Interview with Graham from Entrecard
I told you guys that i wanted to start up an interview section on my blog. I have a lot of interviews lined up but i welcome any suggestions or requests. If you want me to interview anyone in particular, i’ll try to set that up for you all. To launch my first interview, i wanted to showcase a guy who is lighting up blog marketing. Graham from Entrecard is flying high right now with a site that is becoming a million dollar sensation. I learned a few things doing this interview and i found it to be inspiring and honest. Thanks Graham for a quick replay to my interview questions and i wish you continued success in your internet ventures.
What’s your age, sex, and location?
I am 22 years old, male, based in Boston.
How many uniques does entrecard get on a daily basis?
The Entrecard.com site is getting about 7000 uniques daily. The widget network, however, does a million daily impressions to far more uniques.
Do you plan on selling entrecard? How much do you think entrecard could fetch if it were sold right now?
I have no plans to sell Entrecard. I want to grow it into an enormous website. When you think of operating the currency of the blogosphere, the possibilities are mind-numbing, and I would never want to sell myself short by jumping ship for a little cash.
We are taking on an investor, with a valuation of $750,000. The after-money valuation, as they call it, is $860,000. I predict in a years time it will be well into the millions.
You were the wonder marketer who sold over $100,000 worth of wikipages. It’s obviously a dead fad now and some might consider it a waste of money. How many people wanted refunds for the wikipages they bought? Did you give them a refund?
Hardly anyone wanted a refund. I think most people understood that it was an all-sales-final type of thing. I mean, you can’t purchase an ad in a magazine and then demand a refund from Wired because it didn’t bring as much traffic as you thought you know? Although, we did issue a ton of refunds to people who attempted to purchase pornographic or trademarked names. When you consider that bidding for keywords like “make money online” costs you about $5 per click with Google Adwords, people who bought these popular keywords for $100 and own them for life have found value in the purchase.
The Million Dollar Wiki, however, has been acquired by NamePros.com, and under the agreement they are going to promote it heavily and send lots of traffic to it. It’s unfortunate that I became obsessed with Entrecard and put Million Dollar Wiki to the side, but I did find the best possible person to take it over.
A lot of people copied your milliondollar wiki site. Care to comment on copycat webmasters?
Yes, if you can, do something so complex that people cannot copy it! That way, by the time the big boys are copying it, chances are your site is already worth a least a million bucks. I actually got fed up with MDW copycats, and it became a motivating factor behind Entrecard. A million wiki sites popped up because the barrier to entry was low. Just plug and play with a Media Wiki install really. So I decided to focus on Entrecard, because you’d be hard pressed to find the money and a developer who can put something like that together!
But, you do safeguard yourself a bit from copycats by being the first and entering the market with a splash. Also, maintaining positive working relationships with people thwarts copycats. When I talked John Chow down, into a lower commission per sale, he immediately started promoting Million Euro Wiki instead! Had I not attempted to negotiate a lower payout to Chow, Wiki would have flew higher for longer.
You attended web conventions? Do you think it’s worth the price of admissions? Honestly, do you think it’s worth it for the average blogger to attend this things?
I attended the Blog World Expo in November and I have mixed feelings about it. On the positive side, you meet a lot of people you wouldn’t otherwise meet. Anyone who takes themselves seriously in the industry goes to the expos and conventions, and Blog World is intimate and small enough that you’re going to meet everyone there and really have some great conversations and connections with people.
Exhibiting at a the convention costs an exhorbinant amount of money. We’re talking $400 to rent a table, $300 to roll down a carpet, $2500+ for the smallest booth they have, on top of promotional material, plane tickets, hotels, t shirts to hand out, etc. So, unless you have a war chest of cash, exhibiting at an expo just isn’t worth it. It won’t do much for you, but you’ll make a ton of personal connections.
I’ve seen you advertise on so called A-list blogs? Do you also advertise on small no name blogs? Would you?
When I first started out, I experimented a lot with smaller blogs. I think a blog has to have about 1000 subscribers before I consider advertising with them. However, I will say this. Getting a positive reviews is 1000 times more effective than any sort of banner advertisement you can put on a blog.
I recently signed up for project wonderful because i saw the widget on entrecard. Is that your site? Are you a partner of that site? How much does entrecard make with PW?
I am not affiliated with Project Wonderful in any way, though if I had a few million they would certainly be an attractive acquisition. We make a little bit of money with them, but nothing to brag about.
Besides milliondollarwiki and entrecard, what other projects have you worked on, or am working on now?
Entrecard is my sole project. Its funny too, because usually I’m working on a million things at once. But Entrecard has become so fun and interesting to work with that I’ve put everything else on the sideline.
Except one thing. I’m writing a book: Power Brokers of the Blogosphere. I have a publisher, and you should see it on shelves by the end of 2008.
How much did you spend to launch entrecard? Developer fees, advertising, hosting, admin?
To get to launch it was just under $5,000. The Blog World Expo ran up about an $8000 bill, and we’re burning through about $7500 in cash per month right now. Thankfully, we have an investor and we can start increasing our promotion 
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BloggerNoob is all about
February 25th, 2008 at 1:24 am
great interview! i didn’t realize entrecard could be worth so much.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:40 am
nice interview! entrecard really works for me!
February 25th, 2008 at 2:17 am
designbycha- thanks. me neither. if i was graham, i’d be very excited.
narendra- me too. my bounce rate get out of wack when i advertize on a hot entrecard blog, but i welcome the visit, even if it’s just for a second.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:29 am
*kudos* Noob!
February 25th, 2008 at 2:45 am
That’s an awesome interview! Cool to see where and how Entrecard started out.
I’m actually pretty surprised at how “simple” it seems to have been to launch. I’m sure Graham has some really strong tech knowledge, but just $5000 to launch, I’m impressed!
Very inspiring too! I’m 22, but I don’t have an “Entrecard” of my own (yet ^^) hahaha I’ve got a LOT of work to do!!
February 25th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Well done Noob. Good read which should be of much interest to many people in the blogging community. We believe Entrecard provides a valuable service for new bloggers. We do wonder if Google Adsense will eventually come down on the users like they have on other traffic exchange sites.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:57 am
julie- thanks jules.
tim- yeah, i learned a lot too. it’s inspiring that 5000 bucks can yield 750k. the internet is amazing. i got two big projects lined up, spent around 15,000 dollars each, and i hope it can make around 50k. I’d be happy with that return.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:59 am
I like Entrecard. I will say that I have been able to keep my e-card ad price low because I don’t drop 100 cards per day. In fact, I drop only about 5 per day.
THis way, my card stays properly priced.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:59 am
imaniceperson- thanks! i think we shouldn’t fear google that much. if more sites like entrecard spring up. we can take a bigger portion of google’s cut. I say payperpost, entrecard, blogcatalog, projectwonderful, are all good for us lowlife bloggers.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:03 am
allyn- damn, i keep getting comments. i guess a lot of people are online at this time. keep having to comment back one at a time. anyway. allyn, i think you u bring up a good point. i should have included a question about powerdroppers. in the long run, it could hurt the site. i know it’s important during the growth stage, but after entercard gets establish, gotta put a limit on those powerdroppers. people who drop like 300 cards off a day. people with specialized entrecard browsers that disable image files so they can drop cards like a maniac
February 25th, 2008 at 3:21 am
great interview. at least reader know in general about foundation of entrecard and his founder.
i admit that entrecard system very helpful in building traffic.
-drop your card at my blog
February 25th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Great interview. I don’t really have any suggestions of who to interview. Hopefully you stay on your niche related blogs though.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:11 am
Good job, Noob. I enjoyed seeing the face, and getting a sense of the personality behind Entrecard. I’ve just recently started using it, and I am certainly enjoying it.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:18 am
jared- thanks buddy. i’ll try to stay in my niche, but i can’t promise you anything…i might interview an adult star or film director. who knows
tamera- thanks. graham is sending me a hollywood like headshot, i’ll post that pic up as soon as i get it.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Great interview! Good to read a bit more of the story behind Entrecard.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:57 am
ben- thanks. i think it’s amazing what graham did with it. to think, it only cost 5k to develop. amazing
February 25th, 2008 at 9:29 am
exinco- sorry about the delayed response, ur comments were in my spam folder. maybe your host url. anyway, i’ll drop on your site.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Genius idea to interview Graham, and very gracious of him to answer questions so promptly.
Well done, Noob.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
What a nice honest guy.
I think he is someone who deserves support from the blogging community and it seems like he is intent on giving us value products back.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
witchypoo- thanks witchy. yeah he was cool.
forestparks- it’s cool when cool guys hit on a great idea. i wish him continued success.
February 27th, 2008 at 7:40 am
[…] online. That is one of the reason i started my interview section. My last interview post was with Graham from Entrecard. It turned out pretty good and i hope you will enjoy this next one. In this post, we will look […]
February 27th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
[…] tried them out for about a month, but so far so good. Spottt is adbrite’s version of entrecard. I have to admit that it kinda sucks that they are copying Grahams idea, but spottt isn’t […]
February 28th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
[…] started three new segments on bloggernoob. I started an interview section. I held multiple contests. I introduced a domain […]
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:58 am
What a fascinating read!!! I had no idea the person who started entrecard was so young!!!! Unbelievable what some people achieve in such a short space of time isn’t it.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 pm
lightening- thanks. yeah, he’s a bit of a wonder marketer.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 am
[…] “entrecard junk traffic” that’s why. I might even be one of the top sites for entrecard traffic. If i keep repeating these terms, i might get on the first page for “entrecard […]
March 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
[…] out of 32 with the lowest, and so on, to compete against the other teams. you can also read a blog interview or two with people who have made hundreds of thousands of dollars with their online businesses and […]
March 7th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I’ve become addicted to Encard..it fun to me too…
March 7th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
meemoe-it gets you a lot of traffic right?
March 8th, 2008 at 12:36 am
[…] But if that’s their main source of traffic, these sites will eventually fall. I’m sure Graham over at entrecard has plans to limit these power […]
March 11th, 2008 at 2:45 am
[…] below to claim your prize) Or maybe they know that my blog is a good place to start dropping entrecards. Whatever it is, they are in the habit of coming to my […]
March 26th, 2008 at 11:22 am
It amazes me how young this guy is. He has a great concept and
I think it will take off pretty quickly. I just signed up for it yesterday.
Eric
March 26th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
[…] look at EntreCard for example. In a interview with BloggerNoob, Graham stuck a $750,000 – 860,000 price tag on the website. Do I personally feel it is worth […]
March 27th, 2008 at 4:28 am
[…] I didn’t really know what to expect. However, when I work up this morning, I read an interview with Graham Langdon, the 22 year old owner of Entrecard. I was impressed. When I got to work to […]
April 6th, 2008 at 1:31 am
hy all ,you can download free Entrecard cards form here ,this is not spam
http://www.gizmohunt.com/index.php/2008/03/28/entrecards/
May 16th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Entre card is wonderful and has contributed immensely to my blog traffic, however someone is playing around with the code and dropped a card that lasted almost two weeks on my site unpaid for(no entre card credits to advertise) it was not nice and more so because the photo was for the upper torso of a nude lady!
May 20th, 2008 at 3:14 am
eric- yeah, seems like the internet is about youth. cause everything happens so quick. Yeah i think the site is doing pretty well
husky- kinda spammy…no?
nairobian- hmm. you should shoot graham an email about that. nude lady u say. did it send you to a porn site?
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
Very interesting interview. I bet graham is a good programmer. Entrecard is really cool through. You dont need to pay anything to start. But the result are really impressive.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:42 am
[…] Interview with Graham from Entrecard (Make Money Blog) Some insights into the views of Entrecard’s founder. Very interesting! […]
June 8th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
[…] credits. At this price, you can see how much your entrecard widget is making per month. My entrecard ad space costs around 500-1000 entrecard credits a day. I’ll take the average of the two. If […]
June 8th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
haziri- don’t think graham is a programmer. I think someone else did it. It only cost him a few thousand dollars. Not too shabby for such a young internet marketer.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:13 am
It is great to see that you interviewed Graham from Entrecard
June 19th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
[…] marketed by bloggers cause the payout is big. Let me focus on john chow and graham langdon. Before graham set up entrecard, he was the wonder kid who started the paid wiki pages. (i think the paid wiki pages is kind of a […]
July 8th, 2008 at 9:34 am
[…] how these little 125×125 pixel ads became the norm, but it definitely is. Look around you. Entrecard, spott, and projectwonderful all use these ads to push their service. Big name blogs like […]
July 8th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
nihar- yeah, it was an interesting interview. I give it up to graham for developing such a good site.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:18 pm
[…] less then Yaro’s 6 month program. Remember, Digg was started with a few thousands dollars. Entrecard started with a few thousand dollars. Think bigger then just […]
September 27th, 2008 at 2:12 am
[…] for around 500k. If no one bids on this site, i might have to buy it myself for $100k. Good luck to Graham over at entercard on his sale and i am looking forward to his next […]