Niall Doherty
Personal file

About

I'm Niall Doherty, an operator, marketer, and AI automator.

I've been building websites since the 90s and helping SMEs level up all things digital since 2010.

Along the way I've written books, made videos, and visited 50+ countries.

Record card

niall.bio
Name
Niall Doherty
Trade
Operator, marketer, AI automator
Based
Canillo, Andorra | Waterford, Ireland
From
Slieverue, Co. Kilkenny
Online since
1996
Self-employed since
2010
Illustrated portrait of Niall Doherty in sunglasses and a grey t-shirt, holding a takeaway coffee

TLDR

// the short version (full timeline below)

  1. Today

    Most of my time goes into building marketing and sales systems: AI-assisted content pipelines, outbound tooling, the internal plumbing that lets a small team do the work of a much bigger one. I ship most days, usually with Claude Code.

  2. Best known for

    The project I'm best known for is eBiz Facts , a research site and newsletter I started in 2018. Built it to 100K monthly visitors and generated $3.5M+ in tracked sales for partner brands through SEO and affiliate marketing. Grew the mailing list past 33,000.

  3. Lately

    More recently I've been running a local SEO agency for home service contractors: websites, rankings, review automation, sales pipeline. Check my now page to see what else I'm up to these days.

  4. In the press

    Along the way I've been quoted as an industry expert by NBC News and written up in The Irish Times, among others. The full list is further down this page.

  5. Backstory

    I studied Multimedia and IT in Ireland, then spent a few years as a web designer in New Orleans. I moved there for a basketball obsession and somehow left with an ESPN media credential.

  6. RTW Trip

    I went out on my own in 2010, and for 44 months I travelled the world without flying . 37 countries, three oceans, writing a couple of books along the way about thinking for yourself and doing work that matters.

  7. Home

    I've since settled in the mountains of Andorra.

The full timeline

Elsewhere

// find me on the socials

Media

// Over the years, I've been featured in various media and have spoken at several events.

Where you might
have seen me

NBC News, The Irish Times, Huffington Post, Irish Examiner, The Tribune, TheJournal.ie, The Irish Sun, TravelMedia.ie

Timeline

// my story so far.

  1. 1982

    Age 0

    • Born March 16 in Waterford, Ireland before being whisked away to the family home in Slieverue, Co. Kilkenny.

  2. 1985

    Age 3

    • Turned three, ate a bunch of Twixes.

  3. 1986

    Age 4

    • Started primary school at St. Declan's in Waterford.

  4. 1989

    Age 7

    • Wet myself in front of a classroom full of girls a year or two older than me.

  5. 1992

    Age 10

    • Many an adventure exploring the Slieverue countryside. Through fields, over ditches, climbing trees, following the tracks through the tunnel to the big railway bridge. Always accompanied by Dodger, my loyal terrier pal.

  6. 1993

    Age 11

    • Obligatory short-lived childhood dinosaur obsession.

    • Lost my appendix.

  7. 1994

    Age 12

    • Became obsessed with basketball, which solidified my cousin and I as BFFs and helped me make friends in school despite extreme shyness.

    • Started secondary school at De La Salle Waterford.

    • Picked the Charlotte Hornets as my favourite NBA team. (This was the era of the cool Starter jackets.)

  8. 1995

    Age 13

    • Almost burned the house down trying to light a camp fire.

  9. 1996

    Age 14

    • Got the internet at home, became obsessed with that. (In hindsight, probably could have used some parental controls.)

    • Via the internet, became more obsessed with basketball, following the NBA online, downloading grainy clips of Glen Rice dropping game-winners.

    • First work experience, helping out my dad on building sites.

  10. 1997

    Age 15

    • Started learning how to build websites.

    • Saw David Fincher's Seven on home video. Blew my mind. Didn't know movies could be that good. Became obsessed with movies.

    • Started Transition Year at DLS. Did some work experience counting screws at a homewares shop on the Cork Road.

  11. 1998

    Age 16

    • Family trip to New York. My cousin and I went mad buying baggy shorts and other basketball gear. Also got scammed out of $200 trying to buy Knicks tickets from a guy with one tooth.

  12. 1999

    Age 17

    • Kissed a girl for the first time. Hoped they wouldn't all taste like cigarettes.

    • Left the big street party on the quay in Waterford to play basketball 1-on-1 with my cousin as the calendar flipped to a new millennium.

  13. 2000

    Age 18

    • The death of Bobby Phills. I was very sad.

    • Got a nice big trophy for winning basketball player of the year at De La Salle. Was very proud of that, but in hindsight there were only ~10 serious basketball players in the whole school and I was older than most of them.

    • Started drinking alcohol.

    • Finished secondary school.

    • Worked a summer at the Granville Hotel in Waterford.

    • Started college at Waterford Institute of Technology, studying Multimedia and IT.

    • Got kicked out of an apartment within a week when a friend put his foot through the ceiling.

    • Worked at McDonalds on the Cork Road.

    • Started playing national league basketball (coming off the bench). Somehow had my best outing and hit a game-winning layup when I was terribly hung over.

  14. 2001

    Age 19

    • Spent a summer working the production line at Hasbro in Waterford, putting dice in a box and packing board games like Monopoly and Clue. Felt my brain going numb.

    • Became obsessed with video games. Mainly Halo and GTA3. Played so much of the latter that I woke up one morning and tried pressing triangle in my head to get out of bed.

  15. 2002

    Age 20

    • Feeling aimless, dropped out of college and began working full-time in the stock room at Dunnes Stores in Waterford. Did a ton of overtime, started saving money.

    • Watched a lot of movies, bought too many DVDs.

    • Downloaded an insane amount of music from the Internet.

  16. 2003

    Age 21

    • Launched Hornets247.com from Ireland, started blogging about my favourite basketball team under the pen name Ron Hitley.

    • Underwent a minor surgery that boosted my confidence significantly.

    • Ran the Dublin Marathon in a time of 3 hours 41 minutes. Hit the wall a few miles from the finish line and thought I was going to die. Vowed to never run a second marathon.

  17. 2004

    Age 22

    • Spent the summer working at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, USA.

    • Started to overcome my shyness.

    • Beat Andy Stitzer by ~18 years.

    • Vermont for the winter, swinging chairs at Killington Ski Resort.

  18. 2005

    Age 23

    • Broke up with my first real girlfriend in a shitty way. (Still feel bad about that.)

    • Moved back to Ireland, began working customer support at an AOL call centre, helping Brits with their internet problems.

    • Fasted for 3 days just to see if I could do it.

    • Learned to drive, first car was a green Citroën Berlingo.

    • Went back to college at WIT, picked up where I left off. 3rd year project was a virtual horse racing game.

  19. 2006

    Age 24

    • Lived in Tramore for a few months.

    • Started building a CMS for sports websites with Ruby on Rails. (This would later power Hornets247.com.)

    • Started working at Telecommunications Software & Systems Group in Waterford. Created mobile software prototypes using Flash Lite. Was one of the first people in Ireland designing web pages for display on smartphones (eg. the original iPhone).

  20. 2007

    Age 25

    • Graduated "with distinction" from WIT with a BSc (Honours) in Information Technology with Multimedia.

    • Relaunched my personal website.

    • Moved to New Orleans to live my teenage dream: becoming a superfan of my favourite team (the Hornets), attending games and blogging about them non-stop.

    • Somehow convinced Loyola University New Orleans to sponsor my work visa and hire me as a web designer. Over the next three years, I did lots of front-end coding (CSS, XHTML, jQuery) and web design, managed WordPress and Drupal content management systems, and oversaw the university's social media efforts.

  21. 2008

    Age 26

    • Hornets247 became affiliated with ESPN.

    • Landed a media credential for the Hornets, granting me a free baseline seat at select games and locker room access to interview NBA stars like Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. (Though I was usually too shy to ask them anything.)

    • Got blackout drunk too many times.

  22. 2009

    Age 27

    • 10K+ monthly visitors for Hornets247.

    • Went vegetarian, then vegan. (I was insufferable.)

    • Grew a questionable goatee.

  23. 2010

    Age 28

    • Was in New Orleans when the Saints won the Super Bowl in the middle of Mardi Gras.

    • Won all four rounds of a Toastmasters contest.

    • Tried stand-up comedy at an open mic night. Bombed hard and got flashed off stage.

    • Ran the Crescent City Classic, a 10k road race in New Orleans, in 40:05, achieving my goal of finishing in the top 200 (out of 20,000) and getting my name in the local paper.

    • Quit my job and left New Orleans to work for myself and travel the world.

    • Started a personal blog and YouTube channel.

    • Got lasik eye surgery.

    • Quit drinking alcohol.

  24. 2011

    Age 29

    • Lived in Cork for a few months.

    • Tried stand-up comedy again. Wasn't terrible.

    • Shaved my head for the first time.

    • Spent the summer in Burgos, Spain and started learning Spanish.

    • Hitchhiked back to Ireland through Spain and France.

    • Began my trip around the world without flying . Over the next 3.5 years I'd do one complete circumnavigation of the globe via land and sea, visiting 37 countries en route.

    • To further overcome shyness, forced myself to hit on 100+ women in 2 weeks in Amsterdam.

    • Started earning a living from freelance web design, project management, link building, blogging.

  25. 2012

    Age 30

    • Published my first book: Disrupting the Rabblement .

      Front cover of Disrupting the Rabblement

    • Jumped off a bridge.

    • Almost ran out of money in Iran.

    • Quit being vegan.

    • Published in the Irish Examiner .

    • Rode a motorcycle across Nepal.

    • Went paragliding in the Himalayas.

  26. 2013

    Age 31

    • Became an uncle.

    • Fell in love in Thailand.

    • Started writing and publishing Momentos every month.

    • Spent a few weeks interviewing entrepreneurs in Thailand as a researcher for Derek Sivers' Wood Egg project. The project manager labeled me "the most thorough and best-cited of all the researchers." Got recommended for a research project with Samsung off the back of that. Turned it down, probably shouldn't have.

      Front cover of the Wood Egg Thailand guide: the word THAILAND over a blue tuk-tuk blurring through a Bangkok street

  27. 2014

    Age 32

    • Crossed the Pacific Ocean on a cargo ship and published my second book, The Cargo Ship Diaries .

      Front cover of The Cargo Ship Diaries

    • 3K upvotes on my Reddit AMA .

    • Brazil for the World Cup.

    • Hospitalized with altitude sickness in Bolivia.

    • Backed a rental car into a palm tree in Panama.

  28. 2015

    Age 33

    • Named one of Ireland's Top 10 Travel Bloggers by HuffPost.

    • Played basketball in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

    • Finished my trip around the world without flying .

    • Moved to Amsterdam for a year.

    • Published on TheJournal.ie .

    • Launched an online course: How To Travel The World & Work Online (later renamed 3M1K). That would go on to help hundreds of people and generate revenue of $100K+.

  29. 2016

    Age 34

    • Won an award: Best Use of Video by an Irish Travel Blogger.

    • Jumped out of an airplane.

    • Completed the Strong Viking 19k obstacle course race in the Netherlands. May have done some permanent damage to my hips.

    • Left Amsterdam and spent a few months in Berlin, then Tenerife.

    • Spoke at the Nomad City conference in Gran Canaria.

  30. 2017

    Age 35

    • Met a special lady.

    • Spent time in Amsterdam, the Canary Islands, Crimea, France, Ireland, Istanbul, Japan, Monaco, Morocco, Moscow, Portugal, Prague, Spain, Tallinn, Thailand, Western Sahara.

    • Made a video that got more than 1 million views between YouTube and Facebook.

    • Published in The Irish Times .

  31. 2018

    Age 36

    • Started eBiz Facts , which became my main focus and source of income for a few years, generating $3.5M+ in tracked sales for partner brands.

    • Spent time in Amsterdam, Bansko, the Canary Islands, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, England, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Montenegro, Moscow, Scotland, Spain, Thailand.

    • Smoked weed for the first time.

  32. 2019

    Age 37

    • Spent most of the year in Bali.

    • Hospitalized with dengue fever.

    • Visited Gran Canaria, Ireland, Kuala Lumpur, Thailand, Vietnam.

  33. 2020

    Age 38

    • Moved to Tbilisi, Georgia to ride out the pandemic.

    • Ate a lot of khachapuri.

  34. 2021

    Age 39

    • Spent 2 weeks quarantined in a Dublin hotel, almost missed being best man at my cousin's wedding.

  35. 2022

    Age 40

    • Got married.

    • Moved to Andorra.

  36. 2023

    Age 41

    • Visited Ireland, London, Spain.

    • 100K+ monthly visitors for eBiz Facts.

  37. 2024

    Age 42

    • Featured on NBC News .

    • Transitioned the eBiz Facts newsletter to focus exclusively on business ideas.

    • Visited France, Ireland, London, Spain.

  38. 2025

    Age 43

    • Started Monterra Labs , a web design and SEO agency, helping local businesses generate more leads online.

    • Visited France, Ireland, Spain.

    • Watched 233 movies. (Not sure I'm proud of that.)

  39. 2026

    Age 44

    • Became obsessed with Claude Code.

    • Running Monterra Labs: local SEO, Google Business Profile and review automation for home service businesses.

One More Thing

My Personal Newsletter

Sign up to get the occasional email from me. Once a month max, sharing my latest Momentos, new projects I'm working on, book and movie recommendations, that kind of thing.

Looking for my business ideas newsletter?

Illustrated portrait of Niall Doherty in a blue t-shirt, thumb cocked over his shoulder