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How did you make your first dollar online?

18 pointsby laksmanvabout 1 year ago
I&#x27;ll go first! My story: I was 13 years old and someone in the mIRC chatroom #graphicdesign said they were looking for a logo. I messaged him and he agreed, I designed the logo and he sent me a check for $150 and my parents opened a bank account for me and deposited it.<p>What&#x27;s yours?

22 comments

nicbouabout 1 year ago
I made an app called Random Facts for PalmOS. I was 16 or 17 and got 50 USD mailed to me. That was before app stores mind you.<p>Recently, I found the app again - source code included - on a website. Apparently I had given it away on a forum years ago, and someone kept a copy.<p>The code was adorably simple. It was not clever or clean, just the digital equivalent of a kid&#x27;s drawing you put on the fridge. Software made for pleasure, using whatever works.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nicolasbouliane.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;random-facts" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nicolasbouliane.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;random-facts</a>
thy77about 1 year ago
I saw a scheme where you make domains and pages like &quot;london best plumber .co.uk&quot; or top london plumber. Then pick a guy to put on it. Put his phone there. Call in a few days and show him the page. He will say thank you and that you have already doubled his business. He will begin to pay you 100 a month to stay as your top pick. He will also pay for a redesign of his existing company website. You will also host the new site you just redesigned and generate recurring passive hosting revenue. You are welcome. My pleasure.
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runjakeabout 1 year ago
Helping people on Reddit with tough problems and getting tipped. They would send me whole bitcoins (long ago). I lost the hard drive with the wallet which had several bitcoins. No backups. So, I guess that doesn&#x27;t count.
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eb0laabout 1 year ago
Plain old google ads. My first $ came in a check and it was more expensive to cash it in my country than just frame it. Morale: you actually &quot;earn&quot; something the moment cash is in your pocket. Everything else is plain accounting.
ChiptuneIsCoolabout 1 year ago
I&#x27;m quite young so this happened very recently. Me and my friend created an Android app for students that could let you view our school&#x27;s online workbook (so grades, lessons, news etc) in the app without opening and logging in the website. Some time passed and the workbook gained popularity among other schools (mostly because it was open source) and so did our app. Then a school asked us to change the ui a bit and paid us 80€. I think I used my 40€ in pc parts and other stuff :) Soon after we stopped working on it and graduated.<p>There are still like 200~ users using the app even after 2 years since we stopped updating (and it crashes a lot).
tuumiabout 1 year ago
Back when the internet began to appear in households I had a friend who started a dial up ISP. I had a personal website hosted there. I found an adult clip and made a web page with a banner ad with a &quot;click here to support&quot;. Honestly, I have no idea how people even found the web page. I&#x27;d get mailed $20 to $50 dollar checks every so often. I&#x27;d have to monitor the bandwidth used so my buddy wouldn&#x27;t notice. I&#x27;m pretty sure I went over but I was never charged extra. The mid to late 90s were an interesting time.
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sivel123about 1 year ago
Are there ways i can make even 20$ a day currently?I am a junior software developer with less than a year of experience.I have worked with, javascript,react.js and python.And the usual html and css
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roosgitabout 1 year ago
I don’t remember exactly how much it was the first time, but I used to sell WordPress themes (design and coding with full reselling rights) on SitePoint.<p>I even found the page listing one of the themes I sold with Wayback Machine - &quot;Winning bid: $125&quot;. Some people were buying these themes, change the &quot;Theme by&quot; link in the footer and give them away for free. Probably for SEO reasons.
idontwantthisabout 1 year ago
My mom found me a web dev contract on our neighborhood list serve. It was an incredible opportunity to get paid quite well for a college kid. I knew hardly anything and had to learn every skill before I used it because I was the only employee.
seattle_springabout 1 year ago
In 2000, I sold a relatively high level Diablo 2 account for just over $200 on Ebay. I probably put more than 1000 hours into it so not a very good return on investment, but it sure felt cool to “get paid” for playing a video game I loved!
coretxabout 1 year ago
Selling modified versions of RAT&#x27;s such as Netbus and Subseven. The modification was about circumventing AV detection, needless to say the clients would return on a regular basis.
gcheongabout 1 year ago
Made a website for the guest house we were staying at in Japan in the early 90&#x27;s. We even bought a digital camera to take pics of the property. Later on iOS apps when the app store was relatively new.
lakomenabout 1 year ago
Adsense. I don&#x27;t remember where I placed them. The internet was wild back in 2004
_kushabout 1 year ago
I made a photoshop brush back in 2010 for a competition which awarded me $100 because it received the highest number of upvotes. I bought myself a guitar with the money :)
annorabout 1 year ago
Google was paying $1 to put Mozilla Firefox on a computer.<p>I made a bunch of few bucks or two every x minutes or so, 24h&#x2F;day. Details escapes me atm.
DamonHDabout 1 year ago
Ad sales on a Web site probably late 90s?<p>Though before that sifting through USENET articles for technical gems for a large client paid better...
hellomrsparrowabout 1 year ago
Does winning online&#x2F;remote hackathons during college time count as &quot;money I made online&quot;?
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kodyabout 1 year ago
$50 to skin my buddy&#x27;s band&#x27;s MySpace page. $200 for an actor friend&#x27;s portfolio website shortly thereafter.
lerosabout 1 year ago
I built a SaaS for hosted GitLab runners and got a subscription.
kylehotchkissabout 1 year ago
Mechanical Turk. It probably took me like 4 hours.
atleastoptimalabout 1 year ago
Sold a prompt on promptbase
transformiabout 1 year ago
as participating in an online game. earning 70$.