Among a lot of other bloggers, I’m using BuySellAds.com ads on my blog. BSA has been founded two years ago by Todd Garland, an American entrepreneur.
I had the chance to recently talk with Todd about how he managed to create his service which started as a part-time company and how he turned it into a real money making machine, helping thousands of bloggers to make money. Here is the interview with Todd!

Hello Todd, and thanks for answering this interview. What’s your background, and what was your job before creating BSA?

Thanks for the interview Jean – I’m honored! Prior to BuySellAds.com I was a front-end engineer, designer, & SEO specialist at HubSpot.com. My background is web design and development, I’ve been building sites for about 10 years now. I got started the way most designers and developers did by finding this interesting and learning through trial and error (and many late nights!).

Is BuySellAds.com your full-time job? Do you manage other sites as well?

Up until December 31st of 2008 it was a part-time thing, but then I left HubSpot and started working on BSA full-time on January 1st of 2009. Since then it has really started to take off and we’re doing very well. BSA is more than a full time job at this point – we have 5 full-time employees and a few other part-timers. Like any entrepreneur, I have ideas brewing in the back of my mind that I would love to work on, but my sole focus and passion right now is with BSA. There is plenty of opportunity with BSA to keep pushing and pushing for years to come. Advertising is a fun business to be in.

What was your idea when you decided to create BSA? What inspired you?

I started BSA because I was frustrated. I had two sites I was running on the side as a hobby and to make some extra money. I was buying and selling ads for both of these sites and the entire process just didn’t make any sense. As an advertiser, I would have to email a website owner, wait a few days to hear back, negotiate on pricing, figure out how to make payment, etc. – it was a nightmare. As a publisher, I would have to constantly respond to emails from advertisers wanting to advertise on my sites (some serious and some not), go back and forth on the details, remember when to bill them, when to put their ads up and take them down, etc. – this was a nightmare as well. As an advertiser I just wanted to get my ads live and not have to deal with the publishers each month. And, as a publisher, I just wanted a way to put the advertising for my sites on auto-pilot and provide advertisers with a way to just BUY it immediately without me having to do anything.

What was very surprising to me is that no other ad networks really let me sell ads this way. Some were too complicated to use, others did not allow sponsorship ads like this, and the rest we’re too high-end to deal with my sites. So, I was able to acquire a nice domain name, BuySellAds.com, and just made it happen. I built something that would make my life easier.

BuySellAds.com is a huge success in the world of blogging, and is used by many extremely popular blogs.
Did you expected it when you launched the company?

Thanks for the praise, I think that we have been successful on a small scale. I also think that we’re just starting to scratch the surface with BSA – we have a lot of work left to do. It doesn’t mean that I’m getting greedy now or that I think we’re going to become the next Google AdWords or something… what it means is that there is A LOT more that we can do that will make BSA even better for those involved. We have some nice plans in our pipeline for 2010. It’s going to be a fun year for us and all of our users.

No, I didn’t expect BSA to be what it is today – some mornings I would wake up and think that it was the best idea ever and others I would wake up and think it was awful. All in all, I think that BSA is successful because it works really well for both advertisers and publishers, and because we are all very passionate about making BSA better each and every day.

Do you work alone or have any employees?

There are 5 of us full-time now and a few part-timers.

What are, in your opinion, the things that made BSA so popular among bloggers?

I think that we’re solving a common problem for bloggers. They like using us because we solve these problems very well, we have awesome support, and we’re continuously working to improve both our product and service. We are authentic, and not just another web startup looking to raise a bunch of money and then sell for a bunch of money a year later.

What are your plans for the future of BSA?

Keep pushing. We see more and more people moving ads away from the traditional ad networks and selling them direct. BSA will continue to help advertisers and publishers buy and sell ads efficiently.

What would you say to someone who want to create his own online business?

Do it. What are you waiting for?

Thanks for your time Todd, and best wishes for BSA!