Sylvia Omulo

CommentOnline first100015Open access aEnvironment & Health Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa bPaul G.

It started with a tweet: "How I turned my side hustle into $100K in 6 months." Ten minutes later I was scrolling through threads, screenshots, and links to an ebook, convinced I'd found my escape plan. By the weekend, I was outlining my own version of the story, picturing the future me who had finally cracked the code. A few days later, reality set in. The funnel didn't funnel. The ads didn't click. The only thing that flowed consistently was my growing sense of panic.

I once bought a course that promised to show me how to make thousands a month selling digital products. It came with screenshots of PayPal balances, a neat timeline of steps, and the golden promise: "Follow my exact blueprint and you'll get the same results." So I did. Step by step. Landing page, product, emails, all according to plan. And... nothing. Crickets. Not even a pity click. At first I thought it was me; wrong product, wrong design, wrong something.