This is an interview with Alex Nerney from CreateandGo, creator of Six-Figure Blogger and Pinterest Traffic Avalanche.

Hey, Alex. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

Hey party peeps, my name’s Alex Nerney and I’m an entrepreneur and co-founder at CreateandGo.

Born and raised in Colleyville, TX (suburb outside of Dallas), I run a couple successful blogs and a few YouTube channels. I love coffee. Hate blue cheese. And just want to help you become more successful personally and professionally.  

How did the dissatisfaction with your corporate life affect the steps you took to become your own boss?

They were a pivotal. The thing I remember the most about my short stint in corporate life is that I felt like I was suffocating.

Like I couldn’t get a full breath of air. That all my creativity and life spirit was being drained away by traffic commutes, alarm clocks, and bosses.

The level of frustration I felt with that life was a big mover in what made me an entrepreneur. I remember thinking “I’d rather be poor than deal with this shit!”

What were your first attempts in online business and what did you learn from them?

Wellll, my very first attempt was creating and seeing an ebook called A College Guys Guide to Getting Ripped. I would write for popular guys websites like brobible.com and sell my book at the bottom of the articles.

I learned a few things.

#1. Selling your own product is hard.
#2. It’s fun.
#3. The title of the article could literally 10x my sales. A more “clickable” headline would cause a huge influx of traffic so it taught me how to write headlines. Still a valuable skill to this day. 

What was the early stage of building your blogging business like?

Chaos. I would wake up at 4:30am before my morning personal training clients in Dallas to work on it. Then when Lauren came home from work and I was still training she would work on it.

Then I’d come home around 8pm and we’d both work until bed time. Most of our weekend was spent working on the blogs so we sacrificed things like partying and lots of outings to build our business.

It was the best decision we ever made as it helped us become six-figure bloggers.

At what point did you decide to quit your full-time jobs and dedicate all your time to growing your blog?

It was 2015 when we started to get some readers to the blog with Pinterest. We had all this traffic and a solid readership, but were not making any money.

We decided to quit because we felt like if we spent all our time at work on our blogs it would have to work out.

We committed to one year. One year to figure out this whole blogging thing or to go back to our old jobs. We sold all our things, quit our jobs, and went all-in. 

You earned over $40K in a month for the first time in 2016. What did you do differently with Avocadu.com to get that result?

We created some really unique and awesome articles that spoke directly to our audience.

The articles were apparently a huge hit with our audience because our pins when “mega viral” and drove 5x the traffic we were currently getting. 

Was that the moment you started paying more attention to Pinterest and do you think every blogger should be focusing on that platform?

Naw, after we got those first Pinterest readers we were already hooked! We just had burned so much time on Google and Facebook with nothing to show for it.

Yet here was Pinterest shoveling pounds of organic traffic down our throats every month. The choice on where to spend our time was obvious.

How has your Pinterest strategy evolved since then?

Man. EVERYTHING has changed.

It used to be a platform where you could just throw up whatever and if it was half-way decent would show up. Now it takes a much more dedicated and thorough process to succeed.

That being said it’s still the #1 best traffic source for bloggers. We regularly help complete newbies get their first 10,000 to 100,000 monthly readers which is plenty to make an income as a blogger. 

How did you come up with the idea for CreateandGo?

We were in Nicaragua making over $10,000/m with Avocadu and realized 90% of the people talking about how to making money blogging had no clue what they were talking about.

All people knew how to do was make money in the make money online niche. Because our blog was completely separate topic (health and wellness) we knew it would give people a much more objective look on things and brought something unique to the space. 

How do you currently make money from your blogs?

Mainly through selling our own Courses and eBooks.

Some ad revenue and affiliate revenue as well but the lion share comes from our own products. 

Read also: How This 25-Year Old Makes $15,000/Month Blogging

What do you love the most about creating and selling courses?

It can be rather awesome when your customers succeed because it’s such a mutual benefit for everyone.

We get money while we help you achieve your dreams. It’s such a win-win for both parties involved it’s hard not to love it! 

What is your most successful online course and why?

I think Pinterest Traffic Avalanche is and it’s because of the results it gets people. It’s the best premier Pinterest course out there for half the price of other courses.

There have been fun moments with it too. Like when every other Pinterest course creator was promoting “Board Booster” and we recognized that was a bad idea since they did not have a Pinterest API.

When Board Booster eventually got shut down, all our students we stoked we had helped them avoid that headache. It’s small moments like that where it’s hard not to be proud of what you’ve created.

We put so much time and energy into those courses and getting our people the right stuff, moments like that makes me beam with pride. 

Do you think every blogger looking to grow their income should create digital products?

Yes, but ONLY if they have something unique/better to share.

The last thing the world needs is another blog about blogging or second-rate copycat product. Make something new or at least make it 3x better than the current products available.

If you can’t do that, then the world does not need what you’ve created and I wouldn’t do it.  

Read also: How Bloggers Can Make $10,000/Month from Home

When did you start sharing your blog income and how has that changed your brand?

I think it was right when we started CreateandGo we started sharing. It has been a perplexing puzzle truth be told…

On the one hand, Lauren and I liked the idea of it being private. We didn’t really want the world to know how much money we were making. Seemed so pretentious.

Also, one of the consequences is it brings a lot of copycats your way stealing your content. 

On the other hand, Lauren and I are teaching people how to make an income blogging over at CreateandGo. So proving we can do it with numbers and data is necessary.

You want to know the advice you’re getting is good. I want my personal trainer to look good, the same way I want my blogging advice to come from a real expert.

By showing the income we make from blogging over at CreateandGo we are proving we ARE the experts. 

What’s your favorite way to monetize a blog and why?

Product creation because you control the sales pages and the margins.

Affiliate marketing is great but I’m always wary of not being in control. Your income can be cut off at anytime!

Read also: Why I’m Taking Six-Figure Blogger

What’s your top traffic source and why?

Pinterest. Google is coming up though because we are starting to put more time into it. Much more painful than Pinterest though!

What are your top tips for blogging success?

Have a unique voice. Work stupidly hard. Buy courses. Stay focused.

Don’t take the easy way out because you’ll trade short term gains for long term success. 

How do you manage to get things done while traveling full-time?

Well there’s two types of work. One is growth type of work while the other is maintenance.

I only focus on maintaining the blogs when traveling because the chaos of travel makes growth very difficult. It’s when I come back home that we focus on growth and building things bigger. 

How many hours per week do you put in the business now and what systems have you created to do the work for you?

Some weeks it’s 10 hours and some weeks it’s 50+ depending on travel and other factors.

We’ve been able to build several passive income streams through our email funnels. This allows us both to scale our blogs by adding more traffic and to take time off when we need it.

That being said I do enjoy working/writing so some weeks I crush a lot of hours without thinking about it. 

What’s different about your life as a six figure blogger?

I just don’t worry as much about money. If I want something I get it (just like Arianna) and move on with my life.

I’m 6’3 so BY FAR the boujeest thing I do is fly first class for the leg room and so I can actually get work done on my flights.

It’s not practical at all financially but it’s quite funny. People look at me like “wtf is this guy in flannel doing up here with us.” 

What’s next for you, Lauren and Create and Go?

Our current mission at CreateandGo is to help 10 bloggers reach 10,000/m, 100 bloggers make $1,000/m, and 1000 bloggers make $100/m blogging.

Personally we think we can take our blogs to around 200k per month then we will re-evaluate. Probably build a few more 😉

If you’d like to get started with CreateandGo and become a six-figure blogger, please visit these links:

Homepage: CreateandGo

Start a Blog: How to Start a Blog (for Making Money and Having Fun!) 

Monetize a Blog: How to Make Money Blogging