- So, last week I talked about making money online
with T-shirts and hoodies
and how you can use websites like Teespring and Spreadshirt,
Shopify, all these print on demand websites.
And the reason that I like doing that video was because
one of the great feedback you guys had
in the comments of that video thank you so much for that,
but also because I think it's one of the most
realistic things you can do to make money online
as a beginner.
And that made me want to tell you guys a few stories today.
So, today I'm going to be talking about
how I got started making money online
and all the little things I used to do
with like eBay and some other print on demand websites
and also how I started making my first bit of money
with Amazon affiliate marketing
talking about budget camera gear.
So, today is it's less of a tips video
and more about what can you learn from my experiences
and what's realistic for a beginner.
Like how long does stuff take what can you expect?
How much money do you make as a beginner
when you have no audience no following because,
hint, I actually did all this stuff before YouTube.
Anyway, let's jump into the video.
Hey everybody, this is Roberto Blake
helping you create something awesome today.
Welcome back to the channel.
So, for the new people here, my name is Roberto Blake,
I'm a creative entrepreneur
and I teach people how to make things,
market them and monetize them here on the internet.
So, if you're into that thing, like and subscribe.
So yeah, let's do a little bit of a story time here.
I remember when I first started making money
using the internet,
I always had a side hustle as a teenager as a kid.
I'm not shocked that one of the most popular
types of videos on YouTube is
how to make money as a teenager.
If YouTube existed when I was a kid,
well, first of all,
I probably would have done something stupid
and ruined my life.
And then secondly, I would have probably been watching
those videos for how to make money online.
Because you know, it really wouldn't matter to me,
especially growing up, you know single mom younger siblings
money was something I always had anxiety about
for a very long time in my life in stop in my 20s.
It's something that I managed to get comfortable with
in my 30s It all starts with little things.
So, let's talk about some of the first ways
that I made money online as a beginner what I do.
Well, when I was younger, back in the day, back in my day,
it used to take 15 minutes for the internet to start up.
And I'm, I think I'm barely exaggerating on that one.
If you guys remember AOL,
you know, dial up DSL not a good time.
today's youth are spoiled with their high speed internet,
their WiFi, man, I would have literally
the things I would have done just to have
slightly faster internet I swear.
Anyway, so back when all that stuff was getting started.
I was an early adopter of eBay
and an early participant in what we now call Flip life
the thing that you know Gary Vee loves so much
and it's practical because I was able to do it as a kid
and so my hobby when I was a kid and isn't you know
this a little bit of a how much of a nerd I am,
I don't know if you guys noticed how much of a nerd I am.
So, I still have this hobby to this day.
Obviously, with quarantine, I don't get to get out and play.
This is something me and my brother were super into
a long time ago.
So, I used to sell YuGiOh and Magic the Gathering
and Pokemon cards on eBay.
I would sell them I would trade I would flip, okay?
So, I would also take some of those earnings
and I'd go out and buy packs and start the process
all over again.
So, that is how I started making money as a teenager
using the internet,
that I made money online as a teenager
with YuGiOh, Pokemon and Magic the Gathering
and to this day, I'm still a big old nerd,
rocking the blue eyes chaos max, all right?
So, that was one of those things
that I was able to get into fairly early.
And it taught me and introduced me
into the concept of making money online.
And doing early stage e-commerce,
and in my case, again, it was flipped life.
All right, but later, I actually got into doing
commission artwork on the internet.
There used to be these different types of websites
where you used to have contests
and you could do those kind of things.
And it's still very prevalent today.
So, I was an early adopter to a website called DeviantArt.
So DeviantArt, it's something
you may or may not be familiar with in
a lot of people do graphic design,
digital art, creative work over there,
and they attract the following.
This is all kind of pre social media, believe it or not.
This is still when online forums were a thing.
You guys remember online forums,
guys remember, Xsite online boards.
You remember Yahoo chat being a big deal.
That's the era of the internet I came from
one these days just for fun,
I know nobody will watch it.
But like, I like doing videos for me.
And like, well, these days, I'm gonna like, reminisce
and kind of like, look at the old internet
and see if any of these websites are still around.
And I'm kind of kind of maybe like roast
or write them or do a tear list.
I really want to do some videos.
And again, you tell me if you like this
in the comment section,
I wanna do some videos,
revisiting some of those old websites that I grew up with
and see if they're still around
and see like what is Angel fire look like today?
And let's maybe even look at and see if
we can find it in the Wayback Machine and compare it to now
like what is geo cities doing today?
like where are they now?
You know, I'm saying so.
That's just something weird I think would be fun.
But yeah, I used to do commission artwork
over on DeviantArt.
And eventually, I think even before college
I started selling shirts on cafe press,
and on zazzle.com.
zazzle.com is another one.
So, these Prints-On-Demand websites
for selling T-shirts online,
you could make money, it wasn't a lot,
but it's still like, again, $3 $5 for shirts.
By the way, I wasn't just selling shirts.
I was also doing typography.
When I went to college,
I went to college for graphic design and advertising.
And so, I was making these typographic posters at the time.
And so, I was making a few bucks off of those as well.
It's not just T-shirts and hoodies,
you can actually do things with your typography,
your illustrations, and so that's what I was doing.
And I was making money.
I'm an anime nerd, so on DeviantArt
I was doing some commissions for stuff like that.
And that's how I was making money as a teenager
and then in my early 20s,
with the internet before YouTube ever existed
before you could ever earn money from YouTube ad revenue.
Before you know people really knew what e-commerce was
before Shopify before all of it.
Before I knew about the Amazon affiliate program,
that's how I was making money online as a beginner
and like I said, it wasn't anything fantastic.
It wasn't anything that was allowed me to quit my day job
at the mall or whatever, but I was freelancing,
I was freelancing, and I was making good money from that.
And eventually, I would still do that in moonlight
throughout most of my corporate career as well
just, try not to do anything that violated my contract
if I couldn't do design stuff that I was doing photography
on the side finding clients locally,
also through the internet,
through local websites and things like that.
So, I was always hustling,
I was always trying to figure out
how to make that extra money,
because I really needed it because I was broke.
And I made a couple of videos talking about that experience.
In fact, I'll link you to my when I was broke playlist
of videos that I made talking about that.
And so yeah, that's how I was really doing it.
Now, back at that point in time,
you didn't have the websites that you have now
to do freelancing, so back then,
there wasn't Fiverr and there wasn't Upwork,
freelancer.com existed, and Upwork actually used to be
two different websites.
It Used to be oDesk, and it used to be Elance.
And I was like doing a lot of work whenever I could
on Upwork and on Elance.
I was making pretty decent money doing that kind of work.
And so, I was using every skill I had,
whether it was editing people's photos,
usually using Adobe software stuff that I had access to,
especially through the school.
And also I was doing a little bit of video editing
in the early days at that time,
believe it or not graphic design,
even helping people with websites
in the early days of WordPress,
because I could code
which was a very popular skill to have at that time.
You know, back when I was in college in 2002.
They didn't consider web design, a real profession,
if you can believe that.
Man, what a difference two decades makes.
So I mean, that gives you a sense of how fast
things can move, right?
But that's how I was getting started.
I was doing freelance work.
I was selling stuff on eBay from time to time.
And I never focused enough on any of this,
to make a living off of it.
But I do believe that if I had not been working at the mall
for $6 an hour, selling an hour of my life
for the equivalent of a Subway sandwich,
and then spending that money on food at the mall,
milkshakes, and gee, that those last two hours
I just worked to make 12 bucks,
I'm gonna put it directly into the food court.
And I'm going to trade two hours of my life
for this meal that like,
I mean, if I hadn't known any better if I thought about it,
I would have just tried to get five more sales on Zazzle
to make that same amount of money.
Or I would have kept mowing lawns
doing that and like an hour and a half to three hours,
I was making 50 to 60 bucks,
I would have just tried to get more lawn care clients,
instead of working at the mall
for $30 after a whole day 30 $40
and then spending half of it to eat lunch there.
And then the rest to hang out with my friends at the arcade,
I would have done it differently.
And that's kind of why I think
I make these videos even today
is what would it have been like
if I had access to all the cool stuff
that we have today, right?
And what if somebody, some random guy on the internet
had put any of these ideas in my head?
What would I have done with that?
What would I have done with the extra money
from selling YuGiOh cards?
What would I've done with that extra money
that would have made me more money
would have let me move away from working at the mall
and working maybe for myself
or being able to get the equipment
and gear that would let me work for
a more established photographer in town
because I knew my skills.
I had the right gear and I was spending more of my time
on photography and not spending those six or eight
or 10 hours at the mall.
What if I was spending all my time to polish a craft
that could give me a career and give me a trade
that made a decent living.
Instead of trading my time for money so often
for so very little money.
I always think about that,
and that's why I make this content.
Now, the thing I like about flipping and freelancing
is that basically anybody can do it.
I was able to do it as a teenager,
I was able to get commissioned artwork as a teenager,
and I was able to, sell YuGiOh and Magic Cards
as a teenager, and I was able to do freelance work,
again, for people from ages 17 through my 20s
and those opportunities still exist today.
And you could make money doing those things.
Zazzle, cafe press, Spreadshirt, Teespring
people are making good money from this.
When you flip these things online
when you sell shirts online print on demand,
like I told you in my specific video about this,
I'll link to it down below on selling t shirts.
You make like five to $7 depending on how you price
and depending on what website you're using.
So, you have those opportunities make money.
The print on demand side of posters, though
and graphic design artwork and phone covers
and all these other things, though,
that's really interesting.
And there's a lot of good money and margins there.
And you just have to have the actual talent and ability
to make something cool that people would want to buy.
And if you make it nice specific,
that's a really good hack for making more money with it.
Now, in terms of Amazon affiliate marketing,
like in my prime with Amazon affiliate marketing
when I had a very small audience compared
to what I have now on YouTube,
I was actually making really good money
because I actually figured out that
the margins on budget camera gear and budget laptops
were really good.
I was making 20 and $30 Commission's on every single sale,
which meant that
by the time I made a certain amount of content,
I was able to do very well that my first month on Amazon,
I only made $12 but within about six or seven months,
I was making upwards of $600 a month on Amazon
because I had more content.
And that was the key.
I had enough content to get clicks
by doing these camera reviews and product reviews,
and it mattered.
And I ultimately was reaching people who were real buyers
and looking for the best deal for that budget.
So that gear, those cameras and laptops under $1,000
made all the difference in the world for those people.
And it was able to help me to earn more money.
And eventually I started making about,
1200 dollars a month on Amazon consistently.
Now that ended up going away
because around the time that Linus Tech Tips
got knocked out of the Amazon affiliate program,
they got back in,
but me and a few other YouTubers we got knocked out
for the same reasons.
We weren't really doing anything horrible wrong.
It literally was just them really being specific
about the language and words you use for your disclosures.
And that's why I made the template based on exactly
what they say to disclose and how they wanted
and no trading out the words and stuff like that
I made it exact.
And so, that's what's in the descriptions of all my videos,
and that eventually I was able to get
back into the partner program.
I guess I wasn't a big enough YouTuber
for them to just like take care of that
when I updated all my links,
and so, I'm happy for Linus, but a lot of us at that time,
same time got kicked out of the program with no way back.
And so, now some of us got back in,
there's a couple of people I know who still
haven't been able to get back into Amazon,
and it sucks but that's why I talk about
diversifying your revenue streams
and doing these different things you can make money
because what if one of them goes away?
I try to plan so that I'm not relying
on my YouTube ad revenue,
my revenue from the affiliate links by the way,
links to all my camera gear
and budget YouTube gear for you guys
link down below check those out.
Those helped the channel.
Yeah, I try to make sure that I have
all these different income sources
so that if one thing or two things go away,
I'm not gonna be dramatically uncomfortable,
I'm not gonna be happy about it.
But I figured this out because
sometimes those things happen in life,
if you've ever been fired from a job,
and a lot of you might be experiencing this right now,
you know that one income source, one income stream
is very anxiety inducing.
And that's why I make this content.
I've already been through it.
I've been a broke kid struggling all the way
through my teens, through my 20s.
And I've known what it is to lose a job before
one way or the other.
And so, when I've seen those things,
while I've lived those things, I try to say,
Well, what would I have liked to know?
What do I wish somebody had just told me,
that would have made a difference in my life,
because maybe I would have done things
a little bit differently.
So, that's what I do on this channel.
And that's why I try to share some of my story with you.
So, now you know how I made money online as a beginner.
You know how I made money online as a teenager,
and you know a little bit more about me,
maybe, you know a little bit about how much of a nerd I am?
If nothing else, all right?
Question of the day.
What content could I make that would help you
be more successful where you're at right now?
Do you need more specific scenarios around
how to make money online?
And do it in different ways?
Let me know in the comments,
and I'll try and make some more of these videos for you.
Anyway, like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
In fact, do me a quick favor.
I'm testing something out.
Let's see if we can get this video to 1500 likes,
I'd really appreciate that.
As always you guys, thanks so very much for watching
and don't forget,
go out there and create something awesome today, take care.
(chill beat music)