How I started making money online at 13

I’ve always been enthusiastic about programming. I started by learning HTML and CSS when I was 11. I wanted to make games because it seemed simple to publish a game on the App Store and make money.

So I started learning Java, as all the YouTube “Gurus” said it was the language to learn for making games. I spent a couple of months learning java and realized, that it was not for me.

Coding became more about fixing syntax than expressing my creativity.

So, I ditched Java and programming and learnt Python. I then learnt Django so I could build web applications with python. This was difficult as I was moving from developing basic algorithms, to large and complicated applications.

I built a couple of applications with Django, and eventually ran out of ideas. However, I was always eager to learn more and try new projects.

One day, It randomly occurred to me, why don’t I list a gig on Fiverr for making Django projects?

I get to do what I love, I get to learn more, and I get paid for it. Why not? So I created 3 gigs for things I was good at. Here are my gigs:

• I will create a django website
• I will automate any task for you using python
• I will scrape data for you using selenium (If you aren’t aware of Fiverr, the format “I will…” is compulsory for the name of the gig)

Initially, I didn’t get any traction, but since I was an excited kid, I used to check my account stats twice everyday. I think Fiverr has an algorithm for recommending gigs based on the activity of the freelancer.

Basically, the more time you spend on the application, the more your gigs will rank.

Since I was active for most of day, my Fiverr gigs started getting traction. A month later, I got my first order for $50, and then I continuously got about 5–6 orders.

Around this time, I started getting tired of this because the projects I had to build were quite large and it took about a weeks for each of them. I only got paid about $30 — $50 per project.

Screenshot from Fiverr Dashboard

I started to feel like I was wasting my time and so I started becoming less active. As I became less active, I got less orders and eventually, my gigs died because for inactivity. In total I made about $220 from Fiverr.

By learning from this experience, I learnt what it was like to make money online. I loved the feeling, and wanted to make more, but Fiverr wasn’t gonna cut it.

So, I continued on my journey. I found success in a lot of different things like Shopify drop shipping, Linkedin Lead Generation Agency, Email Marketing. Currently, I’m developing a crypto payments processor.

If you want to learn more about my journey, make sure to follow me on Twitter. I share details about these on there!
Thank you for reading, have a good day!