Disclaimer: please don't be rude. This post is not about poker or poker related people.
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What kind of society is this where I can't even make a freaking $1 on the Internet? I've been a programmer for over a decade. I make a project, spend months to years of my life on it, and then no one wants it. Or better yet, I have to either pay Zuckerberg $5 billion just to get some advertising, or I try to talk to people on social media and I get blocked by the platforms.


I've tried video game creation, overages, drop shipping, domain flipping, course creation, copyrighting, online tutoring (at least that worked until I got banned), making platform (multiple versions and different features updates), matched betting, and probably more. It's been 6 years.

I had a home care business but my business partner quit and destroyed my residence, I lost all my work and projects as well as just miscellaneous stuff that was of value to me over the many years living there (and whatever else I don't know about) due to the clean up which was very painful and hard to deal with very often for years after.

I'm just incredibly frustrated.

I come up with a new business idea, work on it and then eventually I can't find traffic, can't validate the idea, or get blocked off the social platforms, or can't get funding.

I realized today I could come up with the cure to cancer and still not find anyone who wants it.

I have no friends, or girlfriend or anything. Just stuck inside my place trying to figure out how to get out this. I'd like to at least make $100 a week at NL10 as I think that's a good starting point (which is still broke :/) and then improve from there. If I could win a $20 PKO a day that would be awesome but I don't have the roll for $20 MTTs right now.

I'm so tired of being broke. I last year was working all day everyday, started even pulling 36 hours in January last year only to eventually realize the market doesn't give a f.

I'm 25 wtf. I make more money playing poker and then I lose it again. Last year I cashed for mid $500+ 3 times in a row in 100+ field tournament, but eventually lost the money trying a different poker format. I'm definitely getting better gradually but I'm getting really tired of this life.

I just want to actually begin to live my life and not be broke.

Seems like the people that make most of the money are showing themselves on OF, or selling someone a make money online course on how to make money that is filled with basic information for $3,000+ a pop.

Do you really have to scam or sell your pictures to make money these days? That's what it feels like more and more everyday. At least with poker I can get a freaking $10 bill...

This is some B.S. so tired of this hell.

Update 11:45 AM EST:
This country sends billions and billions of dollars everywhere in the globe yet meanwhile we have a people living on the streets of our own country. This absolutely absurd. Ludacris. How about a freaking billi for the US citizens as well? How about some business funding without having to show you are the family member of someone who's already rich? This is all so f'ed up.

11:55 AM:
At this point It feels like I've lost my past work, I'm living in the bleak present and the future is just unknown and at this rate I really don't know.

12:03 PM:
Before all this I didn't understand why people end things. Now I understand. I just don't know what to do at this point. I have to figure it out.

Try feet pics.

You're 25 bro, that's still really young and you've your whole life ahead of you. Things might suck now, as life can be like that at times but trust me when I tell you that you never know what's around the corner in terms of the future. Hope your situation improves and try put such thoughts out of your head.

You can get an entry level job making 40k at several different industries that are hiring with the prerequisite that you have an iq above 100.

If you don't want to do that at 25 then it really just comes down to the fact that you feel way too entitled and have spoiled yourself into depression - poker probably caused some of that.

If the job isn't enough for a 25 year old healthy person to fend off being broke, then you're making some serious financial mistakes.

Once you figure that out, continue to look at what you want to accomplish in terms starting a business or supplying a service that you want while working your job and making money on a smarter budget. Accomplishing just this puts you ahead of 95% of the rest of the world.

I've been trying to start a business online. I'm not entitled, I work more hours than the average 9 to 5 job would require. I've been on the grind for years. No extra spending. No parties, gatherings or anything. I think it's reasonable to desire there to be at least able to make some profits. I don't know why you think I'm entitled. I've done many different businesses. It's not like I'm some 16 year old in here asking for a Lamborghini just because... I've been on monk mode putting in the work. When it comes to poker I study and learn as much as I can and put in the work to get better every time. My IQ is higher than 100, I'm a self taught programmer and analytical thinker. The problem is unfortunately that simply doesn't translate when you don't have any capital... It's the chicken and egg. I used to think you had to come up with a great idea, perfect it, spend the time to bring it to market and the people will come. Unfortunately that's backwards, and that's not how it really works and have lost many years on that thanks to all the fake information out there... Other than that I understand you.

haha lol

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

At 25, you've got a lot of future chances and opportunities to accomplish something incredible that you're loking to do.

Now that we somehow are in the Psych forum,,,

I hold the belief that with the way the current world operates, due to the engagement of social media, it's by design really, that a lot of folks are going to continuously set themselves up for failure by attempting something that isn't really realistic in the grander scheme of normality.

I'm not saying that you don't have the chance to accomplish what it is that you're looking for, but that it may be better to for you to focus more on self-enjoyment and living life at 25 with all of the perks it offers at that age than trying to rack up some money. But again, that's a function of the world we live in now so it's tough to separate that aspect from what might actually make you happy in life. Because the money isn't going to make you happy now.

Do you know who Thomas Edison is? Good, because I'm going to quote him.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

This is one of Thomas Edison's famous statements regarding his relentless experimentation and innovation in the process of inventing the incandescent light bulb.

"I'm not entitled" - goes on to list all the things you've done and are that make you feel entitled to success. Few things to consider:

- " I work more hours than the average 9 to 5 job would require"......long hours worked =/= guaranteed success. Part of the reason entrepreneurs gain so much when they win is because they accept zero guaranteed results. Even if you do everything right, consistently, for years, you could still just bust repeatedly for your entire life because your life isn't that long so your sample size is relatively small. This is the risk you accept with the path you're choosing.

- "No extra spending. No parties, gatherings or anything. I think it's reasonable to desire there to be at least able to make some profits. " - good management of personal finances has nothing to do with the financial success of your business ventures. It's fine to desire profits, but if you expect them, and are this upset when those expectations are not met, you're going to have a bad time.

- "It's not like I'm some 16 year old in here asking for a Lamborghini just because" ....No you're a 25 year old expecting business success because you've been trying for several years.

- "My IQ is higher than 100" ....from one High IQ person to another, this doesn't matter that much.

- " I'm a self taught programmer and analytical thinker. " ....1) consider that if you've never been taught in these areas and tested in these areas, it is very possible you're not as good as you think you are in these areas. 2) If you want to start a successful business around programming, you need to be an effective programmer, and product manager, and marketer, and accountant, and HR manager, and procurement manager, and distributor, and networker, and financer.

- "I'd like to at least make $100 a week at NL10 as I think that's a good starting point" -- this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how poker works. If we assume 6.25bb/100 win rate, 4 tables at a time, 40 hours per week, your expected win rate would be $100/week. But this is 16K hands per week. which means you are going to have weeks, months, even longer where you lose. That's just the way variance works.

- If you've gotten banned from multiple platforms, had falling outs with business partners, struggled to find investment, you have no friends, etc it sounds like one of the fundamental problems you have is a lack of the social and communication skills required to accomplish what you're after.

I really apologize if this feels like an attack, that's not my intention, but you will benefit more from the facts than coddling. I don't know you, maybe I've misunderstood and you really are a great, intelligent, charismatic, and effective entrepreneur in the making and you've just had a bad run in an unfair world. But based on what little I know of you, from this post, it sounds a lot more like you need a great deal of personal growth to get from where you are to where you want to be. Your situation won't change until you learn to change yourself.

"Before all this I didn't understand why people end things. Now I understand. I just don't know what to do at this point. I have to figure it out." --- this is a big big big red flag, before you do anything else you need to meet with a mental health professional

Most 25 year olds are broke. Social media and society tend to set up some unrealistic expectations.

My recommendation would be to get a job, honestly pretty much any job. Getting out each day will help. Mostly it will help you get out of your funk, meet some people and have some direction to your day with a guaranteed positive result (paycheck).

Commit to saving something out of each paycheck, even if to start it is a jar of quarters that you throw loose change in. I literally did this working a crappy job and years later my life is way better now. What you're really doing is building habits. It's not the money that matters at first, it's the philosophy of saving.

Then while you're employed try to work on developing a high income skill on the side that someone will pay you for. You can likely build on the skills you already have. The key is finding something that a company will pay you well for. After you develop that skill while working your other job then it's time to search and apply for better jobs until you get a higher paying job. Then you can really start stacking cash using the savings habits you developed.

If you get fired or laid off, start again. Momentum builds on itself.

Once you have a higher income skill to fall back on and cash stacked you'll be in a better position to succeed if you go into business for yourself.

All that is mainly to say that things can get better. Most people overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can do in ten years. At one point I was in a really dark place where I thought nothing would ever get better, but it did. Just took time.

On the mental health side, I agree with the other poster who said that the first thing you should do is get some help from a professional to get through this tough time.

Also try watching YouTube videos of Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn and whatever other positive motivational speakers that resonate with you. Putting positive mental programming into your mind is key! I can tell from your original post that you can tend to go down some dark media rabbit holes. I'm not saying that stuff's not real, but focusing on it doesn't help and it's better to live on the bright side.

Anyway, good luck! Feel free to PM me if you want to chat. Just know sometimes I get busy doing IRL stuff, and don't check in here for weeks at a time, so if I don't respond right away it's nothing personal.

Awesome that you're trying to start a business and your logic is not completely untrue, just a little flawed in how likely it is that "people will come".

The reality of online or any business is that there are 1000s of people doing the same thing as you and most of them are also failing.

If you want to eliminate financial stress then you need some sort of guaranteed employment and guaranteed income. It doesn't need to be a career, it just needs to be something.

Few people are afforded the luxury of being able to focus 100% on a new business venture and have enough resources at their disposal to not worry about rent, food, insurance, etc.

You don't need to give up on your dream, but maybe you need to eliminate some of the time that you spend on it. Diversifying your time with a job, might lead to some friends, a relationship and a renewed passion to pursue an online business.

Do you have your health.

I promise your in a better position than 1/2 the planet if you
just have your health.

Dunno if that makes you feel better but I promise its true.

Well said. Unfortunately, it seems to be a catch 22 in which you need money to do various things of enjoyment. I am thankful I am at least able to have this opportunity and be in this country, and in this specific decade, but it's still a challenge at the moment for me. Thank you for your advice.

Thanks, yeah I've heard that quote before. I like that one. Hopefully 10,001 is around the corner.

Thanks, I agree with pretty much everything except

"1) consider that if you've never been taught in these areas and tested in these areas, it is very possible you're not as good as you think you are in these areas. 2) If you want to start a successful business around programming, you need to be an effective programmer, and product manager, and marketer, and accountant, and HR manager, and procurement manager, and distributor, and networker, and finance."

I am effective programmer, however the gap between understanding a market fit of a product or MVP is much different that what paradigm I use to create it. Unfortunately I could see everyone saying "we hate ____. We want alternative!". I could spend months building getting it all beautiful and fully functional. You bring it to the people and then they tell you "uh??? Where's XYZ widget that we have with product A?". It's not the programming, it's product market fit, A/B Product testing, focus groups, UX testing. All this stuff cost either money, network, and requires working with large samples of people. My last project I worked on it for months, perfected the idea, and the concept, the various features, got the frontend work done, logo, website domain, some starter legal documents I worked with law person to draft, etc, etc. Got it all done for around $200 and about 2 months of daily meticulous work thinking through every detail of how it work would, the business model, etc, etc. But what happens is when you go talk to people with a new business idea you'll find out that they 9/10 are simply not interested in a new product idea, or they are confused about the concept, etc, etc. Thankfully I found this early enough at the earliest point where I had something to ask them about instead of working to do all the backend work to create a full working prototype. But this is what happens. I tried to just ask 10 people an hour if they would help me with a question. I got loads of answers. Half the people were interested, the other ones were worried it wouldn't be better than what they already have. I did a survey, and most people around 90% were interested out of 20 or so. I got banned for the survey. I got banned for the asking 10 people the question. Unfortunately this stuff is way more than just programming a platform up with a great idea as I initially thought years ago.

For example with Facebook it was right place (middle stages of the early internet in the late 2000s) + connections (Stanford). They were'n't programming with the languages or techniques that came out yesterday. It's more about understanding the market. I did a platform in 2015. It was easily to get traction because I was part of the target market and understood where I hung out, and where other people my age would be and was able to find them and get them onto my platform very easily back then. It was my first website ever, so I was way greener than I am now in terms of skill.

There's a massive amount of gatekeepers from the Social Media companies, to the advertising platforms. They all want their money. Yesterday. I understand where you're coming from, but I wanted to shed some light on this.

"this is a big big big red flag, before you do anything else you need to meet with a mental health professional"
I would love to but they all want their $30+ an hour. It's unfortunate because usually, the people who need the help can't pay those prices. And honestly, they should get that, but IMO in a country as overall great as the USA is (specifically in this 21st century, I can't say much on the prior ones) that should be covered by the government. If we can pay for $100 million dollar planes and ships, we can invest in the health of the citizens IMO.

Thanks, that's a good plan. I have been trying to do it on my own without regular job but instead though my own businesses, freelancing, tutoring, partnerships, etc but I could always go that route or use my certifications if I had to.

It's hard to have much perspective at this point, all I see is online overall which is a complete 180 from how my life used to be. At this point I don't even go out, it's just embarrassing to not have some big cash right now. I gotta break through.

I hear ya, I like David Goggins stuff. You just feel stuck sometimes when it's just the same thing day in, day out regardless of my level of effort. These mental health pros have to get paid and I honestly don't have the money.

One of these days I'll finally start making some decent money, and I can start living my life. I almost got to NL100 and then my roll collapsed. If I can get just get to NL100, and just get 50 to 100 bbs a session regularly I will be a happy man .

I will keep trying. Thanks!

Facts. I realized that recently. I realized that I'm competing on the internet with people with $100k+ in their accounts on this internet. I'm not sure if it would of been helpful or not so much to have realized this more way back in 2017 - 2018. I used to teach programming to beginners, so maybe I'll try that again. I can't get into my Facebook so I'll have to start from scratch. Hopefully, I can dominate one of these poker tournaments and get at least $2,000. Then I can play the $10 satellites, survive the variance and profit from my edge on the fields I play in even if it's slight. Then I'll eventually have the money to run my business ideas self funded.

Thanks for the help.

So true. I'm thankful that I at least have my health. Very grateful I live in the United States, in the one specific century where that's a better thing overall for most people than it was last century. Hopefully, that stays true. Also, I'm thankful I've taught myself programming and am living in the age of the internet where I actually have the skillset to put up any idea I can come up with for overall only about $50 and my own work. Most of the time people end up having to pay a developer at least $1,000 to $5,000 for just an MVP. I went on Fiverr to get some frontend work outsourced just so I didn't have to do that part and could focus on other stuff. The person didn't do the project correctly. I ended up having to do it myself. That would be unfortunately to have to rely on people in that way.

I'm happy I try to think creatively regularly enough to come up with creative ideas. I have a backlog. You know, it really sucks, but challenging times can really can show the opportunities and ways you can specifically help other people's lives improve. Great business opportunities to help others.

Once I get capital I will be a very happy, and wealthy man! . One day.

Thanks for your perspective.

To expand on this: I may have programming ability but my occupation is not programmer. Unless you're a programmer working for a company or working with a client (contrary to popular belief) your sole ability as a programmer is not what is being evaluated or what brings in revenues. I've been programming for more than a decade. I know my stuff.

It's like saying Vincent Van Gogh was a bad artist because he basically died poor, and didn't sell any paintings for millions until after his death, or that a chef is not good because he haven't sold any food via the internet. It's not correct. Completely different skill sets, and requirements (capital. Marketing skill. etc).

In most cases, the skill itself is almost completely unrelated to business success. You can have no prototype at all and still make money if you have the capital required to pre-sell it via online advertising platforms. Obviously, I don't.

I'm a visionary type person who is willing to use their programming skills but is lacking in capital to fulfill the other aspects of running a business.

you have to think like these examples:
Artist
Skill: A great artist can create art.
Business: A great artist can create art for their wealthy clients.

Most famous artists made no massive money during their lifetimes.

Writer
Skill: A great writer can write.
Business: A great writer can write stories for their young adult audience.

The best writers of all time didn't get rich from the writing skill. They got rich when lightning struck enough for the book to be picked up. Oftentimes the manuscripts were rejected but that is not related to the writing abilities.

Programmer
Skill: A great programmer can create functional programs.
Business: A great programmer can create functional programs for their clients.
The richest programmers (unless paid as an employee or freelancer) did not earn their money from their programming skills. Allan Wong from Rego Apps earned millions through his apps that fulfilled a need + him being earliest or one of the first to market (or marketed it enough to receive the most reviews to be viewed as the best). Even if 20 people built the same app it's all about who gets to market irrespective of the programmers skill.

Do anyone of us know what the code base of any websites look like? No because that's not accessible publicly. 90% of the code for any website is not available to the public (contrary to popular belief. Inspect Element does nothing of consequence to well made web applications). The programming itself is not directly related to profit outcomes (unless that's your core output to your end client, which is not the case 99% of the time, and not for me).

The skill or ability of the person is not directly tied to the most common business opportunity, or their ability to derive profits. This is why the "do what you're passionate" about conversation never works out (unless the person is passionate about creating something people will be willing to pay top dollar for).

This is more like my situation:
Visionary Mind (like a Steve Jobs. Would of been way less successful without access to the capital required at the right time, as well as Steve Wozniak to actually build the product.):
Skill: A great visionary can create innovative ideas. Spends hours perfecting them, and thinking about them from different angles and perspectives. How to execute them. Benefits for the various parties. etc, etc.
Unrelated: Marketing skill
Unrelated: Capital Access
Unrelated: programming ability (even though I have it already)
Unrelated: Trust fund
Unrelated: Ivy League connections
Unrelated: Being of similar appearance and character of Elizabeth Holmes to get hundreds of millions from supposedly the savviest people all with no working prototype what so ever, and / or blatant lies and major discrepancies on the books (Theranos, Frank)

I hope that is more clear.

That's an insightful take on the differences between talent and profitability/business success.

For your next venture you might try to think of an idea that will be profitable even with a small number of users. That's something I learned through my experience with sales. If you're selling vacuums you're going to have to sell a ton of vacuums to make the same amount of money that a realtor makes by selling one house.

It's much more difficult to break through in a business like Facebook that requires a critical mass of users in order to be successful. Capital investment is pretty much a requirement and the business often operates at a loss as it grows (read up on Uber).

It's easier for the "little guy" to be successful in a business that doesn't require thousands and thousands of customers in order to be successful. The good news is if you consciously design that sort of business to be scalable with reproducible processes then you can start a small (profitable) online business and grow it into a big one while also growing your income along the way, all without the need for massive investment. You just need to put profitability first over other considerations.

Hope that makes sense. Think of it more like you're designing a money-making machine than a business.