Interview with Henrik Wessels about online marketing and starting a food website

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I recently interviewed Henrik Wessels, founder of a cooking website https://sous-vide-profi.de/ about starting his business. I hope this interview will shed some light on how to start such a business, and starting businesses in general.

1) Tell me about your business.

Originally, I am an Online Marketer. I studied business and started my first job in a German agency for Online Marketing. There i was responsible for the paid search engine advertising (SEA). So my background is Paid Traffic. But i always was interested in SEO Strategies and i learned some things in my agency time. Besides of marketing and sports i love good food and cooking. I searched for some new ideas to cook the perfect steak and so i stumbled over the topic “sous vide cooking”. With this its nearly impossible to fail at cooking a perfect steak. So i ordered my first sous vide machine. It was a Sous Vide Stick from the brand Caso. I also orderd a vacuum sealer. This is not necessary but for the perfect steak it should help. This whole sous vide thing is more a men thing. Its like doing BBQ. You buy some cool electronic stuff and get fun without doing so much in the kitchen. 😉 And after this experience i thought about starting a website or a blog. And here it is: https://sous-vide-profi.de/ This is my first real web project. Besides that, I still work as Online Marketing Consultant / SEA Specialist.

2) Tell me what inspired you to start your business.

I wanted to know more about SEO and how all the things work together. And i wanted to have more freedom in my life. So i started my own business here in germany. Its the freedom to do things i love and try new other stuff i always wanted to try – like SEO and website-building. And put things together like a hobby i.e. cooking.

3) What has been the biggest challenge in your business so far?

Often its all about the money. And this is one big challenge. To get enough money to make a living or some more. And with starting a business in SEO and SEA the biggest challenge was to get more knowledge in SEO and get enough customers in SEA. And then spend enough time on both project to be successful. My biggest plus was that i am already a SEA specialist and that i dont need to start from point zero with that. This gives me some room for some experiments with SEO and get more knowledge in that. Another thing is to motivate yourself every day and not getting lazy.

4) How do you generate revenue?

Like i mentioned in point 3 – most of my revenue comes from my SEA business. But my biggest goal is to succeed also with the SEO project(s). For that set a milestone for each project. Get min. of 500 Euro a month out of it. At the moment i havent reached this milestone but my first project is only 8 month old. The main revenue is coming from affiliate marketing.

5) What is your big goal for the business?

My first big goal is to get the same amount of money like in my old regular job. In some month i reach it but not in every month. The second goal is to reach this only with SEO project. And this is a long way to go and hard work. There are some “gurus” out there who are teaching stuff like “get rich in 3 month” – but i think this is bullshit. It can happen – but most of the time it was luck. Or the guru is lying but makes enough money with some courses he sells.

6) What’s the biggest thing you learned from your business so far that you can share with the readers of this blog?

Work hard and you will be successful. It is like in most things in life. If you put enough work in it you will get the success. And if you fail dont stop and learn from it. Besides of this phrases i learned so much stuff in the last 12 month about SEO and Affiliate Marketing. This is awesome and i love it. I learned so much more then i would have in any company. And if i will work later in a company again, i have so much more knowledge. And the best thing is – i am far away to be advanced in SEO and Affiliate Marketing. So there is more to come.

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