My First $100 Earning (Online Income)

A lot of times I get asked how did you earn your first dollar.

I guess that’s a pretty good question to answer.

More importantly, I understand the feeling when you have not yet earned a single penny online.

Hence I want to share my story with you. Hoping that this will help you.

It was back in October 2016.

I had stopped working with 2 of my clients because I didn’t want to continue doing the service work. Not because it was not paying me well. I was getting paid quite well. But I felt my heart lies more in doing something else.

At this point, we were still under debt. Just in case you don’t know my entrepreneurship journey, you can read more about it here – https://saurabhbhatnagar.com/aboutsaurabh/.

In this article, I will continue with the main topic.

All right, so that was a time when a lot of “gurus” used to tell how great Facebook & Instagram pages were & how much income they made with their pages.

Being in awe, I also started a Minions Instagram page. Then a Minions Facebook page & then a BB Ki Vines Fan Page (famous Youtuber).

For the “BB Ki Vines Fan Page” I experimented with a different kind of image in the page like ad which kicked off & fetched me Page likes for 0.12 Cents (0.08 Paisa).

In one month I spent Rs 2,991 ($44) & acquired 37,000+ Facebook page likes.

I thought it was great & posted it as a case study on my Facebook.

With a question about who is interested in the case study.

The plan was that I would create a lead generation link & people would subscribe there. We were working on a Facebook-related software & the idea was to acquire some Facebook-related leads before the software launch. So I could sell them our software when it will become live.

I got 40+ comments & that was a huge motivation boost.

So I made the case study in the form of a small video course. 

And created a page to promote the course.

Now the whole idea was only lead generation.

I asked the visitors to subscribe first & then bring on 3 people to subscribe through you & you will get the course for free.

To highlight the FREE option further, I also added a paid option there for $19 (Rs 1,199). 

You can get the same case study without inviting anyone if you would pay the amount.

So either invite 3 people to get it for free or take the paid option.

I was very confident that nobody would go for the paid option & it was only there to make the free option look even more lucrative.

Also, the fact that I had kept the pricing so high ($19), I was 100% confident that everybody would go for the free option.

(Don’t be surprised when I said $19 was so high. Before this, I was surviving on a $10 a month income for 4 years when I used to grind every day of every month. So for a person like me back then, $19 was a huge thing).

I reached out to everyone who commented & messaged them:

I posted it everywhere I could. 

To my huge surprise, I got a $19 payment.

Then 3 Rs 1199 payments.

And then 2 more $19 payments.

So I had 3 customers from India & 3 from outside. 

I had earned almost Rs 7,000 ($100) within a week & I was absolutely nuts about it.

Imagine I had to work for 10 months every single day for this same amount of earning.

And here I had just made the same amount in just 1 week.

Crazy!!

I had not even added a payment settlement method in my PayUMoney account because I was so confident that no one would ever buy.

More than money it was a “Confidence” victory for me.

Then a couple of months later we went on to do our first software launch that generated revenue in crores (over $130,000) & everything changed ever since.

Here is the case study page link – https://saurabhbhatnagar.com/fbdomination

(I removed the free option later because now I had confidence that people would buy my products & that was the only paid product I had. I am not even sure whether the links in there are working or not. So don’t buy it. If you need the case study, just let me know in the comments below & I will share it with you for free).

Today it makes me absolutely crazy to see my “Saurabh Bhatnagar University” is just a little shy of a Million Dollars in revenue.

While my other venture (Software + Affiliate Marketing) has flourished even more in the last 3 years.

Things change pretty fast, isn’t it?

But there was a huge linear period before that upwards curve.

And I guess that helps. A lot. Because it reminds me of the value of true hard work. And the skills I learned doing offline sales for 4 years now help me online.

So it helps in both ways.

In fact, I should tell you, my revenue-based achievements don’t even freak me anymore. Rather, now I feel happier when I see success stories in my inner circle group. Because I know the feeling of when you are starting out & the initial struggles & no mentoring. So when I am able to help my students get good results, it makes me really happy.

My Key Learning:

1. Creating a digital product is one of the easiest ways of starting your online venture
2. Just create a product. Assign a price tag. And be able to justify the price tag. That’s it.
3. You get paid in seconds.
4. If you can’t do software (which most people can’t. Of course), you can still do info. Teach something you know & get paid for it.

Like Facebook Page Like Domination & Saurabh Bhatnagar University. Both of them are courses. Not software.

1. If you are making an info course, no need to worry that you are not the BEST in your subject matter. Just teach whatever you know. Just of course don’t hype your claims on your sales page. Claim only what you know. You will always find people who are a few levels behind you & would love to come to your level & they would pay you to get your info product.

What could I have done differently?

Well, quite a lot. 

2 major things:

1. Sales Funnel on top of it
2. Course access Automation

I was still a little far from implementing these concepts in my online journey. 

Today it is the “Sales Funnel” that brings the majority of the revenue in my company.

And then powerful automation ensures that everything keeps running despite me not handling it manually anytime. Back then I used to give access manually. Because I didn’t know how to do it on automation.

But the answer to the real question “What could I have done differently?”

I don’t think anything I could have done anything differently. I had put my best effort into creating the course & then promoting it everywhere & even reaching out to everyone possible via messenger as well. So as per my knowledge level, I did the best I could.

Want to learn from me?

Sure. Go here to enroll for my Free Facebook ads course – https://saurabhbhatnagar.com/fb-special/

Plus you will also be invited for a free online workshop where I will show you how “Sales Funnel” brought about a real change in my life & how you can do it too.