“It was 11pm on a dreary night in Bangkok.

It was about a week before I’d have to flee the country due to the crackdown, and I already had to leave my apartment due to gunfire and grenades going off constantly for 48 hours. (Seriously, true story).

My (now) good friends Derek and Clay had an apartment across town that they’d just moved into. Despite only knowing them for a brief period of time they let me come crash for a few days while I figured out my next steps.

While all of this was happening, Chris Guillebeau was launching his latest product called the Empire Building Kit. Among other things, it featured an email a day for a year and was designed to help you build a business during that time.

I’d hardly done anything during the previous year to monetize Location Rebel (then Location 180). But when this was released, I figured “why not?” and wrote a review talking about how cool the program was.

I went down the street to grab a coffee and when I came back and refreshed my inbox it was 11:05 – 5 minutes after the sale began.

I refreshed my email as soon as I got back, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

There were 4 emails, each of them saying “Sean Ogle You’ve Just Referred a Sale! You’ve earned a commission of $126.99.”

In a matter of 5 minutes, I’d made $500.”

Read the whole thing here.