My Story

Where do I start?

My name is Martin James Cooney.

Born in Brisbane, Australia in 1958.

Originally, from a family of 2 other brothers and a sister. My mother and one brother have now passed away.

Married twice, with both now finished.

I'm often described by past co-workers as the 'youngest old-guy' they've ever met 😃

Work Life

An interesting journey, really.

Left high school to go out in the real world and make a living.

The Repo Man

Started as an 'on the road' repossession agent for a finance company, of all things.

Actually enjoyable work, to be honest.

Well there was this one time when I was shot at by an elderly Polish guy 😃

I was eventually promoted to internal collection work. Interesting people with different problems.

Construction Work

First married and looking for something to bring in good money. We needed to get the first house paid off as quickly as possible.

A few friends were working in the construction field, making good money and asked if I was interested. Being a young guy, I jumped onboard as well.

This was dry-wall or gyprock work but good base wages and lots of over-time to be had.

And my first wife and I paid the house off in a few years.

Cooney Computers

PCs started being popular and I was interested too.

Since the construction company I was working for finished me up due to over-staffing, I started building and selling computers. Never try, never know.

A cut-throat business, indeed, in Australia but my first experiences in customer service which was to later serve me well.

I did this for a few years but grew tired of business paperwork which is not my forte.

PowerUp / WebCentral

The internet started to now flourish but mainly still in the BBS (Bulletin Board Service) area.

I joined PowerUp BBS as a phone call technician to help customers with BBS / Dial-Up problems.

After a few years, PowerUp split in two and WebCentral was formed. WebCentral was Australia's first web-hosting business and the founders started at just the right moment in time. Businesses around the world were wanting to get online.

I started and remained for 9 years as their Tech Support Vice-President. Lofty title and eventually changed to 'Manager'.

This was when I bought the cooney.com.au domain incidentally.

Traffika Internet Marketing

Traffika was interesting for both being their General Manager as well as more customer service experience.

I enjoyed trouble shooting the staffing issues as well as their personal ones. I do like that stuff.

Learned more on Internet Marketing as well as how small business owners can be a pain in the ass.

RomancesGroup

And so our current business starts, back in 2013.

Last failed marriage led me to leave Australia and head over to South-East Asia. Thailand at the time, at the suggest of my business partner, Stephane (great guy, incidentally).

We have started ThaiRomances, PinayRomances, IndonesiaRomances and VietnamRomances, with more coming soon'ish.

We both know what each other prefers in the workplace, with some crossover.

Enjoyable work, good relationship with a girlfriend of 5 years and enjoying travel around Thailand and South-East Asia.

Now to get past all the travel BS that the current pandemic bring to everyone around the world.

Please do enjoy the site and drop any comments about my blog posts too.