Justin Wright Talks About Passion, Zoopmedia

An Interview by Liz

Justin Wright is what you would call laid-back and relaxed. The first thing you’d notice about him when you visit his personal blog is how his interests are so diverse, yet he manages to skirt away from taking things too seriously. You wouldn’t have guessed that this sporty outdoorsy guy is a full-time blogger, consultant, and WordPress coach. This prolific writer has made a stellar career out of blogging and has even founded his own blog consulting and design company called ZoopMedia. Being successful in his chosen field, he’s been featured on quite a number of popular blogs including Problogger, Performancing, and WP-Blogger.

Wanna know more about him? Read on for this exclusive interview!

So after you graduated, you set off for Honolulu to enjoy the beach and the weather. Then you moved to Arizona and worked as technical support. Then you quit that job and started blogging. What actually got you into blogging? Was there a specific point when you realized, “Hey, this is something that I can do really well. This is something I’m passionate about”?

Well, I’ve always been interested in building websites. It’s something I started doing in high school. Then, the whole idea of blogging started to become popular so I thought I would give it a shot. So I ended up starting a few blogs (all of which are dead now) in college and wrote about random things I was doing. It wasn’t until I moved to Hawaii that I really got interested. The main reason I started blogging at that time was to keep my friends and family back home up to date on what I was doing. From there I just got more and more interested in the whole concept of blogging.

As far as a certain point goes, it happened when I first saw more than 10,000 visitors on a single day. That’s when I really new that blogging was what I enjoy doing.

Many bloggers go pro but still maintain a day job. What made you want to do it full-time? Was the money really good? Sorry if that sounded a bit crass, but it seems that very few bloggers, i.e. the cream of the crop, actually can make a living out of only blogging.

Well believe it or not, one of the main reasons why my personal blog ever got popular was because I used to write about my day job. I wrote a lot about how I disliked it and wanted to change careers. So I was already looking for an alternative career since technical support was not my thing. Since I enjoyed blogging so much, I really thought it would be awesome if I could do that full-time.

As far as money goes, it was nowhere near good when I first started out full-time. I made a lot of sacrifices such as cutting the cable, selling my car, and getting rid of some of the things I didn’t need. The good news is that I wasn’t really in it for the money. It’s amazing how little you care about money when you’re able to wake up every morning and work on something you enjoy.

How did you make your blog grow from scratch? How do you maintain its success?

When I first started my main blog, it didn’t look anything like it does now. It was super ugly since I didn’t know a lot of about design at the time. I just stuck to writing posts as often as possible and over time I started getting more and more visitors. Since then, I’ve learned a lot in terms of developing so it’s been through a few makeovers.

The real key to success is writing quality content as often as possible. It’s also important to spend time getting your name out. I’ve attended a few conferences and spent a lot of time interacting with people around the web.

Zoopmedia. How was it born? What services does it offer? Would you say it has been a successful venture for you?

Once I went full-time, I knew that I wanted to do more than just write. So I had the idea of starting a company that helps people start blogs (or websites) using WordPress. Since then, we’ve added a few services including blog consulting and coaching.

It’s been a very successful venture so far. It’s grown a lot faster than I ever would of anticipated. It’s to the point where it’s difficult trying to keep up with everything that’s going on. But that’s a good problem to have

What are the difficulties you come across in running your own company? Any lessons you’d like to share with those planning to start their own online?

I think the biggest obstacle in running your own company is time. It requires far more work than a normal job since you tend to wear multiple hats. That’s the main reason why people always say that you need to be passionate about what you do otherwise it’s really easy to lose your motivation.

The biggest lesson I can think of is to start NOW. It’s really easy to plan things but never get them started. The sooner you start  the sooner you will get the results your hoping for, especially when it comes to online business.

Ahh, the favorite question: what do you think is the future of blogging?

It seems like everyday someone writes an article called “Blogging is dead.” However, I really feel that blogging is still the future in terms of producing content online. It’s just evolving now that different services like Twitter have become mainstream. I also think multi-author blogs will continue to grow since they seem to be the most popular ones around right now.

This Interview was published on September 25, 2009 at 12:26 pm • Did you like it? Subscribe!
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