Niall Doherty's Blog, page 74
March 7, 2024
From Near-Death Experience to $1 Million Per Year Business
Matt SerelCo-Founder of You Are Accountable $1 Million annual revenue Published March 7, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty Matt Serel is the Co-Founder of You Are Accountable 
Their tagline…
Beating addiction is hard. We’re here to sustain recovery.
Matt says in a recent interview…
We primarily meet this challenge by using a combination of peer recovery coaching, toxicology monitoring, and amazing technology… that makes us an efficient, organized, lean mean recovery sustaining machine.
I built the company with my partner AJ (who is a therapist) based on both of our experiences finding sustainable recovery from addiction. Basically, we just built what we wish we had access to when we got sober!
What tough experience have you been through?
What products or services do you wish existed at the time?
Could you build those for others? 
Matt’s business has turned out well…
Accountable is bootstrapped, grew over 300% in the last year, and has a 7 figure run rate…
More importantly, we’ve had a part in impacting thousands of lives at this point and it is just the most beautiful thing to witness.
7 figure run rate = $1 million per year in revenue 
And they only started in 2020.
How it all began…
I always loved to party… On October 14th 2013, I overdosed on Oxycodone, alone, on a work trip…
My girlfriend (now wife) was nervous that I didn’t answer my phone in the morning, broke into my email to find out where I was staying, and had the hotel call 911.
I would be dead if she had waited 15 minutes.
Matt’s approach to starting the business, having built 2 other businesses previously…
I always start with things that don’t scale (manual processes), and once a model is proven out, then build the system around it.
For initial traction 
I basically harassed the treatment center I went to, spent months cold outreaching people on LinkedIn, and showed up at any local events I could find.
It took about a month to get our first paying customer (wahoo take that $99 to the bank!), and really 3-4 months of relentless outreach to start to get any sort of traction.
Now, 4 years later…
90% of our clients are referred to us from clinical providers (treatment centers, individual therapists, psychiatrists, etc)…
Because of our model we were able to offer services that normally cost thousands per month, at hundreds of dollars per month instead.
What else do people spend a lot of money on each month?
Could you provide a cheaper alternative?
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$1000/Month Passive Income From 2 Simple Chrome Extensions
Glen ChiacchieriBrowser Extension Developer $1000 monthly revenue Published March 7, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty Hacker News has a thread like this every year
I made a couple browser extensions that make over $500/month each.
The key seems to be naming your extension after high-volume search terms and getting good reviews on the chrome store (and obviously having an extension that works well and solves a common problem on major websites).
The commenter is Glen Chiacchieri.
I found these extensions listed under his name on the Chrome Web Store…
The first two have a paywall. You get unlimited use of the tool after a one-time payment 
Back to Glen’s HN comment…
I’m extremely biased… but I think browser extensions are a pretty neat way to break into indie hacking. They cost nothing to run because they’re hosted by extension stores.
They’re often faster and easier to build than whole apps because you can just use them to fix or modify existing websites rather than create your own from scratch.
They can get organic traffic from extension stores, especially if they’re well-named.
The main piece that was a pain in the ass for me was adding payments, so I made a service to do it (https://extensionpay.com), and now I can just focus on making the extensions work well.
Because of all my previous work I was able to build and submit my last extension (making over $500/month now) to the chrome store in four hours — no joke!
I reckon there’s lots of money to be made with utility tools that people would need once in a while and are happy to pay a small fee for access.
To come up with some ideas…
To actually build the extension, hire a developer on Upwork or use ChatGPT to build it yourself.
For a small extension, there wouldn’t be a lot of code involved.
I asked ChatGPT to sketch out a plan for building an extension to delete Reddit posts – like the one Glen is earning $500/month from – and it estimated I’d ultimately need 270 to 570 lines of code.
Even $100/month from an extension like that would be a solid ROI 
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March 4, 2024
$3000/Month Collecting and Sharing Coupons
Uzair FarooqFounder of PennyCanny $3000 monthly revenue Published March 5, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty Uzair Farooq is from Pakistan and the founder of PennyCanny
Started in 2021, the site shares coupon codes, discounts and offers for stores like JCPenny and DoorDash.
In a recent interview, Uzair reveals the site is now earning $3000/month 
How it works…
Collecting online coupons requires effort, as you’ve to scour promo codes across the web. That’s why I hired a team of 12 members for our operations team. The first member (Ops team manager) I hired already had some experience and had worked with another coupon website. The rest were trained.
We manually collected coupons by visiting online stores, signing up for their newsletters, and using social media channels. And we still follow the same process.
The team first validates the coupons by applying them and then uploads them on the backend portal we’ve built specifically for their ease.
So they’re basically saving people from having to go to all that trouble themselves to find and validate coupons.
And if you can save people time and effort, you can probably make money 
Best I can tell, PennyCanny is mainly monetized via affiliate partnerships and display ads.
For example, they have affiliate links to Fiverr from this page, and you can see display ads on their blog posts (like this one).
And while there are a ton of other coupon sites on the web, most of them look really spammy and their codes rarely work. PennyCanny is standing out with a clean interface and legit codes.
Also, 12 team members might sound like a lot, but the business is based in 
Pakistan, where the average monthly salary is only $287.
Plus, there’s clearly a lot of money to be made in the coupon business. Ever heard of Honey, the coupon-finding browser extension that sold to PayPal for $4 billion?
So while PennyCanny likely isn’t earning much profit for Uzair just yet, there’s plenty of potential there.
Lastly…
We only have a handful of stores on the website (around 50), but the response is encouraging… Our main focus is adding more stores to reach and serve a wider audience on a global scale.
I’m thinking there could be an opportunity to build something like PennyCanny for specific niches.
Is there a niche you’re particularly interested in?
What if there was a coupon site dedicated to that niche?
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Learn more about income claims and estimates on this website
Our goal at eBiz Facts is to give you accurate information about online business so you can gain clearer insights, make better decisions, and achieve your own success.
With that in mind, we strive to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the income claims and estimates that you see on this website.
Here’s how:
We treat all income claims we find online with skepticism.We don’t report incomes that seem especially controversial or unrealistic.We cite our sources and/or share our calculations so you can see where the numbers come from.If there are uncertainties about an income claim or estimate, we tell you what those are.If you see an income claim or estimate that seems off, please tell us so we can fix it.
Is this kind of business right for you?Check out our framework to see the 19 types and 6 levels of online business, and discover which is best for you.
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3 Business Ideas From Least/Most Enjoyable Activities
Check out this study on Time Use 
This image in particular stands out…
How do people rate the enjoyment of different activities
The type of activities rated as least enjoyable…
Most enjoyable…
Jakob Greenfeld writes…
This seems like extremely useful data when looking for a business idea.
Agreed.
You’d basically be looking for ways to help people do less activities from the top of the graph and more from the bottom.
But instead of sitting here and racking my brain, I uploaded the graph to ChatGPT and asked it to generate some business ideas based on the data that would be worth exploring.
In particular I asked it for “out of the box” ideas that could be done mostly online, without leaving home 
Some interesting ideas it came back with…
Online Decluttering Game: Since household chores aren’t enjoyable, create a gamified online platform where users can set cleaning goals, challenge friends, and earn rewards for completing tasks in their real home.
Online Skill-Betting Platform: Users can bet on themselves to learn a new skill within a certain timeframe (like cooking, playing an instrument, or learning a language) and share progress with a community for accountability and support.
Remote Social Dining Platform: To mimic the enjoyment of eating out at restaurants, develop a platform where people can sign up to have meals with strangers over video chat, sharing the experience of cooking or eating together while apart.
No clue if those ideas are viable.
But hopefully that shows you the potential of brainstorming with ChatGPT. Especially when combined with real-world data 
His Little Productized Service Earned $11K in 12 Months
Bas van StraatenWebflow Developer $19,000+ revenue Published March 5, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty 
Bas van Straaten is a Webflow developer and founder of Webflow Cookies, where he provides a simple productised service to build cookie banners on Webflow sites.
The selling point…
Unlike other solutions, we will match the look-and-feel of the cookie consent banners with the rest of your website.
This sells for €72.95 ($78.95) per site.
They’ve apparently had 250+ customers, which works out to $19,000+ in revenue
Bas says in a recent interview…
The service I created was never meant to make any money. When the GDPR rules were announced in Europe, I increasingly received the request to make my clients’ websites GDPR compliant and set up a cookie banner.
There were many services out there to help, but most of them were either expensive or lacked styling control. Short story: it was always a hassle at the end of the project.
So
To help the community, I decided to design my own cookie banner and offer it as a free resource to the community.
People started to use it and this is how the story of what is now known as Webflow Cookies was born.
After launching the free resource…
People started to ask me for help with the setup. I installed the cookie banner, set up their Google Tag Manager and sent an invoice for the hours worked.
Only after the 20th order I realized this could be a great little productized service.
A few weeks later, and I built a website, wrote out all SOPs and trained a VA to handle the implementation.
His “little productized service” has done well…
In the last 12 months [it has] made just under $11,000 – with a 90% profit margin. While it only contributes <5% to my annual revenue of all income stream together (freelance work + 2 other small services), it counts as some good pocket money given that it’s fully outsourced.
I reckon Bas’ approach could be replicated in many areas.
You’d basically create a free resource for a popular product (eg. Webflow, Airtable, etc.), then offer a paid product or service that complements the freebie.
Another example of this in action: Zite Design Carrd Tutorial
That’s a tutorial showing you how to build landing pages for Carrd. You can watch the videos for free, and then Zite Design itself is a template marketplace.
So if you get fed up learning how to build templates yourself, you can head over to Zite Design and buy a pre-built template.
Lastly, I love Bas’ advice for aspiring entrepreneurs…
If you’re just starting out, and don’t have a clear idea yet for a service/product – consider going the freelance route first:
– You get to learn new skills, people and software while getting paid for it.
– In the short term – selling your time to clients gets you much more cash much faster than trying to build a product (in my experience).
– As you spend time becoming an expert in a certain niche, you start to uncover problems and new opportunities – which you then can turn into products or services.
Bas said $11K is <5% of his annual revenue.
So he’s earning about $220,000 per year overall.
And it sounds like most of that comes from freelancing
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The goal of our Online Money Maker profiles is to show you all the different ways people make money online. We strive to ensure that each profile is realistic – no hype, no scams – so you can see what it really takes to build each type of business.
If you'd like to hear when we publish new profiles, subscribe to our free newsletter below. Each edition is packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday to 21,565 legendary subscribers.
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See our latest profiles of Online Money Makers
Learn more about income claims and estimates on this website
Our goal at eBiz Facts is to give you accurate information about online business so you can gain clearer insights, make better decisions, and achieve your own success.
With that in mind, we strive to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the income claims and estimates that you see on this website.
Here’s how:
We treat all income claims we find online with skepticism.We don’t report incomes that seem especially controversial or unrealistic.We cite our sources and/or share our calculations so you can see where the numbers come from.If there are uncertainties about an income claim or estimate, we tell you what those are.If you see an income claim or estimate that seems off, please tell us so we can fix it.
Is this kind of business right for you?Check out our framework to see the 19 types and 6 levels of online business, and discover which is best for you.
Other ways to make money onlineThere are many other ways to make money online, to work from home or anywhere in the world.
Full list of ways to make money onlineMore profiles of online money makers Subscribe to eBiz Insider Every Tuesday and Friday we email 21,565 people like you with top tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. No hype, no scams, no fake gurus. Sign up below to get the next one.
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February 29, 2024
1 Year After Starting His Agency = $20,000/Month
Nikola BaldikovFounder of InBound Blogging $20,000 monthly revenue Published February 29, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty Nikola Baldikov is the founder of InBound Blogging, which started off as an SEO blog but nowadays is more of an SEO services and link-building agency 
Nikola reveals in a recent interview…
As of today, when my company recently turned one year old, our income is around $20,000 per month.
Sounds like he’s been working on some kind of online business since 2012, having tried selling t-shirts online and then blogging and affiliate marketing.
And it’s been about a year since he transitioned into the agency model
How Nikola landed his first clients…
What I was doing was advertising my business through LinkedIn and so-called word-of-mouth marketing.
I had already built a solid network of contacts, so the news spread quickly, and I was able to reach the right people. My efforts in this regard paid off six months later—we had three new clients…
Although I am a digital marketing expert, ironically, my clients came along more traditional paths. One of our biggest clients, even at the moment, is my previous employer.
That’s the most reliable way I’ve seen for agencies and freelancers to find clients: tapping their existing network.
Forget about paid ads and the like until you’ve tried that.
Also, you don’t need a lot of clients to make a good income, as Nikola can attest to…
Currently, we have four clients. Around 50% of what we earn from them is distributed to cover operating costs, etc. The other half is our net profit.
Last words from Nikola…
The best advice I can give to hesitant entrepreneurs is to trust their gut. It may sound like a cliché, but it’s true. My intuition led me to the decision to quit my stable job at a major company and embark on my entrepreneurial journey. That was one of my best decisions ever.
My biggest takeaway here: don’t underestimate starting a simple service business.
Nikola tried fancier online business models for years, the kind that promise passive income. But those businesses never really took off for him.
Things finally did take off when Nikola turned to the agency model and started providing SEO services for a handful of clients
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The goal of our Online Money Maker profiles is to show you all the different ways people make money online. We strive to ensure that each profile is realistic – no hype, no scams – so you can see what it really takes to build each type of business.
If you'd like to hear when we publish new profiles, subscribe to our free newsletter below. Each edition is packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday to 21,565 legendary subscribers.
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See our latest profiles of Online Money Makers
Learn more about income claims and estimates on this website
Our goal at eBiz Facts is to give you accurate information about online business so you can gain clearer insights, make better decisions, and achieve your own success.
With that in mind, we strive to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the income claims and estimates that you see on this website.
Here’s how:
We treat all income claims we find online with skepticism.We don’t report incomes that seem especially controversial or unrealistic.We cite our sources and/or share our calculations so you can see where the numbers come from.If there are uncertainties about an income claim or estimate, we tell you what those are.If you see an income claim or estimate that seems off, please tell us so we can fix it.
Is this kind of business right for you?Check out our framework to see the 19 types and 6 levels of online business, and discover which is best for you.
Other ways to make money onlineThere are many other ways to make money online, to work from home or anywhere in the world.
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Get On That Treadmill And Keep Going
From the book Grit by Angela Duckworth…
Many of us, it seems, quit what we start far too early and far too often. Even more than the effort a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going.
Remember: it’s rarely one big push that will get you where you want to go.
It’s way more about showing up consistently, day after day, and putting in the work.
His Coding Experiment Turned Into a $30K/Month Business
Alvaro TrigoDeveloper $30,000 monthly revenue Published February 29, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty 
Alvaro Trigo is the Spaniard behind fullPage.js, a JavaScript plugin that helps you “create beautiful fullscreen scrolling websites”
Alvaro wrote in a recent interview…
fullPage.js alone makes around $12K/month nowadays, and its maximum was $20K in one month.
He has built multiple similar plugins and says…
The whole business makes around $30K/month.
How Alvaro got started…
When I was working as a web developer, I had to create a simple site, and I was suggested to mimic a PowerPoint style.
So, looking for inspiration, I came up with the idea of making a full-screen scrollable site.
I was surprised to find out there were no components for web developers to speed up this process, so after building the page, I thought it would be a great idea to create my first plugin.
That first plugin took him a couple of weeks to build with ~300 lines of code…
That was when my first product came out. In fact, it wasn’t even a product, as I didn’t charge anything for it. The component was fully free for about 3 years.
Soon after launch…
some people sent me emails asking for specific customizations… I would deal with them one by one by email and provide them with a quote to create a custom version of the component for them.
Then
I started to notice some people were asking for exactly the same changes or features as others.
So I thought I could probably create those as extensions to the main component. This way they could just purchase and use them right away without any direct contact with me.
He adds…
In the first month, I released about 3 extensions and made more than $1K. I was impressed! I didn’t expect it to work out that well!
I’m sure it helped that the main plugin was free for people to use, so it could gain popularity and send more potential customers Alvaro’s way.
His plugin is still freely available on GitHub for open-source projects. For commercial projects, people have to pay for a license, with prices ranging from $15/month to $477 one-time.
3 years after Alvaro released the first version of his plugin – “with no experience and as an experiment to improve my skills” – he was able to quit his day job and now runs his own business with a small team
I love how he got the idea for his plugin while working as a web developer.
Keep an eye out for problems and pain points you encounter in your daily work
Could you come up with a solution for one of those and turn it into a business?
First time seeing our Online Money Maker profiles? Click here for a quick intro.
The goal of our Online Money Maker profiles is to show you all the different ways people make money online. We strive to ensure that each profile is realistic – no hype, no scams – so you can see what it really takes to build each type of business.
If you'd like to hear when we publish new profiles, subscribe to our free newsletter below. Each edition is packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday to 21,565 legendary subscribers.
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See our latest profiles of Online Money Makers
Learn more about income claims and estimates on this website
Our goal at eBiz Facts is to give you accurate information about online business so you can gain clearer insights, make better decisions, and achieve your own success.
With that in mind, we strive to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the income claims and estimates that you see on this website.
Here’s how:
We treat all income claims we find online with skepticism.We don’t report incomes that seem especially controversial or unrealistic.We cite our sources and/or share our calculations so you can see where the numbers come from.If there are uncertainties about an income claim or estimate, we tell you what those are.If you see an income claim or estimate that seems off, please tell us so we can fix it.
Is this kind of business right for you?Check out our framework to see the 19 types and 6 levels of online business, and discover which is best for you.
Other ways to make money onlineThere are many other ways to make money online, to work from home or anywhere in the world.
Full list of ways to make money onlineMore profiles of online money makers Subscribe to eBiz Insider Every Tuesday and Friday we email 21,565 people like you with top tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. No hype, no scams, no fake gurus. Sign up below to get the next one.
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How She Built Her 6-Figure Freelance Writing Biz
Alli HillFreelance Writer $100,000+ annual revenue Published February 29, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty Alli Hill is a freelance writer, content marketer, and the founder of Fleurish Freelance, where she teaches others how to build a freelance biz.
Alli writes about her journey in a recent interview, starting in 2016…
I went from $0 to a steady six-figure salary in less than three years.
She was working a day job (as a mom of 2) and…
My boss asked me to level up my marketing skills so I could handle more duties for his business (with no discussion of a pay increase).
Instead…
I put my new marketing skills to work for myself.
I landed a few content writing clients after about two weeks of prospecting. This helped me build a real portfolio, which helped me continue to get clients…
Good old-fashioned job boards led me to my first few clients. Without a website, blog, or any other online presence.
She adds…
The first year was a struggle in terms of time management, simply because I was still working my full-time job while trying to build my business.
I wanted to ensure my success was sustainable and not just beginner’s luck.
How Alli got traction…
I prioritized online reviews and referrals from previous clients and industry connections. To start collecting reviews, I joined Fiverr as a seller, which allowed me to shift to an inbound marketing approach.
I also focused on agency relationships… Agencies handle the day-to-day efforts of generating leads… which leaves me more time to create the content without wasting time on non-billable activities.
She didn’t quit her day job until…
I was spending more time on my side hustle than my day job. It was a natural progression, and I’m glad I waited because it gave me the confidence I needed to keep going.
Check out Alli’s Fiverr profile here, with 1200 five-star ratings
Breaking down Alli’s steps to success…
Try selling your services via marketplace sites like FiverrBuild up reviewsUtilize those reviews to find more clients and partner with agenciesAlli’s advice for others
Just start. You don’t have to have all the answers, a foolproof plan, or thousands of dollars in savings. Motivation follows action, so take the first step and get things moving.
First time seeing our Online Money Maker profiles? Click here for a quick intro.
The goal of our Online Money Maker profiles is to show you all the different ways people make money online. We strive to ensure that each profile is realistic – no hype, no scams – so you can see what it really takes to build each type of business.
If you'd like to hear when we publish new profiles, subscribe to our free newsletter below. Each edition is packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday to 21,565 legendary subscribers.
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Learn more about income claims and estimates on this website
Our goal at eBiz Facts is to give you accurate information about online business so you can gain clearer insights, make better decisions, and achieve your own success.
With that in mind, we strive to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the income claims and estimates that you see on this website.
Here’s how:
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February 26, 2024
His Vampire Website Earned $500,000 in 1 Year
Nebojša Vujinović VujoWebsite Owner $500,000 in one year from The Frisky Published February 26, 2024 by Fardeen KhanReviewed and edited by Niall Doherty Check out this recent article in Wired…
Confessions of an AI Clickbait Kingpin The blurb…
Serbian DJ turned internet entrepreneur Nebojša Vujinović Vujo floods abandoned news sites with AI-generated articles. But he wants you to know he’s a nice guy.
Vujo apparently operates 2,000 such sites 
He basically snaps them up as expiring domains after they’ve been abandoned.
Some of the sites he’s acquired…
TheHairpin.com – previously a famous women-run media site.TrumpPlaza.com – former official website of the hotel and casino.Pope2you.net – once an official Vatican website.From the Wired article…
His most significant—and consistently profitable—purchase is women’s media outlet The Frisky…
“It cost a lot—all the money that I had—but that was my opportunity,” he says.
Vujo says the site generated over $500,000 in the first year he bought the domain. In addition to healthy income from ads and clients willing to pay for backlinks, the brand was a magnet for companies willing to pay for sponsored posts.
From a 2019 BuzzFeed article…
The Frisky as it once existed is gone. Today it’s a vampire website feeding off the property’s former popularity and brand name to sell pay-for-play articles in order to influence search engine rankings.
Back to Wired
Vujo was born in what is now known as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and his family fled during the breakup of Yugoslavia. “I had two wars I escaped… It was terrible to grow up in this part of the world.”
He says his economic options have been limited, and this was simply a path available to him…
“Maybe it would be better for you that I’m a bad guy,” he tells me. “Better for your story. But I’m just an ordinary guy…”
“I’m just one guy who, yes, in business I am using AI to create shitty content on the internet to earn money or a fortune,” he says.
He’s not a mustache-twirling supervillain, chortling as he spews journalism-killing AI slime. He’s an affable young dad who wants his kid to have a nicer childhood than he did.
Plain to see why people get into this line of work.
Easier to make big money fast, even though it’s unlikely to last.
Case in point: that website The Frisky earned Vujo $500,000 the first year he acquired it, but apparently its earnings are down to $50,000 a year now, a 90% drop 
So he has to keep hunting for new sites to take advantage of.
Personally, I’d rather invest my time and effort into building a legit brand/site that can thrive long term
Also, Google is actively trying to find and punish these vampire websites. And Google is a tough opponent to fight.
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Learn more about income claims and estimates on this website
Our goal at eBiz Facts is to give you accurate information about online business so you can gain clearer insights, make better decisions, and achieve your own success.
With that in mind, we strive to ensure the accuracy and transparency of the income claims and estimates that you see on this website.
Here’s how:
We treat all income claims we find online with skepticism.We don’t report incomes that seem especially controversial or unrealistic.We cite our sources and/or share our calculations so you can see where the numbers come from.If there are uncertainties about an income claim or estimate, we tell you what those are.If you see an income claim or estimate that seems off, please tell us so we can fix it.
Is this kind of business right for you?Check out our framework to see the 19 types and 6 levels of online business, and discover which is best for you.
Other ways to make money onlineThere are many other ways to make money online, to work from home or anywhere in the world.
Full list of ways to make money onlineMore profiles of online money makers Subscribe to eBiz Insider Every Tuesday and Friday we email 21,466 people like you with top tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. No hype, no scams, no fake gurus. Sign up below to get the next one.
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