nordstroms, and Converses.
2. I would have done it differently. I bet you would have, good luck with that one, when you’re 19 and run into $150k checks every month, let me know what’s on your mind at age 18, with no father to teach you anything about how to manage money. You’re mindset is completely different when you’re not even 20. I made the money before turning 19… I was very young. Which is why my book is called Young & Stupid.
3. What a gay soul patch. Well now I have a full face of facial hair + the soul patch, you’re pretty much calling a lot of men with facial hair gay, so I don’t know?
4. He got into poker and cocaine. Lost maybe 50k in poker out of the 2.5 million. And I have never done a single drug in my life. True story.
5. Should have invested his money, and lived off interest. You’re absolutely right, should of, would of, could of, but didn’t. I did make a few investments, one big investment was into a new business Drivable.com I am working on. Unfortunately I did make a big mistake of spending my money unwisely.
6. He just got lucky, no skills. This is debatable. But if you have 12 years of computer programming knowledge, a CCNA certification, an A+ certification, and the ability to work with Linux, hit me up. Because you’re absolutely right, building 30+ different websites by hand before WordPress was here to save your silly ass life, is definitely luck, not skill at all. Not trying to be cocky, but I dedicated 12 years of my life to programming, not video games, get a grip.
7. What a fag, he did the kissy face in his photo. Yet the kissy face still gets me more ass than you do.
8. He won’t make it back to the top, he just got lucky. Thanks for the encouragement, maybe you have a little envy towards me. But regardless, I will make it back to the top, and actually have already begun to climb to the top.
9. Look at all his gay photos, he wears makeup. Okay? So I got into photography, taking photos of beautiful women only makes it better. So why not get a few bad ass photos of myself. Gorgeous women keep reminding me how awesome bad ass photos are too, so I keep taking them. I don’t wear makeup regularly, just for photo shoots. Not to mention, it seems to get you laid.
Now for those of you who were respectful about me sharing my deep dark secrets, thank you! Hah, I am not trying to argue with the haters, there will always be haters, but I did want to just hit some points so people knew. And for all the grammar doctors out there, I did not proofread this, not even once, nor do I care. It’s a blog, not a book. I don’t hand investors/attorneys/executives/partners my blog for them to decide on business deals with me. This blog is to share my story and how I got there, with the world.
If you have any questions, or are curious about anything, just post it in a comment below, and I will answer it. If anyone wants me to post a blog on anything they would like to know or learn in general, let me know, and I will try my best to cover it.
Thanks everyone, and subscribe!
PS. Here are all of the articles on the web:
1. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-typical-a-teen-entrepreneur-makes-25mm-by-age-21-and-blows-it-all-by-22-2010-10
2. http://gawker.com/5664199/how-to-earn-and-blow-25-million-before-your-22nd-birthday?skyline=true&s=i
3. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8106684/myspace-millionaire-blows-fortune-in-one-year
4. http://hoodhollywood.com/blog/2010/10/15/meet-andrew-fashion-he-was-young-stupid/
5. http://www.thelifefiles.com/2010/10/15/meet-andrew-fashion-hes-young-stupid/
6. http://juniorbiz.com/interview-andrew-fashion
7. http://mixergy.com/andrew-fashion/
8. http://www.andrewfashion.com/2009/12/11/my-video-interview-on-mixergy/
9. http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2010/01/14/andrew-fashion/
10. http://digg.com/news/business/how_to_earn_and_blow_2_5_million_before_your_22nd_birthday
11. http://venturemixx.com/2010/03/how-i-made-and-lost-2-5-million-dollars-with-andrew-thompson/
12. http://current.com/technology/92726070_how-to-earn-and-blow-2-5-million-before-your-22nd-birthday.htm?xid=RSSfeed
13. http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/8142136/riches-to-rags-for-young-web-entrepreneur/
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I really like your blog and your drive. Whenever I read it, I’m always reminded of my favorite Kanye West lyric from “Bring Me Down”:
You see, if you ever wanted to ever be anything
There’d always be somebody that shoot down any dream
There’ll always be haters, that’s the way it is
Hater niggas marry hater bitches and have hater kids
But they’re gonna have to take my life ‘fore they take my drive
’cause when I was barely living, that’s what kept me alive
Keep up the good work! The grind continues!
Thanks man!
Dear Andrew,
I don’t thinking having a father would make a lot of difference for you. I went through the same thing after high school. I got a scholarship of about $7,000 and I spend so much that later I found myself nearly $7,000 in debt. I guess I’m luckier than you in that sense.
It’s financial education that will solve your problem. The school system doesn’t teach it. They will help you pass a test at school, but can’t help you pass the test of life. That’s why I quit college. Why would I invest time and money in something that will not help me survive, like a college degree. It’s hard to find job when thousands of people graduate the same year, wanting the same job.
There’s only one degree that is needed in today’s economy, Business Owner. To bad this degree is not obtainable in school. These are the people who offer jobs.
Absolutely true, I’ve read about 5 – 7 of the Rich Dad books, and that is very true. I just think if I was raised with a little more discipline, it would of helped.
If you were raised with more discipline, you wouldn’t have made that $2.5million. And you definitely wouldn’t be on this Millionaire path.
That’s probably true, I wouldn’t have dropped out to go my own way and build websites. And I most definitely would not be as stubborn as I am
I think you are disciplined and that’s why you were able to survive on your own at such a young age. The not so discipline kids are smoking weed down in their parents basement. At least that’s how I feel.
And what does discipline mean anyway. Does it mean your parents taking care of everything for you then one day you have to venture into life not knowing shit.
It’s survival of the fittest everywhere, but in the human society we can’t kill each other for space and food like in the jungle so we have to learn financial education. And the lack of financial education is one of the many reasons why people got their home taken away.
Touché, very well put, and so very true!
Kids drinking their lives away, drinking and driving, smoking pot, doing nothing with their lives, except attending school, and thinking that makes up for everything. School doesn’t get you shit in todays society to be honest. Okay maybe that’s a little rough, school does make intelligent people, who then have to work their asses of 40-60 hours a week working for someone else, and teaches them nothing about financial education.
Gotta love the women in fashion! No brainer way to have a lot of fun FOR SURE!
Best,
Sam
The Yakezie
Absolutely.
I agree with you on the discipline standpoint. Back in our Whoring days you developed into a cocky little mofo, and I remember the point where I realized you’d begun to believe your own hype. When I found out you’d blown all your money it wasn’t much of a surprise. I wish I’d said something way sooner, bro. If you ever feel like you’re about to make another extremely stupid/immature mistake hit me up, I’ll fly in and paddle that ass. I shouldve done it in ’05/’06…
I also do editing. =}
I don’t know who you are, back in our whoring days, but I never was a cocky mofo, I just got busy. Hundreds of people were asking me for help, and this, and that, so it was hard to please everybody. Eventually I stopped replying to people on AIM, but I have always been a nice person. Always.
But thank you! And sorry if you took it the wrong way!
I wish I had been there to tell you about the importance of SEO, both on-site and link building. If you had asked for advice on your proposed site changes back then, I probably would have yelled at you.
Yup, you know how many people were there, but everyone failed to mention the 301 redirects, I just didn’t know.
At first i was skeptical but then i thought that your story is believable. Like other people i used to blew a lot of money when i young but not as much as yours so i really understand how it feels to grow back.
Fellow whore. I remember you asking me for advice when your FC was low, and blowing me and others off when it was high. Thus my impression. If it was wrong, that’d make me glad.
Finally got to see The Social Network today, and it reminded me off all fervor of the first year of MySpace. When they kept refreshing to get to their first million… that was us waiting for that first 10K… then 100K… then you refreshing your bank account for your first $100K lol.
You’re a talented kid, Andrew, and I hope you find success a second time, and then some more. But no excuses this time… the minute you catch yourself fcking up hit me up, and I’ll be up there ready to bust that ass and keep you from fcking up all the way. =P
Haha, I will be sure to hit you up! Stay in touch.
No doubt.
Email = messedupbutfixingit@gmail.com
Stay up.
Another awesome post! I admire your drive and ambition.