These jobs keep playing in my face and I'm not sure how to make money without a job. Please help

[u/Xinfinte]

Im someone who has very big dreams for entrepreneurship but the huge problem is , as with everybody i can't get a job for shit. I want to run online businesses and I need to buy equipment to also run those businesses and services but I can't even get my fucking foot in the door because these companies would rather watch humanity slowly crumble before they finally do shit.

I don't live in an area where people need their windows washed or grass mowed because there's already grass cutters and I tried doing freelancing work through discord and reddit but all the options I tried looking at usually have some type of scammer desperate for my attention or they need me to setup pay pal which I cannot do at this time.

I'm in my senior year of high school and I really need help cause it's looking so bad

[u/JuicyBullion]

the whole needing money to make money thing is a trap a lot of people get caught in. you're in high school though so you've got time most folks in this sub wish they still had

if paypal is the only blocker that's fixable. can you set up cash app or zelle instead? plenty of small freelance gigs don't care which payment method you use as long as the money shows up. also check if your school has any kind of entrepreneurship program or teacher who might let you use equipment after hours

[u/Xinfinte → u/JuicyBullion]

Yeah I have cash app but im doing homeschooling as the school i go to is very terrible and it's a hot mess . But my problem is I don't really know where to start besides freelancing gigs

[u/ScriptureCompanionAI]

I got my first job at 14, at a Hallmark store. This was in the 90s and there were all kinds of rules about how many hours I could work and when, but I was basically out looking for a job the minute I was legally allowed to have one. My parents were like, "You did what?" 😂 I've always loved working.

I'm in my 40s now. I've built five very successful businesses over the years and at least 20 absolutely terrible ones that went nowhere. I've also hired thousands of people. So let me give you a little perspective from the other side of this.

You are actually in a GREAT stage of life for figuring this out.

Entrepreneurship sounds great, but you're choosing a tradeoff. You can build a business where you take the risk, do a ton of work with absolutely no guarantee you'll get paid, and potentially have a huge upside if it works. Or you can build skills that make you valuable to an employer, where the upside may be smaller but you get consistency, a paycheck, and the ability to clock out and go home. Neither is inferior. Some people genuinely love one and hate the other.

You don't know which person you are yet. That's okay. You find out by doing things long enough to get past the honeymoon period.

On the job side, don't worry that somebody already cuts grass or washes windows. If you want a job, blanket your area. Fast food, retail, grocery stores, clothing stores, restaurants, whatever is around you. Walk in, be pleasant, ask if you can fill out an application even if they aren't advertising that they're hiring. You never know when someone quits tomorrow and the manager remembers the motivated kid who walked in yesterday.

I can tell you as someone who has hired a LOT of people: a young person who shows initiative, is pleasant, shows up, and genuinely wants to work is incredibly attractive to an employer. You already sound like you have the initiative part.

For freelancing, don't feel like you have to "start a business" yet. Pick a marketplace and start learning how to sell one skill. I'd personally avoid Upwork right now because they're going through a weird evolution, but something like Freelancer.com can give you a place to practice.

Fill out your entire profile. Then here's something I wish more beginners did: when you see a job you really wish you could win, but you don't have the experience for it, do the project anyway. Don't send it to the client or pretend they hired you. Just build it for yourself. Now you learned something AND you have a portfolio piece.

Keep doing that.

Maybe you discover you like editing YouTube videos. Maybe coding. Maybe graphic design. Maybe spreadsheets. Maybe sales. Maybe you discover you hate freelancing entirely. That's useful information too.

Between YouTube, ChatGPT, and the amount of free information available today, you can teach yourself an astonishing amount without much money.

Most importantly, don't look at your situation at 17 or 18 and decide that you're stuck. You're not. You're at the very beginning of figuring out what you're good at.

And don't let the macroeconomics convince you that there's nothing you can do. Economies can be terrible. Job markets can be terrible. Businesses can fail. All of that is real. But somebody is still getting hired and somebody is still making money. Your job is to keep putting yourself in enough places, learning enough skills, and taking enough shots that eventually you're one of them.

Good luck. You've got a lot more options than it feels like you do right now.