[LauraMarsh]

Hey everyone,

I'm 25, from a low-income immigrant family in the USA, and honestly, I'm feeling pretty lost right now.

I graduated with a third-class Law degree in 2023. It wasn't exactly the career path I wanted, so instead of chasing legal jobs, I decided to go all in on trying to build an online business. My personal life has been pretty chaotic the whole time, which definitely affected some of my decisions, but I've always been determined to create a better life for myself and my family.

Here's how the last few years have gone.

High-Ticket Dropshipping

This was my first serious business. My mum had bought a course but never really used it, so I took over and gave it everything I had.

I built a store selling high-ticket bathroom products, mainly hot tubs. Over around 6-7 months I generated roughly £5,000 in revenue. Nothing life-changing, but I proved I could make sales.

The problem was the business felt incredibly fragile. I relied on suppliers, customers, ad platforms, shipping, and so many moving parts that were outside my control. Around 60% of what I earned went straight back into ads, and because my living expenses were high, I couldn't keep funding it.

Eventually I shut the business down. Ironically, not long after that my main supplier stopped selling hot tubs altogether, which made me wonder if I would have been forced to pivot anyway.

SMMA

I figured I'd use my advertising experience to help other businesses instead.

I spent around eight months building a small social media marketing agency. At first I worked for free just to build experience and case studies, mostly with property businesses.

For the first five or six months I earned maybe £500 total. Eventually I landed two paying clients in the aesthetics niche, paying £600 and £700 a month.

I delivered results, but both clients left fairly quickly because they expected huge wins almost immediately. Around the same time I'd lost my job and was renting a room on my own, so financially things became really stressful.

OFM

This has been the biggest rollercoaster.

I started from scratch and recruited three terrible models. Then one of them completely messed me around while I was travelling abroad.

Eventually I found another model and we started gaining momentum. She wasn't the easiest person to work with—her work ethic wasn't great and she was always late—but we still managed to grow.

By October 2025 we hit a £16k revenue month with roughly 30% profit margins.

For the first time I felt like I'd finally figured something out. I was travelling, meeting people in the industry, and genuinely thought things were changing.

Then everything fell apart.

Her account got permanently shut down because of something she'd done three years earlier. Overnight the income disappeared.

I moved her to another agency because I didn't think she'd be reliable long term anyway.

After that I tried another agency model that required paying salaries upfront. I even invested in mentorship, but the business model was expensive and it completely failed. I burned through a lot of money trying to make it work.

Now I'm basically starting over again.

I'm delivering Uber Eats to pay the bills, helping a friend build a Reddit outreach team, and trying to rebuild my confidence.

Lately I've also been looking into CPA marketing—things like sweepstakes and gambling offers—but I'm not sure if that's the right direction either.

So that's where I'm at.

Looking back, I've never been afraid to work hard. I've put time into learning, taken risks, and even had moments where it felt like I was finally breaking through. But every time I build momentum, something seems to knock me back.

I'm honestly wondering if my biggest problem is choosing the wrong business models, poor risk management, constantly chasing the next opportunity, or just not sticking with one thing long enough.

If you were in my position, what would you focus on next?

I'd genuinely appreciate any advice or outside perspective.