Niall Doherty on How to Find Reliable Online Money-Making Ventures
Joy Wallet is advertiser-supported: we may earn compensation from the products and offers mentioned in this article. However, any expressed opinions are our own and aren't influenced by compensation. To read our full disclosure, click here.
When it comes to online income opportunities, it’s not always easy to distinguish between those that are credible and those that are less so. Niall Doherty, the founder of eBiz Facts, has taken it upon himself to dedicate time and resources to providing reliable reviews and insights on online money-making ventures. In this interview, he shares a lot about his business and the mission behind it and offers invaluable advice for all those looking to make an extra buck online.
In this article
Inception of eBiz Facts
Joy Wallet: What inspired you to start eBiz Facts, and what is the main mission of your website?
Niall: There were a couple of things that inspired me.
One inspiration came from trying to make money online myself for many years. I finally figured out some ways that worked, but it was difficult to find good resources and know who to trust. The idea with eBiz Facts was to help people figure out who is trustworthy and what resources are most helpful and review different courses and things like that so people would save time and money trying to build their businesses.
Another inspiration was a friend who ran a site with a similar model, publishing information he thought was helpful. He posted the content for free and then monetized it with affiliate offers where they made sense, only recommending products and services that he truly thought were good and helpful to people. It seemed like a really good model. He was doing very well with that site and making a lot of money from it, though he wasn't selling anything himself. He didn't have to create his own products or services; he could publish all his work for free and monetize it by recommending other people's products or services. When I saw how well he was doing with that model, it really appealed to me, and that's when I decided to try the same thing but in a different niche.
eBiz Facts' mission is mainly to be a signpost for people who are getting started making money online. It shows them how to do so and gives them many ideas. It then helps them figure out which one they should focus on and which would be best for them and points them towards the best resources to help them build that business.
Evaluating credibility
Joy Wallet: How do you determine the credibility and reliability of the online money-making opportunities you review?
Niall: We have a hybrid approach to that.
One part of the approach is evaluating these courses ourselves, and we have a few different ways to do that. In the past, we used to buy the courses or get access to them, go through all the materials, and come up with a rating based on an extensive checklist of things we would look for. Now, we're trying to simplify it to review more courses, but we will still be looking at objective measures of how trustworthy the website for a course is, whether they have a big social media following, etc.
The second part involves finding people who've actually taken these courses and asking them a series of questions to determine whether the course lived up to their expectations and whether they would recommend it to other people.
We combine our own evaluations with those of as many students as we can find to come up with an overall rating for the training. We're not relying too much on our own opinions and evaluations of a course. Ultimately, once we have enough reviews from people who've done the training, they have the biggest say on the final rating because they would know best if it's any good.
Successful models
Joy Wallet: Can you share some of the most successful online business models you have encountered? In your opinion, why do those stand out?
Niall: It's kind of a boring answer. Many online business models can work well, and some work better at one time than others. For example, affiliate marketing isn't as good now as it was a few years ago. Amazon FBA was really good around 2018, but it soon got very competitive, so it's not as good anymore.
Generally, I recommend that most people don't start off trying to build some kind of passive income business like affiliate marketing or Amazon FBA (which is the dream, and everybody wants to go straight to that). What I've seen work for most people over the years is starting with a very simple service business, usually some kind of freelance gig, whether it be freelance writing, web design, or something like that.
When I started working online, I left my job as a web developer. I was a web designer at a university, meaning I had a skill that I initially threw away because I wanted passive income. I tried building niche websites, doing affiliate marketing, writing ebooks, etc. I didn't make much money for the first year until I decided to do freelance web design, use this skill I already have, and trade my time for money. That's what most people don't want to do, but it's the most reliable way to replace a nine-to-five income in your first few months. Sure enough, I could earn a decent living freelancing. Over time, I was able to raise my rates.
You get to a point where you can earn a good living working part-time hours, and then you have time and the resources to start playing around with more passive income business models because you won’t be in a big rush to claim money from them right away. You can be patient and build things up over several months or even a few years.
Beginner recommendations
Joy Wallet: What are the top three online income streams you would recommend for beginners and why?
Niall: The first one would be to pick a skill — either one you already have or one that you can learn pretty fast. In web design, if you just focus on, say, doing WordPress or Webflow websites, you can get pretty good at that. If you practice for about a month, you'll know more than many clients who just don't want to spend the time figuring this stuff out, and you can earn a decent hourly rate freelancing that kind of service. I think most people could do that pretty quickly, within a month or two. Even if it's a skill they just started learning, they can earn a decent income from it.
I would recommend another thing that's not a business model, but it's to look for a remote job. You would still be an employee, but you're not going into the office every day, and you can work from home. You could find many remote, part-time jobs, 15 to 20 hours a week, but can provide a decent income. Whether it's a freelance business or a remote job, the ideal is to be earning money while you're also learning on the job. Look for a remote job where you can actually learn a good skill that you can later use to build some kind of passive income business.
Doing those freelancing or remote jobs, you’ll often come across a good idea for a more scalable, more passive income type of business. Working with clients, you’ll notice some things and problems they have in common. Maybe you’ll create some software that helps solve that problem and earn more passive income that way. Or maybe you can set up a productized service. Or you can become more of an agency and hire people to do the work while you manage everything.
Choosing courses
Joy Wallet: What key factors do you consider when choosing new online courses?
Niall: Check the reputation of the course creators. Are they walking their talk? If they're saying you can make $10,000 selling on Amazon within 30 days, have they done that, or have they been able to teach other people to do that? Now, they could fake it and make it look like they have done it, so you just need to dig a little, check their reputation, and see if they have testimonials that always seem believable (like video testimonials). Can you reach out to some of their past students and see if the course is legit? That is what we're trying to help people do, and we're making that much easier with our website.
Another thing is, do they have a money-back guarantee? Many courses don't offer any kind of refund policy, and that's always a red flag for me because there are so many unknowns when you're getting into these types of courses. There's a lot you have to learn to know if it's even plausible and realistic that you could do this, so you want to have at least a no-questions-asked 30-day guarantee. That way, you can sign up, go through the materials, try out a few things, see if it works for you, and even see if you enjoy this type of business. You don't want to jump through any hoops to get your money back if you don't feel the course is right for you.
Success stories
Joy Wallet: Can you share some success stories of people who have improved their financial situation because they used your website for resources?
Niall: We get emails from people who are grateful that they came across our website and newsletter. We put out a twice-weekly newsletter that features success stories of people making money online in different ways. We highlight that it wasn't an overnight success story or point out some nuances that are easy to overlook.
People say they appreciate that we don't make it sound too easy, that we're very realistic, and that we give people a lot of different options and show them that there are tons of different ways to make money online, and there are all sorts of people doing it. That's always good to hear. We don't want to give people false hope or make big promises, as you'd see on the sales pages of some of these courses where they say, "Anybody can do this! Even if you have zero experience, even if you've never used the computer before, you too could be making tons of money online in seven days."
- Unlock Up to 4.31% APY**
- Combine Freedom Checking with Portfolio Savings to boost your savings APY by up to 0.20%.**
- Fewer fees, faster transactions. Plus, earn 2.00% APY* on your checking account.
- Move money instantly between your Portfolio Savings and Freedom Checking accounts.
- Skip the monthly maintenance fees and minimum deposit requirements.
Avoiding pitfalls
Joy Wallet: What are some common pitfalls to avoid when you start an online business or a side hustle?
Niall: One of the biggest pitfalls is believing it's going to be very easy. When I started, I was very optimistic and thought it would be super easy. You do need a little bit of that naivety to get started, but later on, you realize that it is much harder than you thought. At that point, you need persistence not to give up on the first obstacle.
Most of the success stories we see and put in our newsletter are about people who failed a few times before breaking through and succeeding. That risk, perseverance, and willingness to experiment until you find something that works are huge, and people who don't have that are usually not going to make it. Also, people who get distracted by every new shiny object instead of focusing on one thing long enough so it actually has a chance to be successful will probably not succeed.
Read also: 18 Legitimate Ideas for Making Money Online
Continuous learning
Joy Wallet: Do you think continuous learning is important for business success, or can you learn something once and still be successful?
Niall: I wish the latter were the case, but unfortunately, it's not. Even in my own business, we rely a lot on SEO, and Google has shaken things up this year, so we can't just keep doing the same thing we used to do and expect to have the same results. We have to change our approach. Things change, and you must learn a new or a better way of doing things. With online businesses specifically, everything changes so fast. It's different than having a cafe down on Main Street, and you have the same number of people coming through every year, and you don't have many competitors that will suddenly pop up because the space is limited. Online, you have to keep up to date on things, keep learning, and keep trying new things. That's just the way the landscape is now.
Diversifying income
Joy Wallet: How important is it to diversify income streams, and what strategies would you recommend?
Niall: You don't want to be too reliant on any one income stream. However, if that income stream comes directly from your customers (for example, you have a membership program for which you charge $30 a month and you have 1,000 members), it's safe as long as you keep delivering value to your audience.
On the other hand, if you are an affiliate website and all your traffic is coming through Google and you're just monetizing through affiliates, that's much more risky because if Google changes something, you're in trouble. If you're a YouTuber and monetizing through native YouTube ads and Google changes something in their algorithm, suddenly, your subscribers aren't seeing your videos anymore.
Some income streams are more resilient and less risky than others. Generally speaking, you want multiple ways to find and reach your audience and monetize from it. That can be affiliate marketing, selling your own products and services, some membership, etc. There's a whole bunch of different ways to do that. The more diverse you are, the more resilient you are.
Joy Wallet is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor, financial advisor, loan broker, insurance producer, or insurance broker. Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only. They are not intended to provide investment advice. Joy Wallet does not and cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information in regard to your individual circumstances. We encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific investment issues. Featured estimates are based on past market performance, and past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
Our site doesn’t feature every company or financial product available on the market. We are compensated by our partners, which may influence which products we review and write about (and where those products appear on our site), but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice. Our editorials are grounded on independent research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services.
We value your privacy. We work with trusted partners to provide relevant advertising based on information about your use of Joy Wallet’s and third-party websites and applications. This includes, but is not limited to, sharing information about your web browsing activities with Meta (Facebook) and Google. All of the web browsing information that is shared is anonymized. To learn more, click on our Privacy Policy link.
Images appearing across JoyWallet are courtesy of shutterstock.com.
Joy Wallet
We are entrepreneurs, investors, fintech enthusiasts, journalists, and masters of aggregating and deciphering data. We have been working in the financial services industry for over seven years and wanted to build a place where we can bring together the brightest minds and organizations to help you make more money.
With access to the right opportunities, you can take care of the ones you love and create a more prosperous lifestyle. We made Joy Wallet out of a desire to find the best financial partners, strategies and tools to help you achieve your life goals and make the most of money.
Share this article
