Anyone else hit $10K/month… then lost it all and had to start from zero again?

First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to comment, and that my own comment was interesting enough.

Alexei777 said:

The point is when something is changing, you have to change your business idea, workflow, mindset too.
You have to figure out how to adapt.

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I understand what you mean. Fortunately the skills are "somewhat" transferrable, but once again...it's not working, so I wouldn't even hire myself. Things are changing a bit too fast.

I could say that since AI: communities matter more (reddit got moved up in the ranks in Google), and branding and real videos are more important.

But that's just a guess. I don't generally like to follow the crowd and make an "AI SaaS" because it's "trending". But I understand the concept you're recommending. Like...I wouldn't do blogging in 2026, (I did in 2020-2023 and it worked semi-fine).

Alexei777 said:

Do you believe that they are happy? Do you believe that they are counting their time?

Now to be clear regarding to the last part: I’m not saying that people who are working in a regular job are doing a mistake, no. This is how the world is working.

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On this, yes. I believe they're happy.

I once was like this, I didn't think much of the future, just living day by day. I was somewhat normal.

Now I'm basically Cypher from the Matrix. I kinda wish I hadn't ventured out.

Dreaming of "being more", has done very little good to me. And failing can have massive consequences.

It's only if you win, that it's then "worth it".

I know because I basically destroyed my life, so the only way out was "winning". Now, what "winning" is, depends on every person. I did 90% of everything I wanted to do, but I still would have liked not to crash.

What I'm getting at, is that any "normal" person, who just lived their life as it came, for the past 10-15 years, has kicked my ass in the long run.

RichMoney said:

Man i feel your pain ... Sometimes you just gotta disconnect for a while (1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year) and not think of it at all.

The problem I think is that after failing on so many occasions we start to identify with being a failure and not with the warrior that fights till the end.

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Thanks for the comment. I'll probably (try to) disconnect entirely after this "last" promo I'll be doing, hehe.

Yeah, failing so much, really kills confidence. It's almost as if biology starts kicking in, like when you lose against another lion who's stronger...your balls start shrinking or whatever lol.

It's like life is saying "yeah, this one deserves death...accelerate the decay protocol".

feera said:

Mind sharing what was ur traffic source ? im new to this so i have no clue what it even means lol

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Github. (Parasite SEO)

CCIS said:

Lowkey, I felt invincible when it was working. Then boom. back to zero. The niche is dead, traffic is slow, and it’s like starting over again.

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Absolutely, many digital marketers experience that exhilarating rise followed by a humbling reset; it's often a consequence of not diversifying traffic sources or adapting quickly enough to market shifts. The feeling of invincibility is common, but proactively analyzing trends and building resilience should always be prioritized over complacency. Consider revisiting foundational keyword research and exploring new platform opportunities now.

CCIS said:

I’m curious how many here went through the same situation, scaling up to $10K+ months, thinking the business was finally steady… and then a few bad decisions or lack of prep made it all collapse.

Lowkey, I felt invincible when it was working. Then boom. back to zero. The niche is dead, traffic is slow, and it’s like starting over again.

Anyone else been through that reset phase?

What did you do differently the second time around, and how long did it take to climb back?

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haven't been in that position but i'd like to know what have you done or what are you doing to come back

For me even if its not steady and its bringing me a passive income thats fine, the moment i have to depend on this then i to find diff methods or even change paths and try new things

I did worse than you few years back... i did good for most of the year...then i did my best 47k in one month then next month went to 0 ..... it got me few months to get back up ... All of this was a lesson....when you think you are good to go for more you can go down immediately.. Always work like you have nothing...this gets myself focused all time now. GL!

Amaz0n said:

Fuck my life. At least I am working at the Inter-Nets since 2003

2003-2004: 0-1k per month
2005-2007: 10-15k per month
2008-2010: 20-30k per month
2011-2012: 0-1k per month
2013-2014: 20k per month
2015-2018: 0-1k per month
2019-2020: 300k profit from Bitcoin
2021-2025: secret

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is good to keep secrets the last 5 years you never know when irs may watch this thread )

Grass Popstickle said:

What I'm getting at, is that any "normal" person, who just lived their life as it came, for the past 10-15 years, has kicked my ass in the long run.

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This takes courage to admit to yourself let alone write it on a post. I wish you all the best.

this kind of setback happens all the time.focus on building income again instead of worrying too much about what could go wrong next time.

I used to manage a model around 7 years ago who I helped go VERY viral and become pretty well-known online.

When I first met her she was barely making ends meet and was begging me to help her. I helped her get started on OnlyFans, built her brand from the ground up, and eventually we were making around $30K a month in like less then a year. We had a 50/50 split which we agreed and signed on, so I was earning around $15K~ a month just from managing her.

One of her videos even reached 9.9 MILLION views. I was handling pretty much everything, from marketing and social media to hiring employees, managing chatters, growing her audience, and building her entire brand. I invested a lot of time and effort into making her successful, and we both made a lot of money from it. She only provided the content, and that's basically about it.

Unfortunately, things went downhill when one day she woke up and got greedy and decided she wanted to keep 100% of the earnings for herself because "it was her face" and "I was just stealing her share for doing nothing because she was providing the content", despite our contract and all that. She started locking me out of accounts, breaching our whole agreement, and even submitting DMCA takedowns against her own accounts and content. She had no idea on how marketing works, no idea how to make money, no accounts and nothing at all .. so imagine that.

The thing is I had no problem with her wanting to work independently. I simply told her that if she wanted to go her own way then I wanted to retain the brand I had spent years building, and she could start fresh with her own brand. After all, I was the one who had invested all that time, money, and effort into growing everything to that point.

She obviously didn't agree with that. Instead she STILL created a new persona, started directing followers to her new accounts, and continued submitting DMCA takedowns against the original brand and all socials. Most of the accounts got deleted, some with MILLIONS and MILLIONS of views and thousands of followers. She basically thought she could take everything we had built and walk away with all the earnings.

Funny enough fast-forward to today and from what I've seen, she's barely making around $1K~ a month, and most of her social media posts struggle to get even 10 likes. All she does is share like 1 post a day with her onlyfans link, not even a picture lol. Quite a difference from the $30K months we used to have. And here's the funniest part: there's still over I think $12K sitting in an OnlyFans account that I still have access to, but the money is locked and neither of us can withdraw it. So in the end, nobody got that money lol.

Maybe someday I'll share the full story. It's been many years now, and I honestly don't care much about it anymore but I definitely learned a lot from that experience especially how greedy some people can become when money gets involved. That being said, I still manage models to this day although I've mostly shifted towards working with AI models now... because at least they won't wake up one morning and decide they want 100% of the profits

Yeah.
Actually, I might be facing this for the second time soon. It’s just part of the game when you don't work a 9-5. But I'd still rather make a volatile 60k-200k a year than a safe $50k.
Age is a huge factor in these situations, though.
When you're 25, you can grind 100 hours a week and be totally fine. But once you hit 40, or even 35, you can't really pull off tricks like that anymore. Or if you do, it won't last long and it will definitely wreck your health.

I’ve been involved in internet marketing since 2009. I’ve had many successes along the way almost all of them from methods that required zero financial investment some of which I even learned here on BHW.

My personal best was earning around 6k in a month, very good month back around 2011. I live in Brazil, where that’s a significant amount of money especially for that time.

However, those methods eventually stopped working; things on the internet change very quickly. I did manage to buy a house and a car with the money I made online, but these days, I find it extremely difficult to earn anything at all, even when putting in a lot of effort. To give you an idea, today on days when I manage to make $5 online I’m actually make me happy.

Still, I believe that since I managed to do it once, there’s nothing stopping me from doing it again someday.

im now I need a doctor

I had my own media project that I worked my ass off to build. The project took off, and I was making good money.
Then a Google DMCA notice hit hard, and I lost all my rankings overnight. My income dropped from $10,000 to just $100.

That pushed me into depression, and I couldn't work for six months.

But eventually, responsibilities forced me to get back up and start grinding again.

When I started working again, I focused on areas where I was already strong instead of trying to learn everything from scratch. I'm still working in those areas and making a steady income.

One thing I learned from this experience is that making good money from a project doesn't necessarily mean you're secure. If your entire income depends on one website or traffic source, you can lose everything very quickly.

Now, I believe it's important to build on your strengths while also thinking about how to reduce your dependence on a single project.

PS : Recovering takes time, but the skills and experience you gain along the way are still yours

I’ve been making money online for years, but I’ve never managed to reach $10k a month. However, if you’ve achieved that level of income only to lose it all, that would be truly unfortunate.