STM Thought Leader: Tim Tetra (29)
I’d like to introduce you to Tim Tetra, a.k.a Mr International a.k.a The Minister of Miles a.k.a The Mobile Millionaire.
Most people only dream of one day travelling around the world, or flying first class, or seeing the Eiffel Tower, or swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, or lounging with Victoria's Secret models in Monaco, or dining at the top of the tallest building in the world in Dubai … all while working just one hour a day.
Well Tim Tetra has been living this life for the past 4 years. And this he has paid for this lifestyle 100% through affiliate marketing.
He wakes up when he wants, he works when he wants. He lives the dream lifestyle. In the past 3 years he’s been practically living on planes, has visited 50 countries, and hundreds of cities *- just “because he felt like it.” He has mastered airline travel. He even posted on STM “How To Get 80% Off First Class Flights”.
If there’s one word that encompasses Tim’s approach to life, his philosophy, and his driving motivation in life, that word would be “Freedom”. Although he couldn’t remember too many details of his childhood he could ALWAYS remember the overwhelming need to be free.
“The only thing I wanted was to be left alone to be able to do what I wanted to do in life.”
Tim summed this up very eloquently in a poem he wrote when he was 7.
Although Tim still might not be cool, still can’t quite find himself a “Steath boat”, and is still wondering if he will win the lottery, Tim’s focus of making a tonne of money developed from a very early age.
When Tim was 8, he used to go to his older brother’s room and play on his computer. His parents didn’t want any piece of that, and told him to stay away from games. This made no sense to Tim, so he completely ignored them and played anyway. His parents were absolutely furious when he just ignored them. Instead, their anger only served to fuel his fire and desire to be free even more.
By middle school, Tim started getting his hustle on in to give himself a sense of freedom. It all started when he recognized the ridiculous arbitrage opportunity his brother’s cable modem offered for him (the fastest connection in the area). Being a typical 11 year old boy Tim was fixated with how fast the -- ahem -- NSFW pictures now loaded. Armed with this new sense of wonder, and the acute sense to know that other boys could only dream they had access to what he did, and significant cash investment in a colour laser printer, he started his first business peddling -- ahem -- content to kids at $5 per printout. That was going well, but it took him a lot of time, and was tough to scale. So he even eventually moved to $15 videos burned onto a CD.
This lead him onto his first lesson of risk management. One of his customers (a school kid) tried to rat him out during class because he got caught with a picture he bought from Tim. So business minded Tim adjusted, and changed his distribution methodology. His set up now consisted of taking orders beforehand, then delivering all the copies before homeroom started by slipping the copies into his customers lockers. This meant Tim never having any product on him.
Over the next four years, Tim had multiple businesses that got him deeper and deeper into some more -- ahem “questionable” -- areas. *Morals and legality meant nothing to him at that age, though, because for him the ONLY thing that mattered was tending to his need to be FREE at all times. In those days he could frequently be heard telling others that he would rather die before he would let someone tell him what to do.
Fast forward to today, He is much older and wiser. But STILL the will to be free drives his entire being — hell, his BKK speech was completely on the topic of this.
Tim got involved in affiliate marketing when he realised that he could one day make even more money, with much less risk, while staying completely within the bounds law in AM when compared to his other -- ahem “legally gray” activities. **Does he regret his wild and reckless years, however? “Not at all,” he says. All the skills he learned hustling on the streets provided him with tremendous understanding of how to influence other people and get them to buy whatever Tim was selling.
Tim first came across STM after Google slapped all affiliates with its first major set of bans, so he was trying to find more resources on other traffic sources. Tim soon realized that there are so many more critical and intellectuals elements to success in AM than just hustling, and he remembered being sold on STM when he saw all the success stories/campaign breakdowns.
When he joined STM, he wasn’t disappointed. Members were dropping bomb after bomb and gold nugget after gold nugget, especially Polarbacon and Tjin. It was because of those two that he got back into Facebook, eventually ramping up and generating huge numbers.
I first encountered Tim when I had the crazy idea of a making a case study around QR codes and flyers. More specially giving out flyers to people on the street, hoping they would scan the QR code and fill out an email submit offer. I asked if any STMers based in the US could make it happen. Tim put his hand up. He hired two girls to distribute the flyers, and parked them outside a New York Giants football game.
The case study was a flop, as we didn’t really prepare for giving out 10,000 flyers to people who were swarming into a stadium, anxious to watch the game from all directions. But just through that I could tell Tim was a hustler, and got things done.
Not surprisingly it wasn’t very long after he joined STM that he broke the $XX,XXX/day profit figure. It was then, that he decided he could train two of his best friends to manage his campaigns for a cut of the profit, while he traveled the world.
They say that the definition of an entrepreneur is that they are the only people crazy enough to work 80 hours a week in order to not have to work 40 hours a week. *I think that aptly sums up his life. *He is willing to do the insane, and extreme, optimizing ruthlessly and doing anything/everything possible in his power so that he will never succumb to having someone else force him to do what he doesn’t want to do in life.
AM and his other business investments allow him to be 100% free.
But what has driven Tim is not the desire for material success. For Tim freedom is not just about freedom FROM doing what you are told to do, or working in a mindless job, but it is also freedom TO do the things that are important to you, and to make a difference in other people's lives.
Recently Tim struck up a conversation with a local taxi driver in Cambodia who mentioned he had a child on the way, and was trying to work extra hours in order to support his family. Tim was then able to use his freedom to go around town and buy medicine, food, clothes to help the taxi driver with supporting his soon to be born baby.
Freedom is what motivates him every day. It is so utterly vital to him that there ARE no pain points in his life as long as he am actively protecting his freedom from others who would dare to threaten it.
Tim, you are a crazy maniac of a human being, your drive to be free is contagious. You’re one heck of a hustler! You have inspired the STM community (including yours truly). Thank you for all your contributions, and welcome to the STM Global Thought Leader Council!
Wow ... talk about living the Dream Life!
Congratulations, Tim! What an amazing story.
Tim, you by far have the coolest travel/life photos of anyone I know.
And you have my admiration for tapping into the porn market so early. Talk about spotting a lucrative market!
Wow very inspiring!
What an amazing journey.
Congratulations Tim!
Inspiring story Tim. Kudos for going after your dream and making it happen.
Having Tim on Facebook hurts the soul of jealousy everyday with the influx of these photos!
Also a real champion of a dude, always full of interesting conversation, literal genius and friendly as hell!
Muchos Loveos bro!
Pssh... Porn for Darren? What kind of an unprofessional non-cloaking 11 year old porn peddler do you take me for?!
In all honesty, it is really difficult being the next person to follow Kokofai, as his story and personality have all the hallmarks of an inspirational type of story that has all the right elements to make you be happy for his success. It has that quintessential feel-good vibe that occurs when everything aligns in terms of purpose.
While I cannot match that, if you are in mood for a fun laugh, come find me in person at any of these events and I'll be more than happy to share the details of my other 6-7 business ventures I got into before I did AM - replete with answers to burning questions you may have like "Why were those guys camped outside your house waiting for you to leave", "How did you talk your way out of an interrogation room unscathed", and more!
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Originally Posted by timtetra
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Are any of the Bangkok STM meet up talks online? Sounded like a great meetup, would love to hear Tim's speech. Thanks
Originally Posted by nt2000
Originally Posted by nt2000
Very cool stuff! Nice to hear about another STMer who started being an entrepreneur so early - although you definitely took it further than I did as a teen 
Also - definitely watch Tim's speech if you haven't already. It's fantastic.
That's awesome stuff. Super inspiring for sure, well done man!
Also if you need a fine dining suggestion, Tim has a go-to spot on each continent
hahaha porn for darren!
Amazingly written, and your travel speech blew me away in Thailand!
Can't wait for London
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Originally Posted by stackman
Nice.
Originally Posted by cmdeal
Tim very-very .......cool man
congratz tim, i love it when i see this kind of stories of people coming up and making it.
This is one of my favourite quote from Tim
Tim's entire life reminds me of two great quotes:
^^ the Seth Godin quote is so nice. It really rings home because it has nothing to do with $.
It's all about doing a job that you would essentially do for free if the world didn't revolve around $.
wahh very inspiring. Congratulations!
That's awesome stuff. well done man!Congratulations!
Originally Posted by andyvon
Man reading this makes me so excited for the future, this was really motivational to read. It's so true that if you put in the time and work you can achieve big things
thanks for this post
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