Thread by @thedankoe

How I went from being a broke college student making $1000/month to making multiple 6 figures online

Buckle in, it gets bumpy

My story - a thread:

Let's start way back

When I was 16 I was super into fitness

After school weights

Would sneak into the community 18+ gym

Had a garage bench press where my buddy and I would blast music and max out every day (lol)

This leads into my first online biz venture

2 years later, freshman year of college my other friend and I started a YouTube channel

We shot vids in the gym, did talking head vids on different topics, and did eating challenges

The most notable was a 10k calorie challenge that I have unlisted on my account

I'll show it to people at parties/get togethers because it is hilarious

Imagine stuffing your face with 10k calories

Super cringe, but hilarious

Safe to say that our YouTube channel venture died out pretty quickly

We didn't see a penny from it in the ~6 months that we did it

In my 2nd year of college I got into photography

I had the camera from when we filmed videos and decided to put it to good use

(I also took a few photo classes in high school so I wasn't diving in cold)

Did that for a bit, don't remember much

All I remember is going out downtown and taking long exposures of the local tram

I spent my nights editing random pics in photoshop

Didn't even try to make money from this, but it leads into something I could have monetized like mad

As I'm writing this, I JUST bought a new camera for when I'm in Mexico

Might bring some color and aesthetics to the timeline

*Might* even branch into YouTube again

Back to the story

Junior year I got deep into editing and making photoshop composites (no need to take my own pictures anymore!)

I started up my Instagram, posted cool pics everyday, got shoutouts from big accounts and grew to around 2k followers

Here are some examples

All in all, I could've made some photoshop courses showing how I did it

I had a SUPER engaged following and was growing pretty damn quick

But, one day I just stopped

I ran out of ideas and was just tired of making them every day

They took 3-6 hours to create

By this point, I was a senior in college

I switched majors 4-5 times and had no idea what I wanted to do

I was working part time at a print shop pulling in about $250 a week

I was living with 6 other guys in a busted up old house

I was still set on avoiding a 9-5 job

To make that a reality (working for myself)

I went into overdrive

I was taking a basic coding class in college

Decided to look into how much web developers made

They had a high earning potential (and I could freelance with it) so I dedicated my time outside of class to that

I ended up learning the next year of my college curriculum (in terms of coding) in less than a month

I was studying HOURS upon HOURS and building out projects like crazy

My plan was to freelance and possibly get a job if I didn't "make it"

After I felt I was ready I started researching how to freelance

Ended up getting sucked into 2 different things

1. Dropshipping rave clothes
2. Starting an FB ad agency

Tried my hand at both of those

Learned A LOT about online business as a whole

During those times I studied copywriting, more web design, and of course fb ads

Also learned a bit about cold outreach

Got stressed out and quit pursuing those

Decided to start a "real" brand instead

This time I wanted to sell blue light glasses

(This is where the fun starts)

I called my dad

Told him I had a grand idea of how I was going to make a million dollars by the time I was 25

Asked if he would loan me $3k to buy a few hundred blue light glasses, cases, and cleaning cloths

Surprisingly, he believed me LOL

Very grateful that he gave me that opportunity

(I paid him back + more btw)

But, after 3 months of waiting for the shipment, me failing hard at selling them, wasting a shit ton of money on courses and ads

I was in mental turmoil

I had 2 more years of college since I switched around so much

I wasn't making a CENT online

I was about $8000+ in credit card debt

I was about $20k in debt from school loans

I was making chump change at my part time job

I was absolutely fucked (or so I thought)

I took about a month to wallow in my own self pity

Dropped out of college because I was tired of wasting money

Decided to commit fully to web design (freelancing again)

And, decided to start filling out web design job applications as a backup plan

I hit up some friends and family to get a few cheap jobs under my belt

Started cold outreach and literally reached out to anyone and everyone

I would write places down as I was driving around town and reach out to them when I got home

I started seeing some traction...

But it wasn't nearly enough to sustain me

Ended up getting a job offer as an entry level web designer

Took the job and kept grinding my freelance stuff

Learned some processes from the job that I could implement freelancing

Eventually I started out-earning my job

Ended up quitting after ~7 months of being there

My freelancing gig was doing well... I had accomplished my childhood dreams of working for myself

All was well again

I started providing different services & stepped my game up

Then, I stumbled upon this side of Twitter

Started studying some of the accounts and decided I could teach web design

Since I started, it's become much more than that

I've met great people

I'm no longer tied to one business model

(I can talk about whatever I want)

And it seems like the future is moving in the direction of creators, so I'm glad to be here with all of you

Hopefully I can teach you something along the way whether it be online business or personal growth related

Grateful for everyone I've met here so far

As I mentioned I teach web design

I actually teach everything I've done up to this point

- how to create sites WITHOUT coding
- how to freelance with that skill
- how to grow on twitter to get more clients + open up more opportunities

3 courses for $35

gum.co/web-design-wea…

If you enjoyed this thread and want to pass the story along

Scroll to the top and hit that RT button on the first tweet

Until next time

- Dan