His first attempt at an income-generating project in college was a fitness YouTube channel run with a friend.

“In freshman year, I started a fitness YouTube channel with my buddy who lived in the dorm room 3 doors down from mine.”

The channel was shut down after a short run with no stated traction beyond one viral-ish video.

“After a few months, we decided to call it quits.”

He picked up photography and digital-art editing, eventually posting composited image edits to Instagram.

“I committed to posting some of my edits on Instagram.”

He grew an audience (about 2,500 followers) but never monetized it and lost interest in the format itself.

“I got bored of the whole digital art thing after a few months”

He tried running a Facebook ads agency for local businesses after buying a course on client acquisition and Facebook ads.

“I bought a course that taught me the fundamentals of landing clients, creating Facebook ads, and advertising local businesses.”

Cold email outreach did not convert into any signed clients despite getting as far as sales calls, and he abandoned the channel.

“I gave up after sending around 50 cold emails and never landing a client after 2-3 sales calls.”

He ran a rave-clothing dropshipping store, using Facebook ad spend to try to drive sales.

“I used my previous Facebook ads knowledge, spent about $100 on ads, and made one sale of a shiny bra”

The single sale barely justified the ad spend, and the 30-day China dropshipping fulfillment time made him uncomfortable with the business itself.

“I felt like a piece of garbage having people wait 30 days for the product to be shipped from China.”

He borrowed money from his father to launch a blue-light-glasses e-commerce brand, funded with paid ads and influencer/meme-page shoutouts.

“The glasses were great. I was proud of the product. But I was just shoveling money down the drain on ads at this point.”

Paid promotion (including a meme-page shoutout that drew mocking comments) burned through the borrowed money without producing sustainable sales, and he quit.

“That hurt, I quit once again.”

After landing a paid web-design job, he tried a second e-commerce brand selling minimalist wallets.

“I decided to try out another e-commerce brand. This time with minimalist wallets”

The wallet brand produced no sales despite investment in professional product photography.

“didn't make a sale, wasted money, and got tired of it.”

Alongside web-design freelancing, he also tried positioning himself as an SEO agency and a content-marketing agency, taking whatever client work he could find.

“I also tried an SEO agency, content marketing agency, and was still kinda trying to find clients for anything I could get my hands on”

After the writer/creator brand was working, he launched a physical planner, sourced using lessons from his earlier failed e-commerce brands.

“I used my previous eCommerce failures to source and sell a physical planner.”

The product sold, but personally fulfilling and shipping physical orders from home was too time-consuming for a one-person, leverage-focused business.

“It did well, but I hated shipping out of my own home. It was too time consuming.”