When I decided to try living off the internet, I had a hundred ideas in my head. Freelancing, AI, selling things online, affiliate marketing, crypto, building websites… The list kept getting longer.
But before trying to build some big online business, I figured I should start with something much simpler.
Can I make my first money online using nothing but my laptop?
No investment. No products to buy. No audience. No website making money for me. Just my laptop, an internet connection and my time.
I’m not expecting this part of the challenge to replace a salary. The goal is to get started, learn how online work actually works, and — most importantly — make that first €1.
So I started looking for things I could realistically do right now.
There were plenty of things I could try, but these are the ones I wanted to start with:
Paid research studies and surveys. Probably not something that will ever pay my bills, but an easy place to start. I want to see which platforms are actually worth my time and which ones make you answer questions for twenty minutes only to tell you that you don’t qualify.
AI training and data tasks. AI companies need people for things like evaluating responses, comparing search results, checking information, labelling data and completing language-related tasks. This interests me especially because there seems to be much more going on here than the old-fashioned microtask websites.
Search engine evaluation. Getting paid to evaluate search results, ads or online content sounds almost too easy. I want to find out how difficult it is to get accepted, how much work is actually available and what the hourly earnings look like.
Website and app testing. Companies pay ordinary users to test websites and apps, complete specific tasks and explain what they think. Individual tests can pay considerably more than surveys, although getting enough of them may be the real challenge.
Freelance micro-jobs. Instead of trying to become a full-time freelancer immediately, I want to experiment with smaller jobs I can complete entirely online — research, writing, simple data work, AI-assisted tasks or anything else that matches skills I already have.
Referral programmes and small online opportunities. These probably won’t become a serious income source on their own, but I don’t want to ignore the smaller opportunities either. If something takes little effort and genuinely puts another €10, €20 or €50 into the challenge pot, it counts.
I’m going to give these a proper try and keep track of everything: applications, hours spent, rejections, jobs completed and, of course, how much money actually reaches my account.
Maybe I’ll make €20. Maybe €200. Maybe I’ll discover that half of these “opportunities” are a complete waste of time.
Either way, that’s exactly what I want this challenge to find out.
My first target was: make my first €100 with my laptop.
And throughout this challenge, I’ll share the different ways I’ve tried to make money online — including the ones that worked, the ones that barely made anything, and the ones that failed completely.
Then I’ll leave it to you to decide whether any of them are worth trying yourself.