Learning to See Beyond as a Young Entrepreneur

I want to share an interesting story with all entrepreneurs but especially the young entrepreneurs within online marketing or e-commerce. This story is about a big learning I had to learn by myself, without any mentors or people who were supporting me. I had to find out all by myself and made a lot of choices that were not the best decisions for my business.

Wesley Kelder - Entrepreneur

As a young entrepreneur in online marketing, I had to learn the ropes of strategic decision-making, especially in two key areas and verticals:

1. Decisions related to mindset and daily life that can impact your success in business.

2. Decisions about the kinds of cash flows and managing those.

I hope by sharing my story, I can inspire as many entrepreneurs as possible so they can get to their first one million euros much faster than I did. 

Starting SEO & Affiliate Marketing

When I was a young guy around the age of 20, I started to learn about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). For the first couple of years, I was working at an affiliate marketing network, where I learned about the affiliate marketing market, media agencies and the “online marketing culture”, especially from a network point of view.

During that time, I kept exploring how websites could earn money and what made some sites rank higher on Google. I was curious as to what kind of content was successful and of course, this also helped me understand the internet better, which was helpful for my job in the affiliate marketing network. 

At first, my role within the company was focused on sales acquisition. However, pretty soon I was interested in how to build a website and how to earn money with your own website. My own research regarding this, in combination with my job, made my interest keep growing. Thanks to my extroverted way of living and communicating, I quickly started to learn internally the basics of SEO and later on got the freedom to develop myself.

Development 

After about a year, I was managing a small SEO department with three people. During that time, I was focusing on acquisition strategies. How and why? Well, I was targeting affiliate websites (also called publishers), who are pushing affiliate links through competitors of ours. So they were promoting advertisers through other affiliate networks. Of course, our goal was to get these publishers to join our network.

The pitch was as follows: I offered them “free SEO consultancy” for 1 or 2 years. In return, they will transfer all the links, through affiliate links from our network, to the same or other advertisers. My first successful target did a turnover for the company of €42,000 in his first month. The second month he did €150,000 and the third month above €200,000. I was on fire! Of course this was a game-changer for me, and it strengthened the idea that finding the right revenue streams and building sustainable cash flows was important to scale a business.

At the same time, these kinds of customers, who were pretty “normal” guys running blogs and educational websites, were a big inspiration for me to start my own comparison website or blog to earn more income and to target freedom of work. To work everywhere at any time, not attached to any location. The idea of this was very appealing to me. 

My first affiliate websites

I’ve thought about a lot of different markets and the first market I’ve made my first hundred bucks on was the website “ikwilmeersparen” which is translated from Dutch to English “I want to save more money”. This was in a time when the interest on savings accounts was above 5% in the Netherlands.

After that I simultaneously launched different telecom websites regarding “sim only subscriptions” and “prepaid sim cards”. 

Fast-forward a year, and I was earning a couple of hundred euros a month with sim only subscriptions. Again, a year later, I was earning around two thousands euros a month with simple affiliate commissions for sales within the prepaid sim card market through www.prepaidsimkaarten.nl.Because of the prepaid sim card success, I decided to launch a secondary affiliate website as a prepaid sim card comparison website called PrepaidSimkaart.net. In 2013, after I saved around €50,000 on my bank account as backup, I decided to quit my job at the affiliate network as consultant and went full time into SEO consultancy + building my own comparison platforms. I needed the consultancy part because of the direct income and stability, but the main goal was to grow my affiliate websites!This last launched website grew in its first year, when I was focussed full-time on my own business, into the biggest prepaid comparison website in the Netherlands. As a young guy around the age of 24, with this website, I achieved a net profit of about €15,000-€20,000 a month.

A new chapter: XIPO CONNECT 

As time went on, the affiliate marketing world started to change. Search engines were shifting, showing less love for affiliate sites and more love for strong brands. I understood that if I wanted to stay ahead and keep being active in this market, I had to adapt.

By this time, I had multiple affiliate websites running. Some of them were focused on (prepaid) sim cards, and there were multiple pages about mobile connectivity and data only solutions. These were the kinds of topics that started to get more attention, as the use of the internet kept increasing and calling & sending SMS messages became less relevant.

In the beginning, we had a partner that we did data only sim card sales for. We were essentially an outlet for their products. However, as their dynamic and company focus went away from offering hardware like sim cards and towards software, it was our opportunity to use our many years of experience and knowledge about the (data) sim card market to take this part over. 

In agreement with our partner, we came to the conclusion that it was in everyone’s best interest to create a brand around data only solutions. We had the traffic, we had the product knowledge, and now we just needed to create something sustainable. And that’s how XIPO CONNECT was born. It was a chance to take everything I’d learned from my years of experience in SEO and affiliate marketing to build something more substantial, in a world where brand trust was becoming everything.

We weren’t just linking people to products anymore: we created a brand people could rely on for their connectivity needs. Whether it be a prepaid data only sim card for a specific country or hardware during a family trip: with XIPO CONNECT, we can help people be connected. 

Scaling up with XIPO FLEX

Under the XIPO FLEX brand, we’ve expanded into the eSIM market, serving both consumers and B2B. This includes eSIMs for travel as well as software solutions, enabling us to scale without adding significant workload. With XIPO FLEX eSIMs, we can grow our business while maintaining operational efficiency. 

The launch of XIPO FLEX was mainly driven by experience. Within the telecom market, I see a future where everything transitions to eSIMs. Physical products like traditional sim cards will become less and less popular. Digital products offer unmatched efficiency, and are easier to use for consumers as well. There’s no reliance on postal services; the automated ordering process makes scaling seamless. This model is more service-oriented than product-based and highlights the transition from physical to digital.

What can you learn from my journey?

As I’ve grown as a person, the value of a brand also is something that lies closer to me. When I was a young entrepreneur, I saw opportunities to start for myself and gain freedom. During these years, I’ve seen a lot of situations, both positive and negative, where I had to adapt. Each experience taught me the value of being open to change. I learned that being able to embrace new opportunities is crucial. It’s important to not be afraid to start, but don’t stop evolving either.