How an online poker player went from bankruptcy to building a site

Benny Luo is an SEO and social media marketing expert, reports Tech in Asia

Benny Luo is the mastermind behind the website NextShark.com, a news aggregator specifically targeted at English speaking Asian youth around the world. He started making money in very non-conventional ways such as playing online poker and then jumping into the dark side of internet marketing.

Since then, he’s parlayed those skills into becoming an SEO and social media marketing expert, leveraging his niche to build a site that now drives over 4 million unique visitors a month. 

Who are you and what do you do for a living?

“I was born in California and I went to UC Irvine in Orange County, California. I started off my career as an internet marketer back in college. We did a lot of PPC and search engine marketing.

What was the transition to the next point in your life? 

“[…] Junior year came along and then […] a friend hit me up one day and he’s like, ‘Hey, Benny. You mentioned that your poker mentor made up to $50,000 a month in poker, right? I want to introduce you to this 16-year-old kid. He makes up to $15,000 a day.’ I’m like, ‘Really? Doing what?’ He was like, ‘He does affiliate marketing.’

“I started working for a Dutch startup as a community manager, social media, and stuff like that and that’s when I started doing social media marketing.”

That’s where you started learning more on how to do social media marketing?

“Yeah, and then about six to eight months later, I started working for a company called Centercode, which was basically the number one beta testing company, I would say.

“[…] Over time, I started getting bigger clients. One of [my] biggest [projects] was [doing] a project with Billboard and MGM. I was the social media strategist to help them build engagement and ticket sales and set up social media campaigns for an event.”

---

This is an excerpt from an article published on TechInAsia. You can read the full story here