💰 How I Got My First $1 Online
The 4-Minute Origin Story To An Online Income.
Coming at you through the dank depths of your spam filter, I’ve arrived, and I bring with me a tale. Whip out the popcorn because it’s storytime today, and in about 4 minutes, you’ll probably unlock a $1000 payoff.
“Clickbait,” you say? “Nay,” I say! This is an effort, but it works, my guy.
God, I’m in a weird mood today.
Ah, my first dollar. That’s some cooky angle. “Why should I give a crap about a dollar?” immediately blurts out of your mouth (and my disapproving mothers too). It’s a fair question.
Sure, a buck isn’t going to pay the bills, but that’s not the point; it does something even better - it shows us that making money online is a real thing, an actual path.
It shows us a way out of the rat race. And that, my friend, lit a raging fire under my 🍑 once upon a time, and hopefully, it’ll have the same effect on you.
Because if you do make your first dollar online, it’ll likely lead you to a much bigger number that will pay the bills. So what’s the story?
👿 A Guide To Dealing With The Devil
Procrastination. I was writing a guide to the thing we all do and hate. I posted it on Medium (when Medium was mostly free articles). And then I posted it on Reddit - 💥boom💥 - it went viral in r/Motivation, a sub with millions of followers.
Lucky? Very much so. Do you need to go viral for this to work? Hell no (I made zero money from this). But you do need to share something that helps others.
That article didn’t make me money, but it set the stage by giving me a few hundred followers. Of course, that did fuck all with getting my stuff out there; algorithms ultimately govern that - but the whole experience gave me some confidence.
3 to 4 months later, I decided to write my first premium article about my social media addiction - this was a part of the Medium Partner Program.
Low and behold, it got about $17-ish the first month, and this has since *wait, let me check* made me $108. It wasn’t a fantastic article or payout, but the sheer act of publishing it made me get to >$1 Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).
Every single month, on average, it’s earned me $2.3 - and that, ladies and gents, is a superpower if I’ve ever seen one.
🐒 Like I said, the article wasn’t that good.
And that fact is incredibly encouraging. Imagine this:
You publish your experience/learnings/insights 1000 times, even if it’s mediocre in your eyes because:
a) Nobody does something terrible the 1000th (or even 100th) time they’re doing it; and,
b) A lever that long will lift your finances, perspective, and discipline without a single doubt.
You’ll get an average of $1 a month for each piece of content, forever - and the math is done.
Lots of work, sure, but a very real income source. Whether it’s writing, coding, filming, or drawing - put it somewhere where you get paid for it.
Some will make more, and some will make less, but if you publish 1000 times, it’s almost impossible to fail the journey to $1000 MRR.
🏁 The Hard Part
Making the first dollar is the easy part, but the confidence it gives you really helps with the hard part.
The hard part is publishing 1000 times - and that’s all up to you.
Since that first article, I’ve had loads more successful articles, my top getting me about ~$3.1k to date.
And the best place to start is your Google Drive, iCloud, or Adobe Creative Cloud - it’s got about $1000 of side income just sitting in there. Yessirree.
All those essays you’ve written, or code you’ve cut. The photoshop files, drawings, music, presentations, old assignments, unfinished projects - they’re all skills and knowledge you can pass on.
And if writing’s your thing, I’d recommend starting on Medium because:
a) It’s great for discovery and immediate feedback.
b) It’s free to publish.
c) The membership is actually great for all the content you get (a lot of it entrepreneurial and inspiration-based). That’s my link, but again, free to publish.
Too much info? That’s okay.
First, make a dollar, then go from there. You got this 💪.
Talks soon,
✌ Sah out.
Hey you handsome devil.
Is this email annoying?
I’m transitioning to daily blogging, but I mean… our inboxes are all kinds of fucked, right? I don’t want to contribute to that spam sandwich.
So I want your opinion.
Out of 7 days, how many days do you think is the sweet spot? One? Three? Eleven? I’ll do a graph in the next one to show you what everyone else thinks.
Let me know by replying directly to this email or commenting ❤
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