Failed Online Business and 1000 Job Rejections: My Honest Journey to Blogging
A Story of Failure That You Will Definitely Like: 20 Ways I Tried to Earn Money Online
From office burnout to 1000+ CV rejections — why I keep climbing the mountain of digital entrepreneurship
I have tried over 20 ways to earn money online and several office jobs, and I have not yet reached the income I want. But this does not stop me, and I continue to climb the mountain, and here is why. Achieving a stable side income or a full-time online career is often presented as a fairy tale, but my reality was different.
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The long road to financial independence — Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash |
Childhood dreams vs. adult reality
Today’s article is not about another magical method of earning money online; today, I decided to share with you how I came to create my blog. Since early childhood, watching all these beautiful films about successful success, I accepted it as something natural. I had no idea that when a person grows up, they will have to face difficulties in finding a job, face rejections from companies many times, thousands of times…
I didn’t know that working in an office could be unpleasant. All that TV showed me were successful, well-dressed, and good-looking people, with wide smiles on their faces. They usually had big, expensive houses and several cars. They threw chic parties, they had a lot of friends, and they flew abroad on vacation. And I believed in it.
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Photo by Sebastian Staines on Unsplash |
When everything collapsed
My parents had a business, and up to a certain point, we lived quite well. We didn’t have to think about saving on food or clothes, we were bought expensive toys, our family often gave good gifts to many people. But one day the crisis came, and the business had to close. My parents didn’t talk about it. There was no money left… at all.
I had to go to university, and a wave of strong fear swept over me. I started thinking where we would get money for food now, how to pay for the university, maybe they would kick me out, and I would have to go to work in cleaning, since I didn’t finish my studies. These thoughts endlessly ran through my head, not finding a way out of the situation…
It was a lot of stress, I was very scared. I was afraid to ask my parents what their plan was. And then I told myself that when I start working, I should not end up in such a situation…
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Coping with financial anxiety — Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash |
First attempts to find a job
When I finished my studies at the university, reality confronted me with a new unpleasant surprise. Since I had no work experience, no one wanted to hire me. I sent and sent my resumes to no avail. At best, I was invited to interviews; at worst, I received rejections. But when I went to interviews, they were mostly strange vacancies that did not have the scam sign, but it was a scam.
After graduating from university, only three years later I found my first job, where I issued consumer loans. It was an incredibly boring job, there were almost no clients. Using the Internet was prohibited, as well as reading books. The room where I worked had no windows. Time dragged on endlessly. It lasted for two weeks.
Since I am an active person, just sitting for 12 hours and doing nothing was torture.
The reality of entry-level jobs — Photo by Damian Zaleski on Unsplash
Only about a year later I found another job. I worked in a car dealership, as a loan officer and an insurance specialist.
It was more interesting here; there were still a few clients, but some colleagues were interesting, so time did not go on forever. After working there for about 8 months, something happened, and I had to put my job on hold for 7 long months. When I returned to work, I wasn’t ready yet and quit after two months.
Attempts to open my first business
I decided to start my own business and started selling custom piñatas. I really enjoyed making them. Only I didn’t have money for advertising and I received one order a month. At the same time, I was sewing beautiful wedding garters for brides and decorating them with beads and stones. I liked how it turned out, but my eyes started hurting, and I stopped doing it. Then I started making hair accessories for brides, then I baked fortune cookies.
Then I learned the next lesson: no matter how beautiful and high-quality a product you create, without a budget for advertising, it’s a waste of time and the last of your money.
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| Handmade business and marketing challenges — Photo by santiago filio on Unsplash |
Another attempt to go into employment
I got tired of not having money, so I went to school to work for two days. Yes, just two. Since I had no money, I came in the clothes I had, they were pretty decent. They were black jeans, without holes, strict, skinny and a simple pullover.
But the woman who worked there started scolding me for being indecently dressed and for having to buy new clothes. I had no money to buy them. Moreover, she scolded me in front of the children, it was unacceptable, it was humiliating. The next day I quit. I needed my dignity more than this low-paying job.
Then I found a vacancy in an IT company, and decided that even though I was not suitable, I had to write. I wrote, and they sent me a test assignment. I was in seventh heaven.
They were in no hurry to answer, so I wrote to them for a month until they hired me. I wrote about this job in my other article, I will not talk about it in detail now. I worked there for three years, then went to another company, where they paid 1.5 times more. But there was still not enough money. That’s when I started thinking about earning money online.
I Started Trying to Earn Money Online
Then I registered on the Shutterstock website and started adding photos there. Every sale was a small holiday for me. Then I switched to working online in my company, and at the same time opened a store on the marketplace, where I sell Christmas sweaters and packages of white socks. I prepared for this very carefully, chose beautiful packages and cards, because of the large commissions I went into a big minus.
Before that, I quit my job, thinking that I was done, now I am a business lady. After working for five months on the marketplace, I had to close it. I was very sorry to do this, because I really loved my store and the products I chose.
The conclusion I made is that I want to have my own store, because the process of choosing products, choosing packages and gifts for the order, and receiving excellent reviews, is what I really enjoyed doing. I worked a lot, but I was less tired. But again, "without an advertising budget, it turned out the way it did. I was very upset about closing my small business."
Going completely online
After that, I started looking for something to do. I started watching videos about making money online and started trying absolutely everything, because bloggers promised almost a million in each video. I have tried the following types of earnings over the past 2.5 years:
- Selling photos and videos on Shutterstock and Adobe Contributor;
- YouTube content creation on 4 different channels;
- Freelancing on Upwork and Behance;
- Print-on-demand via Redbubble and Teepublic;
- Online surveys and QA testing;
- Affiliate Marketing on Amazon and Aliexpress;
- Blogging on Medium.
Also, I wrote 2 children’s books using AI, and made one sale. Tried to open a dropshipping store, but due to a lack of budget, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t work without promotion. I write on Medium, but I connected monetization too late, and when my most popular article came out, I didn’t make any money on it, in five months at the moment, I’ve earned less than $5 here (I should write an article about this, what do you think?)
I sent resumes in my profession, sent them to positions that are close to my profession, as a translator, since I know two languages, I decided that since I am not suitable for them, I will try to send my CV to another field. So I started sending requests to luxury stores, which still send me up to five rejections a day, since I sent more than 1000 CVs…
At first, it was very unpleasant to receive rejections. It was like seeing a door closing right in front of your nose, when the person on the other side heard you shouting, wait! But with each new rejection, you transfer it easier…
But I know that if I stop, if I stop sending them, the probability of seeing the coveted yes will drop to 0%.
Perhaps soon I will be entered into the Guinness Book of Records for the record number of resumes sent by a person and received rejections. Can you tell me their email?
Why am I running this blog?
I am running this blog because I myself admired people who write on this topic, earning money online, or shoot videos. And I decided to become one of them.
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The motivation behind blogging — Photo by Amelia Bartlett on Unsplash |
I am not writing about how with three videos on YouTube I became the second Mr. Beast, I am not talking about how I earn $5000 a month on my blog in Medium, having written 15 articles. I, like everyone else, try, fall, shake myself off, and move on, trying to grab luck by the tail.
Usually we see success stories on the Internet and also think that it is easy to achieve. In fact, only a few make it. For every success story, there are about several hundred thousand stories of failures. But it is not customary to write about them. And I write about them. And these people are not losers, we are just less lucky.
I don’t have millions of subscribers yet. But I continue to believe that there is a place under the sun for me too. Otherwise, why am I trying so hard…
I will share a thought that warms me: Mr. Disney was not hired because they said he could not draw, Christian Dior found a job only at 40, and in the double competition, Charlie Chaplin took second place. Maybe something of mine, successful, is also waiting in the wings to make me successful…
However, while waiting for your breakthrough, it’s crucial to understand that not all paths to success are created equal. In the competitive world of digital marketing, many are tempted by shortcuts that promise instant results but often lead to total disaster. To build a lasting presence, you must learn from the mistakes of others and stay away from unethical practices that can sink even the biggest players. To understand the dark side of web promotion and how to protect your future projects, read my analysis:How Black-Hat SEO Destroyed the IT Company I Worked For. Discover the vital lessons on professional ethics and long-term strategy in the tech industry!
Insider Tip: every long climb requires the right tools and mindset. If you're struggling with rejections or feeling stuck, I recommend reading The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest. And to keep your goals organized while sending those 1000 resumes, a high-quality undated productivity planner from Amazon can be your best companion.
Anyway, while I continue to shake off the dust after each fall and move toward my goals, I’m focused on creating things that are interesting and bring a bit of light to this journey. Maybe you’ll find something useful for your own online path here or just something beautiful to keep your creative spark alive! 🦝
Do you also change your job from time to time, or are you still searching for that one perfect path to success? What was your biggest "failure" that actually taught you something valuable? Let's discuss in the comments!
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