How I Made My First $100 Online (And What I'd Do Differently)

I made my first $100 online from a $9 Notion template.

Eleven sales. That was it. Eleven people paid nine dollars for a productivity template I built for myself and decided to post.

It didn't take long. But that's because I'd already spent months failing before that. The template wasn't my first attempt — it was just the first thing that worked.

Here's what actually happened, what I'd do differently, and why the first $100 matters so much.

What I Tried Before It Worked

Before the template, I tried three things.

Attempt 1: A freelance writing side hustle. I signed up on several platforms, wrote a profile, and waited. I got one $15 article assignment in two months. The problem wasn't the skill — it was that I was competing against a hundred identical profiles and had no differentiation.

Attempt 2: Selling an ebook. I spent three weeks writing a 60-page guide about personal productivity. I put it on a platform, priced it at $12, and made zero sales. The issue in retrospect: I was solving a problem I cared about, not a problem a specific buyer was actively searching for. I had no traffic, no list, and no plan for actually reaching anyone.

Attempt 3: An affiliate blog. I started a blog about productivity and wrote several posts. I made $0 from it in two months and got discouraged. The problem: I had no SEO strategy and no understanding of why the blog would work.

Then I made the template.

How the Template Actually Worked

The Notion template was a weekly planning system — something I'd built for myself that actually worked. I'd been using it for four months when someone in a subreddit asked if I'd share it.

I decided to polish it and sell it instead. I spent one Saturday afternoon cleaning it up and adding instructions. I put it on Gumroad for $9. I shared the link in two or three places online where it was relevant.

Within a week, I had eleven sales.

What was different:

I already knew it worked. I was selling something that had proven value to me, not something I hoped would be valuable to others.

The price was low enough to be an impulse buy. At $9, the buyer's decision was simple. They didn't need to think hard about it.

I distributed it where my exact buyer already was. I didn't just list it and hope — I shared it in places where people were already asking the specific problem it solved.

What I'd Do Differently Today

If I were starting over, I'd skip the attempts and go straight to something like the template — but do it better.

I'd price higher from the start. $9 was too low. The same template priced at $27 would have made the same number of sales (or close) and generated 3x the revenue. Beginners systematically underprice because they're afraid nobody will buy. The fear is understandable but usually wrong.

I'd build the list from day one. The eleven buyers who paid me $9 — I have no way to reach them now. If I'd captured even half their emails, I'd have a warm audience to launch my next product to. I didn't. Missed opportunity.

I'd use a better platform from the start. Gumroad worked, but I've since moved to MadeThis which handles product pages, checkout, and delivery more smoothly and includes tools built for growing a digital product business rather than just hosting files.

I'd validate before building. Even for a small template, I could have asked in the subreddit: "Would anyone pay for a polished version of this?" and gotten a sense of demand before spending the Saturday on it.

Why the First $100 Matters So Much

Here's what changed after those eleven sales.

Before: making money online felt like something other people did. I knew it was possible, but it was abstract.

After: I knew it was real. I knew I could do it. The $99 in my account wasn't life-changing — but the proof of concept was.

Every online business has that moment. The first sale breaks a mental barrier. The second comes faster. The third faster still.

The point of the first $100 isn't the money. It's the evidence. Evidence that you're capable of this, that people will pay you, and that the model you chose works.

Get to $100 as quickly as you can. Don't overthink the vehicle. Just validate the loop and then build from there.

If you're ready to actually start, MadeThis is what I use — try it at madethis.com.