It occurred to me about a minute ago, Their are 5 people who made me decided to set up TheInfoPreneur site. These people have ‘made it’ in my eyes, but from what I can see they never set out to make millions, it just came as a by product. These InfoPreneur’s (Although they will still call themselves bloggers, I like to use the modern term, because that’s what they are true and real InfoPreneurs) inspired me in different ways and all share different levels of success but success they have in bucket loads!

So from 5 down to 1;

5, Pete Cashmore – Started the site Mashable.com in July 2005, Working flat out on it for a year, he then got his first advertising deal for the site. And it never slowed down, top 25 forbes web celebs, top 10 with technorati and at the time of writing has 1.6 million followers on Twitter. What I love about his story, is he had a passion for the internet, a desire to tell people about social media, and he worked tirelessly and it paid off BIG TIME, no official figures, but he is rumoured to be worth millions with a 7 figure turnover.

Alexa Ranking; 475

4, Darren Rowse – These days a top list can’t be published without including the original Problogger. Problogger was the first blog about making money from blogging I read, and it opened up a can of worms in my head, I couldn’t stop reading it and the more I read the more I realised how much of a success he has made and the most interesting thing for me is its not his top performing site in terms of revenue! He has several other sites, and has just launched Problogger.com A paid membership forum with over 3,000 members. This guy is an amazingly nice person with a perfect attitude to everything. Its a shame he lives in Australia otherwise I would be camped out on his doorstep with my laptop and a notepad and pen!

Alexa ranking; 2,456

3, Marko Saric – His site HowToMakeMyBlog.com was the first site I found (and stuck with) that detailed how and what to do when starting out, He writes making no assumptions about his readers, detailing everything in a really easy to read format. I can’t emphasise enough what a difference this guy has made on my life, a great writer, a fantastic honest person, and best of all… He lives in the UK! He only started his site in the back end of 2008, and a year later has already had well over 200,000 unique visitors. Great site, great content, great InfoPreneur!

Alexa Ranking; 30,787

2,David Risley – Confessions of a 6 figure blogger DavidRisley.com is a site, that I use for motivation. I can relate to him because he is clearly a family guy, and quite clearly making an excellent living through his site and is loving the opportunity to help others. Hugely inspirational character and a household name in the Blogging/InfoPreneur world. A massive success and has no objections about telling you how much he made last year (Over $140,000) which is done in such a nice way it motivates rather than alienates!

Alexa Ranking; 37,371

1, Yaro Starak – The most influential site/blog for me at the moment has got to be Entrepreneurs-Journey.com . So whats he about? Ultra laid back approach to it all, but that will be down to the fact he is the king of monetizing. He runs BlogMastermind and a host of other money spinners, but unlike most, he actually gives fantastic information and a hell of a lot of free information, which is why he makes so much money, because, and rightly so, readers then want more to enhance their sites. Great bloke, great site, and massively motivational. I want to be like him…. Except without the curly hair, No offense Yaro!

Alexa Ranking; 9,328

So there you have it my top 5, all amazing people who run fantastic sites.

Who’s your top 5?

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Its no secret that at the time of writing this, I’m about a month away from launching the site, so these are just a few things that maybe helpful to other InfoPreneurs out there.

5 things that you absolutely must do before you launch your site;

• Socialize – Make sure your being active on your social networks, make sure you are building your friends and followers up, and let them know what your doing, Keep interacting with your followers and friends, and talk about other things as well as your site, this way you maintain interest without it turning into boredom.

• It’s a date – Have a launch date and stick to it, make it achievable and let everyone know about it. Some of my tweets will be about what a busy day I have had and how I’m starting to get nervous about the site launch date which is now 3 weeks away etc etc. Make sure people know when it is but don’t put people off before you have started by always talking about it.

• Content- Build the content/posts on your site, build and build, because when you launch you what to hit the ground running and keep the moment up. At the time of writing this post, this is exactly what I am doing, You don’t have a show home without a roof! Make sure your ready to create an avalanche

• Design – Get the design of the site just how you like it so when you launch and when people return they will come back to a familiar site, rather than coming back to a site that still doesn’t seem ready. I sticking to a clean modern look, which I hope will put the readers at ease.

• Buzz – Your launch will have already been well publicized, but create an extra buzz by working on a viral or potentially viral post/article that has the potential to be spread around the world instantly and post it hours after the official launch and get people to re-tweet it! I’m doing this as we speak, its taking me a bit of time, but will definitely be worth it.

Really this list could be double the size with things to do but it keeps it short, sweet and to the point.

What do you guys think? Please Re-tweet and comment.