"I have Shoemoney to thank for getting me into web publishing in the first place," said Wu in a comment on our previous article. "I was in college when Shoemoney’s famous Adsense check picture was circulating around the web. When I saw it, I was like DAMN, I wanna be like that guy! That’s what inspired me to launch my ‘Future Young Millionaires’ site which eventually led to Bankaholic."

The following interview is from the second round of questions I had for Johns, which were originally intended to be part of the last article, but due to conflicting schedules, we were unable to get that sorted out in time. However, Johns still had plenty more interesting things to say, so without further ado, here is the Q&A to come from that:

Chris Crum:  We have speculated that BankRate was attracted to the user-engagement aspect that your blog brings to the table. What are your thoughts on this?

Johns Wu: Definitely. Bankrate is a boring old school corporate website that offers no platform for visitors to interact with each other. Now that they have Bankaholic, they will be positioned to spinoff a more interactive brand that will attract younger, web savvy consumers. Tom Evans, the CEO of Bankrate, affirmed this view in the conference call he had with investors regarding the Bankaholic acquisiton.

CC:  What importance do you think user engagement has on the web in general?

JW: A HUGE deal. User generated content sells. For instance, last week I wanted to eat some good BBQ—I jumped on Yelp, looked for the restaurant with the best reviews, reserved the table, and had a great meal. A while ago when I wanted to learn more about DIY beer making, I went on Amazon, looked for the best rated book, and completed my order with 1 click ship and Amazon Prime. That’s 100% conversion rate in both instances! Companies need to learn how to take advantage of UGC or they will be left in the dust!

CC:  What tips would you give to an aspiring blogger or webmaster to help make their site more successful?

JW: Take a look at your competitors and figure out what you can do to distinguish yourself from the crowd. There are about a dozen websites out there where you can lookup interest rate information, but a lot of them either have out-of-data or very poor user interfaces.

CC: How much negotiating was involved for the sale of Bankaholic and how long did the negotiation process take?

JW: Ahhh the process was extremely stressful. For the record, I’m really sad to sell Bankaholic… The negotiation itself took about 1 week, but it took almost a month for the stupid lawyers to settle things on paper. The fact that the financial world was in meltdown did not help either.

CC: How did you get started working with BankRate in the first place? Did they approach you?

JW: Yes, they reached out and we bounced some ideas back and forth before we decided to team up.

CC: How about when the idea of the sale came about. Did they approach you about this?

JW: Yes, they were the ones who suggested the sale. Ideally, I would have liked to hang on to it a little longer b/c I still have a lot of ideas on improving Bankaholic that I’d like to implement.

CC: How many page views and unique visitors does Bankaholic get?

JW: I’d love to tell you, but Bankrate would not be very happy with that!

That’s understandable, Johns. We don’t want to get you in trouble. I’d like to thank Mr. Wu again for taking time out to talk to WebProNews, so we can share his story with all of our readers, many of which are aspiring to find success online and can look to Wu’s story for inspiration and motivation.

Chris Crum: How did this deal come about?

Johns Wu: I’ve been working with the folks at Bankrate since late July, and it just felt like a good fit. I was a one-man show looking to take some money off the table, and they were a traffic hungry financial powerhouse looking to broaden their portfolio of online properties.

CC:  What was your reaction when you were approached with the offer?

JW: I was blown away! I’m going to be 23 in November, and never in my life would I have imagined having so much money, especially at this age! I don’t even know what I will do… I mean, I live a simple life. I live in an apartment, I eat lunch at Subway, and I go drinking on weekends. This moneys inevitably going to change my lifestyle a bit, but I’m looking forward to that!

CC: Is it true that you will stay on to continue blogging for the site?

JW: Yes, I like blogging, so I don’t mind. Especially right now, with the financial world in total chaos, there’s no shortage of topics to write about. This is history in the making, and it’s fun to document it.

CC: Do you know if they intend to add additional bloggers as well?

JW: If I were them, I would hire more writers.

CC: How long have you been blogging at Bankaholic?

JW: I started the site in July of 2006, so I’ve been blogging at Bankaholic for about 2.5 years now.

CC: Do you have other blogs?

JW: LOL! Ironically, I had a website in college called "Future Young Millionaires". I’m too embarrassed to tell you the URL because the site looks like garbage, but if you’re savvy enough at Google, you will probably be able to find it.

CC: Can you provide a little info about yourself just so we can get to know a little bit about who you are?

JW: Sure, my parents are from Taiwan, but I was born on the east coast. I grew up in Arcadia, CA and went to college at UC Berkeley. After that, I worked for a couple months at an online jewelry e-tailer before I quit to work on Bankaholic full time.

CC: There’s been a lot of criticism of blogs as credible news sources. What is your position on this?

JW: I trust blogs WAY more than mainstream media. Some people will say that corporate media is more accurate b/c stories are screened by editors and lawyers, but this is also one of the flaws. I like to read articles that are raw and unedited by people who are qualified to write about the topic. The perfect example is the Iraq war. Who would you trust more? an article from Fox News or a blog post from a Marine on the front lines?

I’d like to thank Johns for taking the time to talk to WebProNews. I’m sure he is quite busy thinking about what to do with his newfound wealth. I’m not going to hunt down his college site and embarrass him. Although, if he got to where he is now by starting with that, how embarrassing can it really be? Congratulations Johns!

Darren Rowse who knows a thing or two about blogging success says, "If this price is true it’s a fairly decent sale for Mr Wu (understatement of the year) – the blog has an Alexa ranking of 42,168 and averages less than 20 comments per post. The blog does seem to rank very well for a lot of bank terms and I’m sure drives targeted traffic and would convert well with affiliate products – but this is still a fairly inspiring sale!"

"Inspiring" is an understatement itself. If ever there has been motivation to make money blogging, this should be it. This is even more inspiring than the Wine Library TV guy getting on Conan and Ellen. His story was impressive. He did turn it into a $45 million business, but it was already a $4 million to begin with.

As far as I can tell, Wu just started a blog, and here he is sometime later selling it for $15 million. I think most bloggers would find that very impressive. "I was looking at this deal and was thinking if this isn’t the highest price tag paid for a single WordPress blog than it must be the most profitable WP blog ever sold!" exclaims blogger Patrick Gavin. "A deal estimated at $15M, seemingly all organic search traffic (so no cost for the traffic, the site is highly ranked for many top banking terms, ie ‘CD Rates’), and one employee! Well done John[s] Wu."

BankRate confirms that natural search ranking was indeed a factor. "We have been working with Bankaholic in a co-brand relationship since July and have seen first-hand the volume and quality of its traffic," stated Thomas R. Evans, President and CEO of Bankrate. "Bankaholic is ranked high in natural search for both deposit and credit card keywords. We believe their organic traffic will increase our deposit and credit card revenue, and with a high composition of free traffic, will help to improve margins,"

John Chow talked to Wu and confirmed the $15 million price. I have contacted both Wu and BankRate with some questions, so hopefully I will get some more info on the deal from one or both of them. If so, you’ll be the first to know. According to a press release, Wu will stay attached to the blog during the transition period, and for an undisclosed amount of time following that.