Ask HN: How did you make your first internet dollar?

1999, created a Magic: the Gathering fansite on Geocities. Pretty sure I made a solid $13 or so with display ads, and would one day go on to make many dozens of dollars with my next Age of Empires II strategy fan site.

Good times.

I made tee shirts on RedBubble when I was 14 or 15. Really low quality designs from a non-artist for niche communities. One really caught on. Another two or so got a bit of traction. The other 30 never sold. Ended up making probably around $1,000 total in the end which is great for a kid who can't legally get a traditional job yet.

The market is super saturated now, and there are a lot of people with actual talent now too, which is a big win for the market as a whole so I'm glad!

A friend of mine introduced me to affiliate marketing and SEO in 2012. After learning the ropes I challenged him on who could make the first dollar with a brand new site. I made a site about Bluetooth speakers, made my first affiliate sale a month later and won the challenge :-D

My affiliate career wasn't very long lasting though. Right now I am trying to make my internet dollars with SaaS instead.

I used to make planner templates and similar things of that sort for myself in high school. It wasn't anything special but I enjoyed making them.

I had this guy contact me on Reddit about whether I could customize a daily planner for his kids and gave me a general idea of what he wanted. I delivered the design and he loved it, and commissioned three more.

I charged him $2 USD per planner (didn't know how to price it + it took me an hour tops, but he insisted on paying more which was nice). Ended up earning $15/planner.

Most of my internet dollars in the past have come from ads and affilates on various blogs I run.

My first real "somebody paying me for my product" dollar, came in January of this year. I launched IndexGuru - solves a super common issue I had been dealing with on my blogs. Posted it to show HN, and had two separate people sign up and pay me money :)

Pretty great a-ha moment. Business is doing well, but nothing to write home about, I unfortunately do not have yacht money yet.

Been using Internet since 1996, never made any money directly from it. But it sure has been helpful when pursuing a career in tech.

Nothing to be proud of, but I once won $50 through betting on ice hockey. I had no clue what I was doing, I just picked a team and put bet for draw every time that team was playing, doubling previous bet. Once I won I took the money and never came back :)

Bought a side project doing 2k MRR (4 months old). So technically it was already making money.

Adsense, had a couple of websites in the 2000s that helped me fund my studies and eventually buy my first used macbook

Back in 1997, with my first business, which was about hosting and - occasionally designing - websites for companies.

I made my first dollar on internet by putting ads on my blog

And also someone ended up sending me money since they found my content really helpful

Selling shoes on ebay, new ones I'd bought online that didn't fit.

Spun a wheel and won 1 dollar. The internet was great in 2000.