Gustavo Geraldes describes himself as a success-driven entrepreneur, avid digital marketing enthusiast, and passionate mentor. His experience in the digital advertising field, although lasting less than a decade, is rich, impressive, and very diverse. DripX Media is the fifth company Geraldes has founded, and it’s his way of steering attention onto more sustainable and predictable sectors of digital marketing that address the ongoing issues in the market.
Affiliate marketing is where an individual will buy ads on advertising platforms, such as Google, Meta, TikTok, Instagram, and others to drive sales and receive commissions from their referrals. According to Gustavo, affiliate marketing very often turns out to be profitable but doesn’t provide a stable, consistent cash flow.
“In affiliate marketing, you don’t have enough control. People can go from making seven figures in one month to earning nothing. The reason is that affiliate marketing is completely reliant on advertisers and ad accounts. For example, an advertiser could reduce their budget at any moment or change their terms which would abruptly restrict your earning potential as an affiliate. If any of your ad accounts get shut down, you might go through weeks or months of no revenue, ultimately losing out on the opportunity to build long-lasting, sustainable wealth. Affiliate marketing is a game of high risk, high reward with exceptional highs and destructive lows. I prefer predictable and sustainable income, and DripX Media is my way of achieving this goal,” explains Gustavo.
Those who are attracted to the world of affiliate marketing are often entrepreneurs or solopreneurs who work alone or in small teams. According to Geraldes, those who succeed possess excellent media buying skills, are excellent at acquiring customers, and generate considerable cash flow. Affiliate marketers are particularly adept at attracting customers because they only get paid when they meet a target, and many large companies take advantage of this. However, working on a commission basis means they never get to create an empire of their own, which deprives affiliate marketers of the opportunity to experience a significant liquidity event, such as selling their company.
Geraldes was born in Portugal and raised in Australia. He left Melbourne in 2010 and travelled the world for over three years. After that time, the young entrepreneur decided to find a more permanent home in the US. It took five years of wrong partnerships and poorly selected business ventures for Geraldes to start seeing success. The success was derived from focusing his efforts on digital advertising and ultimately discovering various ways of making money online. After gaining recognition and winning several awards within the industry, Geraldes moved away from focusing on high-cash-flow online advertising campaigns and began shifting his efforts to building a company to sell.
This endeavour led Geraldes to co-found Ambrose Health, a preventative health care offering genetic testing to combat some of the most fatal illnesses in America, such as cancer and heart disease. Gustavo’s expertise enabled Ambrose to acquire hundreds of thousands of customers and generate an average of $10-14M in revenue a month. When Geraldes’s efforts and knowledge finally started to pay off, one of his vendors began getting more and more greedy and jeopardized Geraldes’s business through illegal actions. As the founder of the company, Geraldes encountered legal trouble, which temporarily damaged his name, and derailed his progress.
Good things never come easy, and Geraldes has had a fair share of hurdles during his journey. “All the wrong ventures, greedy business associates, and even legal issues taught me what to beware of. I’ve learned my lessons, and I’m ready to make a mark in the industry again. DripX Media is my way of developing brands into household names via omni-channel direct-response advertising. Our mission is to partner with funded direct-to-customer companies, to drive hyper-growth, and increase customer lifetime value. DripX focuses on building systems and nurturing connections with customers, ensuring longevity, predictability, and a stable cash flow. I’m excited to see my vision through and build companies with high enterprise value, leveraging our digital advertising expertise,” shares Geraldes.
Amalesh Das is a freelancer content writer.
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For many years, a debate over illegal second units filled municipal agendas.
Supporters of the units argued they were an answer to Marin’s lack of affordable housing. Critics contended that they violated single-family zoning, causing overcrowding and neighborhood parking problems.
At one time, the county Board of Supervisors struck a compromise, allowing second units in three of the five supervisorial districts.
Sacramento and its regional housing quotas shifted that debate.
Today, many Marin cities are banking heavily on the creation of second units – now referred to as accessory dwelling units, or ADUs – to satisfy the state-mandated number needed by 2031.
The state requirement for Marin is 14,405 new units.
For some of these cities, available land for building housing is in short supply. In addition, ADUs are seen as an alternative to approving larger-scale housing complexes.
Given that strategy, the 2022-23 Marin County Civil Grand Jury has held up a mirror to that goal and in its recent report details financial and procedural hurdles facing that objective.
Its report hails the creation of ADUs as an answer to Marin’s shortage of affordable housing. They can be affordable for the property owner to build, generate needed income for the landlord and provide affordable housing for family members or the local workers, older relatives and caregivers.
“Because of their small footprint, ADUs are significantly less expensive to build than new detached single-family homes. They also offer benefits that address common development barriers, such as land use and environmental sustainability,” the grand jury states.
But the grand jury’s look into the specifics of getting them built pinpointed some local hurdles.
One of the biggest are the fees that the local government levies on new housing units.
Voter approval of the 1978 Proposition 13 property tax cut put local government on a path of creating new local fees in order to generate new revenue. Over the years, those fees have been increased.
The grand jury suggests that those varied fees now create a financial hurdle that could thwart homeowners’ interest in building ADUs.
In fact, the grand jury points to Salem, Oregon as an example, where the city waives any increase in property tax so long as the property owners keep rents affordable.
The county has taken steps to encourage the building of ADUs, providing free technical assistance and waiving portions of the county’s development fees for units that are built as affordable housing.
Other agencies could do their share, as well, the report contends.
One example it cites is the North Marin Water District’s requirement that detached ADUs pay a $8,675 hookup fee. Add to that, the city and school district charges and the upfront cost hits more than $18,000 for units 700 square feet or smaller and an estimated $34,307 for building an 800-square-foot unit.
In Belvedere, city fees for an attached ADU are $19,530, according to the grand jury’s report.
Those are charges before the property owner can pour the foundation or hammer a nail for a new ADU.
The grand jury is urging local governmental agencies to take a harder look at their construction fees through the lens of encouraging the construction of affordable ADUs.
“Marin’s mandated housing goals can be met when every public agency in the county aligns its policies toward these objectives. Cooperation should be the mantra. It benefits everyone,” the report states.
Those layers of fees build to the point where it is financially discouraging for landlords considering building ADUs.
The grand jury also recommends that the county and cities do more to make it easier – including dispelling planning regulations – for property owners.
If ADUs are going to be advanced as an effective strategy in meeting the state’s mandated regional housing quotas, governmental agencies need to break out of their bureaucratic silos and work together to remove or reduce obstacles that are now on the books.
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