in this video I talked to Matt Allen
from dumb passive income and I've known
Matt for years actually he's one of the
very first people that I reached out to
when I started a niche site project so
it was a pleasure talking to him he's
been blogging since like 2010 but dumped
passive income was started in like 2012
so we talked about family life and kind
of you know what he does full-time he's
a truck driver like an 18-wheeler and he
works locally up in the Grand Rapids
Michigan area and cool thing we enjoy a
beer together now a little bit of a
downside he was not capable of doing
video with me so we're just gonna be
listening to the audio but I thought I'd
do a proper intro and one of the cool
things that Matt has been working on for
the last two years is a software company
so he's been working on the side on this
software company and you probably have
heard of it it's called am a lynx Pro
and I remember the day that he was like
want to get your feedback on it and we
get into that discussion a little bit so
anyway it was a pleasure talking to Matt
it was really cool to actually have like
a nice long conversation and we did
enjoy a beer together even though you
know we couldn't actually like clink
glasses or anything like that so without
further ado let's get to the interview
with Matt Allen from dumb passive income
hey what's going on it's Doug Pennington
here and I'm with my good friend Matt
Allen how are you doing today hey Doug
I'm doing great how are you doing
awesome and we've known each other for
years basically as soon as I got started
online and it's a pleasure to talk to
you we've actually chatted on the phone
and on like like Skype calls in the past
but this is the first time that you know
we're talking at length I'm gonna be
able to ask you a lot of questions that
you know I wasn't able to in a in a
casual just you know quick catch-up or
whatever so this is a great honor Matt
yeah this should be fun and I was just
telling you before you hit record this
is only my second ever podcast that I've
we're done so awesome oh it's great to
have you here and you you send me an
email and you're like hey I can only
meet like kind of after work and sort of
in the evening hours and by the way do
you want to have a beer while we're
doing the interview and I'm a beer guy
so I of course said yes so what do you
what do you have over there that you're
gonna drink so right now my boy actually
got me a six-pack of this for
Valentine's Day last week it's a five
founders which if you're anywhere in
Michigan or near Michigan you know what
what founders is a really good micro
brewery based right here in Grand Rapids
where I live and this is a new one that
I had never even heard of before it's
called civilized brute IPA and which is
it's an extra dry India Pale Ales what
this one is beautiful I love the extra
dry ones it really makes the hops pop
and the one of founders more popular
beers is called all-day IPA you may have
heard of that or may have even had it
before and I have had one of these
already and this tastes really similar
to an all-day IPA which is a session IPA
very cool and before you pop it up and
I'll tell you about mine so I'm drinking
a good night which is an imperial red
from a local brewery here in Longmont
actually I guess it's in Lyons but
there's many locations its from the
Oskar Blues brewery and it's an imperial
red IPA and I think I'm trying to see
the 8.7 ABV so yeah Cheers Matt I'm
gonna pop mine open you could do the
same all right here we go awesome
mine's only a 6% alcohol by volume
himself well and this a good sort of
transition I mean you you have a day job
so can you tell us a little bit about
yourself like who are you and what do
you do yeah I mean I'm I'm a truck
driver by day and when I say truck
driver I'm really talking about like the
18-wheeler the big rigs that you see
going down the highway I've been doing
that for actually just that this math
just occurred to me actually today while
I was on the
I don't know if I should really be given
away my age right now but I got my CDL
when I was 22 years old which means I
have been driving a truck now for about
exactly half of my life oh wow cool
awesome so yeah that's how old I am if
you can do the math so we're about the
same age I'm clocking in at 40 and so
you've been doing you've been doing that
for a while and I was looking back
because you you also blog and you blog
over at dumb passive income can you tell
us about that like inception of your
blog over there yeah it's kind of a long
story I'll try to make it short so I
actually started in 2010 not with
blogging but I don't know if I've ever
actually told anybody this story but
somebody got me tried to get me involved
in a network marketing like a pyramid
scam kind of a deal and like fine I'll
do it but I'm not gonna go try to talk
to my family and friends and go show
videos and try to get people to sign up
that way I'm gonna see if I can do
something online and I think I just
signed up for a Twitter account in 2010
at the time and so I figured out I was
on blogger I don't know if you've ever
seen or heard of be loggers okay so I I
got some really I put together some
really simple sites on there to try to
promote this network marketing business
and as you can imagine that didn't work
and but but then I realized my kana this
is cool I can actually produce content
and put it out on the Internet and I saw
that other people were making money
doing that and so I literally just
googled one day I'm like how do you make
money online and that led me into the
world of blogging and then I started a
personal finance blog and this is
actually kind of one of the biggest
mistakes that I've ever made as I I
stayed on blogger I was everybody told
me you got to switch over to WordPress
and like no no I'm just gonna go against
the grain I'm gonna stay on blogger and
I'm gonna make it work on blogger
so yeah I stuck with the personal
finance vlog for probably close to a
year maybe a little over a year and then
finally in 2012 and May of 2012 I bit
the bullet and and quit the personal
finance blog moved over to WordPress and
and that's when I bought dumb passive
income comm and that's when I started
that blog in and around that same time
as when I also jumped into niche sites I
figured out what niche sites were and
and started building out some of those
and that's kind of what dumb passive
income was was I was just kind of
chronicling and just blogging about what
I was doing to create niche sites and
try to make make money online holy cow
so you started your first blog in 2010
all right in a sense if you want to call
that a blog yeah yes well I chatted with
a couple other people earlier today just
doing interviews like this one and it's
amazing I mean everyone has one or two
not necessarily failures but along their
trajectory they they have a few websites
that they learn their chops you know
they learn some writing skills just
setting up a website and all that before
they they got something that really kind
of stuck and that had some lasting power
so when you started that first like blog
and the personal finance blog when you
moved on a little bit from the network
marketing promotion and whatnot
like did you have like a desire to write
or were you a strong writer through you
know school I don't know about through
school I just and it was never anything
I really did before I started blogging
but I kind of figured out that I really
enjoyed the writing part and then and
the personal finance stuff I've always
been kind of like a numbers geek and I
loved I could sit and just mess with my
I used quicken to run my personal
finances and I could just spend hours
just messing around with the numbers on
there and and making spreadsheets for
different scenarios and stuff so I just
loved the personal finance stuff and and
kind of just helping people and teaching
people I had listened to Dave Ramsey on
the radio for many years and so I
thought I
just write a blog and help people learn
stuff about money and and so I just kind
of figured out that I like the writing
part and and then that kind of like
melded into web design and and figuring
out how to make web pages look different
ways and okay yeah gotcha
and you know what I didn't even know you
had such a strong like personal finance
interest and we're definitely gonna come
back to it but yeah I had no clue I know
I read some of your some of your blogs
on dumb passive income on like financial
freedom and some of those ideas but I
didn't know you wrote about it for a few
years do you remember like how you first
got interested or have you always been
interested in like money and finance and
savings and all that I guess I kind of
always have them I was probably 20 or 21
years old when I first heard Dave Ramsey
on the radio and I'm talking this was
back in the day when when he was
brand-new and he was almost begging for
people to call in - oh I remember
actually listening to him like saying
his phone number over and over waiting
for somebody to call in a twitch which
is kind of crazy for as popular as he is
now and and I've mentioned Dave Ramsey a
couple times and the funny thing is I
I don't even totally agree with all of
his advice most of it is really great
like the staying out of debt obviously
what she mean well what's not to like
about that advice but as far as some of
his overall principles I'm I'm more of a
Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad kind
of a guy when it comes to that cool so
you're one of the first people that I
started following when I found like
smart passive income which I think dumb
passive income I think we're safe to
assume that that's a homage to Pat Flynn
right exactly exactly so so Matt
literally I found your blog I think I
saw some of your comments and maybe you
were featured over on Mitch pursuit
Spencer's blog do you do you happen to
remember like our first communication or
anything I do remember it was 2003
it wasn't long it's like right about the
exact same time you started niche site
project which was right during Spencer's
first niche site project yep around that
same time yeah yeah and I think like
basically my plan and I've talked about
it briefly in in certain areas but
basically I was like hey I found all
these cool people and Spencers blog I
was following a lot of what he was doing
and I was like I'm gonna reach out to
people that run blogs and they like
Spencer's blog and see if like we could
just network together and I think I
asked you to like write a guest post for
my site as I was launching it and you
were like yeah sure so you wrote
something for me and you know we we've
stayed in touch ever since so it's
pretty cool to like be chat with you now
interviewing you on my podcast
and yeah like I said that rings a bell
that I remember exactly what that was
about now because I I started a keyword
research service that I was sewing on my
dumb passive income blog and and you
allowed me to kind of push that service
or promote it on your blog yep yep so so
basically I you know reached out to like
10 or 12 people and I knew I needed help
from the community and a few people said
yep so you were one of them and our
other friend John haver over an
authority site income was one of them
and you know we're all still around
doing stuff so it's kind of cool just if
you stick with it like things are gonna
work out properly
so there are a few of us who have stuck
with it all this time I've seen people
come and go but that there's a handful
of us who have remained so couple I'm
just curious to learn a little more
about you so you're a family man we were
just chatting a little about your family
and yeah so can you just tell us a
little about like how many kids you have
and just proof on a personal level what
do you what you have going on yeah I
made my wife and I we've been married
it'll be 15 years this May so in a
couple months 15 year anniversary we
have three kids two sons and a daughters
my sons are 12 and 9
and my daughter is seven yeah we're
really involved in all kinds of
after-school sports and different
activities and stuff and what life is
pretty crazy around here right and you
have the full time trucking gig so I
take it you're your local so you don't
have to do any like long hauls us like
overnighters or anything like that yeah
I pretty much work bankers hours that
today I literally worked from 9:00 to
5:00 okay but yeah some days it's you
know a truckers schedule if there is no
you're not standing by a time clock
waiting to punch out an exact time it's
just whenever you get done you get
canceled
some days I might not get home till 8
o'clock at night other days I could get
home as early as 5:00 so okay so you
have three kids a wonderful wife your
work in potentially if you know fairly
long hours but it sounds like they're
fairly reliable as far as like you know
you're not going to be working like
weekends or in the middle of the night
or anything like that so what like how
do you deal with your time management
and productivity and you know not not
missing out on spending time with the
kids in the family yeah I mean it's
always been about prioritization so I
always put try to put family first now
in viously day job that that has to be
second pretty much in the order and then
and then my online stuff is just
whenever I get to it so most of these
years I've done most of my work in the
early morning hours usually getting up
at 5 a.m. and working for one or two
hours depending on what's going on that
day and then go to work and then come
home and but I don't know these days
this past year year and a half or so
I've actually been doing more of my work
at night and so but like right now like
the kids all are in bed usually by 9:00
or 9:30 and then I can get a couple
hours in on the computer before I get
too tired I'll usually stay up till
about midnight and then maybe get up at
6:00 and get on the computer again in
the morning and at least check my emails
and stuff I mean you obviously you know
write about passive income quite a bit
what are some of your favorite
approaches especially like for beginners
that are like just getting their feet
wet
in internet marketing like what would I
suggest you mean yeah just in general
like some of your favorite like passive
income sources why I mean I gotta go
with Amazon affiliate that's one as long
as you have a website that gets traffic
I mean passive income it's not just
internet marketing there's all passive
income good could be even your 401k
investments that could be a form of
passive income or real estate investing
is another thing I'm trying to dabble in
a little bit I mean yeah mostly what I
focus on is the online internet
marketing stuff okay clear I mean build
a website get traffic to it as long as
you can get traffic you can make money
with a website and I actually I didn't
do research on this before but have you
ever done like a public case study where
you're like sure the URL and and all
that stuff and I'm dumb passive income
starting into I think I actually started
one right off the bat in 2012 and that
that's kind of been one of my another
one of my failures along the way is I
probably started at least three maybe
four of those on dumb passive income and
I've never never seen I've never
finished a single one or seen it through
till the end till it was fully
successful because I would I had a few
decently successful sites and and once
they started to make decent money well
but the public URL ones never really did
but but the URLs that we're making
decent money I was afraid to go public
with them and I think you know the
reasons why for you don't want copycats
and people running negative SEO
campaigns against you and I guess I was
always scared to lose cuz I I've never
been while these guys who's made a super
ton of money online like quit your job
kind of money I could get I've gotten
sites up to like a thousand dollars a
month niche sites but not much more than
an and I just kind of risk losing that
income yep and I mean I you know were
chatting beforehand and I don't share my
sites and I actually you know the other
interview I was doing today with Matt
Jian EC over it money
he was like yeah share all my sites and
I'm just like that's bananas man that is
so crazy to me but I mean once you've
been burned then you're not going to do
it again so I'm actually surprised the
he shares he shares the sites but it
does bring like unmistakable like
authenticity and you know people you
know trust those public case studies so
Spencer does them and you know they're
they're sprinkled throughout but a lot
of people just trying to stay under the
radar and I I do that myself so I guess
my biggest if you won't even call it a
case study I never really did but just
the dumb passive income blog itself was
yeah as you mentioned it was to kind of
emulate the smart passive income blog
and I started out doing income reports
on there and obviously everybody knew
the URL of that and that actually was my
most successful site I've ever had I
mean my dumb passive income when I was
selling keyword research and I was
making good affiliate sales for some
tools that I promoted I got that up to
about $3,000 a month awesome yeah and
that was one of the things that I I was
like hey you know this is a great blog
you're you're publishing income reports
and you have some historical ones and
you show like big earnings and then even
the months that you like technically
lost money because expenses were higher
than your profits and all earlier your
revenue and you know like I said it does
bring that authentic and sort of real
people will trust you more they're kind
of a pain to put together and I don't
want to put words in your mouth but use
you stop doing income reports like on a
regular basis and it seemed to be a
little intermittent can you tell us a
little about just putting together such
reports and sticking with it
yeah I mean you you really nailed it it
really did become a pain I mean towards
the beginning it wasn't too bad
I mean there wasn't much income to
report in the beginning but just a
couple of affiliate products that I was
promoting or tools but over the years it
started growing and I kept adding tools
so every I had a whole spreadsheet that
I had to update every single month and
then I had to log into every affiliate
account every month and find the income
and then carry that information over and
- kind of like a pre-formatted blog post
that I had and then my writing style
I just kept adding sections to my income
reports and they kept getting longer and
longer and it got to be where it was
probably taking me I would say probably
five or six hours just to do one income
report and yeah it's got to be too much
and yeah so I quit I just kept and one
of my other friends Ron Stefanski he
does income reports and he started doing
the geno when our professor do you know
Ron we yeah I mean we never talked okay
boys but we'd be mailed back and forth a
little bit cool good also a great guy
and he has been doing them from the
beginning and he sort of like stopped
publishing other stuff on his blog other
content and only does the income reports
generally and it's it's kind of a it's
almost like journaling for him so he
does it like as an exercise it's
interesting you know since he was like
I'm just gonna keep doing the income
reports and I'm gonna ignore the rest
but it definitely is a time consuming
thing do you do your own bookkeeping I
do I do not keep track of all my
separate I didn't I don't have that much
separate affiliate income anymore
anyways cuz I don't let the dumb passive
income blog die over the last couple of
years but yeah I don't even keep track
of it all anymore just once the money
comes into my bank account then I track
it I don't keep track how are used to
okay
gotcha gotcha well with that said I
encourage people to go check out the
income reports it's just interesting to
see like where where money came from and
you know feast and famine and I have
been you know I've experienced that as
well and especially like in the early
days where it's like oh man you made
like six thousand dollars one month and
then the next month is like you know two
or something like I think my favorite
income report was for something like $14
it was amazing
you made money you know how that's a win
it also win so I want to talk a little
bit about like the product that you
launched it's a it's a great piece of
software and I actually remember you and
I chatting I guess it was like a year
and a half ago maybe almost two years
ago I was going to the gym and you were
like hey I have an idea for a product
and I'm gonna be working on it and you
just wanted to you know chat about it a
little bit and it was like all right
cool sounds good
and honestly I mean a lot of people talk
about doing a thing and they don't
follow through but I'm proud to say like
Natalie did you follow through like you
exceeded my expectations and you've been
iterating and working hard on am a lynx
prowl so can you just tell us like what
is Amy Lynx Pro and why did you create
it yeah sure in fact I remember that day
really well it I can't remember even why
I needed or wanted to tell you about it
but in case you couldn't tell that day I
could hardly hold in my excitement
because because we had just stumbled on
this idea for this product and I just
had to tell somebody
well first I'll tell you what it is a
ham a lynx Pro is a wordpress plugin for
amazon affiliates in fact our new
tagline for the product is a wordpress
plugin that works for all amazon
affiliates with or without access to the
Amazon API so so that's what it is how
it came about well I've been running
Amazon affiliate websites for several
years and I used and loved and promoted
a different plugin out there I don't
mind mentioning it easy Azon probably
everybody knows what that is
I think 2013 is when I purchased that
and I used it for several years and I
loved it and I promoted it I made
affiliate Commission's from it and I
would tell people like if you're
promoting stuff on Amazon I'm WordPress
and you're not using this plug-in and
you're crazy but then over the years
that product seemed to die off on Chris
gusli the founder of it he I don't think
he does a whole lot with like website
internet marketing anymore I think he
moved over to Amazon FBA selling
physical products as far as I can tell
anyway so he stopped making improvements
to ez Azon so it was still an okay
plugin but not great and it didn't
really have all the features that I
wanted and so I started looking
other plugins I tried a couple other
plugins to try to find the features that
I needed and wanted and just nothing
else had what I really wanted and
nothing was really that good and so
actually I'll specifically mention one
of the features that I wanted I wanted
to be able to create a customizable CTA
button a call to action button that I
could change the colors and the hover
effects and the size and the find
everything only 100% customizable CTA
button that link to Amazon and I had a
way that I was doing that manually I was
using a different WordPress plug-in it
was pretty good for making CTA buttons
and I was grabbing the Amazon link from
ez Azon so I was kind of combining two
plugins to get the functionality that I
wanted and I thought there's got to be a
better way to do this and so I happen to
know a developer and in fact he's a
mutual friend of ours you knew him too
and I just contacted him one day I'm
like hey I have an idea for a plugin I
thought if I could do this CTA button
thing I'm like why not just do all of it
do text links image links and and maybe
some other stuff too and just make a
whole plugin out of it and kind of make
like the plug-in that's gonna release
that release that it's gonna replace
easy Azon or all the other WordPress
plugins like to make the the biggest
baddest Amazon wordpress plugin that
ever existed so I had the idea but I'm
not a coder and I didn't really have
tens of thousands of dollars to pay
somebody because that's how much it
would cost for the magnitude of what I
had in my head and so I contacted this
developer and asked him if he wanted a
team-up and we had a few back-and-forth
emails and it really didn't take very
long I think it was less than a week and
and we decided to partner up and go
50-50 on this thing cool and did you
guys like draw up any specific like
documents or ownership situation or it's
like a gentleman's agreement and like
you said I know the guy I've had a beer
with him just like we're we're having a
beer here and I mean I'm just curious
like from the legal standpoint did you
guys like ink it out we did
via actually I drafted I think I might
have looked it up online but I found a
partnership agreement and then I changed
a bunch of text on it and I sent it to
him I'm like hey how does this look and
then we kind of he added some stuff I
added some stuff and then we agreed on
it and we we basically agreed by email
with kind of like a digital signature
kind of a thing cool so yeah we made it
official all right yeah that's pretty
cool
good go ahead yeah that this was an I
actually have a few dates written down
this was January of 2018 when this all
happened when I had the idea and I
emailed him and it kind of kicked off in
so it was just over two years ago when
when the idea was born
holy cow and I at that time I lived in
Montana and like I said I literally
remember the day I sitting in my truck
it was snowy outside I was about to go
into the gym and yeah we were chatting
on the phone so it's kind of funny I can
like place I could place the exact day
and it was cold same here I was in my my
18-wheeler in my truck it has a built-in
Bluetooth so I can talk while I'm
driving and I was driving down the
highway talking to you that day that's
cool and you know quick quick call back
so I know chris guthrie as well good guy
I'm not a hundred percent sure the
status of ez Azon but since he can't
speak for himself I'll just say like hey
there okay it was a fantastic plugin and
I know you know it's still active it's
still kind of it'll do the job basically
maybe he's doing the updates that need
to be done to keep up with like Amazon
yep I switched the API so he's doing
updates so it still works for everybody
he just hasn't done improvements to it
is all okay yep and maybe someday I'll
have Chris on and he does many other
things and has a lot of software
products out there so just want to jump
in defend him since he's not here so
yeah I have nothing against Chris at all
yeah yeah I was gonna say both you and I
have promoted his products and some
other stuff he was working on like over
time so in fact he I published a blog
post on dumb passive income about ammo
links Pro and he actually commented on
it and wish me good looks
cool yeah great guy great guy overall
it's it's funny it's a good community we
found ourselves in so yeah I mean I love
the internet marketing community I tried
to explain it to people who don't
understand it because it's like a brick
and mortar business it's kind of always
like you against the other guy but in
with internet marketing it's just
everybody helping everybody else and we
all make money if you try to bring
somebody else down it's not gonna really
do any good for you
so as far as like developing the product
and you know you mentioned you have a
few dates there so it was January when
you were pulling together the idea you
chatted with me a little bit and I was
like yeah sounds like I mean there's
definitely a need for that sort of thing
people do enjoy just making their life
easier as far as placing links and
decreasing their like the number of
clicks and their workflow to insert
links for Amazon so I was like yeah
sounds great so how long did it take for
like the first prototype to come through
and how did you and the developer figure
out what you wanted to have in the
plugin yeah so well first of all we had
to think up of a name and and choose a
URL we did that that was one of the
first things we did and then he got to
work right away and development we we
decided he's going to just cram as many
hours into coding as he can and I'm
gonna try to take care of everything
else
so we did planning like playing the
website set up the website and bought
certain tools like we use easy digital
downloads it's a wordpress plugin but
it's what we use for our licensing and
distribution of the plug-in and
subscriptions and all that so different
tools and like affiliate software for
the site and then let's see remember the
exact date but I think it was sometime
in late March or maybe early April that
we started beta testing and where I got
beta testers was just from my my email
list for dumb passive income but there's
plenty of people in there who also were
like niche site builders or built Amazon
affiliate websites so I got a handful of
people from there to help beta test we
gave them
I think we gave them all free copies and
then yeah from is there any specific
questions you want to ask about
development er no just curious about
their like the first prototype and then
so yet beta testers how did you manage
feedback from those beta testers mostly
just email and spreadsheets at first
yeah I mean I would send out emails and
ask questions and it was it wasn't
anything super for professional but we
had a spreadsheet and we still have a
spreadsheet to this day our development
spreadsheet that we work off of okay I
just just put all the suggestions so we
started out with just you can insert
text links image links CTA buttons and
then we had a feature that we call it
the showcase box which is pretty much a
product information box in our early
version of that was much different than
what they look like now it wasn't as
good as it is now cool those were our
first four quarters that we weren't
gonna launch it until we had all four
those in place okay and then you've
never done like software development or
worked in that kind of environment right
not at all nope I do not code I ran that
code and then the developer we just call
him the developer because he's under the
radar
he's an anonymous dude a nice guy but
yeah so the developer he obviously has
spent time like working with users
testers and other folks like that so he
actually he also has a full-time day job
and his full-time day job is he is a
wordpress developer so that's what he
does all day every day okay and he does
WordPress development for like big name
big websites that you would recognize
and universities in places so very smart
dude yeah and my mind is gonna explode
cuz I'm just I'm thinking how much of a
nightmare and how much I would dislike
having to take feedback from users via
email putting in spreadsheets and just
that turnaround cycle did you guys have
any with the rowing testing yeah
the we really didn't get a whole lot of
feedback I'm in fact most of the the
feedback was from me from me using it
and just giving him the feedback we did
get some from users but most of it was
just me because I you know because I'm
my user and so he would the the
developer he would have we'll call it
issues he would have issues seeing
things from the users point of view
being a developer and he was really
appreciative of my point of view and
that's another thing I'll say about this
partnership but him and I both would
tell you and then both agree that
there's no chance that him a Lynx Pro
would be what it is today without this
partnership but he could have never done
it on his own there's no way I could
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