Actually the answer to this question is the same regardless of age.
What I would do if I was a broke 40 year old is the same as what I would do if I was a broke 30 year old is the same as what I would do if I was a broke 20 year old.
Just because you are older does not mean that you’ve unlocked any new, secret, or faster ways of making money. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.
With that clear, there are two ways you can make money (from the internet):
- Ways that cost money to make money (like affiliate marketing, e-com, etc.)
- Ways that let you make money with little to no investment (influencer marketing, service based businesses, etc.)
In the spirit of the question, I’ll also assume that I have no experience with anything so creating something content based (like this blog) is impossible.
If you think you can make content without experience, you’re either an overconfident idiot or merely ignorant. Try recording a 10 minute video on your phone on a topic you don’t know much about (say business or bitcoin) and see what you end up with.
Cutting it short, the only real option I have if I was a broke 20 year old is building some sort of service based online business.
What I would do is learn ANY kind of high demand skill. I’m not trying to make SpaceX 2.0 if I’m broke. I’m just trying to supplement my income to 3-10k a month so I have some breathing space.
My options are:
- Web design
- Graphic design
- Copywriting
- Programming
- ANYTHING ELSE THAT PAYS
I would pick any one of them and master it. These skills are not super hard and do not take years for you to get good enough to make a dime with them.
I would put in all my free time into my chosen skill for 3-6 months to get GOOD at it.
Then after I know it well enough, I’d spend 3-6 months COLD EMAILING and SENDING DMs non stop till I get a client.
Now I’ve done this before (many times actually for every service business I built – like Copyright Samurai), as has pretty much anyone else who’s starting out with any service based internet business. It’s grueling.
I cover exactly how to do it in my free guide No-BS WiFi Money which all of you already have a copy of.
It can take an entire month or two of sending pitches (think hundreds) to get your first client which feels draining (and demotivating) but hey, when you’re broke, you gotta do the grunt work.
Once you get your first few clients (and testimonials) the game becomes much easier. People are more receptive and some referral business starts to show up. I’m pulling about $1000 a month at this point.
From here it’s only a matter of time. Just need to build a client base.
In a year I can get to $2500 a month consistently. In 3 years $5000 a month is normal. I’ve done this many times so I know.
People online tend to think they’ll make $10k in 3 months but the reality is that it takes 2-3 years to hit to even $5k consistently. For most service based businesses it takes about 5 years to hit $10k consistently (freak months don’t count).
Once you get there your life changes. You have money to pump into the business to really scale it. You can even quit your job and do it full time (so far you were just doing the online stuff part time after work).
So yeah, that is what I would do if I was a broke 20 year old. Or a broke 30 year old. Or a broke 40 year old.
It’s going to take a couple years to set everything up and is a lot of work.
But truth be told, it’s a lot better to work hard for yourself than to work harder for a faceless corporation that couldn’t care less if you were dead (and for pennies on the dollar).
The main thing is that you need to be willing to work really hard for a few years. You need to bet on yourself. That you can make it.
Most people are pussies. They are afraid of failure so they just put all their efforts into their job to get that meaningless 4% raise. That’s why they never get anywhere in life.
It’s not that they aren’t working hard. They are. They have grueling days and sometimes they work late at night for their employers.
The problem is that they’re working hard at something they do not have equity in. Because they are pussies and do not want to take the risk of putting in work without guaranteed results.
As exemplified by a reply I received to an email announcing our upcoming copywriting course by my copywriter Ash:
If you want guarantees that something should “always work”, you need to get a job because business isn’t for you.
Now I could lie to you and tell you our upcoming copywriting course will “always work” but that’s not how this blog operates.
The LMM promise: I only make money by honorable means.
Nothing “always works”.
There are things that work most of the time (service based businesses are one of them) and and things that work very rarely (tech companies).
You have to understand… in life you need to take smart risks. When you are broke, you need to to try the easy stuff that works most of the time (if it doesn’t work out, you just try a different service).
Small risk but 80% success rate is great especially when you’re just doing it from your home and aren’t investing thousands of dollars in inventory, ads, and rent. If it doesn’t work after a year, just pick another service and repeat.
Most people are pussy to the point that they think an 80% chance of success is also “too risky” (words don’t matter, look at their actions). So they stick to working hard at their job.
When you work a job, you make little money but also have little risk. It’s only a little better than being a chattel slave.
It’s not even low risk because people are being fired left and right because of the economy and coming of AI (many online businesses are safer than modern corporate jobs but that’s a different article for a different day).
Eh well. Such is life. Not everyone makes it. Some people are born to be paper pushers, teeth cleaners, and boss’s ass lickers. We need them too.
As the boys at Bow Tied Island say “Equal opportunity, Unequal Results”.
– Harsh Strongman
