I had a chance recently to interview Fabien, an aspiring teen blogger who owns SmallFishBigMoney.com.

Here’s what we talked about:

First of all, you grew up in the Seychelles, right? What was it like there?

Fabien: Seychelles is a very great place to live in, I have very fond memories of family and friends from when I was there and I go back there frequently for holiday. Most of my family are currently still there so that’s just another reason for me to go back often, but the country is not doing too well economically and it recently experienced a devaluation in currency, I left there 4 years ago to come to Australia as a result of the economy not looking very promising and as a result of escalating levels of political tension in the country.

When did you get started blogging? What got you to start?

Fabien: I started blogging in October 2007; it was a combination of things which got me started. I had wanted to immerse myself in a web venture for a while, but I was unsure of how to do so at the time, so I decided to check out how I can begin a business venture online.

I started searching for terms relating to making money online and I eventually discovered popular sites like ProBlogger, DoshDosh and John Chow. These sites obviously had a great impact and influence on me, that’s when I decided to start a blog – Small Fish Big Money Dot Com (http://smallfishbigmoney.com). My blog focuses on business, entrepreneurship, better writing skills and the elements of web design. I also blog about about technology, software and personal development.

You’re still in school right? How do you balance your time between school, friends, activities, family and blogging?

Fabien: Finding the right balance in life is always important, as I pointed out in this article Finding And Maintaining The Right Balance In Life, it is very important to prioritise important tasks, complete them and ensure that they are done properly, but efficiently. People sometimes spend three days doing one thing, when they could have accomplished their goal in the space of 2 or 3 hours.

My motto is prioritising and completing tasks in a given space of time. By doing this you allow yourself the time to go and participate in school activities, have more socialising time and live your life as opposed to sitting in front of a computer for half of it. I sometimes talk about “Relaxing And Taking Breaks Often” and in another post I asked, “When Do You Write Your Best Posts?”, because blogging at various times of the day definitely impacts on the success of a blog post, whether it will be linked to or not, etc.

A lot of bloggers sometimes run out of ideas for creative posts. What’s your advice for them?

Fabien: If you are in a niche that is too narrow, you won’t have enough content to give your opinion about, similarly if you are in a niche that is too crowded, your content may be the same as 50 other blogs out there. The key to continually getting ideas for posts is to ensure your blog is about quite a wide range of topics, in addition to this you should not restrict yourself to blogging about four or five topics … if something interests you, talk about it, the thing is, if you are interested in it, your readers may very well be too.

Do you use Social media to help you get more traffic? If so, which ones?

Fabien: In the blogosphere, social media is very popular. Do I use it to help me get more traffic? Of course! If you have this outlet that puts you in touch with literally millions of people worldwide…use it! If you Stumble an average article, you can get 200 hits to your blog by the very next day … if you Digg a great article, your server could go down, you could pick up 100 extra RSS subscribers (for your blog … the possibilities are endless.

Social media is very powerful, it cannot be underestimated under any circumstances and I believe it will be sticking around for quite some time. My advice to bloggers out there is, get acquainted with it. Go and sign up for popular sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit to name a few.

At the moment I am not using as many social media sites as I would like to be using. I use services like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Mixx, StumbleUpon and Sphinn. It is without a doubt that this list will be expanding in 2008 to add to an always expanding blog readership.

What are some of your goals for the blog?

Fabien: In 2008 I know that Small Fish Big Money will experience massive growth. It has already proved it’s worth as a valuable site for information. But we will be expanding the site to provide our readers with even more information about online business development, branding, entrepreneurship, marketing and so many more topics.

My goals for 2008 are clear, solid and fundamentally sound. Build a strong RSS readership, skyrocket my Technorati authority and get into the Alexa 100,000. These goals are very bold, but they will not be completed without the hard work, commitment and dedication I put into my blog to share knowledge with my readers. I am always dishing out valuable tips, so I highly recommend subscribing via RSS.

Thanks for the interview, Fabien!

(Note: If you’re a blogger who is interested in being featured in an interview here, please drop me a line at hock AT moneymakingblogs DOT com)

Technorati Tags: SmallFishBigMoney, Fabien, teen blogger, blogger interview

Popularity: 70% [?]

Every now and then I like to find out more about young people who have successful blogs or successful young people who have blogs.

I found another one - Jessica Mah. At 17, she’s already been through a few entrepreneurial ventures of her own including owning a web hosting company at age 13. At the moment, according to her bio, she is in college and working on her other blog called Startupism.

Then, there’s Fabien who’s 15 and runs Small Fish Big Money. He’s a budding web designer as well.

Check out his blog.

Technorati Tags: young successful bloggers, Jessica Mah

Popularity: 27% [?]

Seems like bloggers who make money online are getting younger and younger.

Here are 3 I’ve found recently.

If they can do it, why can’t you?

www.techzi.net - Age 12

www.moneymakerboy.com - Age 12

www.carlocab.com - Age 13

What’s holding you back? Start today!

Like this post? Please consider joining our MyBlogLog community.

Technorati Tags: make money blogs, youngest bloggers

Popularity: 48% [?]

Better known as AshBo on her MySpace profile, Ashley Qualls is the owner of the website Whateverlife.com. Her success has been featured in Fast Company. She’s just 17 and has already achieved a lot of financial success with her website. It just goes to show that anyone with enough passion and know-how, at the right place and the right time can do it.

Here’s an excerpt of the article:

“At 17 going on 37 (at least), Ashley is very much an Internet professional. In the less than two years since Whateverlife took off, she has dropped out of high school, bought a house, helped launch artists such as Lily Allen, and rejected offers to buy her young company. Although Ashley was flattered to be offered $1.5 million and a car of her choice–as long as the price tag wasn’t more than $100,000–she responded, in effect, Whatever. “I don’t even have my license yet,” she says.”

So what does 7 million unique visitors and 60 million pageviews translate to in terms of revenues? Ashley reportedly rakes in around $70,000 per month. Revenue is mainly from advertising to the target market - teenage girls who want to customize their own MySpace page.

Content

In terms of content, there are tutorials on just about everything you need to know about MySpace. You can also grab layouts, banners, fonts, glitters, buttons, etc. The homepage of WhateverLife also features music videos. Leveraging the reach of the site, Ashley has also helped to launch the music careers of Lily Allen and the Jonas Brothers.

Site Growth

Ashbo has surely been keeping busy. To further leverage her brand, she has also launched WhateverLife Magazine, ShopWhateverLife.com and the SnazzyBoot forum.

The sites are growing so fast that she is even hiring for help.

So the lesson here is that you don’t have to have a lot of experience to start being successful at a young age. What you need to have is a passion for something and focus on that passion. The money will follow. If it doesn’t, hey, at least you’re doing something you love.

Like this post? Please consider joining our MyBlogLog community.

Technorati Tags: whateverlife.com, ashley qualls, ashbo, myspace layouts

Popularity: 58% [?]