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Loveland Web entrepreneur clicks with dot.com business

Loveland Web entrepreneur clicks with dot.com business

Self-made mogul offers tips
BY DOUGLAS CROWL • LOVELAND CONNECTION • NOVEMBER 24, 2008

Joel Comm insists anyone can make a living with an Internet business or Web site.

“For (less than) $10, you can have a Web site posted and pursue your dream,” Comm said.

It’s easy to believe as the Internet entrepreneur, author, online business guru and Loveland resident takes you through his office space where his Infomedia Inc.
company has grown from two people to 18 employees in two years at 14th Street Southwest and Taft Avenue.

It all began with a few simple Web sites, such as Worldvillage.com, which has reviews and blogs, and Dealofday.com that display good shopping deals.

Now, Comm appears to have his finger in just about everything Web based, with 60 active Web sites, six books on Internet marketing, a popular speaker on Internet marketing and a bunch of creative people thinking up new ideas at Infomedia.

The latest: a mobile application retailers can use to send coupons, sales and announcements to customers through telephone texting.

It’s a mini-media empire, which Comm keeps people clued in on with his popular blog at Joelcomm.com called Making Money Online.

Comm and his company recently finished an Internet-based reality show: “The Next Internet Millionaire with Joel Comm,” which involved flying in contestants to a warehouse near the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport for two weeks of shooting.

“The pattern you’ll see is that I keep doing different stuff, because I get bored,” Comm said.

Comm is promoting his latest book, “Click Here to Order," which is a collection of stories of the world’s most successful Internet marketing entrepreneurs.

It’s a departure, in some respects, from his typical writing, but Comm has a little experience in the field, since he has a good story to tell for himself.

Comm is one of those ’90s dot.com guys, and that’s not just because of his last name.

“That’s my real last name,” Comm said with a grin.

Back in 1995, Comm, a one-time DJ and encyclopedia salesman in Texas, started launching Web sites, first Worldvillage.com and then Classicgames.com, which had card games and other simple game applications.

Yahoo! liked that game site, and in 1997, the Internet giant crafted a seven-figure deal to purchase Classicgames.com, he said.

Comm was set, now having the capital to further invest in his Web ideas.

Then, things fell apart in the dot.com world, leaving Comm wondering what he would do next.

“I knew it would come back around. I knew I just had to stick around,” Comm said.
It did and in 2004, Comm began figuring out that he could make money with advertising revenue through his Web sites, using Google’s AdSense application.

Building off this, Comm figured he would write what turned out to be a 66-page e-book on how to make money using AdSense and sell it online.

He would have been happy making $10,000 on the book in the first month.

Instead, he made that in the first week. Never one to watch opportunity pass him by, Comm quickly wrote a follow-up and began building a reputation as an expert in making money online — filling speaking engagements and fielding offers to write printed books.

Comm then really made a name for himself in 2006, when he released his book, “The AdSense Code” a direct take off of the “Da Vinci Code” book, which Comm and his publishers released the same day the “Da Vinci Code” movie came out.

The book blew up, rising to the top of the New York Times Best Seller List for business books and peaking out as the third most bought book on Amazon.com.

Since then, Comm has located his business in Loveland, because he’s always wanted to live near the mountains.

“I mean, look at this view,” Comm said with a smile in his corner office, looking west to the mountains.

For more information, visit Joelcomm.com and infomediainc.com.