Jeff Ostroff, whose main website gets 10,000 to 15,000 visitors a day, was on his honeymoon in St Lucia 1996 when he got the idea for his first site.
"I thought it would be neat to create a website with photos I took for my family to see online so I would not have to make copies for everyone," he says. "I knew nothing about domain names or how to get a '.com' name."
His ISP provided the web hosting. It wasn't until 1998 that he bought the domain name BridalTips.com.
"I grew BridalTips.com with advice for other brides and grooms because I saw so many scams, and nickel and dime fees in the wedding industry, and vendors who make brides feel like dirt for not buying this or that," he says.
"I started to get a lot of positive response from couples going through the same problems we had, and added sections on DJs, photographers, limos, bridal registry scams, bridal shop scams. Then the idea hit me like a ton of bricks! The Internet is a pretty powerful medium to get your message out to people. It was time for me to start warning the world about crooked car dealer scams based on my past experiences with GM."
So his main money earner, CarBuyingTips.com, was born. He's been running it since 1997.
The site gives free advice on buying new cars, used cars, auto leasing and avoiding car buying scams.
"We hate to see you scammed by some of the morally challenged, so enjoy this politically incorrect site that dealer lawyers tried to shut down," the site tells visitors.
When I first interviewed Jeff in 2000 he had already set up ConsumerNet, created a bunch of consumer advice sites, and built a reputation as a consumer advocate.
He was also the top affiliate, or a top 10 affiliate, in several affiliate programs.
Co-workers became business partners
In 2003, Jeff and two of his co-workers, who choose to stay anonymous, quit their well paid jobs at Motorola to concentrate on the ConsumerNet websites.
"Two of us are electrical engineers, and the third partner is a software engineer. We all learned HTML just by working with it, trial and error," Jeff says.
Now, eight years later, the partnership is still going strong
"I thought it would be neat to create a website with photos I took for my family to see online so I would not have to make copies for everyone," he says. "I knew nothing about domain names or how to get a '.com' name."
His ISP provided the web hosting. It wasn't until 1998 that he bought the domain name BridalTips.com.
"I grew BridalTips.com with advice for other brides and grooms because I saw so many scams, and nickel and dime fees in the wedding industry, and vendors who make brides feel like dirt for not buying this or that," he says.
"I started to get a lot of positive response from couples going through the same problems we had, and added sections on DJs, photographers, limos, bridal registry scams, bridal shop scams. Then the idea hit me like a ton of bricks! The Internet is a pretty powerful medium to get your message out to people. It was time for me to start warning the world about crooked car dealer scams based on my past experiences with GM."
So his main money earner, CarBuyingTips.com, was born. He's been running it since 1997.
The site gives free advice on buying new cars, used cars, auto leasing and avoiding car buying scams.
"We hate to see you scammed by some of the morally challenged, so enjoy this politically incorrect site that dealer lawyers tried to shut down," the site tells visitors.
When I first interviewed Jeff in 2000 he had already set up ConsumerNet, created a bunch of consumer advice sites, and built a reputation as a consumer advocate.
He was also the top affiliate, or a top 10 affiliate, in several affiliate programs.
Co-workers became business partners
In 2003, Jeff and two of his co-workers, who choose to stay anonymous, quit their well paid jobs at Motorola to concentrate on the ConsumerNet websites.
"Two of us are electrical engineers, and the third partner is a software engineer. We all learned HTML just by working with it, trial and error," Jeff says.
Now, eight years later, the partnership is still going strong
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