My Failure Stories of Trying to Make Money Online

Lessons from making next to $0 on four different platforms

Who doesn’t want to make some extra cash online? Sitting at home on the sofa, clicking buttons, and money coming to your bank account. It’s the dream for every lazy Millennial like myself.

It’s not so easy though.

I’ve gone through a bunch of websites trying to make a quick buck. However, without any tremendous success. If you decide to keep on reading, you may at least, learn from my failures.

You probably know Fiverr. It’s not great. Too many people working for too little. That’s their motto.

Of course, I tried it. I didn’t have much to lose…only time.

Why is Fiverr so bad?

It’s the whole concept. Most clients there would expect you to meet their unrealistic expectations for a laughable amount of money. Unless you’re in an underdeveloped country or you’re already a well-established specialist on the site, it will most likely be a waste of time.

The market on Fiverr is saturated and you can find hundreds of well-rated experts on all the popular topics. Many of the people offering gigs are also living in countries in Asia where even a few dollars can make you a living. I have nothing against that, but if you are in a western country it might not be worth trying to work at these low rates.

One of the solutions will be to have gigs with much higher rates in comparison to the average in exchange for your superior work. Of course, only if you have the talent or the years of experience which even then will not guarantee you success.

It’s a tough life in the freelancing world.

Especially for beginners or someone who hasn’t built any following, Fiverr is going to be a long road finding success.

There will always be some exceptions. Perhaps, if you are super talented in a specific area and you just crush the competitors with a great product. Or if you are in a small niche that is still growing. Doing a voice over was one of them, for all the native Englishmen. I’m not sure if it’s still the case.

Anyway, I tried Fiverr for a few months with sending offers here and there. I didn’t take it that seriously, which resulted in zero success.

Earnings: $0

I can probably just copy and paste the same text from Fiverr and it will be relevant for Upwork.

Ok, there are some differences, Upwork is a bit higher level, but in the end, it’s the same nightmare for freelancers.

You go after clients with high expectations and no budget, and at the same time compete with a hundred other freelancers who try to undervalue each other service.

Most gigs get 30–50 proposals within minutes. You need to outdo them and offer something better and cheaper. Or have a name on the platform.

I am not trying to just whine against the system or against these sites, it’s just the reality if you are trying to join a highly competitive online market. Those people who make good money on Upwork or Fiverr wouldn’t just let you come and steal their business.

For some of them, it’s a way to earn their living and I don’t blame anybody. For a side hustle, it wasn’t really worth trying so hard.

You can also read some nightmare stories from people who got their accounts closed for stupid reasons, which is another problem. These freelancer sites have control over your account and they’re the ones setting the rules. If they don’t like something that you’re doing, nothing really stops them from simply banning you.

Thousands of hours of work and efforts, and building a personal brand could go off the window in one second if some moderator finds a reason to ban you. It’s a risk that you should know while signing up.

Well, similar to Fiverr, I gave it a chance, but it didn’t work out for me.

Earnings: $0

Make money with blogging? haha. How naive.

There are millions of blog posts every day. Until I finish writing this story, one-two million new blogs will pop up. I’m also a slow writer.

The blogging itself doesn’t make you money. Advertisements or a product offered through the blog is what can bring you an additional income. Referrals to other websites are also an option.

The thing is that you need a lot of visitors that come to your blog. It’s a whole brand building story where you need to invest in popularizing whatever blog you got.

In my case, it was just a blog on Blogger, previously known as Blogspot. Blogger had its days as a platform, but those days are long gone.

It’s not so bad for a free platform, but it’s not great. You have the most simple and ugly design that you can get. Compared to a well-designed WordPress website, the difference is night and day.

I tried Blogger because I’m cheap and didn’t want to invest any money into buying a domain, building a website, and maintaining it. Maybe in the future when I develop my great writing skills (which won’t be so soon!)

Blogger gives you the option to add AdSense to your blog and start customizing ads and earning money. Last time I checked, AdSense was still setting up my account. It takes up to two weeks according to them. Or in my case a few months. Something is stuck there, I guess.

I wouldn’t recommend Blogger to anybody, just because it’s terrible to write on or read. I don’t know anybody who reads blogs coming from Blogger, not since 2006.

As you can already understand, I didn’t make even a cent from Blogger or AdSense. I wonder what percent of the people earn anything from these two. I’m sure it’s not high.

Earnings: $0

As we are on Medium, I can’t talk about it. Some people make money here. Big bucks! Not me.

In all seriousness, I like writing on Medium. The user interface is nice and clean. Easy to write and easy to read. It has a huge visitor base and you can even get paid for writing. It has all I want from a platform for writers.

You have to give a few compliments when they’re deserved. Of course, Medium has its drawbacks, nothing is perfect. You know about them.

They had to add the monthly subscription to make more money, but it’s only $5/month. Not much for most people. I am not subscribed. I read some free stories and write from time to time, and I don’t really need the subscription. Yes, it will be cool to read some more, but that’s life.

How much do they pay writers is the big question?

Not much is the short answer. They have a complicated model of claps linked to your stories that are published behind a paywall. Writers can choose whether to publish them for free or not.

Some claps can give you more money, depending on how often the person who is subscribed claps. You can find some articles here describing it in detail.

Medium is my favorite place to write and I would be super happy to earn some extra cash for a beer or two, but I don’t even publish my stories behind a paywall.

First, I don’t think I offer such high-quality writing that people should pay to read it.

Second, I get almost no views anyway.

Third, I actually made a few stories eligible to earn money, which contradicts my first point, but I saw how little Medium pays when you don’t have any followers and your stories get 30 views at most.

Fourth, writers should first get people to read them, a couple of thousands of followers under their account. Start getting a good amount of views and reads every day, and then try to earn money from it.

I’ve read stories of writers making a few thousand per month here, but it’s less than 1% of the total amount of writers that regularly post.

Earnings: $0,35

Trying to earn money online on the side can be a little discouraging. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

Even if you keep making $0 money month after month, you develop skills in the process that might come beneficial one day. Or, you just suck at what you are doing. But, you will suck less with each day.

Even if my whole story seems a little negative, my main message is to stay positive, keep trying, and have fun in the process.

I didn’t dedicate my full time to the above-mentioned failures. I have a normal job that I like and keeps me busy every day.

These side activities were just side activities. I do them whenever I have the time and energy to do so.

There are other things that I didn’t talk about that can actually bring you some extra income like doing online surveys, tests, watching ads, mobile apps, and so on.

Perhaps I will write a success story one day…or maybe another one with Great Failures!

Peace.