It must have only been a year ago when I was sitting at school, with little interest in my chosen subjects and waiting for the last day of year 11 to finally arrive. However, at that point, I had no direction in my life and I wouldn't have been able to describe to somehow what I wanted.

I turned to the internet, knowing it's one of the best places to go when you have a keen interest, but not the grades to backup your mindset. I think I should take this time to say I am not a dumb teenager. I learn things quite quickly but if I have no interest in a topic then you can try and try and try but I won't take note. Anyway, back to the story.

I started out with sites which earnt their keep, but didn't "take off". I went from paid traffic sites, to content services, and then to blogs for a short time. I remember the day when I sold Wepay Youpost, it was my content management site where we offered forum services such as paid posts and moderator roles. It was an awful domain, but I built that site from scratch with a poor template and basically no fruit to develop it with.

I turned to Webmaster sites, to try and spread the word, and invested a small amount of money each month advertising on sites such as AdminFusion. From this, I managed to generate around $800 a month, before paying my workers. After that, and hosting, I ended up with around $500.

I managed to sell the site for $1,500. It wasn't alot, but Wepay Youpost was taking up alot of my time and I was starting to lose interest. However, that day was the day I realised I could utilise the internet. I had realised that I could potentially live a relaxed lifestyle thank to net. I then started making contacts with fellow webmasters and generally discussing techniques and stories.

Around 10 months ago, I got into myspace advertising. Selling bulletins, accounts, etc. There is no way of getting round it, that was spam. However, it made me over $20,000 in a very short space of time, because I hit the MS scene as it was booming. Does the money make it right? Probably not, but I still believe to this day that if I hadn't have gone with the MS path, I wouldn't be in the situation I am in now.

Anyway.. the MS scene was starting to die down due to spam filters and generally MS clamping down on anyone looking to exploit the commenting and messaging system. I knew I had cash sitting in my bank, and I needed to invest. After searching and searching, I chose a large forum owned by someone who lives just 30 minutes away from me. The guy has now become a good friend in fact, and we have a few joint projects.

I'm not going to disclose the name or link here, but it has managed to earn me a solid income of around $5,000 each month. I could have probably utilised its monetization potential earlier, but it's only until recently that I did. The best thing about the forum is it has huge peaks and troughs. Depending on events, the sites traffic can instantly increase 5 fold. Right now for example, we have Alexa ranking of 15,000 - and just 1 month ago we we're sitting at 45k!

Money was rolling in, and due to my forum success, I managed to continually invest in new projects. I now own a chain of adult sites, a network of myspace resource sites, and I still own the forum which I discussed above which is my main income stream to this day.

Sorry this story was so long, but I wanted to share this to demonstrate that anyone can utilise the internet. When I was first getting started a was a total noob without a clue, and Lee was just one of the people I must have annoyed along the way, asking stupid questions and questioning him daily about whether any of his established forums we're up for sale! (Which I blatently couldn't afford.. I feel embarrassed to even discuss it now) :blush:

Life is just a series of random decisions. And those decisions along with dedicated hard work can make you into a success over time. In just one year, I have gone from earning $0, to a steady mid-high $x,xxx monthly income which often exceeds mid $xx,xxx.

You really can become a success on the net, just stick to what your interested in and don't be scared of failure. Keep trying, and eventually you will get there. Heck - if I have, anyone can!

Good Luck!

Thank you for posting your inspiring story. I am new to the online earning game, and you have given some valuable tips (even if you don't realise it!)

Currently I'm in the beginning stages of my site, and sometimes get discouraged by the amount of inactivity. Posts like this drive me to keep trying and hopefully I can become a great success as you have.

Cheers!

What an inspiring story, thanks for sharing.

wow cool ,love to see inspiring story like yours.

Can I work for you?
Seriously we (me and my partner) just started out and could use some mentoring from someone who had did it like you.

great story! keep the good work

that is a great story I hope to find more such stories here on this forum

That is really a great story
Thanks for sharing.
I am a new here.

Pretty impressive! Thanks for sharing.

Nice work! Thanks for sharing your experience its inspiring me now

Congratulations mate in all your success!

It is great, you did not have so much experience in the start, but you quickly got the grasp of things and can get yourself $5K per month.

I would love to be in your position, especially since Forums are my passion and hopefully I can look up to you and maybe do the same thing some day.

congratz and you must be very hardworking. Sometimes it's not as easy as you think because there is a lot of creative people out there. Keep up the good work.

Thanks! I now believe I can do it too!!

that's a great story!! I admire you..