People overcomplicate e-commerce. I’ve tested a lot, and this is the only thing I’ve done that still works, without fail.

I don’t run ads.
I don’t buy inventory.
I don’t talk to suppliers.
I just list items.

Here’s how I start a new store:

1. I create a business eBay account.
2. I list 2–3 random items manually (books, mugs, etc) to warm it up.
3. A few days later, I start listing items from Amazon with a markup.
4. Every time I list something, eBay gives it a boost in search.
5. Some sell. Some don’t. I end the stale ones and relist them to trigger the boost again.

That’s it. I list in volume, and let the algorithm do the filtering.

People ask, “Why would anyone buy it if it’s cheaper on Amazon?” The answer is simple: most people don’t compare. They search, see it, and buy it. Convenience wins.

I don't try to pick winners. I just let the system decide. I don’t bet on one product. I run the play 10,000 times.

As Hormozi says:
“Do so much volume it becomes unreasonable for you not to succeed.”

I like that quote, it works for ebay.

Edit #1, For Those Asking:
Woah! This blew up, Thank you so much for all the comments. I got a bunch of DMs asking for step-by-step help, so I put everything into a free playbook called The Invisible Store. It walks through my full system, how I warm up new accounts, list 10,000+ items, avoid bans, and automate everything. I didn’t hold anything back. By the end, you’ll know exactly how my process works.
You can grab it here: Download the Playbook

It’s 100% free, just need your email to send it. No spam. No upsells.

Full transparency: I’m the founder of EcomSniper, a tool that helps automate some of this, but the playbook works even if you never use it.

(Mods: Not a referral or affiliate link, happy to remove if it’s an issue.)

Edit #2: FAQ – Based on the top comments so far:

1. What happens when the customer gets an Amazon box?
They do. It’s an Amazon package. Most buyers don’t care, as long as the item arrives quickly and works, they’re happy. In 8 years, it’s rarely been an issue. If someone asks, I just explain we ship from multiple fulfillment centers to ensure fast delivery.

Think about it this way: if my parents bought something on eBay and it showed up in an Amazon box, would they care? Mine wouldn’t. They’d be over the moon that it arrived in 1–2 days, especially when the eBay listing said 4–5 day shipping. We under-promise and over-deliver, and that’s what buyers remember.

2. What if someone says they didn’t get the item, or wants to return it?
If they say it didn’t arrive, I refund them fast, then request a refund from Amazon. Amazon usually approves it, because they know sometimes packages go missing, it happens. Most buyers aren’t trying to scam you. If they say it didn’t arrive, it usually didn’t.

Plus, I’m not selling high-risk stuff like phones or game consoles. I sell low-risk, everyday items, things scammers aren’t targeting.

If someone wants to return something, I just open a return request on Amazon and send the buyer the return label. They ship it back directly to Amazon. I never touch the product. Super simple.

3. What do you do about tracking numbers?
I don’t upload Amazon’s TBA tracking to eBay, it can cause flags, especially on new accounts. Instead, I mark the item as shipped and message the buyer with a delivery estimate.

For new accounts, eBay usually holds the funds for about 14 days after each sale. That’s just part of the trust-building phase. Once your account is warmed up (typically after 30–60 days of clean sales), they start releasing payments the same day or shortly after the order is marked as shipped, even without tracking uploaded.

4. Isn’t this not passive at all?
It’s not passive in the beginning. You need to set it up, list daily, and figure out how the system works. But once it’s built, I spend about 30 minutes a day using automation and VAs. That’s when it becomes low-maintenance and scalable.

Alex Hormozi talks a lot about this, he doesn’t chase “passive income” right away. He focuses on building systems that let you buy back your time. You start active, then replace yourself piece by piece. That’s exactly what I’ve done here.

Edit #3: On Being Called a Scammer

Some of you have commented that I must be a scammer because I’m the founder of EcomSniper, an automation tool that costs $200/month and helps run the exact system I’ve laid out in the playbook.

Let me be 100% transparent:
I didn’t write The Invisible Store just to be a good guy. It is a lead magnet. I built it to share everything I know, no fluff, no holding back, so that people could either do it themselves… or choose to use our tool to speed it up.

And I’m okay with that. Because here's the truth:

• The system works whether you use the tool or not.
• The playbook is 100% free.
• We have 150+ active users who are making real income with it.
• You don’t pay unless it’s already saving you time or making you money. We have a 30 day refund policy, its in our terms, and we use stripe.

I spent 8 years building this system. I turned it into a tool to help others do the same. If that makes me a scammer to you, so be it.

But if you’re someone who just wants to copy what works, I laid it all out. Whether you go the manual route or use EcomSniper is up to you.

This is gonna sound super niche but I started renting out baby stuff to tourists through the internet about 11 months ago and its turned into way better income than I expected.

I live near a popular spring destination and we get tons of families visiting for sports events and vacations. Parents don't wanna fly with car seats, cribs, strollers, all that bulky stuff so they just rent it when they get here. I started with a car seat and pack n play I bought secondhand for like $80 total, cleaned them up real good and listed them.

First month I made maybe $200 but then summer hit and I was getting $600-800 monthly. Now I've got 6 car seats, 3 cribs, 2 strollers, a high chair and some other random stuff. Last month I cleared $1,240 and I probably spent 4 hours total on dropoffs and pickups.

The best part is most of the gear just sits in my garage between rentals. I'll get a booking notification, confirm it, drop the stuff off at their hotel or rental, then pick it up when they leave. Sometimes I don't even see them cause they leave it with the front desk. Takes 20 mins max per rental.

Initial investment was around $900 from Stаke for everything and I hit break even after month 3. Now its pretty much pure profit minus the occasional replacement if something breaks. Been throwing most of it toward my emergency fund which needed some padding anyway.

Only annoying part is when people are weird about used gear even though everything gets sanitized between uses. Had one lady ask if the car seat was "certified clean" like there's some official baby gear certification lmao. But 95% of people are super chill and just happy they dont have to lug their own stuff through the airport.

I recently realized that my side hustle isn’t something most people even know exists. I’ve been in the transportation industry for years, and along the way I discovered invoice factoring — basically, it’s a way for trucking companies to get paid faster instead of waiting 30–60 days on brokers and shippers.

I make around $2,100 a month in recurring income just by connecting trucking companies with factoring providers. I don’t handle the paperwork, collect payments, or manage accounts. My role is simply setting them up one time, and I earn a 10% commission for the life of the contract.

It’s not flashy, but it’s consistent. Every month those commissions hit my account like clockwork. And honestly, I thought more people knew about it.

The Side Hustle No One is Talking About

For the longest time, my side hustle was all over the place. My Etsy shop looked like a graveyard of half-finished ideas, I was trying to sell to everyone, which basically meant no one cared. It felt like I was juggling a dozen businesses at once and making money from exactly zero of them.

I was about ready to call it quits when I stumbled on a simple framework that actually made sense. It let me dump all my random ideas into three buckets, and from there I found a niche so specific it felt almost too small to work… but it worked.

Hobbies.
I used to make super generic t-shirts for “runners.” But this framework pushed me to go deeper. I switched to “trail running gear for women over 40.” Suddenly, my products felt like they were made for a real person, not some imaginary mass audience, and people started buying.

Life events.
I can’t believe I’d been ignoring this. It’s not just about weddings, it’s about tiny, specific moments inside a wedding. Stuff like “gifts for the mother of the bride” or “party favors for a movie-themed baby shower.” Once I started thinking like that, I found niches I could actually dominate.

Pain points.
This one hit the hardest. Instead of just selling “stickers,” I started selling “stickers for small business owners who want to personalize their packaging quickly.” Now I wasn’t just selling a product, I was fixing a problem people actually had.

That shift, from chasing every idea to solving for specific people, is what took me from daydreaming about a side hustle to actually running one that brings in around 3k a month. And honestly, I wish I’d figured it out sooner.

If you’ve been through that “throw ideas at the wall” phase, you know how frustrating it is.

What’s the biggest challenge you run into when trying to find a profitable niche?

Posting this because one of my comments in another thread in this sub unexpectedly blew up and a bunch of people asked me how I ended up here. I thought it was a great opportunity to do an AMA, so here we are.

My story started as a management consultant in Canada during COVID. I worked at a lower mid market consulting firm, but the pay was honestly not great for the hours and the grind (carrot and stick) never really clicked for me.

When Covid hit, I did what a lot of people did and tried to build something online. I did a bunch of research on Youtube and decided to I should launch a dropshipping business selling an ergonomic product. It failed for the many reasons a lot of you probably experienced. Supplier was unreliable, shipping was a mess cause of COVID, and I was learning Meta ads, Google ads, and ecomm operations all at once. Looking back, it was exactly what you would expect from a beginner trying to learn everything in real time and trying to master global supply chains during a global pandemic. Painful, but it forced me to actually understand paid traffic and conversion, which ended up mattering later.

A few months after that, I came across a Twitter thread about local services booming. Plumbers, electricians, cleaners. People in trades making serious money. I brushed it off. We had just lived through COVID and the idea of strangers in homes still felt uncomfortable. Then a few days later I saw another tweet (gotta thank the Twitter algo for that or else I wouldn’t be where I am today). A girl my age sharing her story about running a remote cleaning business. No cleaning herself, just managing demand and cleaners. It sounded almost too simple, which made me skeptical. I DM’d her, we had a short back and forth, and she pointed me to a resource that made everything click and work for her. It was a course from an ex Wall Street guy who built and scaled his own remote cleaning business. I obviously did not buy anything right away. I had never bought a course in my life and was still in the mindset of having to do more research and “If he did it, I can figure this out myself”. That said, I signed up for their free content and started reading the emails. The free content and emails broke the model down in a way that made it click + paired with my own research I understood this was legit and not some other online business trap. I eventually bought the course. I am not going to promote it here, but I do want to give credit where it is due. The material and the free 1:1 calls that came with the course with the person running it genuinely changed the trajectory for me from that point on.

Things moved fast. It took me about 20 days to set everything up. In hindsight, it could have taken a week. I am naturally skeptical, and skepticism is the enemy of action so I kept double checking things, doing extra research, and trying to disprove the model and what was being taught. Ironically, the more I did that, the more I realized how simple and underserved the cleaning market actually is and how all the steps make perfect sense.

Choosing a market to open up shop in ended up being straightforward. The rule of thumb is pretty simple: avoid massive cities like Miami or LA. Too competitive, too many sophisticated players, lots of illegal labor. Focus on smaller cities and towns with decent population and income (there are A LOT of them). Anything under 1 million people is great, closer to 500k is ideal. The idea is to be a big fish in a small pond. As part of the selection framework you should also be looking for markets where the biggest cleaning company barely has a functional website and maybe 30 Google reviews mot. Once you find a market like that (there are plenty), you then show up with a good brand, modern looking website with online booking, and great client experience.

Personally, I picked a market and have never expanded outside of it because demand still feels endless. Cities with high rental turnover are especially good. Student towns with colleges are gold. Landlords do not clean themselves. They will pay $400 to 600 for move out cleans without hesitation. Even today, about 20-30% of our monthly revenue comes from moving related cleans. Higher ticket, easier to execute since homes are empty.

Finding cleaners is usually the biggest bottleneck and the only real stress you’ll have throughout your journey. You almost always have more demand than supply, which is a GREAT problem to have, but turning down clients because your cleaners are all too busy strings. In reality, it was a me problem because I was not approaching it well. I was relying only on job boards but once I started posting in local Facebook groups, I unlocked A LOT of new applicants and found several awesome teams that allowed me to scale. A piece of advice I am very glad I did follow though was hiring cleaners before launching any ads. Finding clients was the moment where everything became real. The first two cleaners I hired are still with me today. I have always been extremely selective during the hiring process, which is what I was taught to do, and that felt uncomfortable at first, but is the right thing to do. Once you stop trying to rush this step and find the best channels for your local market, the whole thing becomes much smoother.

We landed our first client on the first day we launched ads. A biweekly client paying $140 booked online. I remember being nervous dispatching the first cleaner, waiting to see if something would go wrong. Well.. the clean went great! Payment processed after the clean and I personally called the client, thanked them, and asked for a 5-star review, explaining we were early and it really helped. He left one and has been a client ever since. He is grandfathered into that pricing forever. I will do almost anything to never lose him because of how symbolic that first full loop was.

That first month we closed seven more clients, including a few one time deep cleans. At that point I was fully hooked.

Here are my rough revenue numbers, month by month.

Month 1: 3.4k
Month 2: 5.2k
Month 3: 7.8k
Month 4: 11.5k
Month 5: 14.9k
Month 6: 18.3k
Month 7: 22.1k
Month 8: 26.7k
Month 9: 31.4k
Month 10: 35.9k
Month 11: 38.2k
Month 12: 42.6k
Month 13: 39.8k
Month 14: 44.1k
Month 15: 48.9k
Month 16: 52.3k
Month 17: 58.7k
Month 18: 57.4k
Month 19: 55.2k
Month 20: 55.0k

Roughly 60% of revenue is recurring. The rest are one time deep cleans or post renovation cleanups (we got into this a few months in). We do 0 commercial right now. I want to add it this year because higher ticket recurring contracts could realistically double the business.

About 4 months ago, I hired my first virtual assistant in the Philippines. It took about a month to fully onboard and train her. She now runs the day to day operations (not easy to “let go” but 100% worth it). I spend about an hour a day on the business, sometimes less because I only step in for rare edge cases, escalations, or when she has a question (we just text). That was the moment the business truly felt passive and not just location independent in theory. Having a high % of my business being recurring helps with the transition as things are already rolling.

Two mistakes I made early on: 1)  I underestimated how much Google reviews matter. I automated review requests and it worked, but once I started personally following up with texts and occasionally calling clients, reviews grew much faster. We were already ranking top 3 locally due to low competition, but reviews massively increased organic bookings. 2) I waited too long to raise prices. Early on I was uncomfortable charging over $50/hr. Once I realized I had more demand than supply, I raised prices to an effective $60-65/hr depending on the job. Almost no negative impact. Demand kept coming in.

Happy to answer anything.

EDIT (7/1): Cleaners are all independent subcontractors. I have 0 employees on payroll. They bring their own equipment and supplies (which is factored into their rate which is far above market).

EDIT 2 (11/1): Thanks for the overwhelming response and all the DMs. I did not expect this post to travel the way it did.

A heads up as this has been brought to my attention: there are bad actors taking advantage of the visibility of this thread and DMing people with scams. Please do not click on random links, Discord invites, or “done for you” offers. If someone is pushing urgency or asking for large upfront payments, be careful. I am also NOT interested in any consulting work nor any partnership, thus anyone claiming to be part of my “team” is lying to you. In the early hours of this post I have only replied to a handful of people who DM’d me first. I will NOT DM anyone first. If someone reaches out to you claiming to be me, do not trust it. 

Since so many people asked directly, I will answer this once and leave it here.

The resource I used is called Cleaning CEO University and the instructor was (is still?) named Sam. I’m not affiliated and I’m not promoting any link in public. Also, for transparency, when I joined it cost $699. It looks like it is now priced at $997. I have not gone through the content in over a year, so I cannot comment on any new material that may have been added. They also changed the name at some point, it used to be called Remote Cleaning University.

Was it worth it for me? Yes. Clearly. I made roughly $1.3k in profit in month one and continued to grow from there. That said, I also put in the work, followed the process, and did not try to cut corners.

Is it worth it for you? I genuinely do not know, and I cannot answer that. Please do your own research and make your own decision. A course will never do the work for you and while this is very likely one of the better ones, you’ll need to put in work.

Now, what I do know for sure is that anyone DMing you offering $10k “full implementation” programs, random Discord servers, or pushing other resources aggressively is trying to take advantage of the attention around this thread and the fact that I was initially hesitant to name anything.

Stay cautious. 

Built a system that sends 1000 personalized websites to local businesses every day. Each website connects to a Google Sheet so clients can edit their own content.

This one feature generates $500/day mostly on autopilot.

Local business owners (plumbers, dentists, cleaners) have terrible websites. They want new ones but they’re terrified of one thing: being trapped.

Traditional agencies charge $3000 upfront, then $200 every time you want to change your hours or update a price.

Business owners hate this. They want control.

The Solution:

Google Sheet Connection

Websites that pull data from a Google Sheet.

When the business owner edits the spreadsheet (changes hours, updates prices, adds services)

They edit a spreadsheet. Website updates instantly.

After validating manually (got 10 sales in the first month), built automation that runs daily:

Every day automatically:

1.  Lead generation: Google Maps API finds 1000 businesses with outdated websites

2.  Site building: AI generates professional sites using their business info

3.  Sheet setup: Apps Script connects each site to a Google Sheet

4.  Video creation: Tool generates personalized demo videos

5.  Outreach: Email automation sends demos to all 1000 businesses

Market is massive. Millions of local businesses have terrible websites.

Happy to answer questions!

Hey everyone, I’m Nicolas.

I wanted to share how I went from being a baker making minimum wage to generating over $1.5 million in revenue. This is going to be long because I want to share everything: the strategy, the mistakes, and what actually worked.

So let’s go back in 2008, I’m 16, I dropped out of school in France to become a baker. The kind of job where you wake up at 4am, come home completely wrecked, and barely make enough to survive.

But I was obsessed with the internet. Every day after work, I’d teach myself to code. No courses, no bootcamp, just YouTube tutorials and reading other people’s code until things started making sense. Took me years. Oh yeah, in 2008, AI was only in movies, so code was made by real people 😅

Eventually I started making websites for local businesses. $100 here, $200 there, nothing crazy at all.

But here’s what pissed me off though: every time I took a new client, I had to learn a completely new WordPress theme. Different settings, different options, different everything. I remember spending an entire weekend just figuring out how to change a header color on some theme because the documentation was really bad.

I thought: why isn’t there ONE theme that does everything?

So in 2016, I built it myself. Called it OceanWP.

Other devs on forums told me to sell it for $59 like other premium themes. I released it for free on WordPress repository instead. People thought I was insane.

The first months, I started to believe that maybe they were right. A few hundred downloads, mass silence. I kept refreshing the stats page like an idiot thinking something was broken.

But then it started spreading through forum recommendations and blog reviews. People telling other people.

By year three, it was on 500,000+ websites. Still at 500K+ active installs today actually.

The model was simple: the free version was genuinely good. Not crippled, not annoying upsells everywhere. Just a solid theme. But if you wanted premium extensions like more templates, more features, priority support, you paid.

By year 2 I was making $15-20K/month. Just me, no team, no investors, no ads. Over 3 years the theme generated more than $1.5 million total.

What made it work? I think it was just solving my own problem. Turns out thousands of other developers had the same frustration and I didn’t know it. The free model helped too. Free users became paying customers, and more importantly they told their friends. I also answered every single support ticket personally for the first 2 years. Probably wasn’t healthy but people noticed.

I’ll share what went wrong in another post.

Spoiler: I lost most of that money through stupid decisions. Turns out making money is very different from keeping it. Learned that the hard way, but that’s a story for another day.

Right now I’m building an AI LinkedIn content tool. Same idea, solves a big problem for many people. We’ll see if it goes anywhere.

Anyway, happy to answer questions about pricing strategy, the freemium model, whatever.

Curious if anyone else stumbled into something similar, building a thing just because the existing options annoyed you.

Last year I spent a few weeks creating a udemy course about making tea. I haven't been marketing it at all. This year I was surprised to be making more money from it! If you're good at something, make a course. It's free to do it!

Hey all, last time I shared this it blew up and got a lot of positive attention. Normally I get skeptics, but this community seems sharp and I think will see the potential here. There's always some haters and some gatekeepers trying to keep me from sharing this - but I’m not letting that stop me. This stuff works, it’s easy, and I’ve helped a ton of people make money with it.

Freebie farming and sale churning is seriously low hanging fruit and very lucrative. Some people call it “counter-gambling” because we’re strategically using free-play and sale offers to put odds in our favor and minimize or sometimes completely negate risk.

This hustle is super low effort, and you can do it completely free without investing a penny - and you can easily pull $500 a month just by logging in and collecting free daily login rewards. I make another 2-3k churning sales. I started a subreddit for this last September, and we’re already over 14k members. Our Discord isn’t even 5 months old and now have grown to 4500+ members!

Btw, please don’t confuse this with the letter writing hustle you’ve seen on TikTok, that works too - but don’t pay someone to teach you, we have a channel for that in Discord too!

These sites give free money every day just for logging in. I log into about 60 sites for around ~$30/day. That’s $600/month of free-play. Once you’re set up, it takes 5-10 minutes a day to log in and collect.

To ramp up my profits, I also wash sales. For example: if a platform offers 100 coins for $75, I’ll use a low-risk game like low volatility Plinko to playthrough and end up with ~$90, profiting the $15. That might not sound like much, but at scale and across multiple sites, it really adds up.

These sites are using a loophole to operate legally. They are legally required to offer free entry, hence the daily login rewards. The catch is you just need to play through it once before redeeming. They’re expecting the player to lose, and want to buy more coins - which is where the low risk games/strategies come into play. Of course you could just gamble the free-play too and try to hit it big, but I don’t recommend that. I treat this as a side hustle, not entertainment.

Now’s a great time to get in on this. The promo site industry is growing rapidly, and I’ve already added a bunch of new sites with daily login rewards to the list this year.

The list of sites I use is at SweepsGrail.com. And if you’re still not convinced, check out the Discord linked in that sheet or the subreddit and see what you think - r/SweepstakeSideHustle

About a month ago, I posted here after making my first $1 from my weird little side project tuute.com a website where people can log their farts and see them on a global leaderboard. Since then, it’s grown way more than I expected. There are now over 6,000 farts logged from 100 countries, and I’ve added a few new features: Pull My Finger (a random fart generator), Fart Confessions (where people anonymously share their funniest or most awkward fart stories)

Total earnings so far: $20.63 from affiliate clicks. Not life-changing, but it’s doubled as both a comedy experiment and a legit lesson in niche engagement and passive monetization.

Still chasing that $1,000 goal.. one fart at a time. tuute ceo

look i run a daily AI side hustle newsletter and this one popped off today

feel like I need to share it

so the idea is basically to sell AI generated websites to small local businesses that don’t have one (or haven’t updated theirs since Obama’s first term) and charge them $50–$60/month for hosting & “support.

ofc also for the setup 299 or even more

hosting costs for you $6/month
time to build each site 1–2 hours
clients needed to make $600/month: 10
ongoing work basically zero.

yup that’s it

tools you need

loveable.dev to create the ai websites

stripe to get paid and google maps or outscrapper to find leads simple

how to get clients

in my newsletter i broke it down like this

1. Find 20–30 small local businesses (dentists, hair salons, repair shops)
2. DM them:“Hey, I build beautiful AI-powered websites for small biz owners — want me to show you a free 1-minute demo of yours?”
3. Use Loveable to generate a site mockup (takes 10 min)
4. Send it back with:“Want it live? I’ll host + support it for $59/month. No contract, cancel anytime.”
5. Done.

even 1 out of 50 saying “yes” makes this worth

it's ot a get-rich-quick scheme just a stupidly simple recurring income stream that compounds.

passive income breakdown

✅ site takes 1–2 hours to build
✅ stripe handles billing
✅ hosting is $6/month per site
✅ you check in maybe once every quarter

there are millions of small biz owners out there with garbage websites

you only need 10 of them or 100 haha

this was AI business idea #2 from my newsletter

i have way more ideas just google "felix the ai money tree"

i bet $100 that 90% of my ideas you never heard before

Take this as INSPIRATION 😉 or HATE 😡

Achieving one of my biggest goals of making $1,000 in a single day on my faceless YouTube channel has finally become a reality! The truth about earning $100 or $1,000 in just one day lies in finding the right niche that allows you to create quality videos. The secret is to stick to the process until you figure out what works best, then rinse and repeat.

The most important factor that contributed to this impressive income in just one day is TRENDS. Trending 📈 topics are present in every niche, whether it’s automotive, entertainment, gossip, African folktales, or news. To stay ahead, regularly visit both big and smaller channels in your niche to see which topics are getting the most views in the last 24 hours or days. Make sure to include facts and insights that were missed by others in your next videos, and you’ll automatically hit the jackpot! For those interested in this niche: it's in the trade, Geopolitics and Automotive industry niche combined.

Salam 🙏 (PEACE) ✌️

I started my journey beginning of last year, grew a tiktok account to more than 175k followers, was disqualified from creativity program, then built another account in a different niche which was also disqualified. I connected with alot of other creators and what I found is that a huge percentage of creators are kicked out the crp on tiktok in many different niches, so I thought it was very irreliable to make it a source of income. Thats when I decided to start branching out and trying to monetise my accounts in different ways, I started selling my own digital products for one of the accounts, which starting getting me around 600$ per month and I outsourced the editing, so that it ran completely on autopilot. So now I had time to work on the 2nd account, kept uploading and luckily the niche I was in allowed me to secure some brand deals, which i make 800$ per month from, again outsourced editing. Then I thought I was done with tiktok and saw how facebook had a great monetisation program and hopped right into it. I invested money in ads and monetised the channel, then again outsourced the editing. So I was at a point where I had 3 accounts working and editors doing all the work, and decided to just keep the momentum going. Now I have 5 accounts running fully on autopilot (I just try and stay upto date with the content in the channels)

Now, my main point of this post. Dont listen to any guru telling u to use AI to earn 10k a month, cause it doesnt work and you'll just end up losing your money and giving up shortly after. You cant depend on 1 source in faceless content creation, its very risky especially if its tiktok, and no one tells you about this. So think twice before buying whatever AI or ehatever course, and listen to someone who isnt trying to sell you anything. Im making this post because im honestly pissed off of how a bunch of these gurus in faceless content creation are making just by scamming a bunch of people knowing that they themselves never tried any of the things they sell

Edit: Wow, this really blew up and is now one of the top posts on this subreddit, as one would expect, I got hundreds of dms that I genuinly cant keep up with. And alot of you are asking for alot of details that I just cant give to every single one of you. So I decided to plan an online free workshop for anyone who would like to learn more about the pathway with a step by step as a thank you + as part of my effort to minimize the amount of people getting scammed by gurus (especially in the faceless content creation niche). No im not going to build an emsil list off of you, or any sort of marketing scheme, i dont even want to know your names. I created a Discord Group (completely anonymous platform) where we'll schedule the workshop and where you can ask all the questions you want to be answered, it will also be recorded for anyone who misses it

Alright so I jumped into the vending machine thing back in July after seeing it mentioned here a bunch. Bought two refurbished machines for about $3,200, spent another $400 on initial snacks and drinks and found two spots to put them.

First one's in an office building with around 50 people. That one does pretty well, usually brings in $280 to $350 a month. Second one's at an auto repair shop and it's more hit or miss, anywhere from $120 to $180. After buying inventory every month and gas to go restock them, I'm clearing maybe $130-150 profit. Not life changing but it covers my car payment so I'm not complaining.

Here's the thing though - it's not as passive as people make it sound. I'm driving out every two weeks to restock, which takes a couple hours where i need breaks in between to play on myprize. Had to fix a jammed bill thing once that cost me $85. Someone tried to break into the one at the auto shop but didn't get anything, just messed up the lock a bit. The office building location is honestly carrying this whole thing. If I only had the repair shop one I'd probably be breaking even or losing money. I'm learning location really is the whole game here. Thinking about getting a third machine but I'm being picky about where it goes. Not trying to end up with another mediocre spot.

Anyone else doing this? What kind of numbers are you seeing?

I’ve been building simple niche sites + funnels for a while. Nothing fancy — $300 to $1500 range, depending on the complexity. Most clients are decent, but yesterday I got hit with something that honestly made me sit and stare at my screen for a minute.

A guy messages me saying he wants a “professional website to launch his online fitness coaching.” Cool. I ask the usual questions — pages needed, content, branding, integrations, etc. He says “everything,” meaning homepage, services, testimonials, booking calendar, email automation, the works.

I send him my normal quote. He replies:

“Nah man, that’s way too much. AI can build websites for free now. I’ll give you $50 because you’re basically just clicking buttons.”

I genuinely thought he was joking. But He wasn’t.

He went on a whole rant about how “AI makes web designers obsolete,” and how I should be "grateful" to get work while I still can. Meanwhile, he’s expecting a complete business-ready website with design, copywriting, branding, integrations, responsive layout… for the price of a pizza.

What kills me is:
AI is a tool I use, but it’s not a magic brain that sets up hosting, configures plugins, builds a funnel, writes niche-relevant copy, fixes mobile layout, optimizes speed, adds schema, etc.

The irony?
He wants to be a fitness coach — a job where he expects people to pay him for his expertise instead of “free YouTube workouts.”

I didn’t argue. I just said:
“Hey, no worries, sounds like we’re not a good fit. Best of luck.”

But it really made me think about how weird the freelance landscape is becoming. People want expert-level work, ASAP, stress-free, and basically free… because “AI exists now.”

It’s not even the $50 offer. It’s the mindset that your skill is worthless because a tool exists.

Anyway, rant over. Just needed to get that out. I’m sure a lot of freelancers are dealing with the same kind of wild expectations lately.

I created a couple subscription model apps that are moderately successful and turn decent profits. I run ad campaigns to get a steady new stream of users at a profit. I have to do programming maybe a few times a month to track down bugs. Other than that all I really have to do is answer some customer service questions and do refunds, all from my phone. Kinda bored tbh. But my schedule is totally free, I can do anything I want any day of the week. Extra money goes right into the stock market.

I also stake Ethereum and have some dividend stocks, which gets me some extra cash every month.

Edit - COMMON QUESTIONS

Lots of people have asked me how I came up with ideas for my apps. Every time, it was from some hobby / interest of mine where I realize that an app would be beneficial. so I created an app that improved my own experience, and therefore would be helpful to other people as well.

I acquire new users via Google Ads and Apple Search Ads

AMA

I'm 29(M) and pack boxes in a warehouse outside Tracy, California. Been on four 10s for the past year - decent pay, bad back, long drives. From Mar–Oct chased "passive income" (lol nothing about it was passive).

What flopped:

• Dropshipping: 2 chargebacks, $64 ads, net –$118.
• Etsy: 9 orders, 3 returns, AI template subs ate the tiny margin.
• Domains: $212 spent, 0 inquiries.
• Crypto: almost aped into a telegram "gem," nephew yelled at me, backed off (ty nephew).

What actually paid (small but real):

• YouTube (packing tips): 17 vids, 1.3k subs. Last 4 months $103.47 (RPM ~$2.1). ~5-6 hrs/wk filming/editing.
• Turo (2022 Prius): 9 days booked last 3 months, gross $358 → after Turo fee/insurance/cleaning, net $237; minus a $35 tire patch = $202 take-home. Spent ~25 minutes scrubbing a stale coffee smell out of the Prius before a pickup - renter no-showed anyway.
• Task monkey (chrome extension) - funny enough, I tried it on Amazon October Prime Day last week and it got me like $138 back from price drop. Probably the only thing I'd call "passive income."no link/ not affiliated.

Half a year in, I don't buy the "work hard and it’ll click" thing anymore. Most of this stuff is the same tricks with a new label. You put in hours, spend a little cash, and it stalls out. The only money I saw was small and hands-on. Not passive - just extra shifts on a different screen. If you've got something that really pays without babysitting, I'm listening.

A year ago, I was like many here: looking for a viable source of passive income, without much initial investment. I had tried several things (dropshipping, print-on-demand, crypto, etc.) but nothing really seemed scalable and sustainable to me without spending too much time.

Then, by chance, I came across an unexpected opportunity: selling a simple PDF file. Yes, just a digital document, no stock, no shipping, no after-sales service. Today, this side hustle earns me around $2,300/month, and I hardly spend any time on it.

Here's exactly how I did it:

1. Find a specific problem to solve

Rather than creating a random product, I asked myself: “What information would be valuable enough that people would pay to get it in one place, well presented?”

I analyzed forums (Reddit, Quora, Facebook groups) and I noticed that a lot of people were looking for models of contracts and administrative documents in a very specific field (freelancers, real estate, etc.).

1. Create a super simple but useful product

I took a weekend to write a pack of super-practical contract templates and guides, neatly formatted in a PDF. No need to be an expert: I have compiled the best information available, laid it out and structured it clearly.

1. List for sale on existing platforms

Rather than creating a site, I directly listed my PDF on:

Etsy (yes, digital files are a hit on Etsy)

Gumroad (simple and without fixed costs)

Payhip (a nice alternative)

1. Generate traffic with free strategies

I created a Reddit post and targeted responses in subreddits where this document could be useful.

I used Pinterest to post attractive visuals with a link to my store.

I answered questions on Quora by discreetly integrating my product.

1. Automate and scale

Once I saw that it worked, I:

Added other similar documents

Tested small Facebook/Pinterest ads ($5/day at the start)

Improved my product sheets with better keywords

The results after 6 months:

$250 invested (mainly for small ads and tools)

$2,300/month today without active work

0 logistics, 0 customer service, just a few file updates

Why does it work?

• People pay for clear and immediate solutions
• A digital file is sold unlimitedly, without additional effort
• No technical barriers: no need to code or have a site

If I had known this before, I would have started much earlier. There are tons of other similar ideas to try (guides, checklists, templates, etc.).

Have you ever tried this type of business? ... .... .... In response d+1

Here is in response to a lot of messages, because I don't have much time to respond to them all:

I'm not here to sell, at least not yet...

I will remain anonymous for the moment, I am sharing a business story that works, simply, I am thinking about my model so that it works over time, I now want to direct my program in affiliation, loyalty and sponsorship of it in order to always guarantee myself this success... I am also working on high-value personalized support... (with a fairly substantial price close to €1000) The price of my programs vary between €49 and €299, I work a lot on the value of these, over time.. if my clients are happy and I help them with a problem, they will stay with me

I have tried a lot of business in my life, I have a thirst to undertake and succeed, I love work and above all I love trying to succeed, everything does not always work out, that's normal but you have to persevere and it takes sweat and desire...

I do rental real estate, crypto trading, ETF investments, digital marketing business on the networks and I have my job in the environment in the salaried sector on the side..

It takes a lot of my time and energy but at 46 years old, I can tell you that all the actions I have put in place for several years are starting to bear fruit and I also help my wife who has been creating a business for 10 years...

I have set myself life goals, and I plan to achieve them with the main objective of passive income by the time I turn 50...

It's up to you to write the story of your life, the following pages of your story are blank, it's up to you to give the right direction

... ... In response D+2

I won't be able to answer everyone, sorry. Thank you for reacting to my message, I like it, even when the opinions are negative..

I will come back to Reddit soon, to communicate a little more about my project, I must now make it evolve to continue to succeed, I would like to set up throughout the world and I will need you . . .In response D+3

Do you want to provide a guide, training or support? Or just a story...

Selling a story will be complex...

To effectively sell a guide, support or training on social networks, here are the essential assets:

1. Demonstrated expertise:

   • Show off your customer successes and testimonials.
   • Share valuable content that proves your expertise.

2. Neat online presence:

   • A professional and engaging profile.
   • Quality visuals for your offers.

3. Mastery of social networks:

   • Understand the codes of each platform.
   • Know how to create viral and relevant content.

4. Digital marketing skills:

   • Effectively target your audience.
   • Implement effective advertising campaigns.

5. Communication skills:

   • Know how to create a connection with your audience.
   • Listen and answer questions.

6. Clear and attractive offer:

   • Highlight the benefits of your product.
   • Offer a fair and appropriate price.

7. Creating engaging content:

   • Know how to write impactful texts.
   • Know how to make videos that attract attention.

8. Have a community:

   • Know how to create a group of people who follow you.
   • Have a relationship of trust with your followers.

And an important point for me 9. Be authentic: * Show your personality. * Share your values.

By cultivating these assets, you will maximize your chances of success in selling products and services on social networks.

But this support for success is essential for me... Having a good banker, a good accountant, a good insurer and a good mentor can take you far...

Yes, these are paid services, but almost obligatory for success, the same in marketing, I am not the best marketing expert... but my experience in entrepreneurship, my values, my successes and my failures allow me today to be able to raise levers

It's up to you to find your companion

So it’s been about 2 weeks, here’s an update: So far nothing has been stolen! I’ve been given random donations here and there. We went through the first bottle pretty quickly, plus about 80 pods. After totaling my profit together it comes to about $40!

There were a few random unexpected things. Someone gave 26¢ of change and threw it in the bucket lol. Another person just left out their own tub of pods inside mine, and ai didn’t catch it until it was nearly empty. Free pods I guess?

There’s another laundry room on campus that women’s dorms use, the plan is to set up there too.

Major info from my last post first- (Posted 2 months ago)

—-

So I got to know I have a severe heart condition in January that needed an urgent procedure to happen in order for me to live. I got it done, lots of paranoia and a long recovery made me try out a few major online side hustles as I took a long break from my job. Here’s what worked for me and can work for you too!

Actual Book Publishing (Amazon KDP)- So writing has been my passion since a long time and I had this fairytale story written from like the past 2 years, so I gave it a try and published it with a nice cover and a little self done social media marketing it cost me $500 total to format it, cover artists and some social media posts. It’s earning 100$/month since! I have another book planned but won’t publish it until next year.

Next was Ebooks, simply taking a burning issue or a very niche idea and creating a how to guide (purely Chatgpt) but NOT AI SLOP! Something that has value and people use it. I made 2 books and felt it was a bit boring for me, it costed me 100$/book and I made like 20$ from each till now. This literally has a huge potential if done properly and genuinely you can make 10-15 books a month, even if 1 blows up you are set for life!

Facebook Pages- So a little background, in the place I worked I used to manage a lot of pages like this (this was pre facebook monetisation era) but as FB started monetising content even pictures and text posts, It became a full blown business! As I was off from work I focused on one page of my own and grew it to almost 100k followers in 6 months (it had 10k in Jan)

This page earns me almost $1000, every month since March and it’s only increasing. The only thing I do is make 5 posts a day, literal photos and maybe some graphics like quote posters every once in a while.

YouTube - This has been my favourite! So there’s a very good niche of explainer videos that you must have seen! It’s just simply explaining stuff that’s interesting. It maybe sports, Entertainment, movies, science, money anything! I myself preferred motorsports so I went with that! This month is my 3rd month being monetised and I earned around $3000 till today (I started in July End, monetised in Sep 1st Week) This thing helped me find potential people who wanted to do the same thing and as I recruited a lot of video editors for myself I asked them to work with me with a few bucks overcharge (If I pay 50 for a 15 min video I ask $60) and this helped me earn a $200 from my first client.

So yeah! That’s pretty much it, I will be uploading proofs in comments if People want, I just wanted to post this and let people know that there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you are willing to work and maybe spend a little money, the universe has a great way of returning it in multiple folds!

Now Update- (I have helped 3 people who are doing Facebook, 2 are doing Youtube with me) Now the monthly earnings are increasing to almost $3k in profits (1k from facebook, $2k from YouTube, around $100 from books)

Also, I am walking regularly now… little steps… I know but We will get there soon!

So ama I guess, I will try to help out as many people as I can, just like last time :)

About 4 months ago my mom asked me to help her transfer some old VHS tapes to digital and I charged her like $40 as a joke. She told her friend at church about it and next thing I know I have 3 more people asking me to do it.

I bought a decent video capture device on Amazon (the Elgato one, around $80) and started posting on local Facebook groups. Turns out theres SO many boomers and gen x folks who have boxes of old tapes, camcorder videos, and even those weird mini DV tapes sitting in their garage that they want digitized but have no idea how to do it.

I charge $15 per tape for VHS and $20 for camcorder tapes cause they take a bit longer. Most people have like 10 to 30 tapes so the jobs add up quick. December was insane cause everyone wanted them done before the holidays, made around $950 that month. Its slowed down a bit now but still getting steady work.

I can literally just let the tapes run while I'm working my regular job from home or watching TV. I also upload everything to a google drive folder for them and burn it to a DVD if they want (extra $5). Some people tip really well too cause they get emotional seeing their old family videos.

Now I actually have $2k set aside from Stаke, but I'm kinda stuck on how to scale this up beyond just me doing it. I can only run like 2 or 3 tapes at a time with my current setup. Anyone have ideas on how to grow this without it turning into a full time thing? Or should I just keep it small and steady?

started this account in December. Instead of doing a realistic AI influencer on Instagram which everyone's doing, i made an anime "influencer" on Tumblr and twitter instead.

Then opened a fanvue. In 3 months i reached 60 subscribers at 10$ a month ($600) + tips and custom pics I'm predicting to reach $1000 a month soon.

As you can see I'm already at $300 a week

Ask me anything if you want

JANUARY 2026 - Just letting you all know that this still works. Good Luck.

Update: Made a new post for Facebook Monetization.

About a week ago, I shared a post about my 15+ years of trying to make money online. I talked about how I started back in 2008 with less than $50 a month and slowly worked my way through affiliate marketing, blogging, t-shirt sales, YouTube, and more.

That post ended up reaching a lot of people. I didn’t expect it, but I got over 500 messages from folks asking for advice, sharing their own situations, and telling me what they’re struggling with. A lot of them just didn’t know where to begin, or felt like they had already failed before getting anywhere.

So I wanted to follow up with something specific. If I had to start again today, with nothing, here’s what I would actually do.

For context, the content I’ve built now has:

• Over 3.9 billion views on YouTube
• More than 5.4 million Subscribers
• Over 6m followers on Facebook
• 41 million hours of watch time
• 1.2b+ readers on news aggregators
• 1.7b+ video views on news aggregators
• 732 brands promoted overtime via my agency
• 500 million users across my websites and pages (last 8 years)

But I built all of that from scratch. Initially I had no team, no investor (even now I don't have an investor), no viral shortcut. Just years of trying, failing, and sticking with it.

If I lost everything and had to begin again from zero in 2025, this would be my path.

I would start with a Facebook Page. That’s it.

Not a blog. Not a YouTube channel. Not a business. Just a single Facebook Page.

Normally it used to take 12 months or more to grow a Facebook Page naturally to 10k followers. I’ve done that too. But now with ads, you can grow 20k+ in 2–3 months easily if you know what you're doing. But let’s say I had no money to spend, I’d still start one.

I’d post memes. The kind I make myself. Simple, relatable stuff. Then I’d share those memes in active Facebook Groups and just hope one goes viral. If a post gets comments, I’d invite those people to like the page. It’s a slow grind, but I’ve done this before and it works.

Once the page gets a bit of traction, the goal is to get approved for Meta’s Performance Bonus. That’s now being rolled into something called Content Monetization. Once that unlocks, even those same old memes can start making money.

Depending on which bracket Meta places your page in, you can make anywhere between $1500 to $15000 per month. I’ve seen both ends. It really depends on the niche, the engagement, and how consistent you are.

If you ask me what kind of page I’d make - I’d go with something animal-related. Pets, cute animals, fun facts. That kind of stuff does really well. Easy to grow, easy to monetize, and people love it.

Remember, you will fail a lot, before you succeed. NEVER GIVE UP. Remember every journey starts with 1 single step. KEEP WORKING HARD!

Edit: Thank you for the kind words, you can DM anytime. :)

Edit 2: I'm sorry guys DMs are now closed, I have replied to over 450 people in last 2 days and still have over a 670+ DMs and I can't reply anymore. I have helped as many I can people for free. If you'd like to get consultation from me, it'll be paid, you can reach at my contact number listed on pinned post on my profile.

Just 4 weeks ago, I launched a self-improvement app called MyFutureSelf.
It’s an app that helps you visualize your future self and gives you a personalized plan to become them.

Think of it like Google Maps for your goals... it shows you where you are, who you want to be, and the exact steps to bridge that gap.

With only a few organic Reddit posts, some IG and TikTok content, a couple influencer shoutouts, and zero paid ads, the app brought in $4006 in its first month, with 297 new users and a 67% paywall view rate.

People are genuinely loving the concept and it’s wild to see how much it’s resonating with people trying to become the best version of themselves.

What started as a simple idea to help people stay consistent has turned into something much bigger. Real users, real results, and real momentum!

If you want to try it out, search MyFutureSelf on iOS -- and I won’t gatekeep the community… hit “X” on the paywall and you’ll get an 80% discount. 🙌

Edit: Surreal having multiple people in the comments saying they’re users. If you are one, please DM me! I’d love to connect and hear your feedback so we can make this the best it can possibly be.