What I Learned From Blowing $20k on my First Online Business

So you won't make the same mistakes

They say building an online business is simple:
📦 Create a digital product or paid newsletter.
📢 Substack will hand you an audience.
⏰ Work a couple hours a day and watch the money roll in.
🎉 Make it fun and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Cute. 🙃

But here’s what I found:
🪜 Creating something people will pay for is just one of the major steps you’ll need to take to build an online business.
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Substack’s “built-in audience” is a myth for most niches.
⏰ Two hours a day? Unless you have a system and get AI to help you'll be using up your weekends too.
🎉“make it fun” isn’t just about picking a topic you like — if the process itself is a grind, the topic won’t save you.

And don’t get me started on the “you have to be on social media” crowd. 🤦‍♀️ I can’t stand it. Which meant I had to find another way to reach my people — and for me, that was writing what people on Substack wanted to read.

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🚨 The Wake-Up Call

I didn’t have one big crash moment — I had dozens of little WTF moments where reality didn’t match the pitch. Eventually, I couldn’t unsee it.

Before that wake-up call, I wasn’t chasing a hobby — I was looking for an escape hatch.
💼 My job felt like a slow leak on my sanity.
💸 Every “make money online” promise looked like a lifeline.
If someone said they’d built “freedom” in a few months, I believed them — because I needed to.

Then came the snap.

I was going broke — fast. 🚨
In less than a year, I’d burned through $20k and my credit cards were looking nasty chasing the “easy” online income dream.
And the worst part? I’d picked a niche I was hating.

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🛑 Walking Away

So I walked away — not from the idea of building an online business, but from the fantasy that I could replace my income in a matter of months.

The numbers people threw around online made it sound effortless: six figures in a year, “replace your salary” in 90 days. That’s only possible for a tiny group of people — the ones with massive audiences, endless time, significant relevant skills, and preferably all three..

I got myself a job I didn’t hate. One that paid the bills and gave me the flexibility to build on the side. 🫶 With the financial panic gone, I could finally focus on what was real instead of chasing someone else’s highlight reel.

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🔍 Starting Over as a Skeptic

With some breathing room, I started again — but this time as a skeptic.
I tested every shiny piece of advice I’d been fed.
I ignored what didn’t fit me, kept what did, and made peace with the fact that progress would be slower — but it would stick.

And I learned a few more hard truths:
✨ Fun isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s fuel.
✨ And it’s not just about loving your topic — it’s about loving the way you work on it.

For me, that meant ditching the marketing tactics that drained me (looking at you, social media) and focusing on platforms I actually enjoyed showing up on. That’s why Substack became my home base. 🏡

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🔄 Finding My Way

I also realised I’m easily bored.
I don’t want to write about things I’ve already mastered — I want to write while exploring and learning. Which is exactly why my Substack isn’t a “how-to” from the mountaintop. It’s me sharing the experiments, the missteps, and the small wins as I go.

At some point, I stopped obsessing over speed and started obsessing over sustainability. That was the real game-changer.

Once you let go of the idea that everything has to “blow up” overnight, you can actually enjoy building it — and ironically, that’s when the momentum starts to pick up. 🚀

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👋 Where I Am Now

Now I run a newsletter about how to be sustainably profitable on Substack — without the burnout, the fake timelines, or the six-figure fantasy.

I’m not your guru.
I’m the fellow traveler who’s willing to say, “Here’s what actually happened when I tried it.”

If you’re tired of the noise, the inflated numbers, and the pressure to quickly turn your idea into a cash machine, you’re in the right place.

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💌 After all those false starts, I finally stopped chasing someone else’s version of success and built my own — and I turned it into something you can use too.

It’s called The Substack Creator’s System, and it’s my step-by-step for using AI to:
⚡ create content faster (without losing your voice)
📅 stay consistent
💰 make your Substack profitable without burning out

I’m building it in public, so you can get in now for just $8/month or $50/year, try it while it’s still in beta, and keep full access when it’s done.

If you’ve been wanting a system that actually fits your life — not someone else’s hustle fantasy. — come build it with me.

Best,

Deb 🥰

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