We WILL Lead the Industry Another 14 Years.

byKyle

2.4M followers

Updated 5 years ago

Today marks the 14th year at Wealthy Affiliate!

On September 10th, 2005 we launched a little website called WealthyAffiliate.com and over the next 14 years it has evolved to what you see today. Back then Carson and I launched Wealthy Affiliate with the intention to help people build businesses online.

To date, we have not veered from this mission, in fact we are more committed than ever to evolving the platform here to help YOU achieve success and to do so at a rate not possible (or with the same cost efficiency) as you can here at WA.

Currently we boast over 1.9 MILLION members, and our membership is growing at the fastest rate ever. Our technical and our in house team is bigger than ever, and operates with the most efficiency we have ever experienced. Our development life cycles have been shortened, and our handle on some of the most complex technologies has never been this dialed in.

But we are hardly done. We are not even close. I want to explain how we arrived at where we are at, and what will fuel our growth and the platform here in the next year, and for the next 14!

Let's Start With Morals and Ethics...

This has and will remain a big part of all of our decision-making. In the past few years, there has been an unusual influx of scams and high ticket programs in the industry. This is becoming the norm and as a business that operates on "bottom line first", there would be a natural draw to charge WAY more for what we offer here.

I mean seriously, we have been in business for 14 years now and dumped 10s of millions into the platform, yet our price for a yearly membership today is lower than it was back in 2005. Let me say that again.

OUR PRICE NOW IS LOWER THAN IT WAS IN 2005!

Inflation continues to go up, other far inferior services are charging $10,000's for their education and product offerings, yet we are still offering our membership at $359 per year (less than $1 per day).

The reason we have done this is that we put PEOPLE first. Our goal has always been to level the playing field for those that were "would be" business owners but may not have been able to afford to start a business, and those with a big budget to start a business.

Starting, owning, and creating a business has never been this cost-efficient, and the technology, training and community you have access to WA has never been this advanced. This is not going to change and it is our vow to you to remain the leaders in the industry not just from an ethical standpoint, but also from an end product standpoint.

There are 5 focuses of Wealthy Affiliate that are going to drive the platform in the years to come, and I can tell you that we are working on some of the most exciting projects that we ever have. We are not only the best equipped to innovate, we have learned so much in our last 14 years as a company that we are going to push forward in the most efficient way that we ever have.

Focus 1: The Technology.

I think newcomers underestimate the reality of what Wealthy Affiliate is. On the outside, we may appear to be a social platform, but as you get your footing here at Wealthy Affiliate you will realize that we are a technology company and one that is leading the way in many respects.

We have been recognized as leaders in the server technology space (hosting) by the Canadian government, and we are going to be pushing forward with technology that simply doesn't exist. This is technology that creates new layers of technology that lead to more speed, reliability, security, and efficiency.

Our team consists of advanced server architects and computer engineers that are going to continue pushing the boundaries of new technology as it comes available to us. You can expect a great deal of changes on the website/hosting front in the years ahead as we introduce new, never-seen-before technology.

The website and hosting elements of your business are just ONE of the key technical focuses though. We are in the process of pushing forward new evolutions of existing platforms here. These include significant updates to Jaaxy (the Research Tools here), SiteContent (the content and writing platform), Affiliate Programs (launched this year), brand new platforms which will released over the next year, and the actual BEAST itself (your Wealthy Affiliate back office).

Each and every week there are 100's of updates being released by our team, and although many of them are very subtle and are on the technical side, these all incrementally improve the overall experience here within WA. You can expect BIG things out of us, and our technical team of over 25 in the year ahead. We will continue to lead the industry on a technical side of things.

Focus 2: The Education.

There are two elements to education. Conventionally, people view education as "learning" something, but they define learning as being able to read and recite what you have just read (IE, memorization). The problem is that this approach to education doesn't work when you are trying to teach someone how to build a business. Without the actionable or application element of what you have learned, it is just information that you are attaining.

So when we sit down to make any radical training improvements, we have to take this into consideration along with the ways in which people best learn, and ultimately what will lead to the creation of successful, thriving businesses. In the past 14 years we have learned a great deal about the education element of building businesses, and we have tackled some of the most common assumptions that have been problematic in our "institutionalized" education for as long as it has existed.

Moving forward you are going to see some massive changes to the education here, how it is delivered, who can deliver it, and the overall organization and evolution as to what you are taught here.

Before I discuss where we are heading with this, I want to cite the incredible amount of training you have access to now. Many people use a fraction of the training, partly our fault because of the overall organization and inability to logically sift through different "topics", but partly because there is more training than anyone could ever need to create and maintain several 6-7 figure online businesses here.

This includes:

• Online Entrepreneur Certification (Core Training).
• Affiliate Bootcamp Training
• Live Weekly Classes (minimum 52 per year)
• Yearly Training Challenges
• Community Contribution Training. Several Training Resources Added Weekly (100's per year)

Next Level Training. By next level, I don't mean "more costs". I mean that we are going to take our entire training platform to the next level. It is something that we have been planning out for many years, but sometimes before you make a move in terms of new technology and designs, you have to let ideas "incubate" and "mature". That has certainly been the case with the training aspect here and we have a massive, yet very exciting project we are going to be pushing hard with over the next 6-8 months (prior to release).

The training is great now, but the training environment that you are going to get to experience in 2020 here at Wealthy Affiliate is going to be NEXT LEVEL!

More community and expert involvement. The reality is that there are 1,000's of experts on various topics hanging out within Wealthy Affiliate throughout the day, but there isn't a platform outside of the current "add training" function that allows someone to exhibit their knowledge and reap the benefits of it. This is going to change in the next year.

The KEY is being able to define who an expert is, and that is something that we are going to be tackling in the year ahead. Ambassadorship is an expert of WA, but it doesn't necessarily mean that someone is a subject matter expert. So you are likely to see an additional ranking component based on "knowledge".

More Revenue Opportunity. We fully intend on creating an environment that comes with more revenue potential for experts and content creators. You can currently earn revenue with all training that you create here, but this platform can really thrive with some work and updates. Also, there are going to be new ways that you can earn income as an "expert" that haven't existed yet. So some really exciting stuff on this front.

Those are just a few of the changes that you can expect and anticipate as we move forward with some innovative and evolutionary training updates. There are many ways to "bake the cake" in terms of building an online business, and our mission is to continue to expand your horizons and subsequently, your revenue opportunities online.

This includes new training platforms. This includes a lot of new training from myself, from Jay, and from the community. This includes an approach to training that leads to levels of success that has never been seen or achieved before.

Focus 3: Community.

What is the difference between a thriving community, and one living in a constant state of dystopia? The answer is, not much.

If you have been a member of Wealthy Affiliate for any amount of time, you are going to realize the community is a big part of the experience here and truly how awesome folks are here. The reality is that MOST people are amazing, caring human beings.

If you give them the opportunity to pay it forward and to help others, they will. And on the other side of the equation, there are many people that will need help as they build out their businesses and if you give them an environment that they trust and feel comfortable with, they will actually ask for help. These are two of the key focuses and will remain at the center of all of our developments moving into 2020.

Through technology, training and our marketing divisions of our business, we are going to continue to push towards the idea of a perfect community. We know that it will never be totally achieved, but we know can get closer and closer to the utopian environment with every incremental community improvement.

Some key areas of focus in the year ahead are going to be:

• More cohesive and caring
• More management features
• Improved interactions and flow for communication
• Community rewards
• Grouping and Masterminds

You will see features that are rolled out on a pretty regular basis that are geared towards the community element of Welathy Affiliate. We are excited for the future of the community here, which we feel (and I know most do) is the most helpful and caring on the planet.

Focus 4: Support, Mentorship and Coaching.

Building a community is tough, in particular one that experiences more utopia than dystopia. Social platforms have become ubiquitous for being dysfunctional, and full of flame wars and spam.

Nailing down technology, interactions, and communication that makes a community tick and do so in a positive way isn't a simple math problem (algorithm). To understand and run a successful social environment, with people from all walks of, from every country in the world, and with different ideas & opinions is not a simple task.

Thus why you see social platforms like Facebook suffering with constant flame wars, hatred, and ill-conceived conversations. Thus why you see companies like Google ditching their social network Google +. Because it isn't easy.

What I can say though is that we are proud of where WA is at, and of course this couldn't have been done without awesome people like yourself here within the community. I can also tell you that as we continue to understand human interactions and the potential fall out or issues that lead to negative or dysfunction, the community here will only continue to thrive.

A big part of our focus moving forward is the community, and some key and core elements thereof. These include.

• Faster, More Efficient Support.
• Dynamic Answers.
• Communication Streamlining.
• Better Notifications.

These are all going to equate to more people attaining more skills here, with more efficiency. There is a lot of opportunity for knowledge share and we all have valuable skills that are very much transferrable to one another to lead to more knowledge and more success.

You are going to see a lot of emphasis on mentorship in the year ahead.

Focus 5: Opportunity.

The affiliate marketing industry continues to grow as online spending increases, and the number of companies investing into their affiliate programs increases. To be completely frank, there has never been better time to get involved. That is just ONE facet to building a business online, and a website can be monetized in many ways.

We are going to continue to lead the affiliate marketing space, and we will continue building relationships with some of the top affiliate networks and affiliate programs in the space. We are putting you, the affiliate, first though. Something that is unique and your value in the online world as an affiliate is only going to continue to go up.

More companies (including huge ones) are living and dying by the quality of their interactions and ability to run thriving affiliate programs. Amazon WOULD NOT be Amazon today without their affiliate program.

We care about you. We look forward to working with you. We know our 14th year here at Wealthy Affiliate is going to be our best one yet and another one filled with positive change, innovation, evolution, and our continual education about YOU and what you need most to succeed within the online world at the highest rate possible.

An exciting year lies ahead! We WILL continue to lead to industry with ethics, with technology, and with positive and forward thinking ideas.