I’m working on a project where I’m collecting 100 unique ways people made their first $100K. I’m not looking for the usual “saved diligently” or “regular 9-to-5” stories—we’ve all heard those. Instead, I’m hunting for the creative, unconventional, or downright surprising paths that got you to this milestone.
Did you flip rare items? Start a quirky side hustle? Develop a niche skill or take a calculated risk that paid off big? Whatever your story, I’d love to hear it!
If you’re okay with it, I might even include your story in a book I’m writing (with your permission, of course). To be honest, I am short on a few stories and I would love to include yours - if it is interesting:)
And also, let’s inspire others who are starting their own journey.
Gray said:
2006… Made niche websites. Realised SEO was the easiest way to get traffic. Made more websites. Got hired to be an SEO in financial services.
Any SEO tips? That has always been my downfall with websites
At age 10 I started buying dairy bull calves for $10 and bottle feeding them, putting them out to pasture, then off to market for $400-700 each. I ran that until I was about 15 at which point I’d made nearly the first half of my first $100K.
Then at 16 started building a piece of software that tied a bunch of back office systems for medical offices together through a simple relational database and some batch jobs - greatly simplified things for multiple members of the staff, got paid for deploying this software to a few group practices and made decent cash doing it - then sold the software outright for $40K and cleared my first 100K.
Also mixed in there were running crews (of other high school knuckleheads) to do snow removal. I developed a call list - and on snow days I’d hit them all and set up routes and collect the payments and then dole out to my friends who actually did the shoveling - used to do $1000 days on that), and an unofficial wrecker service where we’d go pull people out of the ditches on route 40 and interstate 70 for $30 a pop on icy days.
Once I accidentally made $1000 in profit selling hockey masks painted in our school colors - the real idea was that I needed everyone to have a mask on so I could get into the game - I’d been banned for releasing a live chicken at the previous game (our rival team were mostly rural farmers) and didn’t want to miss homecoming :). They were way more popular than I’d have imagined. Worked well too - I enjoyed the game in total anonymity.
It was when dairy farmers were at capacity (they have limits on how many animals they can keep based on acreage) and we still hadn’t figured out how to milk bulls. We still haven’t figured out how to milk bulls. In total, my first one cost me $12…he tacked on $2 for delivery, and brought it trussed up in a burlap sack on the front seat of an S10. I asked better questions after that. And, I never bought one at a time - getting up to bottle feed at 430AM isn’t worth it at a single unit :).
Ashwin said:
I’m a tradesman. Bought an old house that needed a lot of work/updating. Did it all legit wanted to stay but had to take the profit
Easiest way to make serious money as a tradesman. By easiest yeah I mean working every evening after work but after you flip a few pads you’ll have a solid chunk of change behind you. Doing my first one at the minute.
@Emerson
You could even keep a few to rent out if they are in decent residential neighborhoods. That’s a solid income stream , and keep flipping houses. Yet after a few years you file for corporation status and BAM now you run your very own Construction Business.
2 friends stole code for 1 app (which never made any success), replaced all origin names with their own. Added online 24/7 chat support (which was 1 of them) , and with 1st 100k they bought app they stole code from. Point of story everyone is happy.
@Bailey
So they paid you $100k to buy the app from you? If they can afford that, the app must’ve been profitable. You might have been able to take legal action to sign a contract offering you more in royalties since the app must’ve been a gold mine. I wouldn’t have settled for 100k if my own invention was able to make more than that.
Sold StarCraft 2 Korean versions to US players. You were region locked, and couldn’t buy it if you were in the US but if you wanted to play on Korean servers (where the pros were) you needed someone in Korea to buy it, open the box and send the key to you
For context, games still came in boxes in this time, and it was installed with a CD
Twitch was just a few months old
No one knew Reddit
It wouldn’t be even remotely possible in this age.
