Parents Ultimatum

February 2022: Dropping Out and Betting on Myself

I had just dropped out of college, ready to flip my life upside down. My parents weren’t thrilled, to say the least. They gave me a tough ultimatum: one year to figure out my future. If I didn’t make at least four figures a month by February 2023, I’d have to settle for a “normal” job.

With nothing but my laptop, I turned to YouTube, searching for online side hustles…

Attempt #1: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing—Earning commissions by promoting products through referral links, was the first hustle that caught my eye.

It sounded like a dream come true, and I looked up every tutorial I could find. Within weeks, I launched my own website. Not being as informed as I thought, I decided to promote plane tickets to Ibiza. Yep, plane tickets.

It went disastrous, it flopped. Not a single sale. I read a quote later that night which said: Ambition without strategy leads to nothing’’

Attempt #2: Print-On-Demand

After the affiliate marketing fiasco, I decided to try print-on-demand, where you sell custom designs printed only after a customer buys.

At first, it was fun, making designs and seeing my ideas come to life. But after months of creating out 50 designs a day and selling only two T-shirts, I realized this wasn’t it either. Sure, those $4 in earnings were my first taste of online success, but time was running out.

Attempt #3: Instagram Theme Pages

With just four months left, I doubled down on my final shot: Instagram theme pages.

This was different for me. It didn’t feel like work. I genuinely enjoyed building pages, editing content, and connecting with people. But the first two months were hard. No views, no followers, no results. I was ready to quit, but then…

It happened. My first viral video.

The Turning Point

That one video changed everything. The snowball started rolling—I got better at editing, hit more viral posts, and watched my follower count skyrocket. One video alone brought in 200,000 followers.

With the established audience, opportunities started to roll in: Sponsorships, shout-outs, even editing gigs. In just a few weeks, I cracked the four-figure milestone, one month before my parents deadline.

Just from those advertisements alone, I was able to hit 4 figures 1 month before the deadline, my parents were flabbergasted haha! Now I hit 4 figures every month, allowing me to make a living from it.

Now you know a little bit more about me, that’s all for now.

Talk to you soon,

-Key To Wealth