Something I keep telling my friends

Author

Kevin Szabo
February 24, 2026

In partnership with

A buddy of mine has been trying to make money online for about two years now.

He's taken courses on dropshipping, crypto, affiliate marketing, and most recently something involving AI tools I still don't fully understand.

Smart guy. Works hard. Nothing has stuck.

We grabbed coffee last month and he asked me what I thought he was doing wrong.

I told him honestly: you keep starting over.

Every few months there's a new thing and you abandon whatever you were building to chase it.

You haven't given anything enough time to actually work.

He got quiet for a second and said "okay so what would you actually do?"

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And I told him.

Pick one thing you don't hate doing.

Not the most profitable thing. Not what some guy with a Lambo thumbnail is pushing.

Something you'd actually read about at 11pm without it feeling like homework.

Then do it for six months without looking sideways.

That's genuinely it. The whole secret. It's boring and it works.

The reason most people never make money from a skill isn't that they picked the wrong one.

It's that they never stayed long enough to get good enough for anyone to pay them.

You can't outrun that with a better niche.

What actually moves the needle is just time in the seat.

Reading about it, practicing it, talking about it, screwing it up, trying again.

Slowly becoming the person in your circle that people associate with that thing.

Not famous. Just recognizable to the right people.

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My friend asked how you get your first clients without an audience and I told him that part's simpler than it sounds.

You make a few real samples of your work, you reach out to people who are already aware of you in some way, and instead of pitching them you just show them something useful you made.

No ask. Just proof that you know what you're doing.

Some people ignore you. Some say thanks.

Every once in a while someone says "wait, how much do you charge for this?"

That's the whole business model. It's not glamorous.

It doesn't make a good YouTube thumbnail.

But it's the thing that actually works.

He texted me a few days later and said he picked email marketing.

Said he's just going to write practice emails for brands he already buys from and post about what he's learning.

I told him that's exactly right.

Check back in six months.

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