First and foremost, though, let me tell you how I got here
From December 2022 to June 2023, I was unemployed and recovering from a pretty severe burnout crisis.
I was lucky enough that I could count on my partner when we were living together, and on my family, for emotional and financial support. Nonetheless, I still wanted my own money again.
While I felt I was not necessarily ready to return to an office-type job or even corporate, I decided I would try dabbling into starting something of my own.
And I tried a bunch of stuff by either doing it or researching about it.
That was the first time I'd heard of affiliate marketing, how adsense works, how to set up a digital product, how to sell a digital product, micro-tasking, email list building, how blogging worked, faceless Instagram accounts, how Meta Ads, Google Ads and Tiktok Ads worked, selling those services, you name it.
I started a Tiktok theme page to mess around with Ads, learn how it works, and what gave the most results. I managed to reach 1,6k followers but the way I was told to do it, posting 3 times a day, was simply unsustainable. Plus, I don't really like Tiktok, so there's that.
I started posting affiliate links in Quora answers and Tiktok videos. I was watching tutorial after tutorial on how to grow fast on social media and sell affiliate content, I was writing small ebooks as freebies in exchange for people's emails, because I had learned from this video that that's how you'll make the most amount of sales.
I was also expecting super fast results while being a complete and total beginner. Because that was what I had been sold. Overnight success, life-changing money.
Before finally starting this blog and slowly shifting my mindset, I also started a Canva template shop at the Etsy equivalent in my country.
There, I would sell templates geared towards other small businesses, such as thank you cards, invoices, planners, weekly trackers, etc... I learned to design them by myself after watching a ton of YouTube tutorials and they were very simple, but I was proud of them.
I spent maybe a month posting one new listing every day (learned it from this lovely channel) and then fell out of it too. By the time that happened, I had only made one sale, to my mother (thanks mom).
Back to my first online sale
I decided to keep the shop open and would check my email notifications for it sometimes, but as time went on, nothing came out of it.
Fast forward a bit over a year later, I'm in the middle of the workday when I go check my phone and there it was: a brand new sale.
At first, I was very confused. Did I make a purchase and completely forget about it? But no, it was an actual sale. I hurried to my shop account, quickly got the Canva template link, sent it through email and fulfilled the order. That's it, 5 minutes and it was done. And I got 2 dollars for it.
That reignited something in me. I've wanted to start my own business for the longest time and have openly talked about it with several people in my life. When I made that sale, I realized I had already done it, but I still needed something that would give me the results I was looking for.
The difference now is that I know what to expect and most importantly, what NOT to expect.
I've said it once and I'll say it again: Overnight success does not exist.
Not without the previous tries and work put into it. And I know that now.
Businesses are marathons, not sprints. And one year doesn't make you an expert, but it can get you pretty far.
I know the direction I'm going now, and I like it.
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