Success Unscrambled Podcast

Are you one of those mummy bloggers who know that you need SEO but you don't know enough about it?

Maybe you have been blogging for more than a year now but you keep procrastinating when it comes to implementing SEO strategies for your blog.

Some mummy bloggers complain that SEO is so hard and they hope that one day they would get a chance to understand it.

You see many bloggers struggle with SEO because they are going about it the wrong way for someone who just wants to rank a keyword.

Many get lost in the sea of SEO jargon like keywords, H1 tags, H2 tags, meta description, keyword in URL and optimised images.

Especially, when it is not as complex as having a baby.  If you are a Mother and you already had a baby then SEO is a breeze.

In this post, I am going to spend some time showing you how to make SEO relatable and how you can compare it with pregnancy.

You will see the 9 stages of pregnancy compared side by side with SEO and my hope is that you will realise that this SEO thing can be simple.

What is SEO Anyway?

I know that I have explained this previously in another post but just in case you don't know here is the definition again.

SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation.  In terms of definition, it is the art of optimising your web content.

The goal of this optimisation is to get your content to rank in the SERP (search engine results page aka Google) so that it is visible to prospects.

The techniques used to optimise web content has a lot of technical names that can be foreign but a common language was needed for this skill.

Here is a brief glossary for on-page SEO techniques:

H1 tag

- the most important title of your blog post at the top that tells search engines what it is about.  It is normally surrounded by but invisible in the visual section of a post.

H2 tag

- the second most important titles normally used as subheadings throughout your blog post.  It is normally surrounded by but invisible in the visual section.

H3 tag

- the third most important titles normally called subtitles and used in your blog post for list items. It is normally surrounded by but invisible in the visual section.

H4 tag

- the fourth most important item which can be found in list items of your blog post.  It helps break up the hierarchy of your post.  It is normally surrounded by but these tags invisible in the visual section.

Meta description

- this is what would show up as the main description when your site is listed in the SERP.  The meta description helps you to get the click.

Keyword or keyphrase

- think of it as the seed word that tells humans and bots what your site is all about.  This is the backbone of any piece of content that helps to frame the purpose of that content.

Internal link

- the art of linking from one piece of content to the next in a proactive fashion to increase relevance in search rankings.

Keyword in URL

- placing your keyword in the URL helps with ranking in the search.  For example, this is what it looks like when you go to share a link to your article if your keyword is "baby shoes" https://www.domain.com/baby-shoes

Include keyword in the title

- ensure that the keyword that you would like to rank for is included in the title. For example, if your keyword is 'baby shoes' then try to include it in the title of your blog post.

Include keyword in the first paragraph

- do include your keyword in the first 100 words of your blog post.  The closer it is to the start the better it would be for your blog.

Are you finally down to the last two, ConvertKit vs Mailchimp?  As a business investing in an email marketing provider is important and essential.

However, actually making the final decision can prove troublesome if you have never used any of the providers before.

Ensuring that you understand what is included and how their services work compared to the standard operating procedures already employed by your startup is almost impossible without a proper review.

Many small businesses know that they need to have an email list but they are not quite sure how to get it started and what features they need to get the results that they want.

They also struggle with the fear of actually understanding how they should communicate with these people who are interested in what they offer.

The truth is that email marketing can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.  For a small business or a startup, there is no need to overthink things.  In fact, the biggest action you need to take is to get started.

In this post,  I will look at what is an email marketing provider, why it is important, a review of ConvertKit, how to go about choosing the best one for your needs and comparison chart with ConvertKit vs Mailchimp vs Aweber

Email Marketing Provider

As the name may suggest an email marketing provider assist a business or organisation with their email marketing requirements.

Email marketing as a whole involves collecting emails from your followers, members or subscribers with a view to keeping them in the know. Also, to generate revenue.

The process can range from sending emails about upcoming events, sales, change in company information, running competitions or just general broadcasts.

You are probably thinking that it is just as easy for you to send these messages using your email client but this is not as simple as it sounds.

In one sense your email marketing service can double as a butler service in that it knows who your prospects and customers are (not personally) and what prompted their interest.

Why Use an Email Marketing Provider

Imagine for a second that you had 1,000 customers and you sold 20 different kinds of widgets ranging in different colours or sizes.

These 1,000 customers have their own preference when it comes to buying your widgets.  In fact, when they signed up they indicated what their preferences were so you know based on that information.

Let’s say you have an event in 1 month around these 20 widgets which is a week-long event and each day will be focused on 4 of those widgets.

How on earth will you be able to efficiently send a message to 1,000 customers about their specific interest if the information resides on an Excel sheet somewhere?

Yes, I know you can use a CRM (customer relationship management) software to check the information but how can you actually send the message?

Email marketing software gives you the ability to not only segment the data about your customers but also tag them based on the link that they clicked.

In fact, the most important reason for using an email marketing service is for the safe delivery of emails as well as not getting your domain name blacklisted as spam.

My Favourite ConvertKit Features

I have been using ConvertKit for a while and there are a number of features that come as standard that makes life easy for me.

These include:

1. Easy Form Creation

2. Integration with Wordpress.org

3. List Segmentation

4. Tagging based on link click

5. Integration with Thrive Leads

6. Smooth delivery of Content Upgrades

7. Intelligent broadcast features

8. Cool Autoresponder sequences

9.

So you’ve made the shortlist of web hosts and you’re looking at Siteground vs Bluehost.   After looking at countless articles and reviews from people who used either one of these web hosts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a side by side comparison of Siteground vs Bluehost?  If I were in your shoes I certainly would love that. The truth is that depending on where you are in your journey of finding the best hosting plan for your website or blog it is important to consider some key elements. Many people struggle with finding the right hosting partner for their business because they make the final purchase for all the wrong reasons. They may have bought it because their friends use the same company or it suited their budget or it was an impulse buy as the web host had a sale. I can assure you that those are not the right reasons for choosing the perfect website host. There are far more must-haves to consider before clicking the buy now button. In this post, I’m going to spend some time with you looking at what exactly is web hosting, why it is important and the steps you need to take to choose the right one for your needs.

What is website hosting anyway

Well, every single website needs a place to store the files or pages images and code that make up their website.  This place of storage is called a web host. In simple terms, a web host can be seen as someone with a very powerful computer that remains on 24/7 with a special address that people can use to find the files stored on this powerful computer. This powerful computer is also known as a server and as you can tell it serves up files. images and pages from an address which is known as an IP address. The people who maintain this server would need to have the knowledge and experience to host all different kinds of websites so that they can ensure that these websites don’t have any downtime. I do remember at one point over the last 10 years I wanted to become a web host that focused on helping women in business host their website.   So, I purchased the domain name and set up my server with WHM, etc. Soon, I realised that it is too boring for me and even got hacked in the process.  So my web hosting career was over in short order.

Why is web hosting important

Anyone can decide that they are on a tight budget and set up their computer as a server giving their audience access to their website. The difficulty with this is that you will find that maintaining your computer 24/7 is not worth the effort and that you are probably better off using a tried and tested hosting company. This brings me to the point of explaining why a web hosting company is important.  You can hire a company who has years of experience hosting websites for less than a Happy Meal at McDonald's. You can pay them only $3.95 a month to keep your website up and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  If you think that is a lot then compare it to the hourly wage in your country. At this point, you are probably wondering how on earth can the staff at your web host survive on $3.95 a month?  Well, they host hundreds or even thousands of websites every month so this is 'no skin off their backs'. Just in case you think that they are totally bored watching websites all day they can be quite busy if they have hundreds of websites in their care. The key thing to remember is that websites need to be kept secure and there are several rules when it comes to data protection.  There are also a lot of hackers who keep them busy just for fun.

What are the key features of a good web host

Depending on the type of website that you are looking to create there are some standard features that everyone needs. These features include:

* SSD Drive

* SSL certificate

* 24/7 Support

Libsyn vs Blubrry which is better?  So, you are at that point of your podcast hosting research and you want to understand the difference between Libsyn vs Blubrry.Maybe you are at the start of the journey and two friends or colleagues recommended two different podcast hosts to you.One told you that the best one is Libsyn and the other one had a great experience with Blubrry and you are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.The truth is every podcast host has its advantages and disadvantages. Luckily for you, I have tried 5 of them and I eventually chose one.In this post, I will outline the advantages and disadvantages as well as help you understand why you should choose one over the other.What Is Podcast Hosting AnywayIf you want to start a podcast one of the essential elements you will need is a place to store your podcast episodes so that the public can access it.This is where a podcast host comes in handy.  They give you the ability to upload a recording of your podcast so that your audience can access it.Some podcast hosts give you other added benefits like analytics, submission to other podcasts directories and even the ability to host live shows.You need to spend some time thinking about the format of your show, where your listeners hang out, the kind of analytics you need, the average length of each episode, post-production as well as your budget.Once you have this ironed out in your head and on paper then you can spend time looking at the pros and cons of each podcast host so that you can make a short list.Disclaimer: please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.Why The Best Podcast Hosting is ImportantFinding the best podcast host for you and your business is important because podcasting is not a done in one thing.In fact, depending on your show it is something that you will do every day, every week or every month.You will also need to consider the time it takes you from idea to finished audio file.  In other words the entire process from start to finish.If the experience of recording and post-production is too tedious it can be a big turnoff for you.  My biggest challenge when it came to podcasting was getting the post-production right.  Of course, the quality of the input is important.What happens after you record your first episode? Who will clean up the recording and what should they use?  What is the cost of post-production?How Will Your Podcast Be HostedLooking at how your podcast is hosted is important because you need to visualise the end product and what the user or listener experience will be like.Have you considered the show notes?  What about the images?  Will the file be too big for users to download?  What about the quality of the audio? What file format is best?Podcast hosting can be easy if you can visualise the final output and try to ensure that it looks very much like you imagined it to be.If you decide to do interviews this brings an added level of complexity into the fore especially when your guest is 5,000 miles away in another country.Is the broadband connection of your guest strong enough to produce the audio quality that you need?  If not who is going to clean up that interview to make it sound good?Blubrry Podcast HostingBefore we look at Libsyn vs Blubrry in detail let me spend some time telling you about Blubrry podcast hosting.Integrates with WordPress- Blubrry has a plugin that allows your website to have an integration with their hosting platform.  It’s great because this means less work for you.Podcast analytics- Blubrry offers analytics that comes as standard that gives you the ability to see downloads by country, device, region, platform, episode and clients.

What do the Thrive leads plugin and lead generation tools have in common?  Let's take some time to find out.

There are 1,300 entrepreneurs performing a search for lead generation tools every month. The phrase, lead generation services, is researched over 1,600 times and lead generation strategies over 1,300 times.

If you are in business or thinking of starting a business you know that it is super important to generate an income.  In order to get that income, you know you need to get prospects or leads.

The truth is many entrepreneurs and small businesses have an idea in their head that they need to generate some form of revenue.

However, many continue to struggle because they are not quite sure what a funnel is or even a landing page let alone how to build an email list.

In this post, I will spend some time looking at what lead generation is all about, why it is important and the tools you can use to take action.

Lead Generation Tools

What on earth are lead generation tools?  Any piece of hardware or software that is needed in the sales funnel process to help with conversion rate optimisation can be considered a lead generation tool.

Lead generation tools can include an email marketing service, list building plugin also known as a lead generation plugin and optin forms.

Let’s start with a simple example of a lemonade stand on a hot summer’s day in your little neighbourhood.

The fact that your neighbour’s 12-year-old daughter decided to set up a lemonade stand on a hot summer’s day is not a coincidence.  People are inherently lazy to a certain extent.

You can either walk 5 minutes to your house to get an ice cold drink or pay this girl $1 for a glass of ice cold lemonade which would you choose?

Did you know that enterprise-level retailers use software with built-in short and long-term weather predictions to help them decide what to sell and when to sell these items?

The fact that you walk into a department store on a day in Spring with unexpected sunshine and they have all their summer clothing on display is no coincidence.  They ‘saw’ it coming.

Disclaimer: please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Before I discuss why these tools are important, let me spend some time helping you understand conversion rate optimisation (CRO).

Your neighbour’s 12-year-old daughter can employ some strategies to improve the chances of her meeting daily sales targets.

Her lemonade stand can be visually appealing by using a nicely designed advert on the front of her cart.  She can send out fliers days before she sets up. 

She can also increase the lifetime value of her customer by selling cookies as well as muffins with her lemonade.

As an added bonus she can decide to take payment by Paypal and Stripe and start collecting email addresses.

Basically, she can increase her conversions from lead to sale and lowering her cost of acquisition by employing a few clever strategies.

These strategies are under the umbrella of conversion rate optimisation which in its simplest form is optimising conversion ratios to increase sales.

Why Are Lead Generation Tools and CRO Important

Well, if you are already in business you will know that it can take a lot of effort and resources to generate leads for your business.

Using the best tools and strategies that are available on the market increases your chances of success.

Have you ever heard of recurring commission affiliate programs?  Many bloggers struggle with finding the right vehicle to help them make a consistent 4, 5 or 6 figures every single month.

In fact, the difficulty could be finding the right WordPress theme, plugins, email marketing provider, domain name, web host or profitable niche market.

There are numerous courses available that teach the new blogger how to start a blog or better yet how to start a profitable blog.

The truth is that it is possible to make money online without a blog.  However, your long-term goal should involve an exit strategy.

Will you be leaving the business as an inheritance for your offspring or do you plan to sell it on?  So many things to consider when it comes to making money online.

The road to $100,000/month can be as simple as finding the best recurring commission affiliate programs. 

In most cases what needs to happen is you and I, the entrepreneur, need to outline SMART goals using the best affiliate programs.

In this post, I will spend some time looking specifically at recurring commission affiliate programs.  I will cover what they are, why they are important and how you can benefit from them.

Recurring Commission Affiliate Programs

Let's spend some time looking at what recurring commission affiliate programs are for the blogger.  In a previous post, I looked at high paying affiliate programs in a lot of detail.

In case you missed it an affiliate program or affiliate marketing program is one in which a blogger like you or me decide to market someone else's product or service in return for a commission payment.

One key factor that we are looking at in this post is that the commission is recurring rather than a one-off payment.  Recurring means that you can receive more than one payment for that one referral.

The beauty, in this case, is that it takes the same amount of marketing effort to bring in a one-off commission when compared to a recurring commission.

If you had a choice to be paid twice or three times compared to once for your efforts which one would you choose?  Of course, you will choose more than once.

Let's spend some time looking in more detail as to why this is important for a blogger.

Why Top Paying Affiliate Programs

If you have been blogging for 2-5 years you will understand the time and energy that it takes to continue to be a blogger day after day, month after month and year after year.

It can be exciting being a creator because you get to put your thoughts into words for others to read and comment as well as learn from you.

It also gives you the opportunity to add value to the lives of hundreds and even thousands of people all around the world.  Your content is going where you have never been as a blogger.

What is more beneficial is that you find a way to cover the bills like web hosting, email marketing and other 3rd party tools and plugins.

It does take some time before you receive your first payment using the clever suggestions mentioned in the 'monetise a blog' post.

Wouldn't it be great to be rewarded for your efforts over and over again for many years into the future?  This is where the whole idea of a recurring commission proves to be beneficial.

Disclaimer: please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link.

So you want to start a blog and you need help finding untapped niche markets that are the most profitable blog niches available.

Everybody is talking about how they are making money blogging but you are not sure how to start a blog or even how to make money with a blog.

The truth is that it is possible to generate an income online using a blog and you have two options available when it comes to niche markets.

You can either enter a very crowded market and take your fair share of the pie by creating a micro niche. 

The other option is to take advantage of the niche market ideas or untapped niche markets that very few people are capturing.

When it comes to carving out your own micro niche or finding untapped niches it can be difficult.

In this blog post, I am going to look at what are untapped niche markets and micro niches.

I will also look at why these are important and how you too can take advantage of your very own untapped market so that you too will be able to make money blogging.

Disclaimer: please note that this post may contain affiliate links which means that if you buy one of my recommended products I get paid a commission for sharing the link.  I only recommend products that I have tried myself and have experienced success.

What are Untapped Niche Markets?

In order to understand what untapped niche markets are, I first need to explain what is a niche and micro niche. 

A niche is the larger marketplace like clothing and the sub-niche of that niche is fashion.

A micro niche can be hoodies for photographers or hoodies for landscape photographers.  I was quite surprised but this is actually a micro niche that exists and is thriving.   See screenshot below.

So, what then is an untapped market?  Well, an untapped market is where there is competition but not a lot and the demand for the product or service is growing.

An untapped niche market can also be described as profitable niches with low competition which are great niche ideas.

The existing competition will continue to reap all the profits unless other businesses enter that market to address the customer needs.

Why Profitable Niche Markets Are Important?

As I mentioned previously you can decide to start a blog in a virtually crowded market like weight loss which is fine.  In this crowded market, you can be successful by creating a micro niche like the Keto Diet.

On the other hand, you can spend time finding those niche markets that are virtually untapped and create a brand around it.  The important thing is to meet the needs of the customers.

Starting a blog in an untapped niche market has a huge advantage because there is no need to come up with a new product yourself.  You can just be an affiliate of the existing products and/or services.

Ronald Segura in an article on GrowMap outlined 10 untapped profitable niches.  These are:

1. Teaching a new language

2. Renewable energy

3. Play a musical instrument

4. Relationship advice

5. Expensive hobbies

6. Virtual reality

7. Biodegradable consumables

8. Home automation

9. Artificial intelligence

10. Drones

As you can appreciate these can be quite lucrative if you are an expert in one of these areas.  You also have the option to team up with someone else who is the expert.

At this point, you are probably thinking that there is no way you will be a...

Do you believe that female midlife crisis stages exist?  Have you lost interest in the routine called life and nothing seems to appeal to you anymore?

Are you feeling disappointed about the success or lack of success that you have managed to attain in your life so far?

Do you feel that you need to make a big change in your life in order to stay sane or enjoy life once again?

Maybe you feel that you need to move to a different country, move to a different state or just change your way of life altogether.

Sometimes it feels like work, extracurricular activities, friends, loved ones, hobbies or even food just does not appeal to you anymore.

You are screaming inside your head and you just want to run away alone and live on a tropical island somewhere far away from people and technology to get some level of peace.

The truth is there are a lot of people who feel this way every day and for some, it could be a midlife crisis, for others it could be a variety of things.

I have even seen adults in their 20s expressing themselves in this way and wondered if it is possible for this midlife crisis to occur at an earlier age.

The good news is that we will spend some time looking at what exactly is a midlife crisis, why it is important and steps that each of us can take to manage it if it is real.

Midlife Crisis Definition

According to Wikipedia midlife crisis is a "transition of identity and self-confidence that occur in middle-aged individuals typically between the ages of 45-64 years old”

When I was a lot younger I assumed middle-aged to be 40.  However, it seems that I was totally misled in my view of life.

Wikipedia goes on to explain that this is brought about by events that highlight a person’s age, closeness to mortality as well as shortcomings in accomplishments.

I believe this is one reason that someone could experience a crisis at any age.  A person who is 25 years old is as old as they have ever been.

Once they compare themselves with their peers they could experience a level of depression of they believe that they have not accomplished enough or at least what they thought they would achieve by 25.

Wikipedia even goes on to tell us that the term midlife crisis was coined in 1965 and modern research does show that it is not a phase that most middle age people experience.

So is it even real or just a figment of some people’s imagination?  Are people using it as an excuse to behave inappropriately?

If you have read any of my articles in the past you know I always look for a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th opinion before coming to a conclusion.

Forbes Coaches Council Can’t All Be Wrong

In an article written by the Forbes Coaches Council here are 15 signs that you may be going through a midlife crisis.

Apathy

- you lack interest in everything

Getting out of bed

- this one is obvious if life is not interesting you will not have a reason to get out of bed

Lots of debate but no action

- you are debating your next move but fail to take action

Autopilot

- your life feels like it has been placed on autopilot.  My son at the tender age of 14 could not understand why everyone behaves like hamsters.

Losing your purpose

- you feel like life has no purpose.  I prefer to say that many people are unsure of their purpose no matter what age.

Plans not working out

- the success that you have built up until this point feels stagnant or even sti...

You've spent an entire year agonising about starting a blog, finding the blog name, choosing the right website host, picking the blogging platform and branding, now you need to learn about monetising a blog!

When does the learning ever end? Isn't there a simpler path to this online success and digital nomading?  Why can't someone design a simpler way to get this done?

The truth is if it was going to be so easy then everyone will be doing it.  In fact, it would be just as easy as getting a job at McDonald's.

However, every blog is different from the other making their content unique.  Each blog serves a different audience and has a writing style to suit its readers.

For this reason, monetising a blog will cater to the needs and appetite of the community it serves.  There isn't a one size fits all when it comes to generating an income from blogging.

You will need to test a few ways and settle down on the approach that is best suited to the niche, audience and objectives of the blog.

Monetising A Blog

Before we dive into 'the how' let's spend some time exploring what is the definition of monetising a blog.  It will be presumptuous of me to assume that you understand what I mean.

In this wild, wild west that we call the Internet or online world there are several ways that entrepreneurs and businesses alike generate revenue.

An online store like Amazon generates its income from selling products and services to consumers and businesses. While Google and Facebook earn revenues from selling ads.

Other smaller retailers or boutiques sell clothes and gifts. Some even sell subscription boxes or subscriptions to membership sites.

The options appear to be endless for anyone in business.  Bloggers can also earn a revenue on their site if they decide to treat their blog like a business.

Monetising a blog will involve using the content of the blog to generate an income for the blog owner.  The reasons a blogger will want to do that can be numerous.

Let's spend some time looking at why anyone will want to look at monetising a blog.

Why Monetising A Blog Is Important

If you have read my previous post about starting a blog you will know that I encourage my readers to think long and hard about blogging because it is a long-term game.

When I say long-term I mean 3-5 years or even 10 years.  When you think about it creating content on a blog for that length of time does require a good bit of motivation.

Depending on the stage of blogging the motivation will be different at each stage of the game.  The first 6 months is often a very exciting time for a blogger.

After a year the honeymoon period will wear off so there will be a need for something else to keep up the momentum. Of course, there will be a handful of people who can do two years without any return on investment.

The cost of blogging can start off at a really low cost so a very low barrier to entry.  However, the motivation needed to continue blogging every week or month will take a mental toll.

At some point during the course of your blogging journey getting paid to create content will cross your mind.  For some, this will happen at the start while others will be later on.

The Readers

Some bloggers will happily write content every week or month to keep their readers happy or entertained.  One of the key benefits of blogging is to build a community.

Having a following of like-minded people who can relate to your topic or cause is awe-inspiring and noble.  However, is it sufficient to motivate a blogger for the long-term?

Bear in mind that the more readers or visitors to ...

Does Bill Gates college dropout example present any hopes, dreams or lessons for anyone who is feeling like dropping out of college this year?  What are the statistics of college dropout success?

In a study carried out on over 11,000 US leaders, it was found that 94% of them attended college while a remarkable 50% of them attended elite schools.

There are approximately 325 million people living in the US of these over 214 million are working adults.  I am curious as to how many of the remaining 213,988,260 consider themselves unsuccessful.

I know that scientifically speaking the 11,000 people that were surveyed represents a good quadrant of the population but is it sufficient to prove that college dropouts are generally not successful?

When you compare it to the other 213 million working adults the number of 11,000 does not seem to represent a fair average in the grand scheme of things.

Should success be measured against one person's accomplishments?  Should we use the "Bill Gates college dropout" example as the ultimate pinnacle from which everyone else should be measured?

Bill Gates College Dropout

Let's spend some time looking at the story of Bill Gates as a college dropout.  He entered Harvard in 1973 and two years later he dropped out of college to set up Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen.

He went on to say that staying in school is a good thing.  The only reason why he dropped out of college is that he did not want to miss the personal computer revolution.

In an article in 2017, Bill Gates said that the 45.2% dropout rate is tragic and "Without more graduates, our country will face a shortage of skilled workers and fewer low-income families will get the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty,"

He is not the only successful person who is a school or college dropout.  Here are 10 other well-known entrepreneurs who are college dropouts that continue to defy the odds.

As you can see the founders of Apple, Uber, Whole Foods, Dell and Twitter are all college dropouts.  So maybe let's look at another example of someone else who is a college dropout.

Steve Jobs College Dropout

Steve Jobs dropped out of college at the tender age of 19.  He went on in 1976 to build his first commercial product in his parent's garage together with his co-founder Steve Wozniak.  The product that they built was called the Apple 1.

He did take a calligraphy course in college which he credited as the inspiration for beautiful typography on the Mac.  As I am sat here writing this article on a Mac all I can say is thanks to the both Steve's.

In a speech at a Stanford commencement address, Steve Jobs advised the graduands to "do what you love. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become....