Making money online can completely transform your life.

It unlocks financial and locational freedom. It also gives you control over your destiny because you learn to make money out of nothing.

But here’s the thing…Figuring out how to make your first dollar online can be intimidating. There’s seemingly thousands of business models and ‘best ways’ for people to get started.

That’s why today, I’m sharing 7 realistic and actionable paths you can take to begin earning money online.

I’m focusing on beginner-friendly methods you can use to get the ball rolling. This includes methods you can start in the next few minutes that can easily pay a couple hundred bucks to $1,000+ per year with little effort.

At the end of the list, I’ll also explain how you can snowball these methods and the skills you develop into bigger-picture, lucrative opportunities.

Let’s get to it!

1. Start Bonus Churning

Bonus churning involves taking advantage of sign-up bonus offers that banks and credit card issuers often run to attract new customers.

This is one of my favorite beginner-friendly ways to make money online. It’s something I do annually, and it’s awesome…You can genuinely get paid just for moving your money around or changing where your paychecks deposit.

Right now, banks like Chase, SoFi, Chime, Bank of America, Current and dozens of other banks and credit unions have cash bonuses for opening accounts with them. A quick Google Search for ‘banking bonuses’ gives you the latest results in your country/state.

You can also find banking bonuses on reward platforms, such as Kashkick. This is a free rewards website and app that pays you when you complete certain actions, which is a growing form of incentivized marketing.

Here’s some of the current offers Kashkick has, including a $250 bonus for opening a free Chime checking account and moving your direct deposit to it 👇

Moving direct deposits and money around does take a bit of work. But you can realistically open a few free bank accounts per year, earn $50 to $500+ in the process based on the current promo, and then move your money/deposits back to your desired account after 60-90 days, give or take.

Credit cards often have similar intro bonuses…You can get boosted cashback rates or free points to use as statement credits when you hit certain spending thresholds.

The only catch here is you need to avoid overspending, so I’d only go for credit churning bonuses when you’re spending money you’d be spending anyways. I did this when I had to spend a lot of money moving into a new apartment, and the cashback promo was definitely worth it.

Investing apps and brokerages do this too. There’s SO much free money out there you can claim just by moving your own funds around.

For example, Moomoo is giving up to $1,000 in free Nvidia stock plus 8.1% APY on uninvested cash for your first 2 months.

You can see the reward tiers here…Honestly, it’s a bit of work to open a new broker and move funds around, but I would do this for the $100 - $200 tier at least, and you can earn larger bonuses of course.

Bonus churning even works if you’re starting with $0, provided you’re employed. You can start by claiming direct-deposit based offers like the $250 Chime offer I mentioned and other bonuses that only look for your paycheck deposit as a requirement. Next, bankroll that starting cash into deposit-based bonuses to earn more. Rinse and repeat several times a year.

Realistically, this is a $500 to $2,000 per year side hustle opportunity that anyone with a job can try, provided you live in the United States (Canada and the UK have some bonuses, but they’re smaller industries.) Some people take this to the next level with credit card points and travel rewards too, so there’s levels to this.

2. Try Basic Freelancing Work

Freelancing is how I earned some of my first reliable online income.

At the time, I was writing short articles for a BuzzFeed competitor. I was getting $20 to $30 an article, which was honestly pretty nice for a college student trying to get by!

Freelance writing and freelancing in general is tougher these days. AI has taken a lot of rolls. Competition is at all-time highs.

That said, you can still find beginner-friendly freelancing roles or one-time gigs if you look beyond LinkedIn and Indeed.

Reddit is a surprising goldmine. It has communities like r/forhire where people post all sorts of gigs you can apply for. Many of these pay $20 to $40+ per hour, and you can also find decent retainer gigs or jobs.

Many of these roles involve virtual assistant work, marketing, development/coding, and social media content creation. But there’s plenty of niche opportunities as well, especially in AI and ecommerce right now.

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I’ve found writing gigs on Reddit in the past. It’s certainly weird; you’re connecting with strangers on the Internet and trying to work out how to do work while getting paid for it…There’s a level of trust you need to build, but there’s plenty of legitimate gigs and companies looking for talent here.

3. Earn Cashback Rewards

This one is sort of like bonus churning…It’s something anyone can try, and it helps you keep more of your hard-earned money in your wallet at the end of the day.

Personally, I earn cashback in a couple of ways:

1. I use a cashback credit card on all my purchases (you can use cards like the Discover It Cash Back card and earn up to 5% cash back on rotating quarterly categories, with a $0 annual fee, it’s awesome!)

2. I shop online with cashback reward platforms like Rakuten and ShopBack.

3. I use smartphone cashback apps like Pogo and Upside which pay me with automatic cashback whenever I shop with my linked cards.

My favorite part of this side hustle is that once you do the research and set this stuff up, you basically earn on autopilot.

Now, the Dave Ramsey crowd will say that credit cards are evil and cashback rewards are a slippery slope. You can subscribe to this school of thought, nothing wrong there. But I’m always going to charge groceries, gas, and my everyday expenses to a cashback platform. This is my advice for others, provided you’re spending responsibly and not struggling with debt.

4. Take Part In Paid Focus Groups

There’s numerous paid focus group websites and apps where you can make pretty decent money chatting with researchers about various topics.

For example, I’ve made $500+ with User Interviews so far in the last 2 years or so. This is an older video I’ve made on my earnings and this side hustle in general 👇

All I did was create a free account, connect my LinkedIn to it, and then look for study opportunities I thought I was a match for.

I applied for a couple, and some researchers ended up wanting to chat with me on Zoom for an hour. One study paid me $200 for talking about AI, and then I had several smaller studies that paid in the $40 to $80 range.

This is an occasional side hustle. But there’s so many platforms out there you can join for free and then find studies.

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Respondent.io is another popular one I’ve found one study on. You can also check out this list of the top paid focus group sites for another 10+ options with solid reviews.

Extra Reading 👉 4 Automations That Make Me Money Every Week.

5. Make Money With AI Training Gigs

This is a newer online side hustle that’s also something anyone can apply for.

Numerous companies have popped up essentially looking for people to help train AI models. The work generally involves analyzing prompt responses, fact checking them, and rating overall quality.

Some of this work is general and pays in the $15 to $20 per hour range. You can also find AI training projects that require specific skills, occupations, or languages. These tend to pay more, and I’ve seen listings in the $40 to $75 per hour range.

There’s heaps of companies out there. DataAnnotation, Micro1, Mercor, Stellar AI and tons of others.

I tested out DataAnnotation and Micro1 to make content for my main YouTube channel. DataAnnotation never got back to me after my test interview. Micro1 approved me as a ‘training expert’ so I can apply to gigs now.

This is the real downside of AI training gigs; applying takes time, and landing a role can be a bit tricky.

However, this is a newer remote side hustle opportunity that is also fairly beginner- and remote-friendly.

Extra Reading - How To Make An Extra $1,000 Per Month.

6. Make Money With The Amazon Influencer Program

This idea is more niche, but if you have a small social media following somewhere, you could apply for the Amazon Influencer Program.

This program lets you create a storefront where you share Amazon products you use and like. If people purchase products you recommend, you earn a commission. Here’s my Amazon Storefront as an example.

What’s also cool is that Amazon now has a feature where you can create short product reviews of Amazon products you’ve purchased. If a customer watches your video on an Amazon product listing and ends up buying, you also get credited and earn a commission.

There’s creators out there now earning a couple hundred bucks per month or even $1,000+ monthly, just by building up a catalog of simple product review videos on Amazon. Super niche like I said, but honestly, pretty neat!

What I like about this side hustle is that you can start by creating short UGC videos about Amazon products you have around your house…So you don’t need to invest in anything to give it a go. And every piece of content you make is a mini asset that can pay you over and over again.

Again, you likely need some social media followers to get approved for the Amazon Influencer Program. But this is a pretty neat idea overall!

7. Try User Testing Gigs

User-testing gigs involve testing apps, websites, and products that are in development and giving your feedback. You’re basically doing QA work, and testing sessions generally pay $10 to $20 per test, with tests taking about 15 to 20 minutes. Although you can find testing opportunities in the $25-$50+ range that are a bit more involved.

This is actually something I did back in college. There’s heaps of companies you can join for free, including:

• UserTesting

• PlaytestCloud

• Userlytics

• User Crowd

• TestingTime

• Userbrain

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The downside of this gig is that tests are often given out on a first-come, first-serve basis. So you need to claim open tests quickly before other testers do. Applying for several of these platforms and turning on email notifications is pretty key to land gigs consistently.

Earn More: You Can Just Start Building Stuff To Improve Your Life.

Next Steps + The Bigger Picture

I still remember when I earned my first dollar of online income.

I was a college student who was experimenting with all sorts of side hustles while working at Starbucks and getting through classes. One day, I tested out some paid survey website and ended up making like, $2.50, answering surveys in-between classes.

This was absolute peanuts. Earning $2.50 wasn’t worth the time I put into answering those surveys at all.

And yet…This simple action flipped a switch in my brain. Suddenly, I was someone who could make money out of thin air as long as I had an internet connection.

This realization is such a vital component of WiFI Wealth and why I write this newsletter in general.

We’re taught from day one that we need to rely on an employer and a stable job to make ends meet. We’re conditioned to think of traditional employment and having one income stream as being the only path forwards.

There’s nothing wrong with this path.

BUT you don’t have to rely on one boss, one company, or even one country to build the lifestyle you want. You have the autonomy to experiment, build, create, learn, and iterate yourself into any kind of life you desire.

I swear, the moment you can earn your first dollar online, the wheels start to turn. And this is what this post is about.

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I don’t think anyone is going to dramatically change their life by using cashback reward apps, or by trying out paid focus groups. But you will begin viewing income and opportunities differently because you’re someone who actively looks for them instead of waiting for life to happen to you.

Over time, this metamorphosis can change your entire life.

Maybe you start out with paid focus groups, or bonus churning…Then, maybe you start some kind of one-person business, like a YouTube channel or a paid newsletter. Maybe that tiny freelancing gig you landed off Reddit turns into a portfolio piece you leverage into a higher-paying client.

I have zero idea what path you’ll end up on. No promises or guarantees here.

But what I will say is that constantly trying new things and maintaining your optimism and curiosity is really what this is all about. This is how you build your own luck, one experiment at a time.

When I started out blogging, I made $1,700 in my first year after hundreds of hours of work. My girlfriend at the time hated how much time I spent on it and thought it was pretty stupid. I had a lot of doubt too at different stages.

That experiment ended up making $1M+ in revenue in my twenties, let me travel the world, unlocked financial freedom, and taught me some super cool skills I then made more money with…You never know where any of this stuff will take you until you get moving.

If you’re new to making money online, I hope this guide serves as a a launchpad for you to get started.

You don’t have to stick with these ideas forever. I also encourage you all to ‘dream big’ and build things that excite you. But if you need the stepping stones to work towards these ideas, try out a couple of these methods. You might be surprised at what you learn and where you ultimately end up.

Thanks for reading everyone and for your continued support. I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

Want More Useful Guides? Checkout:

👉 I Built A Simple Website That Makes Money Every Day.

👉 Why Coast FIRE Is The Fastest Path To Freedom.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this content are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up with these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my writing.

Last week, I posted how you can just start building stuff to rapidly improve your life.

Today, I’m sharing an example of this in action.

Real numbers, and the process I use to create niche income-generating assets.

This time, I vibe-coded a simple website that now makes money every single day.

It’s not making me rich, but it’s the start of a new business. And getting it off the ground just took some creative thinking, 125-ish prompts, and creating some basic marketing funnels.

I’m going to walk through the process of scaling this new project plus examples of how you can build your own income-generating assets with this strategy.

Let’s go!

A Quick Recap On My Vibe-Coding Experiment

Last summer, I took a weekend and used Lovable to vibe-code a new income stream.

Well, that was the general idea.

I basically took 48 hours, drank a bunch of coffee, and built out a side hustle directory website called HustleBuddy.me.

In a nutshell, Hustle Buddy helps people find side hustle and income ideas that match their goals, skills, and location.

As a personal finance YouTuber, people ask me for side hustle ideas all the time. After getting the question “does X side hustle work in Y country” for the millionth time, I decided to build a simple directory to help solve this problem.

There was some trial and error, a couple of bugs, but overall, I built out a pretty workable website in a weekend of tinkering and about 125 prompts.

You can see Lovable’s interface here, and you basically chat with it and ask it to do/fix things and preview everything in real-time:

After building V1, I kind of let the project sit for a while. Classic 😅

I sent a few email blasts at it and shared it on Reddit. Made $20 or so, and then shelved any real marketing efforts since I had some other projects and consulting work pop up.

NOW, I’ve put a bit more effort into things these last couple of months, and things are starting to cook!

Let me walk you through some of the new marketing tactics/lessons, monetization insights, and more importantly how you can start vibe-coding income-generating assets for yourself.

Growing Traffic & User Engagement Signals

In the last 90 days, Hustle Buddy went from getting very little traffic to receiving 4,500 visitors and about 9,300 pageviews.

This isn’t massive by any means.

BUT what’s interesting is that most of this traffic has come from:

• Posting about Hustle Buddy on Reddit a few times

• Including Hustle Buddy in my YouTube video description boxes

• Putting Hustle Buddy in a few emails I send to my main email list, which I run with Kit

This is one of my favorite parts about vibe-coding with Lovable: when you build something new, you actually have something to market that’s fresh and exciting.

I’ve sent thousands of emails and posted 200+ videos talking about side hustles and personal finance advice.

Now I can show my audience something new and interactive; this isn’t just another blog post or newsletter segment, it’s an actual tool people can use to solve a problem.

I think the Views Per Visit and Visit Duration metrics reflect this…People are visiting Hustle Buddy and actually dive into the website and spend time researching ideas. This doesn’t happen with my niche blogs nearly as much.

What I find awesome about all of this is that I built this with Lovable in under 150 prompts.

And there’s still tons of features I want to add to make this thing stickier, like:

• A login / user account feature

• A side hustle income tracking dashboard people can use

• The ability to favorite side hustles

• More resources and guides to help people launch more complex hustles or one-person businesses

• A contribute-a-side-hustle feature

This is all on my to-do list.

I’m confident that as I add more value and functionality, user engagement metrics will improve further. This should also improve monetization, which I’ll cover now 👇

Improving Monetization & Adding Email Capture

Initially, Hustle Buddy made $20 after some brief promotion.

Since then, I’ve added more side hustle ideas. I’ve made some bonus pages as well and drive traffic there from YouTube and Reddit, and these pages are certainly more revenue-focused (basically, I funnel to some strong affiliate offers.)

Since Hustle Buddy is now hitting 50 - 100+ users daily pretty consistently, it’s making money every single day, even if small amounts, which is very fun to see.

Here’s a snapshot of one of my Impact Radius accounts from Jan 2026 to today with about $3,000 in total revenue:

This Impact account holds a lot of the offers I run on Hustle Buddy.

Most of this revenue comes from one niche blog, but about $600 - $700 is attributable to Hustle Buddy now.

Again, a small amount in the grand scheme of things. But very encouraging to see after just a bit of traffic scaling.

What’s also cool is that Hustle Buddy now has an email capture form where people can sign up with their email to get a free eBook breaking down realistic paths to making an extra $200:

This is working too, and Hustle Buddy has captured over 200 emails already with a basic lead magnet pop-up that fires when people visit the website.

These emails then flow into a Welcome Series Automation I built on Kit that sends people more useful guides, side hustle ideas, and offers:

This is one of my money-making automations.

People find my newsletter somewhere online, be it Hustle Buddy, a niche content site, YouTube, whatever. They get a freebie, and then they receive more guides, tips, resources, and affiliate offers.

This is another advantage of vibe-coding something new. Once again, it’s a new way to package your offers and info, and it can also help you collect more emails in the process!

Related 👉 My Top Money-Making Tools & Apps.

What Can You Build This Month?

I’m sharing this vibe-coding update to highlight what’s working for me, how I’m building traffic, and what I’m learning about user monetization.

BUT this is just my vibe-coding experiment. There’s so much you can build for your own side hustle or business 😎

Here’s a few ideas that you can dive into. Some of them would genuinely take a weekend of work to get up and running as well, which is awesome.

1. An Interactive Tool For Your Audience

I built a side hustle directory for people interested in side hustles. But what problem does your audience have? What questions does your ideal customer constantly ask?

You can build any interactive tool you need to these days. Some examples could include:

• A fitness planner or tracker (if you’re a personal trainer or in the fitness niche)

• A net-worth tracking database (if you’re a financial planner)

• A tax-estimation tool (if you’re an accountant)

• A time-auditing tool (if you’re some kind of business coach or consultant)

• A home affordability calculator (if you’re a real estate agent)

• A quiz to help people match themselves to one of your service offerings based on their needs, budget, goals etc.

These tools already exist. There’s a million fitness apps and trackers out there, for example, so this isn’t reinventing the wheel.

BUT your audience trusts you and wants your products.

If you build something useful and give it to your people, they will use it. This in turn boosts engagement and can also reduce churn if what you build is actually cool.

Plus like I said, building new stuff gives you marketing material and lets you present your offers in a new way, which might help conversions.

2. Websites For Small Business Owners

This one is more of a services play, but it’s an interesting one.

Right now, some agencies are packaging vibe-coded websites as a service and pitching this to small business owners.

The process looks like this:

1. Search Google Maps and compile a list of businesses that don’t have websites or have severely outdated websites

2. Make them a new website in a few minutes using Lovable

3. Cold-email or DM them a demo link to the new website

4. Offer to build out the full website and to provide ongoing maintenance for a flat fee + ongoing retainer

When I first heard about this side hustle, this was my genuine reaction:

This is honestly pretty true still 😅 You can’t just DM 10 business owners, pitch them some demo websites, and expect to make money.

But then I dug into things…

Did you know there’s agencies out there that have productized this entire thing and are actually making money? It’s insane.

Like this guy named Jacob started an agency called Creme Digital. They’ll “build your idea into a ready to launch MVP in 2-weeks” according to the website.

Apparently, the agency hit $250,000 per month and is now a Lovable Gold Partner.

Lovable actually has a whole “Services Partner” section of the website that targets this idea…Use Lovable to productize a service and then market it to people.

This is such an old playbook. Create shiny carrot, dangle carrot in front of client, get client to pay for carrot.

Not easy, granted. This requires immense amounts of cold-outreach or getting inbound leads somehow.

But there is a wave of agencies popping up offering web design, app building, MVP creation and all sorts of productized services with this strategy.

Interesting how much runway this has and how much money people can make basically selling vibe-coding implementation. This really feels like a game of positioning/packaging and then building an outreach system and working on close rates, which could be something you’re into.

3. Time-Saving Tools

I read a great post from the other day about how to vibe-code small apps that make your life easier.

I like Melvin’s writing and recommend you check him out also. And the main idea of this post of his involves vibe-coding apps that help simplify your life in some way.

If you run a one-person business, this is where automating repetitive tasks is an excellent starting point. You could also just vibe-code something that helps you solve a problem in your own life.

This sounds like absolute hocus pocus. But take a look at this Reddit thread where people share stuff they’ve vibe coded that’s actually useful:

People are building all kinds of things, from an app to track their kid’s finances to a WiFi-multicam video streaming integration for iPhone, it’s super cool! Someone even made a POS system for a non-profit they volunteer at and replaced hours of manual paper and pen recording.

Again, the limit here really is creativity. Barriers to entry for building cool things are rapidly disappearing as these AI tools get better.

Next Steps

I think a lot of ‘make money with AI’ content is pretty overhyped. You can’t just type in a prompt and magically make a business work or create new income out of nothing.

BUT you can supplement businesses and side hustles that work with AI and strategies like vibe-coding. This is what I find exciting these days.

It doesn’t matter if you work in ecommerce, affiliate marketing, coaching, sell a service, or something else. There’s likely some aspect of your business and workflow that you can enhance with platforms like Lovable or other AI tools.

The fundamentals of your business/side hustle still need to stand on their own. But if you’re in a creative rut and want to try something new this month, I certainly encourage you to give this vibe-coding thing a try.

Anyways, I’m going to start working more on Hustle Buddy and build out some new features. There might be a part III in this series coming down the line, so I’d love if you could subscribe if this is the kind of content you’re into 😊

Until then, I’ll be enjoying a bit more Cape Town time before some travel. Still have some niche sites and experiments underway I’m excited to share here soon, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading all.

I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

Want More Useful Guides? Checkout:

👉 The Opportunity Cost Of Ignoring Your Dreams.

👉 5 Profitable One-Person Business Examples.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this content are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up with these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my writing.

One of the most useful realizations I’ve had over the last few years is that you can just build stuff and dramatically improve your life in the process.

This sounds obvious.

But most people don’t live like this is possible.

Instead, they wait for opportunities, motivation, confidence, circumstances, whatever to come their way.

Meanwhile, time passes anyways. Dreams become a soft “it will happen next year” promise that fade almost as quickly as they were uttered.

Living like this is an absolute death sentence for autonomy, freedom, and happiness. Yet it’s so easy to slip into this mindset and to become addicted to comfort and stability, even when we’re unhappy.

In reality, you can build the exact lifestyle you want, brick by brick, and have an absolutely amazing time along the way.

This includes making way more money. It also includes being happier, having higher quality relationships, and just becoming a fuller version of yourself who walks with purpose.

If you want to take control and start building yourself, this one is for you.

I’m covering some real examples of areas you can start building in, why they matter, and how to get started.

Let’s go!

💵 Want to launch your next business idea? It’s time to take action.

Lovable is the best tool for the job. You can build entire websites and mobile apps in minutes with simple prompting.

This is my vibe-coding tool of choice I’ve used to build profitable websites in the course of a weekend. It’s honestly insane how quickly you can create and go-live with this thing.

Turn your idea into reality and launch fast. Get started with Lovable to take action.

1. Build Income & Assets

Building new income streams and assets is a massive part of what I write about at WiFi Wealth. I think this is one of the smartest things people can do these days, especially if you’re young and are wondering what to do for a career and with your life.

The great news?

It has never been easier to create additional income streams than right now.

I’ll share a few personal stories to highlight this fact.

When I started blogging in 2018, I didn’t know anything about running a WordPress website. In my first year of blogging, I only made $1,700…After hundreds of hours of work.

Next year was better, and I hit about $7,000.

To me, this was already a massive success. Percentage wise, a $7,000 increase in income wasn’t too shabby considering my office job salary out of college was about $45,000 Canadian. Taking action here also beat waiting for my boss to maybe give me a salary bump.

But next year, I hit $22,000.

Then $92,000.

By now I had quit my job, was going all-in on the new asset I had built, and ended up scaling this first website to $1M+ in revenue before selling the business.

You can just build things.

Out of thin air and whatever is going on inside your brain. You don’t need an expensive degree or a business plan or a mentor; you can just start trying stuff and see what sticks.

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The same thing happened with YouTube.

First year was a grind to learn how to create videos and get monetized.

About 6 years later, and the channel has passed $250,000 in revenue between ads and sponsorships. I’ve bought a niche travel channel now and am scaling some new channels as well.

You can just build things.

A few months ago I used Lovable to vibe-code a new side hustle directory website. This is now making money because I promote it on the assets I’ve already built, like my email newsletter (the advantage of building things is that they tend to help each other out as well, or give you the skills for your next project to succeed!)

I’ve also started posting content on Reddit. You can get hundreds of thousands of monthly views, just for sharing your ideas and by being a nice person. It’s insane.

For reference, this project is a few months old. And LOOK at what’s possible 👇

Smart AI tools and tech have removed all barriers to entry. The job market also sucks right now. I believe you owe it to yourself to build financial security. You can’t rely on anyone else to do this, especially not some company that would sell you down the river in a heartbeat if it meant reaching quarterly KPIs.

Now if you’re thinking it’s too hard or difficult to build these kinds of online assets, or that you need years for them to turn into serious businesses, you’re probably right.

But this time will pass anyways.

The skills you develop along the way will also pay you in spades, even if what you’re building never makes a penny. Trust me, everything we learn and spend time practicing comes back to serve us, one way or the other.

There’s also plenty of simpler side hustles that have faster payout periods. So again, you can build a new income stream and increase your financial security just by taking action.

I won’t harp on this too much 😅 Here are some of the best guides I’ve written on income generation instead so you can get started today:

• How To Become Stupidly Wealthy With A One-Person Business.

• How To Make An Extra $1,000 Per Month.

• The 4 Automations That Make Me Money While I Sleep.

2. Build Skills & Confidence

An inevitable part of building up your income is developing more skills and confidence.

Starting a new challenge and figuring things out, bit by bit, is incredibly rewarding. Making your first dollar on your own also proves to yourself that you are capable and have autonomy over your life. I swear, there’s a mental switch that flips once you realize you can make money out of nothing and can rely on your abilities.

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You can extend this to other areas of life as well.

We really thrive in the process of learning and mastering a new skill. This is encouraged in kids, but somehow, it falls by the wayside for adults once we hit the job market.

Recently, I started boxing here in Cape Town. I’m pretty bad. I don’t know proper footwork and I’m pretty sluggish overall.

It was also pretty nerve-wracking walking into a boxing gym and asking for lessons. Some people there have boxed for years. You feel as if everyone is watching you as you blunder through different exercises.

But after going to just one lesson, you learn that no one actually cares what you do or how you look. Things that seem scary are actually invigorating. We can also enjoy the process of being bad at something and slowly improving.

I encourage you to start something new this month.

Start weightlifting. Try learning a new language. Actually start that one DIY project you have saved on your phone but have been putting off for months. Give a new hobby a go.

YouTube and the internet can teach just about anything for free. There’s probably loads of in-person events or classes in your city too that can teach you another skill you’re interested in. Maybe you can ask a friend or colleague to show you something new.

Mixing up your routine and proving you can learn new skills is an absolute game-changer for your mood and outlook on life. So don’t wait, take on something new and exciting this month!

Related: What To Do When You Feel Chronically Behind In Life.

3. Build Better Self-Talk

One of my best friends is on a mission to do a million push-ups.

This sounds insane, and it sorta is. But he basically does a 500 push-up workout, twice a week, alongside his other workouts. In about 20 years, he’ll hit his million push-up goal.

He’s actually documenting the process on YouTube, alongside his weekly thoughts and journal entries.

Currently, he’s at 171,000 push-ups.

When he started this project, a lot of people thought it was crazy, or a bad way to workout, or just thought he wouldn’t stick with it.

Let me tell you, he’s stuck with it. The guy doesn’t miss a workout. It doesn’t matter what crazy stuff is going on in life, or if he’s tired, or if it’s the weekend; he doesn’t miss.

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And what’s interesting is this dedication to his weekly push-ups has helped transform how he speaks and thinks.

Now, he’s the most positive, self-believing individual I know. He is full of energy, has goals, and genuinely brightens the room whenever he walks in. You feel great after spending just a bit of time hanging out.

When I’ve asked him about this project and the impact it’s had, so much of it boils down to self-talk and the voice inside his head.

According to him, the push-ups are really just a challenge that has to be overcome each week. Along the way, he tells himself he’s capable of doing them and just about anything he sets his mind to. It doesn’t really matter if it’s push-ups, or landing that job, or trying something new and difficult.

For years I assumed confidence and optimism were personality traits.

Now, I think it’s largely a construction project. You can literally build this into your way of life and how you operate.

In other words, the voice in your head is trainable.

If you repeatedly tell yourself you’re lazy, unlucky, behind, or incapable, eventually your brain starts accepting that as fact.

In contrast, if you repeatedly tell yourself that you have skills, you will figure things out, and that you can achieve great things, you accept this as fact.

Call it self-affirmation, manifestation, or whatever you want. The stories we tell ourselves become the foundation we build on. They set the pace and energy for every waking moment of our life.

Many people are accidentally constructing a mental environment that works against them. They begin planning with anxiety and worst-case scenarios. The voice inside their head sabotages them from the start.

If you hear this doubt creeping in, kill it. You can train yourself over time to picture the best-case scenario and what it feels like when you get there. Do this for long enough, and I swear how you operate on a day-to-day basis changes for the better, and visualization turns into reality.

4. Build Better Relationships

Relationships don’t magically stay strong. They are maintained. It takes mutual effort, and consistent effort at that.

I’m appreciating this more since moving to Cape Town. I haven’t been in Canada for over one year now. While I love the digital nomad life, I miss the close relationships I have in North America.

I’m starting to call close friends more, at least once per week. Same with my family. Even with the distance, it makes a massive difference for mood and quality of life overall.

This is an underrated habit. Even if you live in the country you were born in, I encourage you to call a friend or family member at least once per week.

Make plans too! Time is precious, so use it while you have it.

Plan the trip, go grab that beer, send the first message. Resist the urge to become more isolated.

Technology is pushing us farther apart these days, but following someone on Instagram isn’t the same as maintaining a real relationship. Do the work.

5. Build Better Habits

I’m not a fan of the over-optimization of life and endless self-improvement routines. We’re human, not machines.

That said, there are some pretty basic habits you can build into your daily routine that have massive upside for quality of life. Some of these include:

• Drinking enough water

• Waking up at the same time

• Going to the gym 2-3 times per week

• Walking to the grocery store, or after meals, or just more often in daily life

• Reading a few pages before bed

• Eating whole foods

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Again, it sounds simple. But it’s important to be intentional about building these kinds of habits and then maintaining them as well.

After all, it’s so easy to let these basics slip when life gets busy. I do this all the time; I’m busy with work, I end up skipping two meals, downing 4 coffees, and then I wonder why my head and body are a mess by the time 5pm rolls around.

Stick to the basics. Build them into your daily routine. Don’t overcomplicate things.

The Real Superpower - Build Delusional Optimism

I’ll wrap up this post by saying this: building delusional optimism is a superpower.

The news makes it seem like the world is going mad. Things move faster than ever. Times are changing.

Amidst all of this, it’s easy to feel discouraged or uncertain. This is why it’s more important than ever to instill a sense of optimism and autonomy in your life in whatever way you can.

This could be as small as making your bed every morning and ironing your shirt.

Or, maybe, it could mean starting a side hustle, or learning a new skill you’ve been thinking about for a while.

Whatever you do, you’ll start to believe that you’re capable of making change. You can then analyze areas of your life, pick out things you like and dislike, and start building towards the version of life you actually want.

Stack enough bricks with positive momentum and it’s impossible not to become incredibly optimistic. You start setting larger and larger goals, you dream bigger, and you feel way more alive. When you start operating like this, you think and perform better too, so you’re actually increasing the chances you accomplish what you desire.

Since starting my business in 2018, living on 6 continents, and having some massive wins and fails along the way, I genuinely believe we can turn our life into whatever we want.

It will take heaps of work. You’ll probably end up with a much different version than what you had in mind at the start as well. But this journey is the only one worth taking with the time we are given, so start dreaming and start building!

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Anyways, I’ll be heading out from Cape Town for a bit soon. I am keen to return here, but I’m also itching to spend some time at home and to explore new parts of the world. I don’t really know what comes next. This used to frighten me, now it mostly excites me. Time to do some building of my own!

Thanks for reading all.

I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

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👉 5 Profitable One-Person Business Examples.

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Deals.

Data.

Distribution.

You only need to pick one and master it to make money with your one-person business.

This is an interesting concept I heard in a recent podcast episode from Jacky Chou, an online entrepreneur and SEO expert I’ve followed for a while.

The premise intrigued me immediately…what do you mean, you only need one of these three components to win with your one-person business?

But the more I thought about this concept, the more I agreed.

Mastering one of these elements for your own one-person business is a recipe success. Each one is its own unique moat that helps you capture customers and ultimately make more money, just in different ways.

That said, it’s crucial you pick the right competitive edge to build based on your business’ current stage, income goals, and your own skillset.

Personally, I’m going for number #3 to grow my businesses. This is also that strategy I used to make $1M+ in my twenties with my media business. I’m avoiding #2, and think the first option is easiest to implement.

Let’s break down these 3 strategies and how you can implement them for your own business.

💸 A couple fun updates before I get into things…

1️⃣ I just put out an updated list of my top money-making tools and platforms. This includes some easy wins you can use to boost your income plus powerful tools I’m using to run my numerous online businesses more efficiently.

2️⃣ I’m also opening consulting calls again with limited availability. If you want to develop a strategy to scale your traffic and revenue, you can book a paid call with me here. Let’s chat about ways to begin growing your business!

Strategy #1: Win With Deals

In the Fortune 500 world, winning with deals generally means landing a massive partnership with another company that can:

• Bring an enhanced service offering to customers

• Lower costs for customers

• Provides more overall value than what competitors are doing

We’re seeing this happen all the time these days, especially in the AI arms race. Just look at the Anthropic-SpaceX deal recently, or how Nvidia is pouring money back into the AI boom.

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Now if you’re running a small team or one-person business, you probably can’t bankroll angel investments or insane business development deals like these…So, what can you do?

Well, there’s a few routes you can take.

Option 1: Offer Pricing Deals

When I started freelance writing, I took on a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel pricing clients.

This was frankly to pay my bills and gain experience. But something funny happened to me after a few months of writing for $0.05 per word while writers I knew were commanding anywhere $0.15 to $0.50 per word.

My monthly income kept increasing.

I was getting tons of business through word-of-mouth referrals. I landed a couple of clients at $0.07 and $0.10 per word as well. Eventually, I brought on a sneaky ghostwriter to help me with some of my cheapest clients so I could focus on pitching upwards.

Another funny thing?

My hourly rate for the bottom-of-the-barrel pricing clients was still solid. The content was so easy to create, I’d bust out two articles while watching Netflix without breaking a sweat. A quick $100 just like that, which meant a lot to someone who had quit their office job recently to try the whole digital nomad thing.

Now, this pricing strategy didn’t last forever. I eventually started writing for Forbes and several larger publications or premium finance brands. The pay was excellent, and it wasn’t long before I was making $10,000+ per month with my writing. But to land the whale clients, I had to secure my income first and also develop enough connections in the industry to move up the food chain.

Freelance writing ain’t what it used to be (thanks ChatGPT!) But there’s some takeaways here.

Firstly, if you’re just starting out, don’t snub your nose at playing the pricing game.

Your #1 goal is to not go out of business. You need to put food on the table. It is okay to trade time for money at the start to develop proof of concept, sharpen your skills, and to get some income flowing.

Secondly, if you’re young, you can absolutely trade sweat equity for money. This is what I did for several years in my early and mid-twenties and would absolutely do it again. Try working 60-80 hours one week and see what you can accomplish. You won’t die.

Finally, it’s true that cheap clients can often cause more headaches than they’re worth. But there’s also plenty of cheap clients out there that know exactly what they’re paying for and set expectations accordingly. Pre-vetting clients and setting measurable deliverables is important. My most difficult clients have always been in the mid-pricing tier for whatever business I’m operating, which is interesting.

The Takeaway: I argue you should be hungrier for business than ever, especially in the current environment with AI and automation. If I was starting from $0 and wanted to hit $10K/month, I would productize a service I know how to fulfill, discount my pricing, and grind it out. Eventually you can build up enough cash to hire or outsource so you’re less in the trenches.

The Writing Rules That Made Me $1,000,000+ Online

Option 2: Offer Quality & Peace of Mind Deals

This one is the flip side to discounted pricing deals…You offer a quality deal instead.

Premium pricing generally has this worked in. It looks like:

• ‘X-days satisfaction guarantee or your money back

• Warranties (i.e. if what I give you breaks or stops working within X days, you get compensated)

• ‘Only paid if X happens’ → I.e. performance-based pricing

• Tailored offerings (i.e. going above and beyond for the client with some tailored service they ask for)

• Delivery speed (I’ll do X faster than competitor Y)

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What’s nice about many of these strategies is that customers don’t always take advantage of the deal they pay extra for.

People won’t be fully satisfied sometimes for whatever reason, yet they don’t request a refund. Or, a client asks for delivery at certain speed, but they create enough bottlenecks on their own so your workload never actually changes.

I see this with consulting all the time. I’m paid monthly retainers to consult on SEO, YouTube content, or whatever, and I end up getting two paychecks just going through onboarding and some basic intro calls.

The Takeaway: If you don’t have premium upsell in your lineup, create one. This is what I did when I created consulting offerings alongside my basic freelance writing work. Some percentage of your customer base is likely willing to pay extra to get ‘better’ results or ‘faster’ results or whatever they associate paying more will achieve.

Related: 10 Ways Solopreneurs Can Instantly Make More Money.

Option 3: Offer Deals Through Strategic Partnerships

This option is the business development route to landing more customers and making more money…This isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies or massive teams.

Here’s a pretty simple example.

I’m living in Cape Town at the moment. Some of my friends here work in the booming tourism industry. It’s ultra competitive, especially for services like guided hikes or day tours.

One of my friends offers these kinds of tours. To get more business, they’ve networked with dozens of related tour operators who aren’t direct competitors. They now send each other business and each give each other a small kickback per new customer.

It’s a win-win scenario. Actually, a win-win-win scenario since they’ve all agreed to give customers slight discounts through this referral path.

You can do this for tons of service-based businesses. I’ve done it for my content business’ as well and connected other media businesses with brands for a kickback.

What I find crazy about this path is sometimes, building a new referral path literally takes a few emails back and forth or a call.

Many of these relationships fizzle or become one-sided over time. But when you land a good one where both parties profit, it’s incredible.

The Takeaway: If you go down this path, dedicated a few hours per week to outreach and networking with this goal in mind. You need to be intentional here; this isn’t something that magically happens.

Extra Reading: Why Coast FIRE + Geo Arbitrage Is The Fastest Path To Freedom.

Strategy #2: Win With Data

Winning with data generally means:

• Having enough data about your customers to offer exceptional personalized services (i.e. upsells at the right time, personalized offerings, and really drilling into your customer segments to create a unique experience for people)

• Having enough data about customer acquisition costs to nail marketing and your paid funnels (i.e. you can pay $100 for leads all day long because you know your customer LTV is $450 and how the math works out for your margins)

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I dislike this route for my own businesses and most one-person businesses or small teams.

Here’s why: Data can absolutely be a moat. But you need enough data and infrastructure to make this happen, which is incredibly hard to pull off, especially as a one-person business or small team.

I’ve met people who agonize over conversion-rate optimization for a mobile app with 5 paying users. I used to spend hours optimizing AdSense ads on my first blog that got a couple thousand visitors per month at the time.

Until you reach a certain stage of traffic, revenue, and deal-flow, it’s hard to have enough data to do anything meaningful. Perhaps coaches can go down the ultra-personalized service offering route if they collect enough data with intake forms, but for most businesses, I think this is barking up the wrong tree.

PLUS to make the data play possible in the first place, I argue strategy #3 is what many entrepreneurs should focus on…

Strategy #3: Win With Distribution - What I’m Chasing

Most of your customers have zero idea that you exist.

It doesn’t matter if you’re posting daily, running paid ads, speaking at conferences, and are even going viral on social media regularly.

For most industries, you don’t own a drop in the bucket of market share. Not even close.

It took me years for this fact to sink in.

I was running a profitable blog, I was growing on YouTube, but revenue was pretty slow-growing. I was spending time trying to optimize revenue and find new brands to work with, but this didn’t really move the needle.

Eventually, I decided to basically 5X my content output and just do more, and guess what? Revenue followed pretty quickly.

The Pareto Principle (i.e. the 80/20 rule) is good to follow here: What would 5-10xing your 20% most valuable marketing strategy do for your business?

For me, this looked like publishing daily on my blog instead of weekly. I send out daily newsletters instead of bi-weekly ones. On the YouTube side, I publish twice per week now and also send out dozens of brand pitches per week instead of waiting for them to come to me.

Simultaneously, I stopped posting on Instagram since it never drove clicks. I worked with fewer affiliate offers but focused on the ones that worked. I didn’t really go down the courses path because it’s not an investment I could spare. I also stopped accepting stupid 1:1 intro calls with people I already knew weren’t going to go anywhere. I stopped replying to a lot of emails too. Huge time save.

To be fair, saying “just do 5-10x more of the most important aspect of your marketing funnel” might sound easier said than done.

But to counter, there’s a solid chance you know deep down what you need to do more of. You’re just hesitating because building out systems to make this happen feels uncomfortable and risky.

This was how I operated for years. Then I started outsourcing and building actual systems that can scale, and this changed everything.

These days, you can use AI tools to accelerate your marketing efforts. I also cover some creative and free marketing tactics for one-person business owners you can try too.

Unless you are absolutely drowning in business and turning paying customers away, unlocking more distribution will likely help.

There’s a story I love here too: how Matt Paulson built MarketBeat into a $60M/year finance publication with just 19 employees and zero outside investment.

This is such an awesome example of what can happen when you win at distribution.

MarketBeat is a newsletter with around 5 million email subscribers. It has a series of related newsletters as well, SMS lists, Push Notification lists, and a YouTube channel with 600,000+ subscribers.

MarketBeat is crushing distribution. They literally send billions of emails a year. And newer channels like SMS and YouTube are printing cash.

In a nutshell, MarketBeat has built so many sticky distribution channels that they aren’t at the mercy of a single platform or algorithm. They monetize customers as soon as they walk through the door, and then they upsell them continuously.

The beautiful part is that this unlocks strategy #2, the ‘win with data’ play. MarketBeat can now spend around $1.5M per month in paid acquisition to their newsletter because they know exactly how much their subscribers are worth and what they can afford to spend on each platform.

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How insane is that?

They’re spending $1M+ monthly on getting new people on their email list. Within 90 days or sooner, MarketBeat breaks even. From there, it’s all gravy since deliverability costs in online media are miniscule.

This is an ultimate example of how powerful nailing distribution can be.

The Takeaway: Take a few hours this week and analyze your most valuable marketing efforts. Outline the bottlenecks that are keeping you from ramping this. You might need to hire or invest in outsourcing. Alternatively, you could leverage automation to win back some time. Or, bluntly, you could sink more time into it and give up some free time. There’s no right answer here, but tracking your output and having distribution goals is vital.

Next Steps

I love writing about one-person businesses. After all, starting a one-person business can change your life. It changed mine, and it’s easier to start one than ever before thanks to AI and tech.

This doesn’t mean this is easy.

Plenty of businesses go under. You can have slow years too or slide backwards. I’m down this year versus last, but you roll with the punches and keep things moving.

What’s encouraging is that you don’t need to win on all fronts to make money here. Unlocking one competitive advantage and dialing in on it is likely enough to succeed.

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Personally, I’m chasing distribution. I want more email subscribers here and on Kit. I want to grow more YouTube channels and improve viewer retention/subscriber loyalty. I’m building a new Reddit funnel that’s already making money, and this cross-promotes my new vibe-coded project and Skool community. When I publish something or promote an offer, I want to land in front of as many people as possible.

If you take a critical look at your own business, you probably know what you should be chasing. Time to make a gameplan and make it happen!

Hope you liked this article. I always appreciate shares/restacks/comments if you did. Let me know what you think as well.

Catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

Want More Useful Guides? Checkout:

👉 The 4 Automations That Make Me Money While I Sleep.

👉 How To Make An Extra $1,000 Per Month.

Modern life constantly exposes you to people who seem ahead of you.

And it’s not just your friends or coworkers either…It’s seemingly millions of people, all of whom have it better than you.

You open Instagram and see entrepreneurs in Dubai driving around in Lambos.

You check YouTube and see 23-year-olds making $100,000/month.

You browse LinkedIn and someone announces a promotion every six minutes.

All of this noise creates the illusion that everyone is progressing smoothly except you. Hell, my content is guilty of this too sometimes (my bad lol).

The thing is, after enough exposure to all of this, your brain starts treating extraordinary outcomes as normal. Naturally, in comparison, your life looks pretty lackluster.

This line of thinking is a trap. Quite a deadly one, too.

If you let it fester, it deters you from taking meaningful action to create the life you desire. After all, if you’re so far behind, what’s the point of even starting?

In reality, many successful people have spent years feeling lost. Many confident people you see online are faking it until they make it. And the “overnight” success stories you see don’t share the years of work behind the scenes that made everything possible.

And so if you’re feeling behind but want to excel, this one is for you.

I’m covering actionable steps you can take today to begin working towards your goals.

From small steps that compound into larger wins to reframing certain modes of thinking; this is for anyone feeling lost and unmotivated who wants to get back to dreaming big.

😎 Want to land a remote job that gives you freedom over your time and location?

Then I suggest checking out FlexJobs.

This premium job board is one of the leading places to find remote positions, freelancing roles, and flexible working arrangements. Jobs are hand-picked so there’s no AI slop, and you get salary/pay information as well.

I’ve worked online since 2019, and the freedom you get versus sitting in a cubicle all day is game-changing. Hopefully, you can find a remote position with FlexJobs as well and work from wherever you want in the world.

1. Start Stacking Small Wins

When people feel stuck in life, they often think they need some massive transformation.

New city. New relationship. New business idea. New personality, even.

Usually, what actually changes people is much less dramatic. It’s the implementation of small routines, small improvements, and small moments of discipline that gradually build up positive momentum in your life.

I talk about this concept in my post on the opportunity cost of not following your dreams.

Jordan Peterson talks about the importance of “aiming low enough” as well. Basically, setting goals small enough that you can actually achieve them consistently.

There’s a lot of truth to that, especially when you feel overwhelmed.

This can look like:

• Going to bed at the same time every night

• Drinking water and stretching in the morning

• Cooking basic meals instead of ordering takeout

• Walking every day

• Cleaning your apartment for 10 minutes

• Calling a friend once a week

• Reading for 20 minutes before bed

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These habits sound almost insultingly simple. But when you follow through on them consistently, you prove something important to yourself: you are capable of changing your life for the better.

That sense of agency matters more than people realize. You need to believe you have autonomy and agency over your life if you actually want to control your life and outcomes.

2. Save Money & Buy Back Your Capacity To Take Risk

When you’re feeling stuck and don’t know where to go, I urge you to default to saving money.

There’s a few reasons for this.

Firstly, if your expenses outpace your income, you will always feel behind. You even see this with high-earning professions like doctors and lawyers; when you live paycheck to paycheck, no amount of keeping up with the Joneses will bring happiness or fulfillment.

Secondly, building up your savings buys you the capacity to take action when you know where you want to go.

In other words, if you have a few months’ of living expenses saved up, you buy the ability to take risk and action when it counts.

Here’s a personal example: I landed a ~$40,000 a year office job shortly out of college. Yet I was miserable, stuck in the same town I’d been in for years, working on a job that was deeply unfulfilling with no upward mobility.

I ended up quitting that job within a few months and booked a one-way ticket to Colombia. I had some savings and was beginning my freelance writing and blogging career.

Quitting my day job was an immediate hit to my income. But I had enough savings to place a bet on myself, at least for the next few months.

A couple months came and went, and you know what?

My writing income was surpassing my old day job, I had freedom over my time, and I had never felt more alive. And the businesses I started ended up making $1M+ along the way.

This is what buying capacity gets you; you can take shots on net when it matters.

I have met many people during my years of being a digital nomad who want to start a business, who want to move somewhere new, or who want to have a career shift. Many never take action, and the reason is almost-always due to lack of capacity.

Bottom line: if you feel lost, save money and make this a priority.

Put your emergency fund in a high-yield savings account you don’t touch (you can use something like Current and earn 4% APY right now, easy freebie!)

Slash spending on stupid stuff. Bide your time and plan. When you find clarity, you’ll be able to take action and pull the trigger.

💸 Extra Reading - 6 Simple Steps To Making $1,000 More Per Month.

3. Learn Something New & Reignite Your Curiosity

One of the worst parts about feeling stuck is that life starts becoming repetitive.

Wake up.

Work.

Scroll.

Sleep.

Repeat.

Days blur together. Weeks disappear. They’ve actually studied this, and it’s terrifying, but the fewer novel experiences you have in your life, the faster life seems to pass you by. You legitimate feel like you’re living less life if you remain stagnant.

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I’ve found the best way to break this monotonous cycle is to learn something new, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with money or productivity.

Recently, I started learning boxing because it always interested me.

I’m objectively terrible at it.

But there’s something incredibly healthy about being a beginner again. It forces your brain to wake up. You become present. You struggle. You improve slightly. You get humbled. And any progress you make at this new skill makes you feel like you’re conquering an absolute mountain.

I’ve also been slowly learning Dutch. The other day I bought a whole chicken from the grocery store and watched a YouTube video on how to properly break it down and cook it.

None of these things are life-changing on their own.

But together, they create a feeling that life is expanding again instead of shrinking. And once again, you prove to yourself with small wins that you’re capable and have the power to do cool stuff with your life.

Again, this doesn’t have to relate to business or money in any way. You could learn programming, vibe code something, how to edit YouTube videos, or some other highly-monetizable skill, but you don’t have to.

Learn how to dance salsa, how to bake break, or how to make a great cup of coffee. Just do something new

4. Find Your Ikigai - Your “Reason For Being”

Ikigai is a Japanese concept that roughly means “reason for being.”

It’s a very powerful concept. Typically, it relates to four elements: finding what you love, what the world needs, what you’re good at, and what you can get paid for:

However there’s also an element of Ikigai that emphasizes finding joy and beauty in everyday, mundane actions.

In the West, we’d probably call this mindset “practicing gratefulness” or something similar. But I think Ikigai is slightly more intentional, especially for everyday routines.

I encourage you to stay off your phone in the morning and to give this thing a try, even if it sounds silly.

Take notice of how your coffee machine gurgles and smells when you flip it on. Watch how the sun hits the leaves of that tree in your backyard slightly differently each morning. Spend a few minutes talking with someone at the dinner table instead of scrolling, and be present for the conversation.

Lately I have felt very behind in my various online businesses. I’m not producing as much as I could. Other people are using AI tools ‘better’ than I am. Views are down on many of my accounts. The feeling is bleh.

Yet somehow, this stress evaporates when I spend time watching how the sun reflects off the ocean in the evenings, or when I cook a simple meal without checking my phone.

Besides stress evaporating, your mind will clear when you practice Ikigai. You’ll have space to make clearer, better decisions for the road ahead. This alone can have a massive ROI for your life as you tackle difficult choices and forks in the road.

Related: Everything You Desire Waits On The Other Side Of Risk & Fear.

5. Start Optimizing For Freedom Instead Of Status

Part of the comparison trap and feeling endlessly behind comes from confusing visible status with actual quality of life.

We’ve been conditioned to assume:

• Expensive = successful

• Busy = important

• Famous = fulfilled

But these things are often loosely connected at best. And I’ve met plenty of people who have impressive-looking lives on the surface or their Instagram feed but are actually miserable in reality.

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SO before you go off chasing a life that was pitched and sold to you on social media, ask yourself this question: is your decision building towards status, or freedom?

Trust me, making decisions that reduce complications in your life and give you more control over your time and energy is how you ‘lifemax.’

I’ve lived in Dubai and tried living a lavish lifestyle for YouTube.

I’ve done the whole ‘grind out a business —> work 80 hours a week —> try and sell that business —> roll that money into a NEW business —> work even MORE —> Don’t forget NETWORKING HAHAHA —> Did you buy a Rolex yet bro? —> I LOVE LINKEDIN SHIT POSTING —> AHHHRHRHGHGHGHHFH

All of this made me stressed and miserable. I ended up making worse decisions too because I couldn’t think straight anymore.

Alternatively, you can build a more ‘boring’ life that focuses on maintaining a flexible schedule, limited meetings, meaningful relationships, and more freedom over your time and creative pursuits.

This is why I’m such a fan of Coast FIRE and living in cheap places.

You can skip chasing status symbols that don’t have any impact on your happiness. Simplify your life. Unlock freedom and control over chasing a shiny business model you see online. Chances are, you’ll need a way lower annual income to do this and you’ll be happier, so this path is both easier and more fun 😉

This isn’t to say you can’t set ambitious goals. Just be careful for what you’re optimizing for.

6. Change Your Environment If You Need To

Sometimes feeling behind has less to do with you and more to do with your environment.

Certain places, routines, and social circles slowly drain people without them realizing. But you actually feel the drain physically after enough time passes, and your ideas lose their sharpness.

Every day beings looking the same. Your conversations are repetitive, you stop meeting new people, and bit by bit, your worldview and sense of adventure shrink.

A simple change in scenery can be surprisingly powerful here. And even though I’m basically a full-time nomad now, I’m not saying you have to move to the other side of the world.

Sometimes it’s as simple as:

• Working from a new coffee shop

• Joining a gym

• Spending more time outside

• Traveling somewhere unfamiliar, even a couple hours away

• Rearranging your apartment

• Driving a new way home

Humans adapt very quickly to stagnant environments. Novelty wakes the brain back up.

7. Don’t Quit The Comparison Game…Reframe It Instead

When people say “comparison is the thief of joy” I think they’re right.

But I disagree with people who say you shouldn’t play the comparison game whatsoever.

The comparison game is hardwired into our DNA. It’s human nature to compare everything around us to other stimuli and to ourselves. This could be for threat detection, to determine status, or just because our brains can’t help but pick winner and losers. Whatever the case, don’t feel bad for comparing your current life to what you see around you because this is totally normal.

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Where we’ve lost the plot is comparing ourselves to curated depictions we see on social media that, of course, make us feel bad about ourselves.

I used to do this all the time when I looked at bloggers and YouTubers (two of my main businesses) who were all making way more money than me. I would feel so behind and like I didn’t have the knowledge to succeed or keep my businesses running profitably.

Eventually, I realized that comparing my businesses and life to theirs was useful, but only in terms of reverse engineering some of the things they had that I wanted.

I learned to separate the fancy cars, watches, and social media flexing that was going on from the actual business models. The meat and potatoes of the whole thing.

I focused on tactics they were using to scale their traffic, which offers they were monetizing, how they built out funnels, and other stuff that actually mattered.

In other words, when you play the comparison game with people who make you feel behind, try to take a step back and view things more tactically. You can learn heaps from people who are ahead of you. It doesn’t detract from your position in life, and it can even inspire you to chase after some bigger fish in the pond.

On the flip side, you can also play the comparison game with the person you were a few years ago, or even a couple of months ago.

We forget to do this too often. But when you feel behind and lost, ask yourself: what would the teenage version of yourself say about your life right now? Or the person you were a couple of years ago?

Maybe they’d be pretty damn impressed. And, maybe, you can cut yourself a little slack as you keep marching onwards.

Extra Reading - How To Actually Change Your Life With A One-Person Business.

Final Thoughts

Feeling behind in life is an almost universal experience now. Modern culture monetizes insecurity extremely well.

But there will always be someone out there seemingly more successful, attractive, funnier, further ahead, whatever than you.

You cannot win this kind of comparison game in the long run. It’s also the wrong game to play.

Instead, focus on taking slow, consistent steps that are small wins. Compound those small wins into larger ones. Learn that you have autonomy over your destiny, and this life is what you make of it. Optimize for freedom and peace over status and the rat race. Give yourself a bit of grace, but don’t mistake this for a blank check to stop chasing your dreams.

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When I look back on even the last few years, it’s crazy how much your life can change if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Sure, you’ll slip and backslide at times. Sometimes pretty far back, too.

But consistent optimism and action leads us to the right place for us. It’s not always easy, but it’s possible, and you’re in the driver’s seat after all! Take the wheel and go where you want to go. Even if there’s some detours along the way, you’ll have a way better time if you’re the one driving!

Thanks for reading all. Back to writing on Substack, feeling good!

Catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

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👉 The Writing Rules That Made Me $1,000,000+ Online

There’s a version of your life that only exists if you say yes.

But this version takes risk. It takes action.

It’s the version that sends that email, books that one-way flight, and that quits the thing that slowly drains the color and life out of everything around you.

The funny thing is that you can probably picture this version of you in your mind’s eye with crystal clarity, almost as if you’ve met before.

You know how you’ll feel, how you’ll move, how your morning routine will look like…

Yet despite this clarity, nothing changes.

Stagnation and complacency set in instead. But this is a quiet tax we pay for the life we’re not living.

This tax builds slowly, too.

It begins with a little less curiosity. A little less fire behind your eyes. A little more ‘maybe next year’ or ‘I’ll get to it when I have time.’

Our brains are excellent at disguising this tax as sensibility. We should do what’s expected of us. We should stay in our lane. We should play it safe because risk is scary.

This formula is how years pass without anything meaningful happening. It’s how people start living like NPCs.

But over time, this quiet tax we pay creates a distance between who we are and who we felt we could become.

This is the opportunity cost of not following your dreams.

It’s the late, sleepless nights you spend asking yourself “I wonder what would have happened if…”

It’s the sinking feeling you have knowing that you traded a future version of yourself for safety, and that you never risked enough to find out what could have been.

It’s also the devaluing of your instincts.

You knew what you wanted out of this life. But you ignored the voice inside of your head until it stopped speaking to you entirely, because speaking with you became a waste of time.

Now here’s the thing…

This quiet tax, this opportunity cost, it’s a slow poison. It only kills you once you’re out of time and out of options.

The antidote?

Taking action.

Listening to the gut feeling you have, taking risks you know you should take, and moving with purpose instead of letting life pass you by.

The question isn’t whether your dreams will work out. It’s whether you’re willing to pay the price of ignoring them or not.

Either way, you’re paying something. Just in different currencies. So you might as well take a shot and make it count.

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How To Take Meaningful, Sustained Action When Paralyzed By Choices

I realize this is a different style of post than what I usual write on WiFi Wealth.

I also dislike posts that ramble about dreams, what-ifs, passion and all that without giving actionable steps to get there.

SO, here are some realistic steps you can take to start improving your life and to work towards those dreams of yours:

1: Learn Basic Financial Literacy: Income and savings unlock freedom while debt destroys it. Learn basic financial literacy like how to budget, how to build up an emergency fund, and how simple dollar-cost averaging works for investing. Ignore shiny objects and what people on WallStreetBets do. Read voraciously about financial independence, how to retire well, Coast FIRE, and other lines of thinking. You can watch 10 minutes a day of YouTube lessons from people like The Plain Bagel, Dave Ramsey, Graham Stephan, and many others. Alternatively, ask ChatGPT to start teaching you (it breaks down things remarkably well and is quite organized…I’m learning Dutch currently with AI and it’s awesome.)

2: Spend 15 Minutes Per Day Learning AI Skills: I miss the pre-AI world like many people. But AI is here, it’s disruptive, and it’s a costly skill to ignore. The difference between understanding how some money-making AI tools work and never touching them is also massive. You’ll legitimately make yourself more valuable and efficient if you spend just 15 minutes per day for a couple of weeks trying out some tools. Learn to automate something for your day job too. You’ll be miles ahead of your colleagues and you can probably work fewer hours moving forwards. Or, try vibe coding an idea you had. Even if it fails, the education is immensely valuable.

3: Stop Overconsuming: Most phones let you set app-usage limits. Block yourself from social media and other crappy apps, or limit yourself to 10 minutes per day. If you have apps like DoorDash/Uber Eats, gambling apps, or other stupid shit on your phone, delete them too. You can try a no-spend challenge and see how many days you can go in a row without spending a penny. This will actually force you to clear out your pantry and kitchen. It’s honestly amazing just how much stuff many of us have laying around that we never use.

4: Build Up Positive Momentum: People give up because they go into something saying “I want to build a six-figure business” or “I want to become super fit” but are starting from zero. Start out smaller and more humbly. Try working on your new one-person business idea for 30 minutes before work and 30 minutes before bed, but do this for 30 days in a row. Same for fitness. There’s no use in killing yourself over a 2 hour workout if it’s the only movement you have that week. Consistent, small wins are what matter, so plan your schedule around them. If you can’t stick to something for a week, you won’t form the habit.

5: Change Your Environment: When you lack motivation, an environment change is one of the fastest ways to get out of a rut. You don’t have to fly to Bali either. Take your laptop, buy a $4 coffee at a nice cafe, and sit there for a couple of hours and work. Or do this at the park, the library, or somewhere that isn’t home. Some of the most productive work I’ve done for my businesses have been in cafes, or in countries where I don’t know a single person.

6: Make Your First Dollar Of Side Hustle Income: Something genuinely snaps in your brain when you make your first dollar of non-employment income. I swear, the happiest I’ve been is when my blog made like, $3.47 in its first month back in 2018 (my mom bought something through my Amazon affiliate link lol. MVP mom!) But seriously, this teaches you that you can create new income streams and that your boss doesn’t control your peace and destiny. And in some cases, side hustling can turn into a full-time business or change your life. This is how I made $1M+ in my twenties, and if I can do it, you can too. I also have a guide on how to make $1,000/month through side hustling that has some super beginner-friendly options to try.

7: Start A New Hobby: This is about pattern disruption. NPCs live the same day, weeks, and months over and over again until they die. Imagine, then, what happens to your brain and chemistry when you end up at a beginner kickboxing class on a Wednesday evening after work, or a language exchange meetup. You will legitimately feel alive again if you’ve been in a slump. I’ve started boxing recently here in Cape Town, and every other aspect of my life (work, energy, relationships, mood) has improved. If you can’t afford a new hobby, this is very understandable, so I’d encourage free activities like hiking groups, running groups, etc.

8: Talk About The Future With Someone You Respect: This step is critical for building dreams and keeping them alive. Talk is cheap honestly, but it also lets us paint a picture of what we want and what we think is possible for the future. If you have a partner, spend time talking about your individual and shared dreams. You should still enjoy the present. But there’s value is dreaming about the kind of lifestyle you want to live, how you want your mornings to look, what your family might become, and what you ultimately want out of the years you have. If you’re single, perhaps you can talk about similar things with a friend or family member you respect.

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Overall, it probably takes an hour a day or a couple hours per week to put a lot of these steps into action.

But if you’re trying to build a life of your dreams, it all starts with saying yes and making decisions. We’re all in the driver’s seat after all, so set your sights on where you want to go and floor it.

Extra Reading - How To Build Financial Freedom With A One-Person Business.

What’s Next?

I’ve been a bit absent from Substack the last month or two. I’m very happy to be back and have a lot I want to write about.

Some of this content will be different than my regular tutorials or guides. But more guides and how-to resources are coming as well.

Aside from that, it’s life as usual.

I’m still in Cape Town, I’m still hiking, and I’m still building new online businesses and money-making funnels. I’m not sure where I’ll be later this year or next year exactly, but the number of open doors is exciting.

If you’ve been in a rut, I hope this post is helpful. And if you have ideas you’d like to add, feel free to comment as well.

Happy to be back. Thanks for reading and for your support as always.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

Want More Useful Guides? Checkout:

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👉 I Spent 7 Years Chasing Passive Income…Here’s What I Learned.

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What would an extra $1,000 in your wallet do for you each month?

This is the kind of income that can pay down bills, help wipe out debt, and make a massive difference for someone’s finances.

Today, I’m sharing 6 actionable steps to earning this kind of monthly income.

I can’t promise results; anyone who does has an expensive course to sell you. But I can share realistic ideas that have worked for me over the 8 years I’ve been testing side hustles and documenting my progress.

PLUS some of these ideas are ones you can try in the next 5 minutes. Let’s get to it 👇

😎 Want to land a remote job that gives you freedom over your time and location?

Then I suggest checking out FlexJobs.

This premium job board is one of the leading places to find remote positions, freelancing roles, and flexible working arrangements. Jobs are hand-picked so there’s no AI slop, and you get salary/pay information as well.

I’ve worked online since 2019, and the freedom you get versus sitting in a cubicle all day is game-changing. Hopefully, you can find a remote position with FlexJobs as well and work from wherever you want in the world.

Step 1. Claim EASY Online Freebies

This isn’t the kind of money that replaces your day job. However, it gets the ball rolling. And if you’ve never made a dollar online, this is the fastest way to change that and to open your eyes to what’s possible.

1. Use GPT Websites

GPT websites, or get-paid-to websites, pay you for completing simple online tasks. Think answering surveys, downloading mobile games, watching videos, and even clicking on search results.

NOW most GPT offers don’t pay more than $1-$3 per hour. Trust me, I’ve tested over 100 of these sites since 2017.

However, these days certain GPT companies have pretty lucrative sign-up bonus offers. When used correctly, you can potentially earn $50 to $300 in an afternoon of work.

The three main GPT platforms I suggest using include:

➡️ Scrambly (US): Has excellent FinTech and gaming offers.

➡️ Gemsloot (Global): Also has excellent sign-up bonuses and nice freebie offers.

➡️ Freecash (Global): This is the largest GPT site in the world.

Here’s an example of this in action.

💸 Take a look at this Chime banking offer from Gemsloot. It pays you $350 for opening up a free Chime checking account and then moving your direct deposit over to it.

This is a 100% free offer. It exists because Chime is on a massive spending spree and is willing to pay $400 or whatever to acquire a customer. Gemsloot facilitates this transaction and passes the bulk of the earnings on to you.

You can find all kinds of FinTech offers like this. There’s even offers that let you earn by signing up for free trials, shopping for products you were going to buy anyways, or doing things like ordering Uber Eats.

I use plenty of these platforms and cherry-pick the best offers every single month.

👉 Here’s some proof: You can see I have $1,079 in lifetime Scrambly earnings, and 53 withdrawals.

And here’s $521.91 in earnings from Gemsloot:

Again, these platforms won’t make anyone rich. Most people use them incorrectly as well, grinding out surveys or low-paying offers for a couple bucks a week.

Use the large sign-up bonus offers to your advantage. There are so many churning and freebie-opportunities up for grabs if you look in the right spots. Just note that offer availability is subject to change and varies by country oftentimes.

💎 PRO TIP: I’ve made a tool called Hustle Buddy which consolidates the best ‘arbitrage opportunities’ in the GPT space. This is updated weekly, so you can find the best offers without doing all the research yourself.

2. Try Paid Market Research Work

Researchers are willing to pay to talk to people. Especially if you have niche knowledge from your job, certain medical conditions, or use particular products.

I use User Interviews to find these opportunities. It’s free to join, and as a member, you can browse open focus group requests and apply to ones that are a good fit.

Here’s some more proof this works 👉 I’ve earned about $500 from User Interviews so far:

This isn’t life-changing money. But I’ll happily take $50 to $80 for hopping on a 30-60 minute Zoom call to chat with someone and share my thoughts. Studies can also be quite lucrative. Like the $200, 45-minute study I took a few months back talking about AI.

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Just note it takes a while to get accepted into a study. I average about one study every 2-3 months right now, but again, it’s easy money.

3. Complete Simple Online Gigs

There’s many other ways to earn $10 to $25 per hour online if you’re willing to grind out fairly repetitive work. This is the world of microtasks. Think data entry, AI prompt training, fact-checking, image annotation, and similar gigs.

Historically, platforms like Amazon MTurk, Appen, and Clickworker dominated this space. They still do, although the hourly pay is quite abysmal here.

Instead of using these sites, I suggest trying AI-training jobs from companies like Micro1 or Stellar AI.

These gigs involve rating prompt responses and helping to train future AI models. You have to apply as a ‘human expert’ and get approved, which takes a brief interview. But once you’re approved, you can work on paid projects and generally earn around $15 to $20 per hour.

I got approved for Micro1 recently. It has hundreds of AI training jobs, and some of the more specialized ones pay $50+ per hour.

This is a newer side hustle I’m testing to be fully transparent. But AI has so much funding currently, so these AI-training companies have sprung up like weeds and are on a hiring spree.

Step 2. Set Up Automated Financial Wins

The idea here is to optimize what you already have and what income is coming in. This should take 30-60 minutes of focus one afternoon. Think of it as some financial housekeeping.

Some automated wins you can start today include:

➡️ Setting up automatic deposits from your paycheck into your savings account so you ensure you’re putting money aside each month (and not overspending.)

➡️ Researching the top high-yield savings rates on the market and moving your savings there. If you can stack this idea with a GPT sign-up bonus or bank deposit bonus, even better.

➡️ Setting up automatic monthly deposits into your investment account. Even if it’s $50, this builds the right habit and lets you benefit from time + compound interest.

➡️ Earning cashback automatically when you shop. If you’re responsible, you should use a rewards credit card so you earn cashback automatically. I also use Coupert and Rakuten when I shop online to earn additional cashback.

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Again, you can set up all of these automations in an hour. They help prevent overspending and ensure your money lands where it’s supposed to.

💸 Pro Tip: Check out these 4 money-making automations I use every month.

Step 3. Play Some Financial Defense

Like setting up simple automations, playing financial defense goes a long way in improving your bank balance. A penny saved is a penny earned, as they say!

Here are some simple ideas you can implement quickly:

➡️ Look through the last few months of bank statements for any weird charges. I’ve caught issues before, called my bank, and saved $20 to $200+ on charges I shouldn’t have paid for. This is one habit you should do monthly at a minimum, honestly.

➡️ Cancel subscriptions you don’t need. Again, you’ll spot these recurring charges on your bank statements. Trim ruthlessly here.

➡️ Call your insurance providers annually and shop around for cheaper coverage. Or, update your insurance providers of any changes that justifies lower premiums. Even small wins add up; I put my car into ‘storage’ when I leave the country as a nomad and told my insurance company to lower my estimated annual mileage from 20,000km to 5,000km. My monthly premiums dropped massively.

➡️ Renegotiate phone & internet bills. Just like insurance plans, shop around for more affordable coverage. You can even call, complain, and say you’re thinking of changing to a competitor. You’ll probably get something if you haven’t changed plans in a while.

Step 4: Make Money With Gig Work

Turning to the gig economy is another reliable hustle you can use on your path to an extra $1,000 per month. I’ve done this periodically since college. From shoveling snow via Craigslist cash gigs to completing mystery shopping work. Not glamorous, but easy to do.

There’s tons of gig apps out there you can apply to, including:

• Uber Eats & DoorDash (food delivery)

• Instacart and Shipt (grocery delivery)

• Rover (walking dogs and pet sitting)

• Taskrabbit (furniture assembly, errand running, cleaning tech help, etc.)

• Dolly and Lugg (help people move)

• Sharetown (pick up bulky return items and resell them on Facebook Marketplace, super cool gig)

• Lawn Love (landscaping and lawn care)

• Field Agent and Premise (mystery shopping)

• Care.com (caretaking work)

• Amazon Flex and GoShare (package delivery)

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In many markets, these gigs pay about $12 to $20 per hour. But you have to work smart, and track expenses like fuel and vehicle depreciation.

OR do what my buddy does. He delivers for Uber Eats and DoorDash on his bike in downtown Toronto. He only works during dinner shifts with peak pricing, and he earns about $15 to $20 per hour with tips, gets exercise, and doesn’t spend money on gas.

Niche gig apps also tend to pay more. For example, gigs like Sharetown let you start a flipping business where you resell bulky items like sofas and gym equipment. It’s more work, but the payouts are higher.

Step 5. Make Money Freelancing

Online freelancing is another path you can consider. This is how I scaled my income out of college, eventually quitting my job to move to Colombia and then travel around the world:

Getting started here can be a grind. That’s why I recommend completing the earlier steps first so you get some quick wins.

Don’t waste time with Fiverr or Upwork either. Those platforms are so saturated and are a race-to-the-bottom in terms of pricing and quality. Instead, here’s where I recommend finding work:

➡️ Reddit r/forhire: Reddit has a surprising number of job boards where people look for developers, digital marketers, virtual assistants, video editors, and all kinds of specialized freelancers.

➡️ LinkedIn: I hate using LinkedIn, but honestly, it’s excellent for finding jobs and clients. This is how I’ve found some of my best freelance writing and SEO clients over the years.

➡️ FlexJobs: This is a paid remote job board I have also used to find freelance writing work. I now promote it as well because I’ve used it and feel comfortable doing so. I like FlexJobs because many listings actually have salary info, and the team does a good job at weeding out fake listings/scams.

➡️ Facebook Groups: Join Facebook groups with bloggers and online business owners. Wait for them to ask for help with your service. Then DM them, offer some free upfront value or insights, and try to land a client. This is also how I’ve found writing/marketing clients, and it’s 100% free.

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ALSO: Set up job alerts! You can do this on LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and basically any job board these days.

Step 6. Begin Building Your Own One-Person Business

The last step, building a one-person business that lets you scale your income way beyond an extra $1,000 a month.

If you need money immediately, please don’t do this. It always irks me when people suggest YouTube, dropshipping, or some other business model to people who just need cash to pay rent tomorrow.

BUT if you’re looking to build an asset that’s sustainable and scalable, this is the step for you.

I’ve written about the best one-person business models before. Here’s some of my favorites:

➡️ Creating a paid newsletter on Substack

➡️ Making money on YouTube with talking-head channels (you can see my $250,000+ YouTube earnings framework here if you’re curious)

➡️ Creating niche pages on social media for affiliate marketing purposes

➡️ Selling simple digital products (i.e. printables, templates, mini-courses)

➡️ Starting an Etsy print on demand business

Again, don’t expect results overnight here. Anyone promising this is easy and instant is likely pushing a course. But once you have your financial bases covered, I’d take a swing at starting a business.

This is how I ended up making $1M+ in my twenties and became financially free. I legitimately kept testing side hustles, found an idea that was scalable, and stuck with it from 2018 to 2024.

That first year, I made $1,700 with my one-person business. In its last year, I made $500,000 and then sold the business.

This is a slow game for most people. But it’s certainly a game worth playing.

Extra Reading: 20+ AI Tools That Actually Make Money.

Next Steps

I’ve been writing about side hustles and making money online since 2018. In that time, I’ve tested hundreds of ideas.

This has included plenty of wacky tests as well…I mean, I even ran a phone farm in my college dorm room:

Along the way, I’ve had tons of side hustle failures. I’ve been scammed. I’ve lost money. I’ve also been told I’m wasting my time and that the ideas I’m trying don’t work.

Oftentimes, these detractors are right. But you know what, when they’re wrong, they’re massively wrong and are the ones truly missing out.

The world is full of incredible opportunities. And consistent effort is the single greatest factor in determining if you get a slice of the pie. If you can commit to a goal and pursue it relentlessly, even when it gets difficult, you will accomplish that goal eventually.

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Now, that’s not to say you should proceed with blind confidence. Be weary of promises that are too good to be true. Take my content with a grain of salt also; I share what works for me with my personal proof. But I can’t guarantee results, and your mileage may vary based on where you live and the skills you have as well.

At the end of the day, I know a lot of people are tapped out financially right now. It’s been a tricky few years. So I hope some of these ideas provide a realistic, actionable path to making more money each month. Even starting small is a start in the right direction. And you might be surprised at how some of these hustles work out for you once you give them a try.

Thank you for reading and for your support as always. I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up with these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my writing.

Starting a one-person business model can unlock financial freedom and change your entire life.

Seriously.

This is exactly what I did to gain financial independence in my twenties.

The best part?

These are business models that don’t rely on the mercy of an employer to get paid. Your income potential isn’t capped by arbitrary ceilings. And when done right, all of the profits funnel straight to your bank account.

Today, I’m covering 5 one-person business ideas that follow this high-margin rocket framework.

This includes real-world examples of people pulling this off, plus steps for how you can start too.

Make 2026 the year you take a risk. Let’s get to it! 👇👇

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It’s like taking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and other leading AI tools and packing them into a single workspace. And for only $8 per month, it’s way cheaper than paying for a bunch of AI tools independently.

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The High-Margin Rocket Model, Explained

I wrote about the high-margin rocket model in my original post on becoming stupidly rich with a one-person business. But I want to expand on the framework here.

The high-margin rocket model involves leveraging algorithmic traffic to obtain free customers. This model is all about exploiting loopholes and best-practices on certain algorithm-driven platforms, getting outsized attention and conversions without having to spend money on marketing.

This model is exactly how I made $1M+ in my twenties with my content businesses.

At the time, I exploited long-tail keyword blogging in the personal finance niche. I drove millions of visitors to my content sites, earning over a million dollars before I sold that business. You can check out the above story for some receipts and a deeper look.

However, this high-margin rocket model is possible on other platforms too: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and even Substack itself.

The key is exploiting algorithms to drive attention to your business. What that business sells and actually delivers is what I’m covering below.

The Pros of High-Margin Rocket Businesses:

✅ You can often operate at 90% or higher margins

✅ These businesses have low start-up costs

✅ A few months of ‘winning’ can genuinely gain your financial freedom and set you up for Coast FIRE

The Cons of High-Margin Rocket Businesses:

❌ These businesses often burn out after a period of free traffic (hence the rocket analogy)

❌ These business have hard income ceilings unless you diversify with paid traffic

❌ It’s a feast-or-famine world; you earn nothing, or you earn everything

If you’re trying to build a business that lasts for 5-10+ years, hires employees, and scales as an enterprise, this model probably isn’t for you.

BUT if you’re looking for low-investment ideas that have the potential to transform your finances and obtain freedom, this is the path I suggest trying first. ESPECIALLY if you’re new to online business and don’t want to invest money into paid acquisition right now.

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With that in mind, here are some of my favorite high-margin rocket business ideas that you can consider, plus real world examples of people pulling this off 👇

1. AI-Powered YouTube Channels

YouTube is one of my favorite platforms for turning free algorithmic-driven traffic into customers, email subscribers, and revenue.

I’ve shared how I made $250,000+ in YouTube revenue before. Here’s that story if you’re curious and want to copy my steps:

But let me provide a bit more context.

I started on YouTube in 2020. I had zero experience with video editing and filming. And I started with a budget setup of about $500 (here’s my current gear if you’re curious.)

Regardless, the 8th video I ever published struck a chord.

💸 The video went semi-viral and has since gained 627,000+ views. This video also generated 10,500+ subscribers, helped me get monetized in a few months, and earned over $7,939 in Adsense revenue:

This is all it took to establish my YouTube business. 8 videos, 8 chances at bat.

Since then, my main channel has earned $150,000+ in Adsense revenue and another $100,000+ through affiliate deals and brand sponsorships. But the momentum was largely driven by one algorithmic win.

The video’s traffic didn’t last. I didn’t become YouTube famous. And 627,000 views is peanuts in comparison to most viral videos.

STILL, this video changed my life and my financial future.

The best part?

You can now use a variety of AI money-making tools to create the same kind of content. YouTube is way easier than it’s ever been, and if you can create content that adds value to people’s lives, it’s only a matter of time before you win.

I suggest reading my money-making YouTube framework if you haven’t yet. It outlines how I create my content plus the AI-powered workflow I use to keep costs down while pumping out great videos.

💵 You can also get my YouTube Freedom Blueprint here to learn how to scale your own profitable channel and to access my new Skool Community for ongoing support and YouTube secrets.

2. Vibe-Coded Products

I’ve also written about how to make money vibe-coding, and honestly, this is another pathway to establishing a high-margin rocket business as a solopreneur.

A couple years ago, you’d need coding knowledge or a decent budget and team to bring products like SaaS companies and mobile apps to market.

Nowadays?

You can use vibe-coding tools like Emergent or Lovable to build entire websites, apps, and SaaS tools from scratch with basic prompting.

I’ve done this recently and have built two different monetized web-apps/platforms for my affiliate marketing businesses. You can watch a recent video I made about how I did this with Emergent if you’re curious 👇

But the point stands: you can bring ideas to market incredibly quickly thanks to the rise of vibe-coding solutions.

Now, vibe-coding alone doesn’t ignite a business. You still need fuel to power traffic, otherwise you’re just building shiny toys.

This is where platforms like X, Reddit, and YouTube are once again immensely powerful.

There are many success stories of people vibe-coding products that solve pain points they find in the market. They share these stores on platforms like Reddit, YouTube, and X, and this is how they obtain their first customers. Then, they leverage this initial win into posting more content under the guise of ‘building in public’, which is really just a cheat-code to going viral on social media.

Just take a look at coders like Connor Burd.

He’s vibe-coded his way to over $1M in revenue across several apps. He’s now been featured on channels like Starter Story and gone viral on X plenty of times, once again under the ‘building in public’ angle.

This is where the algorithmic win comes in…You vibe-code a monetized asset, and then you leverage X and Reddit to get your customers.

👆 This single X post got over 63,000 views by the way. Connor has many more at 1M+ in reach. Think about how many customers this drives to his SaaS products and apps!

🤖 Start vibe-coding with Emergent today!

3. Print On Demand Businesses

Let me start out by saying that print on demand is difficult. Many niches are saturated, and it’s a grind getting your first sales.

That said, nothing worth doing comes easy, right?!

The idea here is to create print on demand designs for trending niches and then list your products for sale on marketplaces like Etsy.

I’ve done this in the past, and I enjoy using Etsy because once again, you get free organic traffic from its marketplace as long as you create enough quality listings and do some basic Etsy-SEO.

Thanks to AI, it’s also super easy to find profitable Etsy niches/sellers and then copy their most successful designs to sell on your own store.

Here’s an example: take a look at this Etsy shop which sells vintage Marlboro posters:

This seller has been operating for 9 months and has 3,100+ sales. This means they’ve earned over $35,000 in revenue if I had to guess, and I’d bet every penny I have that these are AI designs.

This is also one shop and nine months. Picture getting a few of these shops up and running…

Oh yeah, you can. And this is one side hustle I’m going to expand into when I have more time.

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The workflow is incredibly simple. You use AI tools like Skywork to create these exact same designs, upload them to print on demand providers like Printify or Gelato, list your products on Etsy, and you’re off to the races.

For example, here’s my own Marlboro Man Poster I made using Skywork’s AI Poster creation feature 👇

This took 30 seconds, and this design is ready for sale on Etsy.

Is this ethical? Are we flooding Etsy with AI-generated slop?

Well, 3,100 sales in nine months would say otherwise. People want to purchase this stuff. And I don’t see anything wrong with spying on successful Etsy sellers and leveraging AI to make similar designs. It’s a free market out there, after all.

If you try out this idea, my suggestion is to stack Skywork with Gelato. Again, I’m going to launch a series of shops this year for a test. I’ll update you here on Substack how this experiment goes.

RELATED: How To Actually Market Your One-Person Business.

4. Building Hyper-Local Newsletters

I love Substack for many reasons. But I want to highlight a different newsletter model that’s a better fit for this high-margin rocket framework.

The idea: Building hyper-local newsletters for small towns. Build an audience with organic social media marketing (and some Facebook Ads) until you reach enough mass to sell sponsorships/advertorial slots to local businesses.

This is the playbook Ryan Sneddon used to build NapTown Scoop, a successful newsletter covering local news in Annapolis, Maryland.

NapTown Scoop does over $320,000 per year. It’s a solo-business that’s run with basic freelance help.

What’s amazing is that Annapolis has a population of about 40,000 people…NapTown Scoop reportedly has 20,000+ subscribers…

Once Ryan hit a few thousand subscribers, word of mouth became the ‘hack’ that got him so many free subscribers. After all, if you live in Annapolis and you’re not following NapTown Scoop, what are you even doing?

In a couple of years, Ryan turned this newsletter into the go-to source for news and events in this small town. You can apply this model to your own town, grind out some followers, and invest in Facebook Ads to get the machine rolling.

Extra Reading - These 4 Automations Make Me Money While I Sleep.

5. TikTok Shopping Affiliate Marketing

TikTok is being flooded with AI-generated UGC content right now that promotes TikTok Shopping affiliate offers.

This is the high-margin rocket model at its core.

Shit-posting on TikTok is an excellent way to get accounts banned. This isn’t the kind of business that scales into a massive affiliate agency for 99% of people either.

But if some of your videos hit, your reward is free affiliate income. And the people I know in this space who are talented are making obscene amounts of money right now.

This video does a good job at breaking down the AI workflow to producing said ‘slop’ 👇

I like this particular hustle because you can test affiliate offers quickly; these AI workflows pump out dozens of videos and marketing hooks, so you can discover what resonates with an audience quickly.

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It’s also 100% organic-friendly. You likely have to invest in buying several TikTok accounts that are eligible for TikTok Shopping. But aside from buying some accounts and AI-usage credits, it’s pretty low-risk to try.

Extra Reading ➡️ I Spent 7 Years Chasing Passive Income…Here’s The Ugly Truth.

Reframing Luck - How To Earn More Chances At Bat

If there’s one takeaway from these high-margin rocket businesses, it’s this: we can engineer luck to get more chances at bat.

What do I mean by this?

The beauty of these business models is that when they hit, your financial future transforms. And because these businesses have low startup costs and can also be tested quickly, you can brute force more chances at bat to strike it big.

I built my first affiliate website in 2017. It was about headphones and speakers, and it was terrible. But my next website was more successful, scaling past $1M in revenue over the next few years before I sold it.

In the process of testing 100+ side hustles since college, I’ve seen this dynamic play out time and time again. Both personally and for others I’ve seen find success.

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You never know how a side hustle idea will turn out until you try. But unlike delivering food for DoorDash, certain hustles have insane scaling potential and can genuinely change your life.

It’s also funny: I get criticism all the time for covering these models.

“X idea won’t work”… “Y idea will get you banned!”…"Z idea isn’t fair or ethical!”

These are pessimists who are often right, kinda. But wouldn’t you rather be an immense optimist who’s right when it actually counts?

Take the risk, start the business, and grab life by the horns. You can do anything you put your mind to, and one simple idea might lead you down a new path that changes your entire future for the better.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. I’m off for some more hiking.

Catch you in the next one,

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want to take your online business to the next level? 👉 Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to grow your audience and scale income.

Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up with these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my writing.

Most one-person businesses don’t have an income problem…

They have a leakage problem.

Money leaks through unclear systems, underpriced offers, missed deals, and unnecessary complexity. Fix these issues, and income often rises without adding a single new customer or dramatically changing your business.

In this post, I’m sharing 10 actionable ways to increase revenue, save time, and reduce operating costs for your solo operation.

These ideas are boring, but they certainly help increase your margins and begin scaling.

💵 Want to take your content marketing and business workflows to the next level? Then i10X is absolutely for you.

i10X is an AI workspace that I’ve been using to power my content creation, marketing efforts, and workflow automations.

It’s like taking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and other leading AI tools and packing them into a single workspace. And for only $8 per month, it’s way cheaper than paying for a bunch of AI tools independently.

Break up with ChatGPT and use a more powerful model. PLUS use the code ‘Tomk15’ to get 15% off your plan.

Start scaling smarter 👉 Get started with i10X today!

1. Implement AI Tools That Save Time / Lower Operating Costs

I just wrote a post about the best AI tools to make money, and I suggest giving this a read.

One of the highest-leverage activities you can do as a one-person operator is to buy back more of your time. Figuring out ways to lower operating costs also instantly increases your margins.

This is where AI tools are immensely powerful. And if there’s any task you find yourself repetitively doing, it’s time to begin working with AI instead.

Here are just a few quick examples of tools I’m incorporating:

• Otter AI: Automatically transcribe meeting notes and summarize meetings.

• Gling AI: Take raw footage and automatically create talking-head videos for social media and YouTube.

• Opus Clips: Transform long-form content into short-form clips.

• PopAI: Create presentations, pitch decks, and research summaries in seconds by using AI.

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These few tools alone save me hours of time each week. And I save several thousand dollars per month in human editing time alone with Gling and Opus Clips.

I also use several custom GPTs to handle weekly tasks like creating YouTube scripts, doing competitor research, organizing affiliate/revenue data, and coming up with email copy.

Don’t underestimate custom GPTs! I know so many people who create a unique ChatGPT request to do the exact same task every single time they need to do that task.

It might sound inconsequential, but why waste minutes prompting the same thing every week?

2. Incorporate Your Business & Lower Your Tax Burden

Another massive lift you can achieve with your one-person business is to incorporate your business if you haven’t yet.

Many side hustlers and solo-operators never do this. Or, perhaps they operate as an LLC for years.

This is totally fine. But once revenue starts scaling, you owe it to yourself to lower your tax burden as much as possible.

This is what I did along the way to making $1M+ with my content businesses, and let me tell you, the tax savings were certainly worth it. Plus, incorporating often allows for smarter business expense deductions and lets you get creative with how you pay yourself (and what kind of income you’re earning.) There are significant liability-protection benefits as well.

I ended up paying a Canadian lawyer to handle the incorporation of my two different businesses. Some friends of mine have done similar things and opened businesses in Dubai and Puerto Rico for tax purposes.

Honestly, it sucks upfront to pay for this, and the process can be a bit of headache. But run some calculations to see your potential tax savings as a corporation versus an individual or sole-proprietor.

💸 PRO TIP: Get started with Lettuce.co to set up your business as an S Corp and find massive tax savings!

This automated tax and accounting system is designed to help solo-operators save money and time so they can focus on growing their business.

3. Prioritize Cash Collection (Seriously)

Another unsexy upgrade but one that a shocking number of one-person business owners neglect: collecting cash.

It blows my mind how many teams and entrepreneurs let missing cash slip through the cracks.

Most of this ties back to weak/non-existent accounting and bookkeeping practices. But how foolish does that sound, letting thousands of dollars go unaccounted for because of neglect?

My advice 👉 open a separate business bank account pronto if you haven’t.

Personally, I use a Wise account for my businesses. It’s free and supports multiple currencies, which I need for my US clients and to live my digital nomad lifestyle. You can find the right account that’s available in your country, but make sure it’s a separate one to your personal bank account!

Next, invest in some basic accounting and bookkeeping software if you’re not paying someone to do this for you.

I’ve used software like Wave for years to handle invoicing, online payments, basic bookkeeping, and expense tracking.

Wave Pro starts at $19 per month and also has a free plan if you want to test it out. It’s how I send my invoices to clients and vendors, and it’s super easy to set up and use.

This is honestly a no-brainer if you don’t know how much money your business made last month and if you ever fall behind on invoices.

Pro Tip: Schedule a weekly accounting and bookkeeping session into your calendar. Make cash collection a priority because until money is in your bank account, your work isn’t finished.

👉 Get started with Wave!

4. Consider Raising Prices

Many one-person business owners are undercharging for their services.

Here are a few good questions to ask to see if you’re due for price increases:

• Has it been over 1 year since you’ve raised prices?

• Are you always fully-booked or near capacity with your business?

• Are you closing 75% or more of your leads?

• Are your prices lower than your closest competitors?

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Oftentimes, even a small price increase has no change in demand. Sometimes charging higher prices also miraculously lands you better clients who cause fewer headaches than cheaper clients; it’s funny how people’s psychology works here!

5. Leverage SOPs & Outsourcing

If you’ve done a task more than twice, document it.

Simple SOPs reduce decision fatigue and unlock outsourcing. Once something lives outside your head, a VA or contractor can handle it for a fraction of the opportunity cost of your time. Or you can give the task and detailed instructions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude etc. and probably get some decent results with good prompting and practice.

Again, the goal here is to win back more of your time so you can focus on higher-leverage activities for your business.

Extra Reading - 9 Ways To Actually Market Your One-Person Business.

6. Actually Productize Your Service

Custom work can be lucrative.

It can also turn into a nightmare with the wrong client and drastically lower your effective hourly rate. Custom work is also harder to scale as a one-person business without excellent outsourcing and freelance help.

In contrast, productized services have much more clarity: fixed scope, fixed pricing, and clear outcomes. This reduces back-and-forth negotiations with clients, speeds up delivery, and makes selling easier.

7. Renegotiate & Cancel Subscriptions Mercilessly

I suggest doing this at least once every 6 to 12 months.

It’s amazing how much bloat some small businesses and solo-operators have in terms of SaaS subscriptions and other random services.

Run a simple subscription audit. Look through all your credit card statements over the last 12 months and:

• Cancel services you don’t use monthly

• Downgrade plans where you’re overpaying for usage

• Think critically about which outdated tools can likely be replaced by AI

• Email SaaS tools and ask them for discounts

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This last tip actually works very well, especially if you complain and say you’re going to churn because of pricing. I’ve done this recently and slashed a few hundred dollars in monthly operating costs just by sending a few emails.

This might sound inconsequential, but saving $300 per month for your business is another $3,600 in your pocket per year.

8. Reduce Customer Purchase Friction

How many clicks does your customer need to make to complete a purchase with your business? Or, how many data points does a lead need to enter to get into your CRM system?

If you make your customer jump through hoops to pull out their credit card, it’s rarely good news for sales.

You know what your best selling services/products/offers are. Make it easy for customers to find them.

If you write newsletters, pitch your offers early into the content, not at the bottom of the page. If you sell on social media, turn your link-in-bio into a one-page checkout page. Have a professional services website? Make it easy for customers to find your packages and pricing and to book you.

Ecommerce operators and affiliate marketers often obsess over conversion rate optimization (CRO.)

But a lot of one-person business owners don’t have the time or patience to think about this topic. However, reducing friction and the actual number of clicks your customer needs to make to convert is important.

9. Automate Upsells To Your Customers

Another easy revenue lift for your business: start automating upsells to your customers.

This is one of my favorite money-making automations and why I run a second newsletter with Kit, formerly ConvertKit.

With Kit, you can automatically send emails to subscribers based on their behavior. So when someone opens a specific email of mine, converts on a digital product, or clicks on an affiliate offer, I send them tailored content as a follow-up to try and upsell or cross-sell.

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My favorite part about this is that once you create an automation, you can let it run and do its thing. An hour of smart work can yield hundreds or thousands of additional upsells you’d otherwise miss out on.

💸 Try out Kit for free for 14 days!

10. Just…Do More?

This sounds like an obvious one, but like I’ve said before, you need to ask yourself…What would happen to your business if you 2X’d, 5X’d, 10X’d, or 100X’d your marketing output?

Asking this kind of question gets the wheels turning in your head for how to do more of what’s working. Oftentimes, you’ll find the answer leads you to more effective outsourcing, leveraging AI tools, and smarter reinvesting back into your business.

I also love this question because way too many one-person business operators are scared of marketing more.

Here’s the thing: your audience isn’t tired of you. Not if you put out decent content that adds some value to their lives. And if some of your audience does become tired of you, the extra content you’re putting out will likely replace them tenfold.

Want an awesome real-life example of this?

I suggest reading this post and this post which both interview Matt Paulson, the founder of MarketBeat.

MarketBeat is a financial media outlet that sends billions of emails per year to their list of 5+ million subscribers…

When you start reading about the stuff MarketBeat does behind the scenes, it’s actually insanely cool, especially since this is a relatively small team considering the $50M in revenue it did in 2025.

MarketBeat aggressively builds out numerous newsletters, hammers people with trigger-based emails, and has email distribution down to a science.

Here’s a quote from one of the articles I linked above that encapsulates how Paulson thinks about this business:

“Our competitors don’t understand that it’s a distribution game. They think it’s a content game, and a tools and technology game where they think if they build the best investing research tools, they’re going to get an audience, and it doesn’t work like that. Or they think they’re going to have some super unique take on the market. Sure, there are people that do that, but they also tend to cap out at a couple hundred thousand subscribers. It’s really a distribution game of who can build the biggest audience, and then from there, you can develop content and generate revenue.”

Now, Paulson is talking about a financial media outlet in this example. But this logic holds true for many industries.

If you’re posting once a day on Instagram to promote your business, there’s someone out there posting three times per day with better content than you. Over a span of 30-90 days, they’re going to run circles around you.

My takeaway here is to just experiment with doing more.

Do you send one email per week? Try sending one per day to your audience.

Post a long-form YouTube video every two weeks? What would it take for you to post a video like that every three days?

Creating these targets forces solo-operators to work smarter. It’s how you experience growing pains, learn, scale, and become better overall.

Next Steps

If you’re looking to make more money with your one-person business this year, I hope these 10 action items point you in the right direction.

Personally, I’m in a “do more of what works” phase right now with my content business. This means I’m leaning even more into AI, automations, and better outsourcing.

Perhaps you’re in the same boat. Or, perhaps you’re in a place where aggressively cutting costs and getting your books in order makes the most immediate difference to your bottom line.

The takeaway is that there’s likely things you can do today that can have an immediate impact on your business. Take some time to strategize, and then start implementing!

Thanks for reading and for your support as always.

I’ll catch you in the next one,

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. This means I receive compensation when you sign up through these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for helping to support my writing.

We’re past the phase where simply “using ChatGPT” is a competitive advantage.

The people winning right now are using AI tools that ship products faster, cut labor costs, increase conversion rates, and scale distribution. AND, they’re often operating as one-person business that run at extremely high margins.

Today, I’m sharing 20+ AI tools you can use to do the same thing.

This is going far beyond the basics; no ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini here.

Instead, these are AI tools that either:

• Help you launch products faster

• Help you turn attention into income

• Help you win back more time

• Help you boost your margins

If you’re building a one-person business, scaling a content brand, or just want to optimize your existing workflows, these are the tools that actually move the needle.

1. i10X

i10X is another powerful AI workspace I’ve started using recently. In fact, I put out a video covering how to use it and how it can make you money on my YouTube channel recently.

With i10X, you can easily replace paying for ChatGPT Plus, Claude, Gemini and a host of other AI tools.

It’s excellent for creating written content, SEO blog articles, but also graphics and videos. Plus it has a useful AI Agent marketplace that’s packed with more useful features.

If you create content or want to streamline your business’ marketing workflows, I definitely suggest giving i10X a try.

• Main Features: AI chat; deep research; image and video generation; SEO content

• Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at just $8 monthly

• Who It’s For: Entrepreneurs, solo-operators, content creators, students

👉 Get Started With i10X!

💸 NOTE: Save an additional 15% by using the code "Tomk15”

2. Lovable.Dev

Lovable.dev is my favorite vibe-coding tool, and I’ve tested quite a few of them at this point.

With Lovable, you can create a ready-to-market website or app just by using text prompts. You can even build SaaS products. It’s incredibly fast, very affordable, and doesn’t require any prior coding knowledge to use.

I personally used Lovable to launch my new side hustle database, HustleBuddy. I then marketed HustleBuddy on Reddit, Skool, and to my email list and genuinely turned this idea into revenue within 48 hours. It’s insane what you can do with vibe-coding.

• Main Features: Natural language → code, mobile app generation, live previews, collaboration tools

• Pricing: Some free daily credits, Pro Plan starts at $25 per month

• Who It’s For: Solo founders, no-code builders, small agencies

👉 Get started with Lovable

3. ManyChat

You know how everyone on social media is posting content with captions that end in: “If you comment X, I’ll send you Y?”

This is the latest trend in social selling. It’s also insanely powerful since you begin interacting with customers in their DMs.

Smart creators aren’t doing this manually. Instead, they use tools like ManyChat and its AI-powered chat automation to turn Instagram, Facebook, and SMS conversations into sales funnels.

ManyChat is also rolling out its AI chatbot which lets you sell more naturally to inbox replies and comments.

• Main Features: AI chat flows, lead capture, ecommerce integrations, broadcasts

• Pricing: Free plan available; Pro plan starts at $15 monthly

• Who It’s For: Creators, ecommerce brands, coaches

👉 Get started with ManyChat

4. Venngage

If you create any kind of posters, presentations, pitch decks, or similar visual assets, I strongly recommend checking out Venngage.

This AI designer lets you create professional assets with simple prompting. And it’s actually how I’m creating my new pitch decks and media kits I share with brands who want to work with me.

I like Venngage since it’s simple to use. And the amount of time you save versus creating these designs yourself is honestly insane.

• Main Features: Create thousands of assets and designs with simple prompting

• Pricing: Free plan; Premium plan starts at only $10 per month when paid annually

• Who It’s For: Students, side hustlers, freelancers, agency owners and anyone creating presentations

👉 Get started with Venngage!

💸 NOTE: Use code TOMBLAKE50 to enjoy 50% off your annual plan for Venngage Premium or Business Plan.

5. Skywork AI

Still just using ChatGPT? Then it’s time you make the switch to Skywork AI.

This AI Smart Assistant has genuinely been game-changing for my businesses. It’s an amazing AI workspace that excels at deep-research tasks, image generation, data analysis, creating videos, building slideshows, and so much more.

I basically treat Skywork like an employee. I give it tasks, tell it to conduct competitive research for me, and use it to generate tons of marketing assets for my various content businesses.

The amount of time and money I save with this thing is immense. If I could only pick one tool to use, it would likely be this one.

• Main Features: AI Smart Assistant; deep research; image/video generation

• Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $14.99 monthly

• Who It’s For: Entrepreneurs, solo-operators, content creators, students

👉 Get started with Skywork AI

6. InVideo

InVideo AI turns scripts or ideas into polished videos with AI voiceovers, visuals, and editing baked in. It dramatically lowers the cost and time barrier for video content that drives traffic and sales.

I still prefer creating talking-head content and using Gling to create my YouTube videos. But InVideo is a powerful tool for faceless creators or pumping out short-form content.

• Main Features: Text-to-video, AI scripts, stock footage, voiceovers

• Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $35 monthly

• Who It’s For: YouTubers, influencers, marketers, content agencies

👉 Get started with InVideo

7. Otter AI

Otter AI records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings automatically, saving hours of manual note-taking. It’s especially powerful for sales calls, client interviews, and turning conversations into monetizable content.

• Main Features: Live transcription, AI summaries, searchable notes, speaker identification

• Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $8.33 per month with sales

• Who It’s For: Consultants, sales teams, creators, freelancers

👉 Get started with Otter AI

8. MuleRun

MuleRun is an AI agent marketplace where you can find prebuilt agents to implement for your business.

There’s a ton of variety, and you can find AI agents that handle tasks like generating social media graphics, creating UGC videos, removing watermarks, and all sorts of handy tasks.

However, MuleRun also has a Creator side where you create and sell your own automated workflows to other people. It’s one of the few platforms where AI itself can become a sellable product, and it’s free to join as a Creator.

• Main Features: AI agent marketplace, workflow automation, agent monetization

• Pricing: Free starter tier; paid plans from $15.90/month

• Who It’s For: AI builders, freelancers, solo-operators

👉 Get started with MuleRun

9. PopAi

PopAi is an AI assistant that creates presentations, documents, and research summaries. It’s ideal for turning knowledge into sellable assets like decks, reports, and info products.

If you have to make pitch decks or reports each week, give this one a try. I’m using PopAi these days for YouTube pitches to brands and affiliates I’m working with, and it saves so much time versus doing this manually with PowerPoint or Google Slides.

• Main Features: AI presentations, document creation, PDF summaries

• Pricing: Free tier available; paid plans vary by usage

• Who It’s For: Consultants, coaches, educators, students

👉 Get started with PopAi

Subscribe now

10. Gling AI

Gling automatically edits talking-head videos by removing silences, bad takes, and filler words. It’s a massive time saver for creators publishing consistently on YouTube.

I’m now using Gling as part of my money-making YouTube workflow. It’s helping me produce content for my niche channels at a much faster rate without paying for human editors.

I also like Gling because it can enhance video and audio quality. This means you can start your own YouTube channel just by filming on a smartphone and then plugging the footage into Gling.

• Main Features: Auto-cuts and editing, silence removal, captions, noise reduction

• Pricing: Free tier available; paid plans start at $10 monthly

• Who It’s For: YouTubers, educators, solo content creators

💸 UPDATE: My new YouTube Freedom Launchpad eBook is now live. If you want to make money on YouTube, this is the step-by-step process I use to identify profitable niches and scale quality channels.

👉 Get started with Gling AI

11. Opus Clips

Opus Clips transforms long-form videos into viral short-form content optimized for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. It’s an affordable, fast way to repurpose existing content you might have into extra social media content.

Personally, I also use Opus Clips’ new AI thumbnail generator to create thumbnails for a niche travel channel of mine. It actually does a pretty decent job. Or, at the very least, it creates a thumbnail that’s 80% of the way there that I then retouch in Canva.

• Main Features: Auto clip extraction, virality scoring, captions, resizing

• Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start around $15/month

• Who It’s For: Podcasters, YouTubers, personal brands, agencies

👉 Get started with OpusClips

Subscribe now

12. Hostinger’s AI Website Builder

Hostinger’s AI Website Builder creates complete websites from a simple business description, including copy and layout. It’s one of the fastest ways to get a monetized site live.

I’ve been playing around with it lately, and it does an excellent job at getting the framework of your site up with just a few prompts. From there, you can customize your website to look and feel the way you want.

If you don’t have a personal website yet, I’d use something like Hostinger to build one in an afternoon.

• Main Features: AI-generated pages, SEO assistance, drag-and-drop editor

• Pricing: Hosting plans start around $2.99/month based on sale pricing

• Who It’s For: Side hustlers, bloggers, coaches, service businesses, affiliates

👉 Get started with Hostinger

13. Semrush

I’ve used Semrush for over 5 years at this point. It’s actually the tool that powered my $1M+ blogging content business since it’s how I do my keyword research.

Keyword research ain’t what it used to be! But Semrush has valuable new features designed for AI-powered content optimization and competitor analysis. It also has a new AI-visibility toolkit to help you monitor your brand’s positioning in top AI searches.

• Main Features: Keyword research, AI content tools, traffic analytics, competitive insights

• Pricing: Semrush One starts at $199 monthly

• Who It’s For: SEO professionals, content sites, media brands, agencies

👉 Get started with Semrush

14. AdCreative.ai

AdCreative.ai generates high-converting ad creatives and copy using AI trained on performance data.

This includes video ads, banners, product shoots, and even new AI UGC videos. You can then monitor your best-performing creatives and spy on what your competitors are doing.

• Main Features: AI ad creatives, conversion predictions, competitor spying

• Pricing: Starter plan begins at $39 monthly

• Who It’s For: ecommerce brands, performance marketers, ad agencies

👉 Get started with AdCreative.ai

Honorable Mentions

• Krisp: A powerful AI meeting assistant with noise cancellation features, smart transcripts, summaries, and action items to help you work more efficiently.

• Kudos: A free browser extension that tells you which credit card of yours is best to shop with to maximize points. It also has an AI-assistant to unlock more savings and additional cashback.

• Swooped: Swooped uses AI to automate job applications and match your resume to higher-paying roles more efficiently. It turns job searching into a scalable, low-effort process instead of a time-consuming grind.

• n8n: n8n is a powerful workflow automation tool that lets you connect apps and build custom automations. It’s ideal for replacing repetitive manual work with scalable systems that save time and money.

• Blackbox AI: Blackbox AI helps developers and technical builders generate, understand, and refactor code faster. Cursor is more widely used, but I’ve heard pretty good things about Blackbox AI.

• Gamma: Gamma lets you create clean, professional presentations and documents using AI instead of manual slide design. It’s perfect for turning ideas into polished decks quickly. It’s a nice alternative to PopAi.

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs generates ultra-realistic AI voiceovers that can be used for videos, podcasts, audiobooks, and ads. It removes the need for voice talent while maintaining professional-quality audio. It’s also excellent if you create faceless YouTube videos.

• soona: soona uses AI-powered creative tools to produce high-quality product visuals and content without expensive photo or video shoots. It helps ecommerce brands improve conversion rates with better-looking assets.

• Reclaim.ai: Reclaim.ai is an AI scheduling assistant that automatically defends your time by planning tasks around your calendar. It helps knowledge workers reclaim deep work hours and operate at a higher output level.

• Vmake: Vmake’s AI agent lets you create videos for ecommerce and social media with text and image prompts. It also has very useful video enhancement tools. I’ve been playing around with it, and it excels at making AI UGC videos in a variety of styles.

• Manus: Manus is an AI agent designed to execute complex tasks across research, planning, and execution with minimal supervision. It acts more like a junior operator than a simple chatbot. Manus was just purchased by Meta for over $2B.

• QuillBot: QuillBot is an AI writing assistant that rewrites, summarizes, and improves text for clarity and tone. It’s useful for polishing content quickly without starting from scratch.

• Midjourney: Midjourney creates high-quality AI-generated images that can be used for branding, ads, thumbnails, and product concepts. It enables rapid visual creation without designers. I’ve used it for my YouTube channels and it’s very easy to use.

• Synthesia: Synthesia allows you to create professional AI-generated videos with avatars and voiceovers from text alone. It’s a fast way to produce training, marketing, and explainer videos at scale

You can find even more popular AI tools based on usage on Exploding Topics. I scrolled through this list to research more tools, and I didn’t know half of these, and there’s some pretty neat ones!

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Next Steps - Make This Count For Something!

Well there you have it: 20+ AI tools that can help you make more money, cut down on operating costs, and win back more of your time.

However, AI tools are only effective if they’re actually implemented. It’s easy to read about how great these tools are. It’s another thing entirely to use them.

My advice here is to schedule AI testing/training into your weekly tasks. Seriously.

I take a bit of time each weekend to try out something new in the world of AI. I also cover AI tools all the time now on my main YouTube channel.

Most of the time, I spent an hour with a tool, think “that was kinda cool!” and then never touch that tool again. But this process gets the wheels turning. And, sometimes, I discover a tool or workflow that adds immediate value to my businesses (like vibe-coding with Lovable, or using Gling AI to produce more videos.)

People spend money on courses, seminars, coaching and all kinds of things in the name of education and skill development. Do the same thing with AI tools. This is how you stay sharp and discover actionable ways to work more efficiently.

Anyways, that does it for this one! Thanks for reading and for your support as always.

👉 Want to take your online business to the next level? Book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover strategies to scale your audience and income this year.

Enjoy your weekend everyone. It’s time for some more Cape Town hiking here.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up with these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.

If you want to make money online in 2026, you need your own website.

This is true for Substack creators, freelancers, affiliate marketers, and anyone looking to build online income streams that are resilient.

Without your own website, you’re at the mercy of platform rules and algorithms.

With your own website, you have the keys to the kingdom and can actually control your online income and destiny.

Today, I’m sharing actionable strategies and advantages you unlock with your own website. This includes tactics to build profitable audiences, unlock powerful monetization methods, and more.

Let’s get to it!

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Hostinger lets you create a professional website in minutes with 150+ templates and its new AI website builder. This is perfect for writers, freelancers, service-based businesses, and more.

Plans also start as low as $2.99 per month. This is like paying a cup of coffee once a month to launch your own online website, build a brand, and grow your business.

There’s also a great New Year’s sale running now, so it’s the perfect time to build your next business with Hostinger.

😎 Use the code TOMBLAKE10 for an additional 10% discount on your plan!

1. You Can Build A Second Email List

Substack’s internal audience growth engine is unmatched. The fact you can get so much organic traffic and eyeballs on your content here is one of the main selling points for creators.

BUT, you shouldn’t rely on Substack forever. Especially if you want to build your own audience faster while having more control.

By building your own website, you can:

• Collect email addresses directly (with pop-up forms, static forms, and stronger CTAs)

• Segment subscribers more deeply based on their behavior and demographics

• Build custom automations

• Run lead magnets tailored to niche offers

• Own the audience data

This is exactly what I do with Kit, formerly ConvertKit, on my numerous content businesses. And this is how I can send millions of emails per month to my lists that are packed with affiliate offers, digital products, and high-value pieces of content.

Granted, Substack is introducing automations and features to give creators more control. But if Substack disappeared tomorrow, having a separate email list becomes your parachute.

Besides, having your own website lets you get way more aggressive with how you collect emails.

Just take a look at the stats on one of my Kit pop-up forms on one of my content sites:

This form fires when someone visits my website for 15 seconds. It offers them a digital download freebie (which is packed with affiliate offers) in exchange for their email.

This form has a 15.2% conversion rate! It also makes money right away through affiliate offers!

Compare this to your conversion rate on Substack, and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

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Having your own landing pages/website lets you get aggressive and creative with audience building.

💸 Start building a second list with Kit and get 14 days for free!

2. You Create Incredible Monetization Options

You can make money on Substack without paid subscriptions. Same goes if you’re just freelancing online or are building an audience on social media.

But like building an email audience, having your own website opens significantly more monetization doors.

With your own website, you can:

• Add display advertisements to your website (Google Adsense, Mediavine, etc.)

• Get paid to promote other newsletters with Sparkloop

• Add more aggressive affiliate offers (pop-ups/exit-intent, more aggressive CTAs)

• Sell digital products with on-page checkout

• Sell backlinks (less common, but still a thing)

I’m doing all of these things now with my various content businesses. This is also the combination I used to make $1M+ in my twenties and scale one of my blogs to over $1M in revenue before selling it.

This is the common theme: when you build your own sandbox, you get to make the rules.

3. You Unlock Better Branding + Professional Credibility

In 2026, readers want to know you’re legit amidst the wave of AI slop. Brands and companies that want to hire you do as well.

This is why having your own website is important, especially if you sell professional/freelance services.

You own website lets you:

• Have an in-depth About page

• Add contact forms / booking systems

• Look more polished to sponsors

• Rank on Google (Substack can rank, but so can your own professional services website)

• Tell your story visually

• Build trust outside the Substack ecosystem

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When someone Googles you, what do you want them to find? Your own website, or your social profiles and Substack?

4. You Diversify Platform Risk

Substack is amazing…But so was Medium 😂

Now I have high hopes for Substack moving forwards. I love the new features they’re adding for creators. I also think the platform’s push for video and live-streaming is keeping up with the times. And I am SO pumped for Substack to potentially add advertisement options from a revenue perspective.

Regardless, what happens if:

• Algorithm changes tank your reach?

• Payments freeze?

• New fees roll out?

• The platform gets acquired?

• You get shadow banned?

Ask anyone who built their entire business on: YouTube, Medium, Facebook pages, Tumblr, Vine, Instagram reach, TikTok creators fund…

Platforms change all the time. Your own website and owned audience/data never betrays you.

Related 👉 How To Become Stupidly Wealthy With A One-Person Business.

5. You Build A Second Sending Domain

Substack has awesome deliverability. This is one of the main advantages of writing here and sending emails through Substack.

But again, having your own website lets you build a new email list and sending domain, assuming you start sending emails from your website.

If Substack ever tanks your deliverability or you want to move away from the platform, you won’t start from zero on a fresh domain. Instead, you’ll have been sending emails from your own domain for months or years, hopefully improving your sending reputation in that time.

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Remember: deliverability = money.

This is true for affiliate marketing, lead generation, digital products, and selling services. If you can’t reach your customers, your flywheel stops working.

Extra Reading - How To Market Your One-Person Business.

6. You Unlock Potential Long-Term Domain Value

Domain names and websites are pieces of digital real estate.

When you build your own website, you’re potentially building an asset that appreciates. So you actually have an asset that’s flippable/you can sell for a nice exit.

This is exactly what I did with one of my finance blogs.

I started blogging in 2018 on a fresh domain. After scaling it to over $1M in revenue, I sold it at the end of 2023 for a certain multiple based on the trailing 24 months of revenue. This also included the value of the domain name and all the social profiles associated with the brand.

You can’t really do this if you just create content on Substack. I’m sure some people are/will sell accounts, but it won’t be as easy.

This matters slightly less if you’re just making a professional website for services you offer. But for affiliate marketing or lead-gen, you definitely need your own websites. And you’d be surprised at what people are willing to pay for an income-generating website, even with a cooler market these days.

7. You Develop New Skills While Having More Fun

Creating valuable content on Substack people actually care about is difficult.

Creating a website and learning how to funnel traffic to it is another skillset entirely. But if you want to make money online with content, it’s something you must learn.

By creating your own website, you’ll learn:

• How to design websites that convert

• On-page SEO

• Hosting and website management basics

• Branding

• How to drive traffic back to high-value landing pages

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The entire process is also fun. I remember being so excited when I started building websites and blogs back in 2017/2018. I even felt pretty emotional when I sold my first blog. Years later, I still love this entire process.

Ultimately, creating your own little corner of the internet is like planting a digital garden. You get to see what grows and nurture your digital assets.

Extra Reading - These 4 Automations Make Money While You Sleep.

Next Steps - It’s Time To Take Action

Like I said, Substack is amazing. But anyone looking to make money with content in 2026 and beyond needs their own website so they are in control of their destiny.

That’s really what this is about. You need the keys to the kingdom so you have control, flexibility, and mitigate solo-platform risks.

Getting started isn’t rocket science either, even if you’ve never built a website before.

You can get started with Hostinger for about $3 a month (and use my code TOMBLAKE10 for a nice 10% discount 😎)

Many plans include a free domain name, and with its AI website builder and existing templates, you can have your own website up and running in an afternoon of work.

From there, the digital world is your digital oyster. You can start exploring monetization and audience-building opportunities that simply aren’t possible when you don’t own your own website. This process is incredibly exciting, so I encourage you to dive in!

Anyways, that does it for this one!

Summer is getting into full swing here in Cape Town. I’ve been busy hiking, exploring, and prepping for the year ahead. Honestly, I’m incredibly excited to put out a lot more content here on Substack in 2026, and there’s some pretty cool plans in the works I’m keen to share soon.

I’d love and appreciate if you subscribe to stay up-to-date with what’s coming. And as always, thanks for your readership and support.

I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

😎 PS: Want to scale your online income in the new year? You can book a paid consulting call with me. Let’s uncover new opportunities for your business and how to build your audience and increase revenue.

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Note: some of the links in this article are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up for various products/services at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.

A one-person business has the potential to completely revolutionize your life.

One-person businesses are how I made $1M+ in my twenties with online content. They’re what let me quit my low-paying office job, travel the world, and gain financial and locational independence.

I’ve met many successful people who have similar stores. They get an idea, start a small side project, and that project snowballs into opportunities that completely transform their income and lifestyle.

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We’re just a few weeks away from 2026.

If you want to make a meaningful impact on your finances, skillset, and quality of life, it’s time to take action and to build something for yourself.

Now, this isn’t a post about going into ‘monk mode’ or embracing hustle culture. You can still have a life, hobbies, and friends while making progress towards other goals.

Instead, this post is outlining:

➡️ Why starting a one-person business in 2026 can change your life

➡️ The right time to start these kinds of businesses

➡️ How to upskill, outsource, and automate effectively so you still have a life

Let’s get to it!

💵 Want to take your content marketing and business workflows to the next level? Then i10X is absolutely for you.

i10X is an AI workspace that I’ve been using to power my content creation, marketing efforts, and workflow automations.

It’s like taking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and other leading AI tools and packing them into a single workspace. And for only $8 per month, it’s way cheaper than paying for a bunch of AI tools independently.

Break up with ChatGPT and use a more powerful model. PLUS use the code ‘Tomk15’ to get 15% off your plan.

Start scaling smarter 👉 Get started with i10X today!

Why One-Person Businesses Are A Cheat Code For Scaling Income + Freedom

I’ve written about how to become stupidly wealth from a one-person business before. And this topic resonates with Substack apparently, since it’s my most popular post by far.

For 2026, one-person businesses are still a massive opportunity. Some of the main benefits include:

• The ability to juggle a one-person business with your job at the start

• Lower startup costs, burn rates, and overall risk

• High margins for many types of one-person businesses

• Overall scaling potential

Additionally, the job market is pretty brutal at the moment. AI is replacing people’s jobs. Having the ability to make money on your own accord and forge your own destiny is going to become increasingly important as the world becomes more complex.

That’s the goal after all: financial and lifestyle freedom.

But before we get there, it’s important to cover your financial bases first. Oftentimes, this involves turning to ‘boring’ side hustles before diving into your own one-person business.

Phase One: Leveraging ‘Boring’ Side Hustles

I’ve been testing and covering side hustles since 2018.

One of the most common ‘mistakes’ I see people make is that they start swinging for home runs before they even know the rules of the game.

Here’s an example: Someone has $30,000 in student loan debt, $15,000 in credit card debt, and is drowning in bills while living paycheck to paycheck. They decide to start a side hustle (awesome), but they choose Amazon FBA or Shopify dropshipping because someone on Instagram said that’s how to get rich.

Ouch.

It’s not that businesses like Amazon FBA, dropshipping, or other shiny ideas can’t work. But these businesses often have steep startup costs and take ages to make money, if they ever do. When you’re starting from behind (in debt), your first goal is to stabilize your finances, get some breathing room, and then look for the home-run opportunities.

I’ve covered the different kinds of side hustles before and their purposes. For people just getting started, I suggest taking on boring side hustles to start paying down high-interest debt, building emergency funds, and to work towards some financial peace of mind.

Here are some side hustle examples that are perfect for this kind of thing, plus rough income potentials:

➡️ Microtask Gigs ($50 to $200 Per Month): This can include answering surveys for money, data entry gigs, AI training gigs, or completing tasks on platforms like Amazon MTurk or Clickworker.

➡️ Bonus Arbitrage ($50 to $500 Per Month): Involves churning through bank bonuses, broker bonuses, credit card bonuses, and reward platform bonuses. I actually vibe coded a tool called HustleBuddy which highlights some of the best monthly arbitrage bonus opportunities in the industry if you’re curious. If you live in the US, this is an easy $100 to $300+ with just a bit of work.

➡️ Paid Focus Groups ($0 to $500 Per Month): I still do this every month. You can get paid to share your opinion to market researchers on platforms like User Interviews and Respondent.io. It’s very hit or miss. But recently, I got a $200 gift card in exchange for 45 minutes of talking to a researcher. This is one side hustle I think everyone should have on their radar.

➡️ Delivery Gigs ($200 to $1,000 Per Month): DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Amazon Flex. My friend delivers on his bike in downtown Toronto at peak times and makes about $20 per hour before tips, and he’s not spending money on gas. Earning potential greatly varies based on your city, but this side hustle is very flexible.

➡️ Odd Job Apps ($200 to $1,500 Per Month): This is really tapping into the gig economy. People make money by walking dogs with Rover, flipping furniture with Sharetown (this one is awesome), doing odd jobs from Craigslist, helping people move with Lugg, listing services on Taskrabbit. You get the idea.

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All of these side hustles are something you can start today or this week if you want to.

The upside is you get to earn quickly. This why they’re advantageous for tackling debt and getting your finances back on track.

The downside?

You’ll never earn more than $15 to $25 per hour in almost every scenario. Oftentimes, you’ll earn closer to minimum wage. Some options, like survey sites, pay even less.

That’s why these gigs are an excellent starting point for improving your finances. But to put some gas on the fire, it’s time to explore the world of one-person businesses and how to start scaling one.

Extra Reading - Everything You Desire Waits On The Other Side Of Risk.

Phase Two: Establishing A One-Person Business

Many people think one-person businesses require being famous or the face of your business. This is sometimes true, but not always.

I’ve written about types of one-person business models before, including ones that don’t require a personal brand. There’s a range of solo-business ideas you can consider, including:

• Making money on YouTube (can be faceless or creator-first)

• Social media affiliate marketing

• Starting a ghostwriting agency

• Newsletter businesses (could be a local newsletter, or a paid/premium one on Substack)

• Starting a print on demand business

• Consulting within your industry

• Starting a niche service-based online business (email marketing, web design, paid advertising, influencer marketing, etc.)

My video above covers 6 of these models in greater detail. But the entire idea is to come up with a product offering, build your audience/distribution, and to get the flywheel up and running.

It’s not easy. But it’s possible to scale these kinds of businesses without full-time employees, high costs, and giving up all your free time.

I’ve done this with YouTube, blogging, affiliate marketing, freelance writing, and even various consulting gigs over the years. My income always sucked at the start, but with practice and consistency, these businesses grew. This is how I’ve managed to stay self-employed since 2018/2019.

This is also focusing on online businesses. There’s people opening mobile-coffee carts, food trucks, local service-based businesses, and all sorts of in-person operations that turn into full-time businesses. One of my friends even sells clay/ceramic mugs that she makes and clears $100,000 per year.

The point is, you need to choose a business model at this phase and apply yourself. Give it at least 6-12 months of full attention and consistent work. Avoid chasing other shiny objects meanwhile. You need enough repetitions and practice to see if you’re on the right track.

Again, I saw this with every one-person business I’ve started.

My content business made $1,700 in its first year. It made $500,000+ in its fifth year.

YouTube made a few thousand dollars in its first year. It generated $100,000+ a couple years later.

One-person business models work if you deliver value. But it takes time to figure out how to deliver value and market yourself effectively.

The ability to work, test, fail, get up, test again, fail again, get up and to keep going is what ultimately separates successful solo operators from ones who throw in the towel.

💵 Get my YouTube Freedom Blueprint to learn how to scale your own profitable YouTube channels! Turn content creation into a business and start earning money with YouTube.

Phase Three: Upskilling & Automations

Starting a one-person business has never been easier thanks to new AI tools. You can legitimately vibe-code your way into a website, app, SaaS product, or whatever you need for your new business idea in an afternoon.

It’s also never been more competitive.

The one-person business operators who grow and thrive are going to be the ones who test quickly, keep learning, and work more efficiently than their competition.

This is why for phase three, it’s imperative that you:

• Keep practicing with AI tools and staying up-to-date with what’s coming to market

• Outsource repetitive tasks to freelancers you bring into the business

• Automate workflows wherever possible

The goal here is to buy back your time so you can use that time for business development and tasks that have a larger impact on your revenue/growth.

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This is where some of your first profits should go.

What daily or weekly tasks can you outsource or automate to keep the business running while freeing up your schedule? How can you use AI tools to 3X your marketing output in the same amount of time?

It might sound stupid, but ask yourself these kinds of questions and write down your answers.

I’ve consistently found that I know what I need to do for my businesses to grow them, I just lack the dedicated attention to make it all happen most of the time. But whenever I take a day to prioritize growth and working efficiently, I always come away with a new solution.

💸 MUST READ: 20+ Powerful AI Tools That Actually Make Money.

How To Balance Your New Business With The Rest Of Life

I’m not a fan of hustle culture or monk mode. After all, what’s the point of building a business that buys your freedom if you just ‘grind’ 24/7 from your bedroom office like some weird TikTok guru?

That said, starting a new business takes effort. Growing it into a significant income stream takes even more.

I’m lucky that I started my first business when I was still in school. I didn’t have kids and I was barely attending class, so I certainly had time to work.

If I was starting a new one-person business now with a busy life, here’s what I’d do in terms of scheduling:

• Weekday Mornings: Get up an hour early, three days out of the week, and put that time into your new business.

• Weekday Evenings: Work an hour after dinner on your business two days out of the week.

• At Work: If you have a paid lunch break, use it for yourself. When I had an office job, I’d often use that time to work on my blog, sneakily writing articles within Gmail so it looked like I was doing something productive and not against my non-compete. You can workout on your lunch break as well potentially to free up your mornings or evenings.

• Weekends: This can be more flexible, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with working on the weekend if you’re building something that buys your freedom one day. I used to work weekend mornings on my blog before everyone else was awake. Or, I’d chip away at emails or easy tasks when watching Sunday Football. That kind of thing. Not every weekend, but some of my free time inevitably went into working on my businesses because they mattered to me.

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At minimum, this schedule should secure 5 hours a week to put towards your business. If you’re willing to put some weekend time or late nights in, you might get closer to 10-15.

You don’t need a bullshit morning routine either when time is tight. Just get up, make coffee, do a quick stretch, and get to work.

I don’t think this is the same as hustle culture, or sacrificing all your free time. People willing watch 3 hours of Netflix a night and don’t bat an eye at how the time passes.

The reality is that building a one-person business is going to compress your schedule. There will probably be stretches over the years where you feel out of balance, or like you’re always on.

Again, this is normal. Anything worth building and doing takes time. But the time you invest now has a compounding effect that buys your future self freedom and optionality. So, invest your time wisely!

Extra Reading - How To Stop Living Like An NPC.

What’s Next?

January isn’t some magical time that’s best for starting a new business venture. But that magical time doesn’t exist at any point in life.

In reality, there’s no time like the present to put your ideas into action. Chances are, you already know the kind of business you’d like to start. You probably have a decent idea of the steps you need to take to get moving too. Don’t let inaction or doubt stop you.

A one-person business can genuinely change your life if you give it attention and consistency. They’ve changed my life, and that’s why I’m excited to keep launching them.

If you’ve been on the fence about starting something new for yourself, it’s time to take the leap. After all, you never know where you’ll end up until you place that bet on yourself.

Thanks for reading and for your support. It’s been a great first year here on Substack. This year has been a whirlwind, but I’m excited to put out way more content here in the next few weeks and new year. I hope you’ll stick around for the ride!

Catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. I may earn compensation if you sign up for the service at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk.”

I’ve thought about this quote a lot, lately.

Society pushes a fairly safe, risk-free playbook on us from childhood…Go to school…Get good grades…Get a decent job…Work until you’re 65 and then go enjoy your life.

This is a recipe for living like an NPC and destroying your soul. I’ve written about why this path is broken plenty of times.

Increasingly, I believe that most of what we desire in life waits for us on the other side of taking risks and conquering fear.

But not all risk-taking behavior is created equal.

Some risks are stupid, while other kinds produce outsized returns that can transform your life, wealth, and freedom.

Today, I’m sharing 4 types of risks you need to take if you want to gain control over your life and lead a worthwhile one as well.

1. Career & Income Risks

The 9-5 career was arguably popularized by Henry Ford in the 1920’s. But for most of human history, ‘work’ was typically done from and around the home. This whole ‘sit in a cubicle everyday and work until you’re nearly 70’ is a pretty new concept.

I don’t think it’s surprising that most people hate their jobs these days. It’s a relatively new experiment that removes autonomy, after all. But even if you don’t hate your job do you really want to grind out the corporate ladder until you hit retirement age, and then enjoy the fruits of your labor?

Probably not.

This is why it’s critical, especially for young people, to take aggressive career and income risks.

Jobs where a portion of your salary is commission-based are perfect examples.

My first job out of school was a commission-based advertising role. The base salary was only $35,000 Canadian. But with a profit-sharing structure the role had, I was able to earn around $85,000 straight out of school with my fairly useless psychology degree.

I’ve met many people with similar stories. They work in car sales, tech sales, finance, real estate…They’re not afraid to bet on themselves and their skills, and their income growth far exceeds people who choose safer entry-level positions with a fixed salary.

If your career/industry doesn’t really have commission-based roles, another worthwhile risk is to job hop for promotions. This is often a faster way to increase your annual income while expanding your network versus grinding out the corporate ladder at one company.

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And if this isn’t for you, you can dabble in freelancing or starting some kind of one-person business. Explore other options in your niche/industry where your income/rewards are tied directly to the value you produce, not the value your boss arbitrarily determines for your salary.

Plus, when you build something for yourself, you prove to yourself that you are capable. You sharpen your skills. You develop an inner-belief system that tells you that even when life gets difficult (because it will), you are able to handle yourself and come out the other side.

This is the most valuable lesson behind this type of risk. Don’t be afraid to create something for yourself and to put yourself out there to see what happens.

Extra Reading - I Tested 100+ Side Hustles. Here’s What I Learned.

2. Lifestyle Risks

You can open up social media and get a glimpse into any kind of lifestyle you desire.

Want to van-life around Australia? Feel like starting a business with your best friend? Want to pack up your stuff and move to another city or country across the world?

People have legitimately documented every single lifestyle, location, and dream that you could have. The blueprint on how to make a certain lifestyle a reality is always there. And if you have any questions, you’re just a Reddit thread or Facebook post away from getting answers.

Granted, much of life is glamorized on social media. However, we’ve never had so much information at our finger tips. The world is also smaller than it’s ever been; you’re just a flight away from anywhere.

Despite this, many people never take actions towards the lifestyle they say they want.

There’s an economic reality to this of course. Lifestyle changes can be quite expensive. But it’s also easy to delay the life we want in the name of responsibilities and obligations.

Here’s the thing, though: if you’re capable, you will always have responsibilities and obligations. Time doesn’t care, and it passes anyways. At what point do you take the risk to change your lifestyle and trust that you’ll figure it out along the way?

This is why I’m such a fan of traveling when you’re young. You don’t even have to go too far. But it’s important to expose yourself to several lifestyles and regions so you both appreciate what you have and realize you have the autonomy to pick something else if you want to.

As the world becomes more complex (and polarizing, perhaps), being able to exercise this autonomy is going to become even more important.

We are more flexible than ever before in human history. You don’t need to live and die in the same 30 miles from where you were born. You don’t need to work the same job for decades, or even be the same person if you sense you’re outgrowing your former self. If you dream of change, take the risks to make it happen.

3. Relationship Risks

People are scared to fall in love these days.

Somehow, we’ve reinforced the idea that expressing commitment is bad. Texting too soon is bad too. Oh yeah, even having a boyfriend/girlfriend is bad (or embarrassing, even,) according to Instagram/TikTok if you spend about 2 minutes scrolling.

I don’t know how we got here. Maybe it’s the rise of dating apps, people feeling lonelier than ever, and the era of ‘situationships.’ Whatever.

What surprises me is how quickly people defend staying out of love, for both genders.

For men, it’s always about remaining on your grind, not messing up your mission, and avoiding costly divorce. For women, arguments against dating I’ve heard usually focus on the importance of being hyper-independent and not lowering the bar.

In many scenarios, these arguments have merit. Some people aren’t good for you and shouldn’t be people you date. But as a general vibe for society, we’re so lost it’s insane.

Bring back yearning like you’re the two main characters of the world’s greatest love story. Bring back jumping into the unknown with someone to take on the world together. Bring back taking a risk on someone else because it’s one of the most important risks you’ll ever take in your life.

4. Spiritual Risks

I don’t think you need to believe in God. But I think people benefit by believing in something greater than themselves. I’ve written about why in this post.

You can call in faith in the universe, manifesting that things will work out, or just believing there’s a greater spiritual force out there guiding things. Whatever kind of spiritual path you go down, it serves as a grounding force and anchor during stormy periods of life (which inevitably come.)

If you’re a Type A individual who normally loves planning out every little detail and your magical five-year plan, embracing this vague guiding power will probably feel unsettling.

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It should feel that way at first. There’s a weird sort of risk in giving up some of your mental control to the belief that things ultimately work out, if you have faith that they will. Especially if you’re so used to always being in the driver’s seat.

You’ll probably have plenty of doubts along the way too.

What if things don’t work out? What if you fail? What if everything goes wrong?

Learning to replace these negative thoughts with the belief that things will be okay and work out for the best takes work. It’s a mental muscle many of us aren’t used to using. And it honestly feels risky taking fewer actions and surrendering some control over outcomes because micro-managing and stressing often makes us feel like we’re being productive (this is rarely the case.)

Don’t make this mistake. Take action to control factors that are actually in your control. Let the rest play out as it should. The stoics really figured this one out.

Final Thoughts

I truly believe that most of what we desire in life waits for us on the other side of taking risk and overcoming fear/doubt.

I also believe that things generally work out, if you take the right actions and ‘trust the process,’ as they say.

That said, it’s not always easy.

Personally, I have zero idea what I’m doing right now. I’m bouncing around Europe before heading back to South Africa shortly. I’m trying to grow my businesses, stay healthy, nurture new/old relationships that are important, and to keep on learning.

Many days, the lack of structure and overarching plan feels stressful. Perhaps you’re in a situation now too, where the daunting unknown ahead fills you with dread.

I think this is normal. But if you feel doubt and fear creep in, it’s critical you don’t let these feelings inhibit your ability to take risks and bet on yourself.

You’re worth betting on, after all! And if you seriously don’t think you are, then become someone who is.

You can have any kind of life you desire. It just takes the courage to envision it and chase after it.

Anyways, that does it for a different edition of WiFi Wealth than normal. I’m going to go wander around Athens in search of a beer and piece of Baklava.

Catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

In 2018, I stumbled across a Reddit thread where people were apparently making massive amounts of passive income by “phone farming.”

A few months later, and I had my own trusty phone farm of 9 burner phones.

They operated 24/7 in my college dorm room, running various video reward apps that basically paid you to watch videos and commit advertisement fraud (lol.)

Contrary to what I read on Reddit, my phone farm never made more than $25 to $30 a month. It also annoyed the hell out of my girlfriend at the time. And I spent more on electricity and cheap devices than my humble farming operation ever made.

I didn’t hang up my digital farmer’s hat and stop my passive income quest, however.

Over the next 7+ years, I’d go on to try dozens of passive income hustles…

Print on demand. YouTube automation. Peer-to-peer lending. Bandwidth sharing applications. Various reward apps. Data collection apps too. Arbitrage betting systems. Dropshipping on Etsy…

Most of these ideas never went anywhere.

However, a few of them had legs. But, more importantly, this relentless pursuit of passive income also taught me several valuable lessons about what it actually takes to create passive income, and how to conceptualize the process.

And no, this isn’t your “create 7 income streams because that’s what rich people are supposed to do” kind of sermon.

Instead, it’s a framework for how you can develop passive income for your own life, and when creating this type of income even makes financial sense.

Let’s get to it.

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I’ve worked online since 2019, and the freedom you get versus sitting in a cubicle all day is game-changing. Hopefully, you can find a remote position with FlexJobs as well and work from wherever you want in the world.

1. Nothing Is Truly Passive. Everything Is Front-Loaded. So Prioritize Active Income Accordingly.

Most people start chasing passive income way too early.

This is exactly what happened to me.

I was a broke college student working as a Starbucks barista, and when I wasn’t studying, I was experimenting with phone farming or other random hustles with the goal of creating new income streams.

Now, I don’t regret this one bit. This exploration got the wheels turning in my brain, which I’ll explain more about later.

But from a purely mathematical perspective, you’re better off maximizing your active income before focusing on passive income sources. This is because when you make more money earlier in life, you have more time + compound interest power that’s working on your side.

This is why young people should:

• Aggressively job hop and look for promotions / salary increases

• Start side hustles that have decent hourly pay and scaling potential

• Aggressively pay down debt, especially high-interest debt like personal loans and credit card bills

• Look for freelance work within your industry (I recommend FlexJobs for online gigs. I’ve found writing gigs here in the past and actually like this job board, which is why I recommend them. Disclaimer, this is also an affiliate link. A guy has to eat out here!)

• Limit lifestyle creep and ruining your 20s (so you have more free cash to invest or wipe out debt)

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Having a higher active income also buys you breathing room. It lets you stop worrying about bills and debt as much, which is a game-changer.

Once you have some breathing room, then you can build side projects that have less guaranteed income but way higher upside potential (like various online businesses.)

2. Boring Passive Income Systems Should Be Your Priority

I’ve tried a lot of ridiculous passive income methods over the years.

Phone farming is a beautiful example. I also dabbled in peer-to-peer lending on Reddit (this was terrible), selling my internet bandwidth (this was also pretty bad), and using various reward apps to earn by selling my data (this was a bit better.)

I don’t think I’m alone in this sort of thing.

I see people sharing passive income methods all the time on Reddit. Most of the time, they’re super niche ideas. Things like sports betting arbitrage, or some weird crypto lending scheme. You know, the kind of stuff that doesn’t sound 100% legit when you read about it, but it grabs your curiosity anyways.

In reality, many of the best passive income sources are boring. But they’ve been around for ages and have enough data for you to use them confidently. This includes things like:

• Investing in dividend stocks and ETFs

• High-yield savings accounts

• Bonds and CDs

• Money market accounts

• Credit card rewards

• Some kinds of real estate investing

If you can pour the bulk of your extra cash into these kinds of investments (provided you have an emergency fund), you’re sitting pretty in the long run.

That’s not to say you can’t experiment with some out-of-the-box ideas. But take chips off the table when your active income is high, and funnel it into these reliable wealth builders.

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3. You Don’t Need Multiple Income Streams. You Need One Winner & Compounding

There’s a common saying that ‘the average millionaire has 7 income streams.’ Or, you’ll hear some version basically saying that rich people having a lot of income sources.

This is often true. But it’s bad advice to chase multiple income streams in the beginning.

That’s because how people end up in life isn’t a sign of how they got there. It’s the same reason you won’t magically get rich by only flying first class or buying a Rolex even though 'that’s what rich people do’, which is another strange piece of advice I’ve seen people on TikTok share.

Again, it all ties back to active income.

When you have a winning horse in the race, that horse should demand your full attention. One massive income win does more for you than stacking tons of insignificant wins.

This is ultimately what happened to me in my twenties.

I was testing out dozens of side hustles. Eventually, my personal finance blog started scaling.

I thought about starting numerous blogs and diversifying my income. But as the blog kept growing, I decided to quit my freelance writing work to go all-in on the opportunity.

This content business ended up making $1M+ in revenue before I sold it. I was also able to use this newfound active income to outsource parts of the business, invest aggressively, and then diversify into adjacent opportunities.

Now, I know it can be tempting to set everything on fire to chase a new idea you have. Maybe you hate your job. Or maybe, you just want to leap into entrepreneurship and put everything on the line.

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I hear you. Trust me, I was there.

But there is an opportunity cost to giving up your main active income source that I wish more content creators talked about. If anything, my recommendation for most people is to stick with their decent-paying job and pursue Coast FIRE since it’s the fastest path to freedom.

Extra Reading - I Tested 100+ Side Hustles. Here’s What I Learned.

4. Passive Income Buys Optionality, Not Mai Tais On The Beach

The classic image of the passive income lifestyle is sipping Mai Tais on the beach, rotting about without a care in the world.

This is a bit of digital nomad trope too. But it’s pretty stupid.

Creating passive income is about creating optionality in your life and unlocking more freedom. It’s not about never working again, never facing challenges, and never having to think about money.

These days, I think about my finances and life way more than I did when I was working an office job. But my entire viewpoints is different because it isn’t driven by scarcity. Instead, it’s driven by what feels like endless opportunity.

Passive income lets you live anywhere in the world. You have freedom over your time, so you can work on projects as they interest you. You can also be more generous with people close to you, both financially and with your time and service.

Of course, you also ‘upgrade’ some of your problems going down this road. Limiting tax liabilities becomes more important. You also have to tend to your nest egg and be intentional with how your money works for you.

But if you ask me, these aren’t really problems. It’s simply part of the game.

Just be cautious with chasing passive income because you ‘just don’t want to work’ anymore. This is a slippery slope, almost like when someone finally retires but then sites around watching TV re-runs all day and wonders why they’re miserable. Passive income = securing your freedom and endless possibilities, not a life of inaction and stagnation.

5. Outsourcing Doesn’t Remove Work - But It Changes The Game You’re Playing

For years, I’ve promoted content businesses, social media, YouTube, print on demand, and other online business models as semi-passive income paths that are awesome.

I get a lot of pushback here. Most of the time, it’s from people who argue that outsourcing work isn’t exactly the same as earning passive income.

This is a pretty fair point honestly. But it also misses the forest for the trees.

Creating income-generating assets where you outsource labor/delivery is an absolute cheat code for building wealth quickly. And sure, these businesses aren’t passive at the start. Outsourcing work takes ongoing management too. But this strategy is how you build serious leverage, gain more of your time back, and accelerate your income.

This is why I write about making money with one-person businesses. It’s what I’ve done in my own life, and it’s what I understand.

Personally, I don’t do 80% of the work for my online businesses anymore in terms of delivery. But the work I actually do is higher leverage and focuses on optimizing income, processes, and overall business development.

On the YouTube side, my scripts, thumbnails, and video edits are all taken care of by awesome freelancers I work with. I genuinely just show up and film twice a week and do competitor research to find new video ideas.

The same thing goes for my blogging/email businesses. Before ChatGPT, freelance writers and editors handled most of the content. These days, AI creates most of it.

I’m sharing these examples because if you’re reading this on Substack, there’s a decent chance you’re also a creator or run some kind of online business. And if you are, there’s tremendous value in thinking about ways you can automate aspects of your business, delegate, and scale through outsourcing.

You know when you meet people who run 5 businesses, or seemingly have a ton of successful projects on the go?

These people arrive there by outsourcing and working smart, not just hard. They don’t arrive there by never sleeping and doing everything themselves.

Again, you don’t need to focus on outsourcing at the start. I didn’t for several years with my first businesses. But investing to buy your time back so you can focus on higher-impact tasks is definitely worth thinking about as you grow your income.

💵 Get my YouTube Freedom Blueprint here to learn how to scale your own profitable channel and to access my new Skool Community for ongoing support and YouTube secrets.

6. Results Arrive Long After Motivation Runs Out

One final lesson I’ve learned about passive income is that results have a way of snowballing into your life. But these results often arrive long after your motivation is running low.

You might have heard the saying: “The first $100,000 is the hardest.”

This is true. Building wealth feels like an uphill battle because it is one. In fact, it’s brutal for many people.

When you’re just getting started, you don’t have as many skills as you do later in life. You know fewer people. You’re at the bottom of the career ladder. Maybe you’re dealing with debt too. AND this isn’t even factoring in things like health, family, and other factors which can also be challenging.

But consistent, positive action, even when small, is how you win in the long run.

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This might look like investing $200 per month, or publishing that one YouTube video each week even though you’d rather watch Netflix in bed.

This is the kind of effort that compounds. And one day, you’ll look back at these seemingly small actions with fondness, because you’ll realize the life you have now came as a result of them.

So if you’re currently on your wealth-building path and are feeling tired, know that it’s normal. But hang in there nevertheless.

We’re living in a time where people, especially young adults, are YOLOing into crypto, sports betting, and are abandoning future planning in general because the future seems bleak.

This might be tempting, but resist the urge. The playbook for building wealth does work. It’s boring most of the time, and it’s difficult. But it’s worth it.

Extra Reading - The Normal Person Guide To Side Hustling.

Final Thoughts - Even If Passive Income Is A Myth, It’s Worth Believing In

Phone farming was such a waste of time and money. But I don’t regret starting my farm one bit.

Diving into passive income has helped me start new businesses, learn valuable skills, and make way more money than if I just focused on a 9-5 job. And even though most ideas I’ve tried have been busts, just thinking about passive income and what it can do for your life already puts your mind on a different track.

So yes, passive income might be a myth most of the time you see it talked about online.

However, it’s a myth worth believing in. Because once you start thinking about how to leverage it to build wealth, you start approaching wealth differently, and your entire worldview begins to evolve.

Prioritizing active income is still critical, of course. But I hope some of my lessons and this overall framework help you out if you’re looking to create some passive income in your own life.

Anyways, this post has been powered by Greek beer and espresso. It’s a nice day here in Athens. I reckon it’s now time to go plunder a local market for some dolmades and baklava (if you know, you know.)

Catch you in the next one!

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

PS: If you want to scale your content business and grow your online income, let’s chat! You can book a paid consultation with me here 😊

I recently shared 10 writing rules that helped me earn $1M+ online with content.

That post is a blueprint for how you can turn your most valuable ideas and work into steady cashflow. If you haven’t read it yet, start there in a new tab.

Today, I’m going one level deeper in terms of revenue optimization.

This is all about maximizing revenue and results from the content you’re already creating. It’s how writers can quickly boost their monthly income without reinventing the wheel.

The best part?

These simple tricks work for any niche. You can also apply several of them in just a few minutes to your next post.

If you’re ready to earn more money with your content, this one is for you! 😎👇👇

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1. Create A Top Resources/Offers Page

One simple monetization trick content creators should use is to create a Top Resources Page where they highlight their best offers.

This is my page as an example.

It’s a simple list of tools, websites, and resources I use and write about. I also link out to some of my other channels and projects.

This page honestly needs some work. But the offers make sense for the niche I write in. And the main advantage of building pages like this is featuring them in your Substack Publication’s navigation menu.

Get in the habit of linking to this resource page in your content too. Social media stories can feature it also. Treat it as a high-value landing page and prioritize directing some broad traffic there.

2. Offer Coaching & Upsells Directly From Your Content

If you sell coaching programs, digital products, or some kind of upsell, removing friction from the purchase point is critical.

Yes, high-ticket programs might require a lot of warming up, ‘free webinars’, and a slower sales cycle. But for many creators, you just need to get your audience in front of a relevant offer that clearly solves their problems to convert them.

This is why many content creators now sell directly from their social media pages, email newsletters, or other platforms; you get people right to checkout and reduce overall friction.

Personally, I use Pillar.io to sell my digital eBooks and 1-on-1 consulting calls.

I like Pillar because it looks clean. It’s easy to funnel traffic here from YouTube, Instagram, and my email newsletters. Visitors can book paid consulting calls or purchase my digital products with just a couple of taps.

Again, if you’re selling something high-ticket, I wouldn’t just rely on something like Pillar. But for many creators, this kind of social selling converts really well.

You can try Pillar free for 14 days if you’d like to start selling more effectively too (plus you support this Substack!)

Pillar also has other nifty features, like a media-kit builder and digital product creation tool. But I definitely think its selling capabilities are where it shines.

PS 💵 If you want to optimize your content business and strategy, let’s chat! Book a paid consultation with me and let’s ramp up your traffic and revenue.

3. Optimize Call-To-Actions & Offer Packaging

This one is simple, but it works…

Bold your affiliate links and call-to-actions. Use emojis. Test out buttons. Get creative with how you style and visually promote offers to your audience.

It’s easy to get complacent with how you sell within your content.

For years, my affiliate/sales content always looked the same. But audiences get used to packaging very quickly.

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One of my largest increases in revenue from my content business came from implementing better affiliate-link styling, buy-now boxes, and exit-intent pop-ups on websites I run.

And when I worked at a pay-per-click arbitrage business back in college, we were always split testing packaging.

What does a red button do versus a blue button? What happens when we put ‘💵’ emojis in the CTA line? That kind of stuff.

The only catch here is that you need enough data to make meaningful insights. If you’re just starting out, start small with simple changes like bolding your offer CTAs and mixing in some buttons or different styles.

4. Get Paid To Recommend Other Newsletters

Right now, I’m using Sparkloop to make money recommending other newsletters to my audience.

This is for one of my content businesses / websites. People subscribe there to my ConvertKit newsletter. Once they hit subscribe, they’re presented with similar newsletters they can subscribe to as well.

These are paid recommendations powered by Sparkloop. When a subscriber joins a newsletter I recommend and sticks around, I get paid.

I’m in early testing right now. I’ve only sent 375 referrals. The rejection rate is actually quite high, but I should earn around $90 so far in free cash, basically.

This particular newsletter is very broad. If you have a niche audience, I imagine your referral quality will be higher, leading to better payouts. But so far, I’m happy with this test.

You can also use Sparkloop with Substack. Not natively, but Sparkloop lets you create referral links for newsletters that pay you when you send them active subscribers.

💵 Start earning passive income with your newsletter!

5. Add A ‘PS’ Section To Your Newsletters

Another simple trick: test adding a ‘PS’ section to your newsletter.

I do this with all my affiliate-heavy newsletters. I’ll throw in some juicy offer or add-on near the footer, and a surprising number of people click this offer.

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I like testing time-sensitive offers here too. And it’s really one last chance to generate a sale or action before someone exits your email.

6. ‘Sponsor’ Your Own Newsletter

Here’s another creative packaging angle.

If you promote affiliate offers, you can use them to essentially sponsor your own newsletters and content. I’ve done this above with Lettuce.co because I think it’s a very useful service. Their affiliate team is also cool with me doing this.

But this is just one example, and you can use the premium space in your newsletter to promote your own products, events, or relevant affiliate offers.

Extra Reading - How To Become Stupidly Wealthy With A One-Person Business.

7. Start Building Recurring Revenue Streams

This tip is something I’m still scaling. But let me tell you, is recurring revenue ever satisfying!

I’m not just talking about converting readers into paid Substack subscribers either.

That’s awesome. But content creators can also experiment with:

• Creating premium Skool communities or Patreon pages

• Promoting recurring-revenue affiliate offers instead of one-time CPA offers

• Building courses or coaching programs that have monthly payments

I’m mostly testing this on the affiliate side now. I earn a few hundred bucks a month now from various offers that pay me a % of what my referrals spend. This isn’t life-changing, but it’s growing slowly.

For example, I wrote a post about how I vibe-coded a new income stream. That post mentions Lovable.dev, my vibe-coding tool of choice. I now earn monthly commissions from people who signed up for Lovable and use my link.

Very simple, but these small wins stack up over time!

8. Don’t Neglect Geo-Targeting For Your Offers

This tip isn’t as important for every niche, but it really matters if you’re an affiliate marketer or sell products/services for a particular market.

In a nutshell, some offers only target certain countries or regions. So if someone in your audience clicks on that offer from an invalid location, they’re often greeted with a 404 page or simply won’t count as an affiliate sale, even if you generate one.

When I started out in affiliate marketing and content creation, I didn’t care about this. I ended up sending tens of thousands of invalid clicks over the years without ever thinking much of it.

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But here’s the thing: a lot of invalid traffic can be monetized if you just reroute it properly.

Oftentimes, you can find duplicate affiliate offers for customers in different geographies. Alternatively, you might have something to offer someone in a different country once you redirect them to the right place.

This is why I now use Prettylinks to add geographic redirections to many of my affiliate links.

Prettylinks is a free WordPress plugin. It’s helped me generate a massive uplift in monthly revenue because I’m not sending thousands of invalid clicks anymore.

This matters more for some niches than others. But I receive a ton of international traffic from YouTube and my content sites. So I need to route certain countries to more relevant offers.

Geniuslink is another example. It helps Amazon sellers route international customers to the correct Amazon marketplace so commissions track properly.

This stuff might seem annoying, and it kinda is. But take a look at where your traffic is coming from. There might be a few standout markets where you’re generating a lot of viewership but don’t have a relevant product to offer.

This is also an amazing chance for business development. Imagine you’re selling leads, and you have all this unmonetized traffic from an invalid country! Surely you can find someone in your industry who’s willing to buy that traffic from you. Get creative and hunt down offers or ways to monetize your traffic more effectively.

9. Update Old Content Regularly (& Prioritize Traffic Spikes!)

Part of your content-creation housekeeping should involve updating old content.

Interlinking to your new and best content is one quick win. This is great practice for very old content since at the time, you probably didn’t have enough content out there to link to in the first place.

Check for broken / outdated affiliate and offer links as well. You’d be surprised at how often things randomly break, becoming small revenue leaks within your content.

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Also: if you notice old content is getting a traffic boost from the Algorithm Gods That Be, focus on this content while the iron is hot. Even throwing a couple more relevant CTAs into a trending piece can work wonders for revenue.

Extra Reading - How These 4 Automations Print $$$ While I Sleep.

10. Split Test Your Email Headlines

Substack now lets you split test your email headlines by running a “Title Test.”

This lets you send two email headline variations to a section of your newsletter. Substack monitors which headline gets the best open-rate. When the test is done, your remaining subscribers receive your email with the winning title.

Many other email service providers offer this feature too. It’s a great way to test out new headline ideas and to learn what your audience responds best to. This is also a prime use case for ChatGPT (I find it does a good job at coming up with headline variations.)

Final Thoughts

There’s no golden rule for optimizing revenue as a writer or content creator. But let me tell you: you’d be amazed at how much lift you can generate when you start analyzing this stuff.

This really is a mindset shift. Every click you send somewhere matters. Especially if times are tough and traffic is drying up.

So, take some time to analyze where you traffic is coming from, where you’re sending it, and what looks like a missed opportunity. Even taking an hour every week or two to analyze this data gets the wheels turning.

Like I mentioned, you can also book a paid consultation with me if you’d like my help. I’ve scaled numerous content businesses over 8 years and earned $1M+ with organic content marketing. Let’s chat and make a gameplan for you to start scaling as well.

Thanks for reading and for all the support everyone. Hope you all have a great day!

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Last night while I was sleeping, I sold a $17.99 copy of a digital product I made months ago.

Then, an affiliate network payment hit. Then, a small payment for a sponsored video hit too.

I’ve been mostly MIA the last few weeks hiking around South Africa. But despite being somewhat absent from my one-person business, traffic, conversions, and income kept flowing.

This is the power of building automated systems for your content business.

You can buy your time back, diversify your income, and ultimately gain more freedom to live the kind of life you want to live.

Now, this isn’t the sort of business transformation that happens overnight. But if you’re a fellow creator who’s tired of endlessly trading time for money, this post is for you.

Here are four automations that quietly make me money while I sleep, and how you can begin implementing these systems as well.

😎 Want to land a remote job that gives you freedom over your time and location?

Then I suggest checking out FlexJobs.

This premium job board is one of the leading places to find remote positions, freelancing roles, and flexible working arrangements. Jobs are hand-picked so there’s no AI slop, and you get salary/pay information as well.

I’ve worked online since 2019, and the freedom you get versus sitting in a cubicle all day is game-changing. Hopefully, you can find a remote position with FlexJobs as well and work from wherever you want in the world.

1. Email Newsletter Sequences + Affiliate Automations

Everyone talks about the importance of building an email list that you own to ensure you own your audience.

BUT email lists are also critical to automating your content business.

Email sequences play a massive role here. They’re the automated flow of emails new subscribers receive when they sign up for your list. And they’re one of the best way to segment users based on behavior and to present tailored offers to them at prime moments.

Personally, I run several newsletter lead magnets across my personal finance blogs and YouTube channels. Here’s how the flow works:

• A user visits one of my landing pages (mostly from Google organic traffic, social traffic, or YouTube traffic)

• A pop-up form fires offering them a free finance guide in exchange for their email

• Users opt-in to my newsletter to get the free guide

• Users enter an automated email series based on their country, receiving more useful content that also includes affiliate offers or my own digital products

Some of my welcome series sequences are 20+ emails long. This means that a new subscriber can see and potentially convert dozens of times on various offers, provided they don’t churn.

The result: these email sequences help drive thousands of clicks per month to various affiliate offers and digital products.

I use Kit to power all of this. It’s my email marketing tool of choice for affiliate-heavy content businesses. I like how easy it is to build a list with Kit’s pop-up forms and its Creator Network as well.

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If you’re only writing on Substack, you need to apply the same concepts.

For one, consider editing your welcome email to promote some of your best offers. You can also use this email to promote yourself on other channels to encourage cross-subscribing.

Now, Substack is testing automated email sequences currently. You can check if you qualify by going to your Dashboard → Settings → Email and looking for Drip Campaigns:

Not everyone qualifies for this yet. But it’s clear sequences are coming to Substack in the future. When they do, take time to build out some basic sequences to engage with your subscribers.

The results from writing a few sequences compounds the more subscribers enter the sequence. And this is why email sequences + affiliate offers are one of my favorite automations for content creators.

👉 Try Kit for free for 14 days!

2. Automated YouTube Income

I’m a huge fan of making money on YouTube.

For starters, YouTube offers amazing organic reach. Even new creators get shown in the Discover feed. You can also win search traffic on YouTube and Google’s homepages.

Secondly, YouTube has several amazing monetization opportunities like:

• YouTube AdSense income from the Partner Program

• Funneling traffic to your affiliate offers / digital products / email list

• YouTube Shopping revenue

• Landing brand deals and sponsorships

I’ve written about my $250,000+ YouTube framework before. But the idea is fairly straightforward in terms of building semi-passive YouTube channels.

For my channels, I outsource script writing, video editing, and thumbnails. This costs roughly $1,000 per month in freelancer fees and the video editing agency I use.

All I have to do is take an hour every couple of days to sit in front of the camera, record something, and then upload it to Google Drive so the editing team can get to work.

Currently, YouTube is one of the highest-margin activities in my content business. This is why I bought another YouTube channel in December and will probably buy or make more.

If you’re a content creator looking to invest in a new channel / revenue stream, my advice is to try YouTube. The organic reach potential is incredible, and the demand for video is only growing.

Note: I didn’t start out on YouTube by outsourcing everything. I learned how to edit basic videos myself to cut costs. But these days, you can use AI tools like Gling.ai to edit your videos for you. Anyone can start on YouTube, and you don’t need expensive gear or filming experience.

💵 You can get my YouTube Freedom Launchpad for a breakdown of how to build profitable niche channels and diversify your content business. It’s on sale right now, and you also get access to my Skool community where we can chat directly about YouTube strategy.

3. The Content Business Flywheel

This is where things get powerful: when your content talks to each other.

When I was a freelance writer, every piece I wrote for a client paid me once. It was purely trading time for money.

Now, every piece of content I create feeds into the next. Here’s an example of how the content flywheel spins:

New Blog Post → Email Newsletter → New YouTube Video → Relevant Digital Product → Affiliate Offer → Back to Blog

A YouTube video points to my newsletter. My newsletter points to a product. The product mentions my blog. The blog links to affiliate offers. And so on and so on…

I cover this idea in my post on how to build a value engine for your business.

Every channel you build as a content creator fuels your other channels. This is the power of content repurposing and how you can maximize results from a single idea.

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This process is also easy to automate between AI agents/tools, freelancers, and email marketing platforms like Kit.

For example, you can use ChatGPT to write pretty decent blog posts these days. You can then use Zapier to turn your blog post into a newsletter. Send that newsletter/blog post off to your YouTube script writer, or throw it into ChatGPT to build a script. You get the idea.

The hardest part of running a content business is coming up with content people actually care about and search for. Once you’ve done that, repurposing is your best friend.

This is how every new piece of content accelerates the whole ecosystem…compounding growth instead of starting from zero each time!

4. Automated Dividend Investing

One habit one-person business owners should develop is taking profits when the sun is shining.

For me, this looks like automatically moving a portion of monthly income into various dividend ETFs, money market funds, and other investments.

This automation is boring, but it works! And it helps establish long-term wealth while reducing risk.

Unfortunately, I know several content creators who double- and triple-downed on building blogging businesses just before ChatGPT rolled out. I’m talking about buying new blogs for 6- and 7-figures and hiring employees. Once Google algorithm changes and AI rocked the industry, they were left holding the bag.

Even a small amount of monthly contributions to your investment makes a difference. That’s the beauty of time and compound interest. All of this can be set up on autopilot as well through your bank or any modern brokerage.

💵 UPDATE: Right now, you can start trading with moomoo and earn 8.1% APY and up to $1,000 in NVDA stock. If you live in the US, this broker bonus is pretty nuts and worth going for.

Traffic Is The Backbone To Automated Income

I’ve been building content sites, newsletters, YouTube channels, and affiliate marketing flows since 2018. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that most creators have a traffic problem, not a monetization problem.

I’ve covered effective ways to market your one-person business. Unless you’re a pro at running paid ads profitably, you need to learn how to leverage algorithms and free traffic to your advantage.

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Traffic really is the engine that runs these income automations. So if you’re struggling with traffic, my advice is to focus on 1-2 channels at most where you’re seeing the most traction. Then, ask yourself how you can 2X or 3X your marketing output in the next month.

You’d be amazed at how much more volume you’re capable of. Asking this simple question really gets the wheels turning, and you’re forced to work smarter, not just harder.

Consistently, the greatest growth moments for my businesses have simply come from doing more of what’s working. You rarely have to reinvent the wheel. Once you build the framework for automating your content business, it’s time to add fuel (traffic) to the fire.

⭐ Want help in scaling your traffic and content business? Book a paid consultation with me. Let’s go over your current content business, roadblocks, and opportunities to help you scale.

Final Thoughts

Writers and content creators are in a strange spot currently.

On the one hand, the Internet is being overwhelmed with AI slop. Algorithm-based businesses are also more competitive than ever before.

However, AI tools, content repurposing, and automations are extremely powerful. If you’re creating valuable content that stands out amidst the slop, these tactics are how you ultimately compound results from your work.

It might seem intimidating at first. I still remember feeling overwhelmed when getting set up on Kit, or when trying to outsource more YouTube work.

But trust me, most of this stuff is easier than it sounds. It’s really staying consistent and iterating quickly that’s the tricky part. And once you get a successful automation flow working, it opens your mind to what’s possible as a content creator.

Anyways, that’s all from me today.

Thanks for reading!

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want more cool guides & income ideas? Checkout:

• How I Vibe Coded A New Income Stream In 48 Hours.

• The Writing Rules That Made Me $1M+ Online.

I turned 29 recently.

Life has honestly been pretty awesome, albeit strange at times. Especially for the last decade or so.

I’m fortunate in that I’ve been able to travel the world while building businesses I love. I’ve also met some incredible people along the way while mostly staying out of trouble.

That said, I’m in a reflective mood lately. I think birthdays just cause this eventually.

And so today, I’m sharing 29 lessons I’ve learned over 29 years relating to life, money, love, freedom, and other random topics that are on my mind.

I’m curious what you think as well, so feel free to leave a comment if there’s a lesson you’d like to share or one you agree/disagree with.

I’ll get back to the regular programming after this one! 😉

29 Life Lessons On Money, Freedom & Meaning

1. Don’t rush through major decisions, and always get a good night of sleep before pulling the trigger.

2. Consistency and output volume almost-always beats talent.

3. We often underestimate our capacity for work, but also how much work is required to excel at something and win.

4. Taking on roles where you’re responsible for your income (commission-based jobs, freelancing, entrepreneurship) is the fastest way to gain control of your life. Take risk when you are young and become comfortable betting on yourself.

5. Call your parents, sibling(s), and close friends at least once a week.

6. Write down your daily to-do list for the next day on a piece of paper before you go to bed. Cross items off as you complete them. The psychological satisfaction of physically crossing off tasks is next-level.

7. Learning how to communicate effectively is one of the most valuable skills you can develop. This is true for your career in any field, and in your relationships.

8. When in doubt or feeling anxious, take a walk or a hike in silence.

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9. Don’t overestimate how many times you’ll fall in love or meet people you form a deep connection with. We take this for granted when we’re younger, but these kinds of connections are finite, and what matter most. I think most of our regrets in life will ultimately center around the time we didn’t spend with people and the relationships we never sustained.

10. If you’re physically able, lift weights at least twice per week and run at least twice per week. Walk every day. Drink water when you wake up and keep a refillable bottle on you throughout the day. Get sunlight and fresh air.

11. Practice saying yes to novel, uncomfortable experiences. This is where a tremendous amount of growth happens, or at least, how you live a colorful life with rich stories.

12. Travel to a country where they don’t speak your language commonly. Try learning their language. Eat new foods, walk strange streets, and get off the beaten path a little. Spend time in a different environment and learn to appreciate the differences.

13. Never go to sleep while you’re angry with someone close to you. If you can’t resolve things, at least agree to attempt resolution the next day.

14. You don’t need to believe in God. But you need to believe in something that is larger than you.

15. The spotlight effect is real: we generally overestimate the degree to which other people notice us. No one actually cares what you do, so live your life the way you want.

16. Traditional career and retirement advice is broken. You can follow ‘the playbook’ and work until you’re 70. Alternatively, chase Coast FIRE and build your own freedom.

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17. Learn to limit lifestyle creep since it kills freedom. Dress modestly. Drive a reliable, affordable car. Don’t rent/buy more than you can afford. Limit your vices. And don’t make financial decisions based on Instagram flexing.

18. People don’t remember what you say, but they remember how you make them feel. Don’t make jokes at other people’s expense, and don’t speak poorly of people who aren’t in the room.

19. When in doubt, be optimistic. This is a cheat code for accomplishing your goals, being happy, and finding peace. Like Mark Twain said: ““It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is almost always right.”

20. Turning off the news and social media feeds instantly improves your life. Stop basing your beliefs on what celebrities and politicians tell you to believe.

21. Attempt at least one physical feat that scares you. Run a marathon. Climb that mountain. Take on a challenge you don’t think you’re capable of and then train to rise to the occasion.

22. Learn to cook at least 3-5 recipes very confidently and without needing to double-check every step. Bonus points if there are some good date-night dishes in there.

23. If people don’t want to help themselves, they can’t be helped. You can be supportive and loving to those in need, but ultimately, your life and peace must come first in the long run.

24. If you eat meat, take part in butchering/processing an animal at least once.

25. Practice speaking your mind. We’ve been conditioned to avoid conflict and stay silent if our views differ from the status quo. But it’s vital to be honest and to live with integrity.

26. If you like when someone exhibits a certain behavior, tell them directly. We’re too used to explaining what we don’t like rather than encouraging the things we love in others.

27. Do things you suck at sometimes. It could be karaoke, dancing, a new sport, a painting night, whatever. Learning how to have fun and take things less seriously is important.

28. Learn basic financial literacy. At the very least, create a monthly budget, build an emergency fund, and use a robo-advisor to invest. The difference between doing nothing and doing even a little something is astronomical because of compound interest and time.

29. Always trust your gut and instinct. We can rationalize any decision if we spend enough time trying to, and our brains aren’t always logical. But you know deep down if you’re on the path you’re meant to be on.

BONUS: Practice shutting down negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones. I firmly believe that what we think about turns into our reality. You can call it manifestation, luck, fate, or something else, but it’s true. Safeguard your peace and catch yourself when you’re in a negative loop. This is one of the best lessons I have learned in the last 2 years or so.

Well, there you have it!

I honestly didn’t feel like writing a post about making money online or affiliate marketing today. But I felt like writing something. I’m also keen to put more effort into Substack. So this is the result!

Admittedly, life does feel pretty weird these days. Mostly in a good way.

I’m currently living in Cape Town, South Africa. Life is in a state of flux. I’m working on new projects, meeting new people, and figuring out how to split my time geographically. I am happy, but don’t know what’s next, and that is invigorating.

I hope reading this list makes you feel similarly, or, at the very least, like you could take at least one lesson away and apply it to your own life.

I’m just a 29 year old guy who’s hiking, writing, and figuring out my own life. Take what I’m saying with a grain of salt.

BUT if any of these lessons and reflections resonate with you, I’d love to hear from you. And feel free to share your own ideas in the comments as well.

I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

I’ve made over $1,000,000 from writing and creating content on the internet since 2018.

None of this happened by winning awards, landing book deals, or going viral in my niche.

Instead, I followed a set of rules, focused on content types that drive revenue, and spent years building funnels and audiences that convert.

Today, I’m sharing 10 of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way as a content creator that you can apply to your own business.

Ultimately, if you treat writing like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby. But if you treat writing like a business, it can genuinely change your life.

Let’s get to it!

💵 Want to take your content marketing and business workflows to the next level? Then i10X is absolutely for you.

i10X is an AI workspace that I’ve been using to power my content creation, marketing efforts, and workflow automations.

It’s like taking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and other leading AI tools and packing them into a single workspace. And for only $8 per month, it’s way cheaper than paying for a bunch of AI tools independently.

Break up with ChatGPT and use a more powerful model. PLUS use the code ‘Tomk15’ to get 15% off your plan.

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Rule #1: Consistency Beats Inspiration - Build Content Creation Into Your Daily Routine

Consistency is the #1 factor that separates writers and content creators who scale their businesses versus ones who never make any money.

I am convinced of this. I’ve seen it play out hundreds of times amongst my friends, colleagues, and people I follow.

Because consistency is so vital, you need to build writing and content creation into your daily/weekly schedule.

I know life is busy, especially for parents. But even 15-20 minutes per day will put you miles ahead in the long-run versus only creating when you ‘feel like it.’

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At one stage, I was completing my degree while working a full-time internship. I was also working part-time for an advertising agency, so my schedule was pretty slammed.

I still managed to squeeze in daily blogging/writing of some kind. 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes before bed, and even 15 minutes at work (Pro Tip: you can write content for yourself in an email, so it never looks suspicious if someone walks by).

That’s an extra 45 minutes per day, which is almost 4 hours of writing time throughout the work week!

Rule #2: Understand Revenue-Driving Content Formats

Not all content makes money.

Some content is useful for building your personal brand or authority in a niche. Other content types can help you reach a wide audience before you warm them up into customers.

A small percentage of your content actually drives revenue.

It’s a prime example of the 80/20 (Pareto Principle). For my content businesses, this looked like creating:

• How-to guides

• Product reviews (especially negative ones where you then recommend alternatives as an affiliate!)

• VS content (i.e. Webull vs Moomoo, HelloFresh vs Blue Apron, etc.)

• Top X content / buying guides

In-depth case studies never really moved the needle as much for me. Same goes for other kinds of content, like podcasts, short-form videos, or writing more personal articles.

Again: other kinds of content types still have their benefits. But take a look at your content business and weekly output. If you’re spending hours creating Instagram posts or blog posts for your website that don’t get any eyeballs, it’s time to reprioritize efforts.

Rule #3: Honesty Is A Competitive Advantage For Your Writing

As writer and affiliate marketer, two particular CPA offers I run have earned me over $250,000 in commissions.

Here’s the earnings screenshot from my Impact account:

Both of these partners are survey companies/reward sites where you complete short online tasks to get paid. I cover them, and similar companies, on my content sites and YouTube channel.

For years, my blog reviews for both brands ranked on Google and YouTube. They still rank today for some queries. And I promote both companies every day in my content, whether that’s an email blast or some related content I’m writing.

Want to know the secret to getting people to convert on these offers?

I signed up for them myself, spent some time completing surveys on them, and then cashed out with them. And I documented the entire process for other people to see.

That’s it. That’s the secret!

This process took a few hours for each company. But the transparency and payment proof in my content puts my content miles ahead of any other personal finance blogger who can’t prove that they’ve used the platforms.

People aren’t stupid either. They know when they’re being lied too, or when something is too good to be true.

If you put in just a bit more work than competitors in your niche, you’ll be in the top 5% of writers and creators. It’s actually crazy how low the bar is for this kind of thing. No one does first-hand research anymore, especially with AI tools these days.

Interview subject matter experts. Run weird experiments yourself and document the journey. Do something a little crazy that other journalists, influencers, and writers don’t have time or patience to do. It takes more time, but your conversion rates will skyrocket.

Extra Reading: 3 Skills Every One-Person Business Owner Must Master.

Rule #4: Don’t Underestimate The Power Of Increasing Output

Most content creators and writers underestimate the value of increasing output.

This was my #1 mistake as a blogger, YouTuber, and writer for years…You build a machine that turns attention into dollars, but then you never pour fuel on the fire.

Ask yourself: how would your content business change if you double, tripled, or 10X’d your content output?

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Assume some drop in overall quality, sure. But how would your monthly impressions, clicks, email subscribers, and overall revenue change if you pulled the content output lever?

It’s a simple question that’s easily overlooked.

When I went from publishing 1 blog post per week to 5/6 times per week, my income went from about $27,000 per year to crossing the $500,000+ mark in my blog’s last year before selling it.

Same with making money on YouTube. Going from scripting and publishing 2 videos a month to 8 videos a month more than quadrupled income and views.

It’s also worth noting: some of your competitors might be doing 100X or more content volume than you right now. This puts them in an entirely different stratosphere, even though your content businesses might seem similar.

💵 Update: You can get my new YouTube Freedom Launchpad eBook to learn how I build profitable niche channels and how you can do the same thing for your favorite niches.

Rule #5: Don’t Underestimate Market Size

This relates to Rule 3.

Most people underestimate the size of the market / their audience.

I did this too for years. I’d promote various finance apps or side hustles in my content as an affiliate marketer. But I was always shy of promoting the same partners too often because I was scared of burning out my audience.

If you have a super small audience that doesn’t grow, this might hold true.

However, if your content reaches new eyeballs each month, hammering your converting offers, products, and services will increase revenue.

These days, I promote the same top 10 affiliate offers every single week and day via my content sites and other newsletters. I’ll mix in some new offerings for variety, but again, the 80-20 rule holds true.

I don’t really care if people churn either for this particular content business. A subscriber is worth $0.50 to $5 for me based on the country they’re from for this niche. It’s not a high-ticket space where there’s a long sales cycle, or one that requires white-glove service to land a sale.

If you pay a significant amount for leads because you’re in a high-ticket space, this is a little different. But for most niches, I think people can sell more and stress less about audience fatigue/churn.

Rule #6: Write For Problems, Not People

Most of the money in content creation comes from solving problems for people.

You can also earn by creating content that amuses or inspires people, but this is less straightforward.

Yet many creators make the mistake of writing for an audience instead of for a problem. They ask themselves:

“What do I want to say?” or “Will this get likes?”

That’s vanity thinking. Likes don’t pay the bills. The content that makes real money typically solves urgent, specific problems.

After all, people don’t Google “content that inspires me.” They Google: “how to make money from home” or “best gifts for new homeowners.”

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A golden rule is to write to provide value and to be useful, not just for the sake of writing or hearing your own voice.

This is why I think writers should also leverage Google Trends, People Also Ask, and keyword data from tools like SEMRush. You can use data to inform your content strategy and solve problems people are actively looking for help with.

Rule #7: Ignore Vanity Metrics (& Focus On These Metrics Instead)

Many content creators branch out into several platforms to try and build their brand.

This isn’t inherently bad. However, it’s a slippery slope that often leads to chasing vanity metrics instead of metrics that drive revenue.

Instagram followers, social media likes, podcast appearances, and other collaborations are prime examples. They feel awesome to get, but depending on your niche and offerings, they often don’t translate to additional business.

This is why I’m not really on Instagram or TikTok right now as an affiliate marketer. I know there’s money there, but for my niche, I’d rather scale long-form YouTube and my newsletters first before investing in new platforms.

I encourage writers and content creators to reframe their thinking. Focusing on these metrics also provides a better overview of your content business’ performance:

• Total monthly views

• Total monthly emails sent

• Email open and click-through rates

• Earnings-per-click (EPCs) that you send to your offers

• Monthly recurring revenue

• Monthly sponsorship income

These are main drivers of revenue for content businesses. But they’re easy to mess up. I mean, if you get sick and don’t send emails for a few days, you can quickly send 10% fewer emails in that month than last month…Depending on your list size, this could be a pretty significant hit to revenue that you overlook.

Rule #8: Content Repurposing Scales $$$ Like Wildfire

Content repurposing is one of the fastest ways to get more mileage out of the work you’re already doing.

Substack writing is a perfect example. Chances are, you’re creating some high-quality stuff here. If you hit publish once and then forget about it, you’re missing out on a lot of extra juice.

Here are some quick ways to repurpose your articles/writing into new formats:

• Turn Substack posts into video scripts for YouTube

• Convert long posts into snippets for your newsletter

• Create short-form posts for Substack Notes and Twitter/X

• Create Pinterest images for your Substack posts using ChatGPT and Pin them

• Syndicate your content to platforms like Medium

• Turn your most valuable ideas into mini eBooks that you sell

Most of these tasks can be handled with ChatGPT or by hiring a virtual assistant. Depending on your niche and what you sell, even a 10% - 20% lift in traffic from repurposing could be quite lucrative.

Rule #9: Negotiate Better Deals - Think Like An Owner-Operator!

Content creators and writers can fall into a trap where they focus on meeting deadlines but neglect other areas of their business, like upselling clients or increasing their rates.

Once again, this is something I did for years as a freelance writer and affiliate marketer/blogger.

If you deliver quality content for clients, it’s worth upping your rates at least annually.

This is a bit trickier these days since the freelance writing industry has been gutted by AI, but even if you don’t increase your rates directly, you can probably come up with some kind of upsell or service to pitch clients.

And for affiliate marketers or creators who land brand sponsorships, never stop pushing for more competitive rates.

Even a small amount of scale here can translate to incredibly easy money.

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Example: I was sending about 1,000 conversions/month to a paid survey company I worked with for several years. They paid a $3 CPA per conversion, which was about $3,000 a month.

They never increased this CPA payment in over 2 years of working together. One day, I emailed my account manager, asked for a $4 CPA, and promised to include their company in a more newsletters and videos to get more volume.

They agreed, and for delivering a rough 15% volume bump, I got bumped up to a $4 CPA. With barely any extra effort, an extra $1,000+ in margin just materialized, all from a couple of emails and maintaining a relationship with my account manager.

If you’re creating content for other people, you’re part of their marketing mix. When your content produces results, advocate for yourself. Account managers are always looking to allocate budgets, or they lose them, so it’s often easier than you think to get payout bumps.

Extra Reading: 9 Ways To Market Your One-Person Business.

Rule #10: Double-Down On What Works

If your audience or the almighty algorithm Gods bless you with traffic and sales, do more of what you’re doing.

Again, a simple lesson that’s often overlooked.

This was me for years with blogging and YouTube. I made content that I felt like making, even if it was outside of the niche content that was already working for me.

This was fun, sure. But it was an expensive kind of fun.

When your audience or the platform you’re on gives you positive reinforcement, follow it. Create spin-offs of your best content, dive deeper into related topics, and find creative ways to dominate that topic while the sun is shining.

What’s Next?

Making money with writing doesn’t happen through luck or some kind of magic.

Successful writers and content creators treat writing like a business. They focus on solving problems, understand which content types drive revenue, scale output, and stay consistent.

These rules aren’t secrets at all…they’re fundamentals.

If you want writing to pay your bills, fund your freedom, or build a life on your own terms, start applying these rules today. One rule at a time. One post at a time. And then watch how consistent effort compounds.

After all, every piece of content you create is an asset for your business. It takes time and resources to produce. Approach your writing with this mindset, and you’ll see the shift in revenue and traffic begin to take shape.

Thanks for reading, that does it for this one.

I’ll catch you guys in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

PS: Want to schedule a consulting call to optimize your content strategy? Get in touch with me here and let’s take your writing to the next level! 👉 https://pillar.io/tomblakefinance

Most writers on Substack make the same mistake: they publish once and then move on to their next idea.

But here’s how this mistake limits your growth and income…

A single Substack post isn’t just a piece of writing, it’s an asset. And you’re leaving so much money on the table if you don’t leverage this asset to its full potential.

In fact, if you change your content approach, a single post can fuel your growth across numerous platforms. It can bring in more subscribers, build your audience, and print cash.

After all, the internet doesn’t reward people who work harder. It rewards people who distribute smarter.

Here how to squeeze every drop of value out of your Substack posts and turn them into multiple streams of content and revenue.

1. Talking-Head YouTube Content: My Personal Favorite

Scripting is the most tedious part of making valuable YouTube videos.

Don’t let the gurus out there fool you: plugging a YouTube video idea into ChatGPT won’t produce a script that gets views. You need to put your own personal spin, expertise, and voice into your scripts to stand out from the AI slop that’s out there.

Now here’s the thing: your best Substack posts are YouTube scripts in disguise.

Guys like Dan Koe have popularized this strategy. You basically take your Substack winners, trim them into 3-5 key points, and then create talking-head content on YouTube with somewhat clickbait headlines.

Here’s the reason this is my #1 favorite repurposing method: YouTube still has amazing organic reach, just like Substack.

YouTube is also the platform that let me earn $250,000 by creating talking-head content (between ads, sponsorships, affiliate income, and selling digital products.)

You don’t need high-tech gear or to be a professional video editor either.

Your smartphone or a budget camera works for talking-head content. For editing, you can use tools like Gling AI to remove your bad takes, enhance audio, and even add B-roll footage. And for thumbnails, there’s Canva or Opus Clips’ free thumbnail generator.

It still takes time to film and edit, don’t get me wrong. But 2-3 hours can create a ready-to-post video that has the potential to get search and discover traffic on YouTube that lasts.

Pro Tip: If you sell any high-ticket offer, YouTube is where you should be. Even videos with a few hundred views can have amazing conversion rates, and the brand you build on YouTube is often quite sticky.

💵 Check out my YouTube Freedom Blueprint for a breakdown of how I scaled my niche channel to $250,000+ in revenue, plus how you can do the same thing while working efficiently.

2. Secondary Email Newsletters

I cover this idea in my post on how to make money on Substack without any paid subscribers…

But the idea is that manty creators are missing out by only sending emails via Substack. Plus, if algorithms or subscriber data access ever changes, you might find yourself in trouble.

This is why I use ConvertKit, now known as Kit, to send a separate newsletter to Substack for readers who opt-in to my second email list.

I built this list from YouTube and my network of content sites that talk about personal finance. It’s more affiliate-driven than what I write here on Substack. But, I still take chunks of my Substack posts or concepts and convert them into snappier newsletters by using ChatGPT and some editing.

Here’s what I love about this tactic: you can get way more aggressive with how you collect subscribers, build a larger list, and send more emails than just sticking with Substack.

For example, I built a separate list of about 60,000 subscribers. A lot of this was done with free lead magnets, exit-intent pop-ups on my websites, YouTube description box links, and gated content.

This list lets me send 1 million+ emails a month plus create some powerful automations/sequences for new subscribers.

This is frankly peanuts in the email marketing game, and my Open/Click rates are quite poor still as I’m warming up a sending domain. But it’s very affordable, and it helps diversify from just sending on Substack.

If you’re a content creator or business owner, I’d consider creating a second email list if you can reliably grow one faster than on Substack. You can then repurpose your Substack ideas into this second newsletter without much extra effort, plus send other offers and upsells.

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Having another list plus warmed-up sending domain is also valuable. If you ever want to move from Substack for any reason, you’ll be prepared.

You can try Kit for free for 14 days if you’d like to get started. I moved to Kit from Customer IO recently and love it for creators.

3. Pinterest: Quiet Traffic That Compounds

Pinterest is a slept-on traffic source for writers and affiliate marketers.

It might seem like it’s just for vision boards and recipes, but it’s really a search engine in its own right. And the traffic quality is actually very engaged and high-quality in my experience.

Creating Pinterest graphics used to be a pain.

You’d spend hours in Canva, dragging images around onto different templates. Then, you’d manually schedule them to Pinterest or use some third-party tool that kinda worked.

NOW you can genuinely throw your Substack post URL into ChatGPT, Grok, or some other leading AI tool and tell it to make you an eye-catching Pinterest graphic.

Here’s what it made for my post on making money on Substack with a single prompt:

This isn’t amazing, but it’s pretty decent for Pinterest. It also took me 25 seconds to do and then post to one of my Pinterest boards.

Depending on your niche, Pinterest can be a goldmine.

It takes a few months to warm up accounts in my experience. But I’d add Pinterest to your repurposing routine, especially if you cover health, fitness, finance, or fashion/culture.

Extra Reading - How To Actually Market Your One-Person Business.

4. Twitter/X: Turn Substack Posts Into Viral Threads

This repurposing strategy is quite simple, but it’s basically to repost your Substack Notes on X/Twitter.

Again, guys like Dan Koe have really taken advantage of this repurposing strategy. Twitter can also provide viral organic reach if you play the game.

You don’t have to link back to your Substack posts in every Tweet either. Instead, use your profile page and link-in-bio to direct traffic to your most valuable content.

Personally, I use Pillar.io for my link-in-bio tool. But there’s so many of them on the market these days that work well.

If you need help here, you can also shamelessly post your Substack content into ChatGPT and ask it for short-form content ideas. Ask it to break your post into snappy bits that do well on social media, and you’ll get something workable that you can edit and post quickly.

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5. LinkedIn Posts: If You’d Like To…

Same strategy as Twitter, really. You can chop your Substack posts into short-form content and then blast LinkedIn.

I don’t think you need a personal brand to make money online. And LinkedIn writing deserves its own circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno. But if this traffic source works for your niche and offering, you can try it out.

I’m abstaining from this repurposing tactic so I don’t jump off my balcony. Probably leaving money on the table doing so, but make your own choice here!

6. Podcast Episodes: Branch Into Audio

Substack has podcast capabilities that not many people use. This also includes distributing to Apple and Spotify which is quite cool. So, you can consider turning your Substack articles into solo-podcasts if you’re looking for another repurposing strategy.

I think repurposing via YouTube is superior here for most creators, but maybe podcasting is your thing! And if you interview people as part of your content, I think this is a no-brainer.

Extra Reading - How To Vibe Code A New Income Stream.

7. eBooks & Digital Downloads: Create A New Revenue Stream

If some of your Substack content goes viral, this is a sign you’ve struck a chord with your audience and the algorithm.

AND if this content solves a specific problem, it’s an excellent opportunity to repurpose your content and ideas into a paid digital download.

I’ve done this with both freelance writing and my new YouTube Freedom Blueprint. I packaged the free ideas I’ve shared into more streamlined guides and sell affordable eBooks people can buy.

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If you’re already researching and communicating ideas on Substack, you’ve done most of the hard work already. Repackaging everything as a paid offer doesn’t take much extra effort.

Of course, creating a premium offer like a video course with multiple modules takes more time. But don’t be afraid to sell the information you’re providing outside of just asking for paid Substack subscribers.

8. Syndicated Content: An Easy Traffic Freebie

One final Substack repurposing strategy you can try is to simply syndicate/republish your content on other platforms without making any changes.

I do this occasionally on Medium. Just set the canonical tag properly so search engines know your Substack piece is the original source.

I’m currently receiving under 1,000 monthly views on Medium, so it’s not much of a lift. But republishing here takes about 1 minute of formatting time, so I think it’s worth it.

Extra Reading - The Normal Person Guide To Stacking Extra Cash.

Final Thoughts

Chances are, you’re publishing high-value content here on Substack. This content probably takes a lot of time, effort, and thinking to produce. So, don’t sell yourself short by hitting publish once and then walking away!

With AI tools, repurposing content in an impactful way is also easier than ever. This is how efficient creators are growing quickly and earning more. And you don’t need to pump out slop to use these strategies either.

In reality, one decent Substack post can become:

• A YouTube video

• A second email newsletter

• A week’s worth of LinkedIn posts

• A viral Twitter thread

• A set of Pinterest graphics

• A podcast episode

• 5–10 Substack Notes

• A paid eBook or digital download

This is how you get leverage.

This is how you build an audience without burning out.

This is how you print cash from words you’ve already written.

Hopefully, at least one of these strategies works out well for you! And you can let me know if you agree, disagree, or have other suggestions for Substack creators out there.

Personally, I’m going to ramp up my new test YouTube channel and start working on X/Twitter alongside the other repurposing strategies I’m using. I’ll update this guide with some results later on.

Thanks for reading as always.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Want More Useful Guides? Checkout:

• The Best One-Person Businesses That Don’t Require A Personal Brand.

• What I Learned From Testing 100+ Side Hustles.

Most people think Substack works like this: You start a newsletter. You beg people to become paid subscribers. Someday, you magically make a living off of your words.

That’s the dream.

But it’s not reality for most people.

Getting people to whip out their wallets is hard. Keeping them around and preventing churn is even harder.

For most writers, using Substack as a content and value delivery engine is the most scalable path to making money with writing.

And so today, I’m breaking down how I made money in my first 60 days on Substack without a single paid subscriber.

I don’t have a Substack course to sell you. And if you don’t want to read about Substack monetization on Substack, fair play, I won’t cover this topic often.

But if you’re creating content and want to turn eyeballs into income, here are some of the strategies that have been working for me so far…No tricks, no begging, no “please buy me a coffee.” Just simple strategies that work if you create valuable content.

1. Start Using Affiliate Links!!!

One of the fastest ways I’ve made money with Substack is by using affiliate links for the products and services I recommend.

A lot of this stems from Substack being an amazing source of organic traffic right now.

I wrote my first Substack post on June 2nd, 2025. I didn’t really put much effort until July. In just over a month, Substack delivered over 35,000 views to my content:

I don’t think any other written-content publishing platform has this organic potential right now. So if you’re writing long-form content that helps people solve problems, making money with affiliate offers is a no-brainer.

I do this in a few ways, like:

• Mentioning products and services I use in my content

• Creating a Best Tools Page I promote

• Plugging affiliates at the top of my newsletter, effectively sponsoring my own newsletter

Here’s a prime example: I wrote a post on how I used Lovable to vibe code a new income stream.

I actually use Lovable, so I plugged affiliate links in the article. Since then, it’s earned almost $40 from 3 conversions:

This isn’t life-changing money. But this is one post and one simple example.

If you write solution-focused content on Substack, my advice is to look for affiliate programs for the products and services you recommend.

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Personally, my favorite affiliate networks (where you can find offers) for Substack writing are PartnerStack and Impact Radius. But you can do some Googling and you’ll probably find out many brands you use have direct affiliate programs these days.

ALSO 💵 It’s worth noting that you can find recurring-revenue affiliate deals. Lovable is one of these. So, while you’re ‘missing out’ on recurring revenue from paid Substack subscribers, you can make this up with recurring revenue for some affiliate programs.

2. Double-Down On What’s Working

The first post that popped off for me was my post on how to become wealthy with a one-person business.

Whenever you have something take off, do more of it.

It’s taken me so long to learn this lesson. But it holds true on YouTube, Substack, email newsletters, and basically any kind of business…Especially ones where algorithm push your content.

Since then, I’ve followed up this article with:

• The 3 Skills Needed To Run A One-Person Business

• 9 Ways To Market Your One-Person Business

• 5 Profitable One-Person Business Examples

These posts have all done fairly well for my standards. If your audience tells you they like something, listen to them!

3. Offer Simple Upsells & Value Your Time

Once again, if you’re creating content that solves problems for your audience, there’s probably a percentage of your audience that’s willing to pay for extra help.

This can look like:

• One-on-one coaching

• eBooks

• Courses

• Offering one-time audits

• Selling printables or other digital downloads

I’m relatively new to this on Substack. However, I’m happy with the early results: a few eBooks sales of my YouTube Freedom Launchpad eBook and one booking for a one-on-one content audit session.

This is about $230 in extra revenue between the eBook and consulting call, but I’ll take it. Selling digital products is awesome, and I’m excited to break more into coaching or consulting calls.

Building this funnel didn’t require gating content either. I publish content like my $250,000 YouTube framework and also make it easy for people to find my Pillar.io page where they can book a coaching/consulting call with me.

PS: If you want to go over your organic content strategy, funnels, and potential missed-revenue opportunities, I’d love to chat! 😊👉 https://pillar.io/tomblakefinance

4. Repurposing Substack Content Is A Massive Opportunity

Repurposing Substack content is something guys like Dan Koe do extremely well.

And really, with AI tools, repurposing your best Substack work into other content pieces is how you get more mileage out of the work you’re already doing.

I’m experimenting by creating a new YouTube channel where I essentially use my Substack articles as scripts for new videos.

This channel is just getting off of the ground. But producing videos here is way faster than scripting from scratch. All I need to do is hit record and then throw my raw video footage into Gling AI and it spits out ready-to-publish content.

Here’s a video I made after writing a post about how to stop living like an NPC:

Eventually, this channel will be monetized with YouTube Adsense. I’ll also sell digital products or affiliate offers through the description box. And if it actually grows, sponsors could be on the table too.

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YouTube is where I suggest Substack writers begin repurposing. I think YouTube also has amazing organic reach, and there’s (hopefully) a couple years left for small creators to make it on the platform.

You can also repurpose your articles by:

• Converting them into blog posts

• Republishing them on platforms like Medium (just set the canonical tag correctly)

• Turning your article into Tweets, notes, LinkedIn posts, or short-form social media bits

• Covering the same idea on a podcast

If you offer a high-ticket service, I think repurposing is even more valuable. You can push every piece of high-value content further, and even getting a couple hundred extra views could mean closing a lucrative client.

5. Own Up To Monetization

One thing I learned a long time ago in my process of making $1 million blogging is that you just have to own up to monetization.

When you monetize content, there’s an inevitable loss of user experience. This is especially true if you’re on platforms that enable display ads, pop-ups, or other in-your-face tactics.

Substack is pretty clean from a UI perspective. But still, people know when you’re selling to them. Some of them will get angry with you, or call you a scammer, or write mean and nasty things in the comments!

Ultimately, if you want to make money with your content, you need to promote yourself and play the game to some extent. I believe it’s better being honest about it rather than trying to hide affiliate links or to downplay what you’re offering. If you’re creating something of value, don’t be afraid to promote it!

6. Email List Diversity Is Worth Thinking About

This Substack monetization tip won’t apply to everyone depending on your niche or what you’re selling…But I want to mention it.

I read this great article by about how you might not own your Substack email list anymore.

The gist of it is that platforms are increasingly making it harder to export your subscribers. After all, it makes financial sense for them to lock you in as soon as possible so the cost of switching platforms is too painful.

Owning an email list is critical these days so your business doesn’t depend on algorithms…But if a platform takes away your control, you’re in a similar boat.

Personally, this is why I use Substack for my higher-value content and then ConvertKit for some of my heavy affiliate content or lower-ticket stuff.

With Substack, I’m building an audience that cares about digital marketing, starting businesses, entrepreneurship, and topics I really love. And it’s been a ton of fun so far.

But when I eventually funnel people to some of my content sites or main YouTube channel, which covers a broader range of online opportunities, I push people to ConvertKit,

This is honestly because I use ConvertKit to send out way more content that’s less valuable than my Substack content. But it’s monetized very well with affiliate links and other offers.

I’m still warming up my sending domain on ConvertKit, so the deliverability is meh. But if Substack ever gets weird or I want to pivot, I’ll have this sending domain and won’t be caught without any options.

Anyways, the takeaway here is that if you’re funneling some of your audience to other platforms, thinking about building a separate list might make sense.

Substack doesn’t have to be your only email platform. I like using it for this specific niche and for higher-value stuff, while sending out 20x the volume of emails with ConvertKit that make money every day.

I’ve been ramping up an old affiliate account again, and this one is now hitting $50 to $100 per day, with a lot of this traffic being driven from ConvertKit sends. And this is peanuts compared to what many affiliate marketers make with their email lists.

You can try ConvertKit free for 14 days to get started!

Extra Reading 👉 How To Start Affiliate Marketing On Substack.

7. People Are Right About Substack Notes…

Just a quick lesson I learned: people are right about consistent note posting on Substack being a key to growing.

I don’t have any unique insights here.

Just try to post once in the morning and one or two more times throughout the day if you have something worthwhile saying.

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Lately I haven’t had many inspiring thoughts. So I’ve been cheating by posting nice nature photos I take as a digital nomad 😂

8. Don’t Bother With The Fake ‘Like-For-Like’ Engagement Threads

One final thought about making money and growing on Substack.

I see some popular creators posting those “Hey everyone! I love you all so much! Let’s all drop our latest posts in this thread and engage with one another so we all grow together! 😍🙊🙉🙈” kind of posts on Substack. Yeah…Kumbaya.

This is one of the oldest, dirtiest tricks in the social media world.

It NEVER benefits anyone as much as the person posting the note/engagement thread. And in my experience, you basically never get any followers or traction by engaging with them.

In my experience, reaching out to people one-on-one to recommend each other’s Substack is a better approach.

A couple people have done this to me, so I actually haven’t done much outreach myself, but you end up with a mutually-beneficial arrangement this way that doesn’t require constant posting.

Final Thoughts

I hope this breakdown of my Substack revenue as a new creator has been helpful.

I’m very new to Substack. There are tons of people making way more money than me here, including many who rely on paid subscriptions.

But there are multiple ways to skin a cat, as they say. And that’s what I wanted to highlight in this post.

Also, if you’re against monetizing your Substack with these tactics, that’s totally fine too. Some writers don’t even monetize at all because this is a passion project or hobby. Also totally okay!

However, if you write online to try and make a living, I think these strategies will help.

I am convinced that the free, organic traffic we’re seeing now on Substack and certain platforms like YouTube won’t last forever. Maybe new platforms will pop-up where the gold rush begins again, but this kind of free attention rarely lasts long. So, I hope you can have fun, build an audience, create value, and monetize accordingly while the sun is shining!

And once again, if you want to chat about your organic content strategy or anything at all, you can always book a call and we can chat 😊👉 https://pillar.io/tomblakefinance

Thanks for reading as always.

I’ll catch you in the next one.

Tom from WiFi Wealth.

Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you sign up or make a purchase through these links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my work and writing.