Who Is Online Striver?

I Had the Career. I Just Didn’t Have the Life.
My name is Peter Anderson. I live in Tranent, East Lothian, with my wife Lindsay, our three children, and two dogs — Maisie, a Labrador, and Teddy, a rescue Greyhound.

For years I worked in retail management and then direct sales. Good money. Decent prospects. The kind of career that looks fine from the outside.

But the hours were relentless. I was watching other people bring up my children — nurseries, after school clubs, childminders. The costs were eye-watering and the time I was missing was something I couldn’t get back.

Lindsay and I had a lot of honest conversations about it. We did the numbers. We looked at what really mattered to us. And eventually we made the decision: I needed to find a different way.

Starting From Scratch — With No Safety Net

Leaving a reliable income to start something new is terrifying. Anyone who tells you otherwise either has a lot of money behind them or isn’t being honest.

I didn’t have a business background. I wasn’t a tech person. I had no idea how to build a website, run a marketing campaign, or attract customers online. What I had was time, determination, and a clear picture of the life I wanted to build.

I decided to start a dog walking business. I love dogs, I love being outdoors, and I could see real demand for a professional, reliable service in East Lothian. But to make it work properly — to look like a real business rather than someone walking dogs for cash — I needed a professional website.

The Problem: I Had No Idea How to Build One

Developer quotes came back at thousands of pounds. For a business that hadn’t made a penny yet, that felt like an enormous gamble.

So I started researching alternatives. How do people build their own websites? What tools exist? What training is available?

That’s when I found Wealthy Affiliate.

I was sceptical — I’d seen enough online “opportunities” to be wary of anything promising easy results. But WA was different from what I expected. It wasn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It was a structured training platform that taught you how to build websites, understand SEO, and create content that gets found on Google. Step by step, for complete beginners.

I gave it a go. What did I have to lose?

What Happened Next Changed Everything

Following Wealthy Affiliate’s training, I built lothianwalkies.com entirely by myself.

No developer. No technical background. No prior experience with WordPress, hosting, or any of it.

That website helped me launch Lothian Walkies, a professional dog walking and boarding service serving families across East Lothian. It helped me become East Lothian Council approved — the council reviewed my site as part of their approval process and it passed. And it has generated real local clients ever since.

You can verify all of that at lothianwalkies.com — it’s all there.

I finally had the work-life balance we’d been chasing. I was home for my children. I was outside every day with the dogs, thinking clearly, building something real. Lindsay and I have never looked back.

Why I’m Building OnlineStriver

Lothian Walkies gave me everything I wanted — except one thing. It has a physical ceiling.

I can only walk so many dogs in a day before the work becomes unsustainable. The business is at capacity. And as much as I love it, I knew I needed a way to grow my income that didn’t depend entirely on how many hours I could physically work.

That’s where the skills I learned through Wealthy Affiliate come in again.

I know how to build websites. I know how to create content that ranks on Google. I know how to build trust with an audience and recommend products I genuinely believe in. And I have something most online marketers don’t have — a real, verifiable business that proves those skills actually work in the real world.

So I’m building OnlineStriver to do two things:

First — to earn an online income through affiliate marketing, primarily by recommending Wealthy Affiliate to people who could genuinely benefit from what it teaches.

Second — to document every step honestly and publicly, so you can see exactly what’s working and what isn’t. No fake income screenshots. No hype. Just a real person building a real business and sharing the journey.

What You’ll Find Here

If you’re a small business owner who needs a website but doesn’t know where to start — I’ve been exactly where you are.

If you’re thinking about starting a dog walking business or any other service business — I’ve done it from scratch with no safety net.

If you’re curious about Wealthy Affiliate and whether it actually works — I’m the proof that it does, and I’ll give you the honest picture including what I don’t like about it.

And if you’re just starting out online and feeling overwhelmed — welcome. So was I. It gets clearer.

Let’s Connect

If you’ve got questions about anything I’ve covered here — building a website, starting a business, Wealthy Affiliate, or just the journey in general — feel free to get in touch. I read everything.

And if you want to follow along as I build OnlineStriver in real time, check out the blog where I document everything as it happens.

— Peter

Tranent, East Lothian, Scotland

Ready to start your own journey? Try Wealthy Affiliate free — no credit card needed.