We all know the great internet successes; people like Leo Babauta of ZenHabits, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV, Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Steve Pavlina, Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse of ProBlogger. All are “killing it” now and have been for a while. They are truly in a different league than many of us just starting out. It can be difficult to learn from and follow the examples of these gurus because they started in different times and with different circumstances. The Internet is much different now then what it was just a few years ago. There is a big difference between having 100,000 or 100 subscribers to your blog. I feel more can be gained by modeling people who have started from nothing and are currently rising through the ranks.
Here are some up-and-comers who are really starting to make a splash but may not have the notoriety and income of some of the bigger players….yet. They are accomplishing great things because they are excelling at all the key ingredients for online success. I chose these people just because I stumble upon their names regularly and they are great at what they do.
Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz
Small business consulting and training products. Naomi Dunford has a very direct, humorous and unique writing style that makes business training entertaining.
Ittybiz on Twitter
Laura Roeder
How to get famous with social media and online marketing.
Laura Roeder on Twitter
Clay Collins
Clay Collins is the main person behind the recent launch of Project Mojave. He is helping people to make money online.
Clay Collins on Twitter
Lea Woodward
Lea is behind the growing community of location independent entrepreneurs. She has a fantastic ability to get people involved in her business.
Lea Woodward on Twitter
Chris Guillebeau
Chris is on a quest to visit every country in the world before he is 35 years old. His recent free ebook, 279 Days to Overnight Success has been hugely popular.
Chris Guillebeau on Twitter
Jun Loayza
In addition to working on his startup, Viralogy, Jun is doing great video interviews with “awesome bloggers.”
Jun Loayza on Twitter
Follow what these entrepreneurs are doing, study what they are offering and copy their marketing tactics. You can bet they are at the forefront of what is currently happening online. There are always opportunities in every market and industry if you develop your own unique angle. Good design, great content, effective marketing, and connecting through social media are all important to success but there is one more ingredient and that is personality. Personality goes a long way. People want to follow interesting people. Work your ass off and get all the other factors right and you might be able to eek out a living online. Add a unique and engaging personality to the mix and you may just have a runaway success on your hands.
Thanks so much for including us in your post! We’re working hard night and day to produce a website that brings great value to every person in the social media world.
We should bring you in as a guest for our show soon!
– Jun
Thanks so much for thinking of me! I appreciate your mention, and I’m humbled to be on this list with so many other cool people.
–Clay