Everyone wants to talk about the success part.

The six-figure launches, the viral moments, the “I quit my job” posts. But nobody really talks about year one, when you’re just showing up every day with absolutely no idea if any of it is working.

I started my first online business at the end of 2021, and if I’m being completely honest, I had no clue what I was doing. I was freelancing on the side, designing Canva templates and lead magnets for clients.

I created ebooks about random topics like email list building and sold them for cheap. I posted on Instagram constantly, changing my topics and my brand what felt like a hundred times.

Three months in, I made my first $150.

I remember feeling so excited, like this was it, this was proof it could work. That $150 ended up being the only money I made that entire year.

The Part Where Nothing Worked

I spent 2023 trying to figure it out. I had abandoned my blog that I’d started, which honestly should have been a red flag but I didn’t see it at the time. Instead I doubled down on Instagram because that’s what everyone said you had to do.

I launched my first digital course about creating your own digital offer. I had some experience from client work so I thought this made sense. The launch made me two sales at $397 each.

Just two sales after all that work.

I rebranded that course multiple times, changed the messaging, changed the price, changed the positioning. Nothing stuck. Eventually I just retired it completely because I realized it wasn’t something I actually wanted to focus on anyway and it was… well… vague.

But I kept going because what else was I going to do? Work as a hotel receptionist the rest of my life in a country I don’t want to live in?

That thought alone kept me showing up even when I wanted to quit.

The Years Nobody Talks About

I would say that in those first couple years, you’re probably going to waste a lot of time on the wrong things.

I wasted literal years on Instagram. Years of posting reels that flopped, trying to go viral, filming myself even though I hated every second of it.

All because everyone kept saying that’s what you had to do to build a business online.

And the whole time, my blog sat there abandoned. The thing I actually enjoyed doing, the thing that felt natural to me, I had completely ignored in favor of chasing what everyone else was doing.

It wasn’t until beginning of 2025 that I finally cracked the code for my own success, and you know what the turning point was? Leaving Instagram.

I know that sounds dramatic but it’s true. It was like I had been wasting my time on the wrong platform for years when I was supposed to be focusing on my blog all along.

Writing was always the path I was meant to take.

When Everything Finally Clicked

I launched my email diary, just weekly emails where I wrote about what was happening in my business, what I was thinking about, honest behind-the-scenes stuff. I focused on written content and building my email list properly this time.

And my business finally took off.

I created a course called Her Soft Digital Empire Playbook that taught the exact strategy I was using – email storytelling, list building, branding through writing, monetization without video content. For people like me who wanted the laptop lifestyle but didn’t want to get stuck on the Instagram hamster wheel.

That course sold like hotcakes because it was so different from everything else out there. I wasn’t teaching reels or virality or any of that, I was teaching how to build through writing, which is what I’d been doing all along without even realizing it.

That was my turning point. I found my identity again in all the noise, and suddenly I was very confident about where this was going.

The Real Timeline

Here’s the honest timeline that nobody wants to share.

End of 2021: Started my first business
2022: Made $150 total for the entire year
2023: Launched my first course that got 2 sales, wasted time on Instagram
2024: Still figuring it out, still changing things constantly
2025: Finally cracked it by focusing on writing

That’s almost four years from starting to actually building something sustainable. Four years of trial and error and feeling like I had no idea what I was doing.

And I get so annoyed when I see people posting online about how you can build a six-figure business in a few months. They’re lying or they already had a massive audience that takes YEARS to build.

For most of us, it takes work. Testing things that don’t work. Trying some more. Years of it.

What Kept Me Going

I stayed motivated because I really, really wanted to get out of my hotel job. When you want something badly enough, you just make it work and you don’t quit.

And honestly, if you do quit when it gets hard, you probably didn’t want it badly enough in the first place.

There were definitely moments I wanted to give up, days where I questioned everything and wondered if I was just wasting my time. But even then, I’d think about all the work I’d already put in – all those hours, all those failed launches, all that content that went nowhere.

I couldn’t quit because then all of that work would have been wasted, and I couldn’t live with that. So I kept going even when Instagram posts flopped, even when my course got 2 sales instead of 20, even when I had no idea what I was doing.

Where I Am Now

My business looks completely different today.

I grew my email diary to 3,000 email subscribers in 8 months who actually read my weekly diaries and engage with my content.

My open rates stays consistently at 52%, industry average is 25%–35%.

Over 160 women have invested in my courses, which still feels surreal to say out loud. My work has been featured on Medium and my email marketing platform just reached out to feature my business as a case study.

I’m making triple what I made at my hotel job, working from beach cafes in Bali and cobblestone streets in Europe. I wake up when I want, work on what I want, and never have to ask anyone for permission to travel.

My business is built entirely on writing – blog posts, email diaries, Pinterest pins – with zero video content and zero stress about being on camera.

And I’m very confident my business will reach six figures by 2027 because I finally understand the model that works for me. I’m not chasing someone else’s strategy anymore, I’m building something sustainable that actually fits my own life.

But it took years to get here.

Years of showing up even when nothing was working, years of trying the wrong things before I found the right path.

And honestly, I’m glad it took that long because now my business is beautiful. I’m absolutely obsessed with it. It’s exactly what I wanted to build, not what someone else told me I should build.

What I’d Tell You On Day One

If I could go back and tell myself something on day one of starting this business, here’s what I’d say.

Stop trying to build the way everyone else builds. Stop chasing what works for other people and start paying attention to what actually feels good for you. If video stresses you out, don’t do it. If writing feels natural, lean into that. If you hate Instagram, leave. Trust yourself more than you trust the gurus.

And most importantly, stick with it longer than feels comfortable. Year one is going to feel like nothing is working and year two might feel the same. But if you keep showing up and adjusting and trying new things, eventually something will click.

For me it took almost four years. For you it might take two years or six years or somewhere in between, but it will happen if you don’t quit.

Just don’t quit.