Donato
Episode 86Aug 7, 2026· 16:07

Replay - Can You Start an Online Business for Five Bucks?

▸ Show notes from the creator
Can You Start an Online Business for Five Bucks? Tune in and Find Out! More Show Notes From This Episode: What’s up my bloggy friends! I'm slowly updating the show notes for this and every episode of The Bloggy Friends Show. My new home base for all things Bloggy Friends can be found here: https://www.famousashleygrant.com/podcast/ Be sure to follow me on social: Facebook | Instagram | X | LinkedIn | TikTok | YouTube ------------------------------------------------------------------- This podcast is supported by affiliate partnerships. Please check out a few of our partners below: – Start a podcast today here: https://rss.com?via=famous – Create content from your own voice with Castmagic's Suite of AI Tools: https://get.castmagic.io/dcjy15cirnts – Want to help support our show? Buy a girl a drink perhaps? https://ko-fi.com/famousashleygrant – Need content for your podcast or blog? Check out Tools for Motivation! The links above are affiliate links. This means my podcast will receive a small commission if you order through any of them at no additional cost to you. Affiliate commissions are one of the ways my podcast makes money so that I can create episodes free of charge. If you do purchase anything from my links, I sincerely would like to thank you for your support!
Listen on Spotify Apple Podcasts RSS
About this episode
Can You Start an Online Business for Five Bucks? Tune in and Find Out! More Show Notes From This Episode: What’s up my bloggy friends! I'm slowly updating the show notes for this and every episode of The Bloggy Friends Show. My new home base for all things Bloggy Friends can be found here: https://www.famousashleygrant.com/podcast/ Be sure to follow me on social: Facebook | Instagram | X | LinkedIn | TikTok |…
Listener reactions
💡0
🤝0
🔥0
😄0
0 reactions

Share your reaction

Pick how this episode landed — then leave a public review or a private note to the host.

You
Your name will appear with your review
0/300 Visible to everyone
Sign in to leave feedback
Full transcript
00:15
What's up, my bloggy friends? Famous Ashley Grant here. And today we are talking all about whether or not you can start a business for five bucks. You know, it's kind of funny that people are talking a lot about inflation right now and how everybody's trying to figure out how they can make money. And so it got me to thinking, can you actually do it? for less than $5? And I think the answer is yes. So that's what we're going to talk about. I know when most people think about starting an online business, they assume it requires deep pockets and expensive tools and courses and all that jazz, but nothing could be further from the truth. With just a few low -cost resources, you can actually get the ball rolling and start bringing in revenue, then reinvest those earnings back into your business as you grow. So in a very quick episode, we're just going to quickly talk about all the different things that you can do right now to start bringing
01:03
in revenue. Let's dive in. So first up is education. And that might seem a little strange to talk about whenever I'm telling you about how to start a business for less than five bucks. But the truth is when you're starting out, when you're first starting out, you want to resist the urge to spend big money on courses and coaching because there are tons of free resources that you can use to learn the fundamentals. And the first place that I would recommend starting is YouTube.
01:27
There are so many amazing YouTube channels out there that teach all kinds of different things. For example, Batty in Business. She has an amazing channel that teaches how to make money on TikTok, how to make money on Instagram, how to make money. with drop shipping, like all kinds of different things. I'll leave a bunch of links to all the YouTube channels I'm about to mention, but I just wanted to at least start with her because I've been consuming her content a lot lately.
01:49
And the things that she teaches, like some people sell these courses for a lot of money, but she's teaching how to do it completely for free. Graham Stephan is another really awesome one, and he teaches budgeting, investing, side hustles, building multiple income streams, and his channel is completely free. In fact, Every single channel that I'm about to mention is completely free. And if you want to get it without ads, of course, you'll have to pay the premium fee. But you can get it for free if you don't mind going through a few ads to watch these different YouTube channels.
02:23
So another one that I highly recommend is Sunny. I always forget how to say her last name. I'm going to say it wrong. And I'm so sorry, Sunny, if you ever hear this. I think it's Leonarduzzi. Basically, she focuses on monetizing your passions through YouTube, blogging, social media marketing, selling digital products, all the things. She actually teaches people how to make money on YouTube with her YouTube channel, and I freaking love it. Another great channel is Sara Dietschy.
02:48
She teaches a lot about YouTube monetization specifically, like getting views, getting sponsors, growing a channel, all that kind of stuff. And Sean Kennell, if you were thinking about starting a YouTube channel, definitely check out his page. He runs Think Media and he explains online video webinars, how to grow a personal brand, all that good stuff. He's awesome. Another channel I definitely recommend is Jessica Stansbury's channel. She also goes by the name Hey Jessica. She teaches a lot of people about how to create digital products and she built one of her income streams. all on digital products. She makes several thousand dollars a month making various digital products, and she actually teaches people how to do it themselves on her YouTube channel with amazing resources. Some of the resources she mentions are also free. Another channel I have to recommend is Mission Side Hustle. Basically, this guy Corey
03:43
from Florida, he... had this mission to turn $500 into a million dollars. And in one of his very first episodes, he even talks about how he got the $500 to get started. And it's kind of fascinating that you can take some of the stuff that's in your own home and sell it on eBay, sell it on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or whatever to get the capital to begin a business. And it's been wild watching his building of his business in real time. And he's actually showing people every single episode what it is he's doing to make money. And if you're into that kind of thing and you want to watch the glow up, I definitely recommend it. It's an awesome, awesome channel.
04:24
But every channel that I mentioned here is fantastic. And I'm sure there's a bunch more that I'm blanking on right now. So I'm going to leave more in the show notes. If you go to famousashleygrant .com backslash five bucks, and that is five spelled out five bucks, you will see all of the resources that I talk about in this episode. that you can check out yourself. So in addition to looking at YouTube, I highly, highly, highly, highly recommend podcasts. Podcasts are a great way to learn a lot of information. In fact, every single time that I am considering a course from a coach or someone who's like big in their industry, the first thing I do is I look and see if they have a podcast. And the reason for that is several of the things that they teach in their online courses. For example, Denise Duffield Thomas, she sells a $2 ,000 course on how to make, you know, how to fix your money mindset. It's a great
05:14
course. It's a fantastic course. But a lot of the things that she teaches in that course, you can actually learn for free on her podcast, Chill and Prosper. And Chill and Prosper is a wonderful, wonderful podcast if you're trying to figure out how to get your money mindset right. It's geared for all chillpreneurs, like all people that are, you know, wanting to make money but do it easily. She teaches so many amazing things in her episodes, and I highly, highly recommend it. Hers and Amy Porterfield's Online Marketing Made Easy. If you're trying to learn how to build an audience and sell to them, highly recommend her podcast. Also is Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income. Got to check that one out if you're trying to learn about how to not just make passive income, but how to make any income. He teaches so many amazing different things. And finally is Entrepreneurs on Fire by John Lee Dumas. And his partner, well
06:07
now spouse, Kate, Kate Erickson, she also has a lot of episodes that she does under that umbrella of Entrepreneurs on Fire. She does Kate's Take and several other different podcast series that I highly recommend. If you're trying to learn stuff about entrepreneurship, how to be a scrappy entrepreneur, definitely, definitely check out that podcast. And if you're still trying to find additional resources to learn different, you know, things, different industries that you're trying to consider starting. go to the library.
06:35
Like that is a great place to get all kinds of free information. And so definitely go there. And on Kindle, I don't know if you know this, but every single day there are thousands of books you can get for free on Kindle. And I will leave a link in the show notes for that as well, because they have a really awesome resource inside the Kindle bookstore where you can see the top 100 free books. In every single niche that they sell books for, like everything from cooking to photography to crafting and, heck, even sports or travel, there's all kinds of free books that you can get access to. So definitely check out the resources that I put in the show notes. Like I said, it's famoushashleygrant .com backslash five bucks, and that's five spelled out. So next, you want to carefully choose your niche or niche, depending on... how you're feeling that day. It could be niche or niche. It's the same thing. But basically,
07:27
you want to have something that aligns with your interests, but that doesn't require large upfront inventory or purchases or investments. You want to be able to start earning money as quickly as possible. So do some basic market research online to assess the demand and potential profitability. One of the one things that you can do that I talk about all the time is you can start blogging about whatever niche it is that you are excited about. And once you have your niche set up or selected, Then it's time to set up your online hub. And there are only three real things that you need to start a blogging -based business.
07:58
And that's a domain name, which you can get for as little as 99 cents on something like GoDaddy.com. You need web hosting. And a lot of people are going to get very mad at me for saying this, but the truth is you can take that 99 cent domain and actually hook it up to GoogleBlogger .com and you can create your website for free using something like that. And then you need an email list service, something like... MailChimp or ConvertKit or, you know, one of those other ones that starts for free. And I highly recommend you choose a free one first because if you're not making money yet, you don't want to put out a lot of money, right? Right. Once you have these things in place, then you can build a simple website, start creating content, and then launch your email list so you can start having a place to connect with your audience. So if you are going to start a website, let's talk traffic and monetization. Here's some budget -friendly
08:46
strategies to start earning fast. And I mentioned a lot of these in my last episode about how to turn your blog into a business. But just for shits and giggles, let's go through them again. Display ads through Google AdSense. That's a quick and easy way to start getting money into your website immediately. Offer freelance services like writing, design, virtual assisting. Or promote affiliate offers that are related to your niche.
09:10
Sell your own low -cost info products like e -books or video courses. And finally, network and collaborate with other marketers. The sky really is the limit. And I'll definitely leave a link to last episode so you guys can check that out if you want a little bit more in -depth information about what I'm talking about. The key is to get multiple income streams up and running so you have cash coming in right away to reinvest into your business. So you might be wondering, though, what do I do if funds are extremely limited? I don't even have 99 cents for a domain. Now, when this happens, you can still kickstart your online marketing efforts using just free social media platforms and an email list service. For example, create accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok, etc.
09:54
Then build up your following by consistently posting valuable content every single day. But no matter what you're doing on any of those platforms, always be driving people back to sign up for your email list. Most of the email list services that you can sign up for, they will give you a free link that you can use to drive people to your list. Use that so you can start contacting people immediately. Engage with your audience often. Reply to comments. Reply to messages.
10:21
Reply to anything that people are saying to you so that you can start actually building a community of people to talk to. Then you can monetize all of your social media accounts in a few ways without spending money. For example, You can link to affiliate offers and products that are related to your niche. Direct people to buy all kinds of different things, like anything that you're talking about. Let's say you have a Facebook page that's all about football. You could do some aspect of that niche and talk about football and link to different affiliate offers. Let's say you're about to talk about the big game that's about to come up and you want to talk about how to throw the perfect football party. You could link to the napkins, the cups, the food, anything.
11:03
And all of that can be affiliate links that you can sign up for and drive people back to, let's say, an Amazon or a Walmart or a Target or whatever. And then you will get a commission for any purchase that is made through your link. So, like I said, you want to create a free account with an email service like MailChimp or ConvertKit and then set up opt -in forms on your social profiles. Offer a compelling lead magnet like a template, a checklist, a mini course, whatever. And you can do these with free resources like Canva.
11:36
You can actually create a free template on Canva that you link to in your email list so that when people give their email to you, you link to that Canva checklist or whatever it is that you want to create. You could create an e -book. You could create, God, there's so many things you could create. In fact, I'm going to leave a list of all the different digital products that you could create completely for free and how to do it in the show notes as well. And if you have skills, just with the time invested in social media platforms and an email list, you can start building an audience and generating income without any upfront costs. But if you have skills, you can start making money for free that way too. For example, you could start freelancing on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. You can create a profile completely for free and you could sell things like writing and editing, graphic design, video and photo
12:26
editing. voiceovers, bookkeeping, virtual assisting. The list goes on and on and on. I highly recommend that you follow Alexandra Fasulo. Check out her past content about how to freelance write. She had a podcast called The Freelance Fairy, some awesome episodes on that. And I will link to a couple of her different articles that I highly recommend you check out if you are interested in freelancing on Fiverr or Upwork. On those websites, then you can provide details about your expertise, your experience and even share a portfolio if you have one. If you're trying to get started as a writer, for example, create an account on Reddit, create an account on Medium or Quora or whatever and just start writing content that you can immediately start putting out there and show people what it is you do. And then you can use that as your portfolios so you can start bidding on projects that align with your abilities.
13:17
For fixed price gigs, you can name your rate for hourly jobs, set up an hourly wage that you prefer, and then the platform handles the payments. Yes, they take a small commission and that is one thing that really sucks, but you'll have no upfront fees so you could start your business completely for free. And then communicate professionally with clients and deliver high quality work. And as you complete these projects successfully, you'll start gaining good reviews, which will help you win more business and on and on it keeps going. And then eventually, as soon as you can afford it, Get a website, get a portfolio, get all the things that basically make it easier to keep making money and keep getting your name out there. So to close things out, here's some other quick tips that I highly, highly recommend.
13:57
First one, prioritize building your email list from day one. Trust me, this will pay off big time. I still suck at it. I'm still working on it. Hopefully by the time you guys are listening to this episode, I think this episode comes out in March or April. So hopefully by then I will actually have an email list. But if you don't have one yet, get one. And then create valuable content consistently on a blog, social media, somewhere that you can actually get in touch with your ideal audience, attract them, and engage with them regularly. Next, you want to take advantage of free marketing tools like Canva for graphics, keyword research tools, even AI. Even AI chatbots.
14:36
I mean, I'll leave a couple links to a couple of my favorites down in the show notes below. but there's no need to spend money on any of it yet. And then automate what you can through your website, your email provider, and even your social media platforms. This will save you time as you scale up. The bottom line though is yes, you can start a business for $5 or less. You can. The bottom line, oh, let me try that again.
14:59
The bottom line is yes, you can start a business for $5 or less. You don't need a fancy huge budget. You don't need fancy tech. or anything like that to build a successful online business. You can even start a podcast completely for free. I'll leave some links in the show notes for that as well. But the key is, if you are going to start a business at all, start small, but take consistent action. Then provide real value to your audience on a regular basis. And don't be afraid to experiment and learn as you go. You've got this. I believe in you. And if you found this helpful, please share it with somebody. I'd really appreciate it. It'll help the channel a lot. And that's all I've got for now. So if you are a blogger, until next time, may your page views be high and your bounce rate below.