Sven Raphael Schneider is the founder and owner of Gentleman’s Gazette, an online outlet for men’s fashion advice. Sven’s business has now grown into an enterprise, with tens of thousands of fans, readers and over 700,000 subscribers on YouTube.
But Sven had humble beginnings. He worked hard for years to build this business.
Sven gave a detailed interview to Food Blogger Pro in which he shared some deep and extremely useful insights on how he built his business from scratch.
I am going to summarize the biggest takeaways from the interview that are useful for anyone looking to build an online business.
From Law To Online Business
Sven studied law, but never liked it. He was into men’s fashion and clothing since his early teens. After he moved to the U.S. from Germany, he was jobless, while his wife used to work. Instead of wasting his time, Sven thought it’d be a good idea to looking into the opportunities around men’s fashion advice blogs online.
He thought of this idea when he was unable to find what he was looking for online.
Lesson: If you are looking online for something, and are unable to find a good, solid advice or content, that’s your chance to build a blog and fill that space.
Learning Technical Tools To Set Up Online Business
The biggest hurdle was that Sven had no coding or web development experience. He was not a geeky guy.
What did he do?
No, he didn’t hire anybody. He didn’t waste time complaining.
He simply used the internet to learn how to build a website.
Sven learned WordPress. He learned the dynamics of SEO. He learned all about keywords and Google organic search. He learned link building. He started posting content daily. Small ads money from Google adsense started coming in.
Then came the first shock for Sven, when his advertiser refused to pay. Google adsense money was paltry compared to the time and effort Sven was putting in.
Sven decided to recommend products and make money (affiliate strategy). He was into men’s fashion. Everybody used to ask him about clothing.
If he could simply start recommending nice products on his blog or YouTube channel, companies would pay him. This was the main idea that made Gentleman’s Gazette a success in terms of monetization
Lesson: Don’t rely on ads money. It’s not sustainable. Sell products or make money using affiliate marketing strategy in which you get a commission on every product sold.
Sven tried every platform – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest. But he has now locked his focus on YouTube. Sven says that YouTube videos remain relevant even after they get old. People love to watch the videos they like even if they are 10 years old. On the other hand, no one really scrolls down to look at your tweets and Facebook statuses.
Sven also says that the power of video is huge. When people can see you, they relate to you and your brand gets more traction.
Lesson: start giving importance to YouTube. Turn on the camera, talk to your audience and keep doing that. Your brand or business will eventually take off.
