Help With Decision, Please!

[SimpleGuy]

Hi guys, give me some honest advice on the situation, please. 

I live in Russia, I am 19 years old. I found one course that will greatly help me in making money (as I think). The course costs 1200$, I don't have that kind of money right now. That's why I'm thinking of taking out a bank loan to buy this course and start paying off the bank loan when I learn how to earn money after the course. Besides, at the moment I don't have any back-up money, so I'm taking this loan like all-in in poker, so to speak. But I'm generally afraid of loans and against them in most cases. I really believe in this course, because I've seen many cases of young guys like me starting to make money selling websites or marketing on their own (which this course teaches). 

Tell me, please, if I don't manage to earn money after studying, will I have serious problems, will collectors fuck me up and all that? Is it worth making such a decision in general?

[Ulax]

@SimpleGuy Hey dude.

Who would you be getting the loan from? What course is it?

[YIDIRYIDIR]

if i were you, i wouldn't. too much risk and unnecessary pressure. also, if that course is for beginners, i would stay away from it because that knowledge exists already online for free, especially for marketing websites, you just need a bit of digging and "figuring things out". buying that course will just speed things up, it's not a life saver. but if it's something advanced, it would be for people that already make money and want to scale, which won't make sense for you. 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Never, under any circumstance take a loan for a BS like that. The only loan you should ever consider taking is mortgage, that's basically it. And look, I know you're maybe not all there up there when it comes to decisions like these, if you catch my drift, and I get the feeling to make money as quickly as possible; but if you're going to waste money on shit like this, at least make sure it's YOUR money. NEVER take a loan for shit like this

[Frenk]

2 hours ago, SimpleGuy said:

Besides, at the moment I don't have any back-up money, so I'm taking this loan like all-in in poker,

Don’t do it.

[integral]

There is no substitute for teaching yourself. Tell us what profession your interested in.

[Davino]

@SimpleGuy It's a risky decision. Why is there a sense of urgency? Can't you generate 1200$ of savings by mid 2027?

If you feel like it's a calculated risk, then go ahead, read the details but will you be able to pay the monthly fees while you're doing the course if you don't have money? On the other hand having that pressure will really make you work and push yourself so that's some good motivation but you have to weight in the risks vs the opportunities. Make a business case with the help of AI and maybe post it back in here for more context and tailored advice.

At the end of the day, you'll be fully responsible for what you do, as you're legally an adult.

[WonderSeeker]

6 hours ago, SimpleGuy said:

Hi guys, give me some honest advice on the situation, please. 

I live in Russia, I am 19 years old. I found one course that will greatly help me in making money (as I think). The course costs 1200$, I don't have that kind of money right now. That's why I'm thinking of taking out a bank loan to buy this course and start paying off the bank loan when I learn how to earn money after the course. Besides, at the moment I don't have any back-up money, so I'm taking this loan like all-in in poker, so to speak. But I'm generally afraid of loans and against them in most cases. I really believe in this course, because I've seen many cases of young guys like me starting to make money selling websites or marketing on their own (which this course teaches). 

Tell me, please, if I don't manage to earn money after studying, will I have serious problems, will collectors fuck me up and all that? Is it worth making such a decision in general?

Speaking from experience. Do not do it... IF you already have debt.

The mirage of others making money doing this trendy thing looks nice on the surface. But that's all it is: a mirage.

That said if you're really gonna do this, pay for the course in cash only. In the time it takes you to make the cash needed to pay for the course, you might realize it isn't even all that.

I invested $6k in a online ghostwriting course last year (paid mostly on my credit card), worked my absolute ass off, and only make $2k back.

Risk is only worth it if you're still very young and you know for certain you have leverage. Take 6 months to learn more about the business model and to make that $1,200. That way you've given yourself leverage at least.

Edited yesterday at 12:02 AM by WonderSeeker

[SimpleGuy]

14 hours ago, Ulax said:

@SimpleGuy Hey dude.

Who would you be getting the loan from? What course is it?

Loan from bank.

Course basically teaches you how to sale marketing services and websites. Something like that

 

11 hours ago, integral said:

There is no substitute for teaching yourself. Tell us what profession your interested in.

I want to teach skills that would make great business, like sales, some marketing, etc. Currently I`m just applying for sales manager job.

[SimpleGuy]

Thank you everyone for your quick help! I appreciate it very much. For now, I will work to make these money by myself without debt and then after a few months I will consider should I buy this course or not.

[Carl-Richard]

I might be old school, but a business starts with an idea. The methods come afterwards. The methods are usually not a problem. You know where to find them. They are ubiquitous, especially in the era of ChatGPT. It's the ideas that are more rare to come by (unless you are fine with essentially copying somebody else and creating your own market space for it and perhaps creating your own tiny little spin on it or outdoing them marketing-wise somehow, which is also possible in the era of Meta ads).

And if you don't have an idea now, keep it in the back of your mind. It may come in a week, a month, a year, 5 years. This is what Jeff Bezos calls long-term thinking. It's one of the most powerful ways to achieve anything in life. Thinking about something for one moment, vs thinking about something for years, is about the same as one person vs 1000 people thinking about something.

Edited 17 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Don't do it. 

Huge mistake. 

[Basman]

Courses are a staple of the grifteconomy. Been there, done that. Save your money. 

Just do research, especially if your a beginner. Read 5 books relative to your field and 20 hours of online research. There, saved you 1200. 

[Leo Gura]

Few courses are worth spending your last dollars on, nevermind a loan.

What is so special about this course?

[Michal__]

Usually loans only get approved for those who have a job. Do you have a job?

[Miguel1]

Like others have said, most courses are BS scams by marketers.

Tell us about this course so we can make a better judgement.

[Carl-Richard]

A good heuristic for a business is take something you use every day (e.g. an app, a service, a software, a tool) and find a way to improve it or simply make your own little spin on it. When you do that, 1. you have knowledge about that thing and you know the standards you yourself would expect, 2. you know that it's a product people will use (by virtue of you and others already using it).

If it's a simple thing like a simple app (or even something not quite so simple), you can easily create this with ChatGPT. Ask ChatGPT how to go about creating the app or service (and use ChatGPT to do things like coding, etc.). The thing here is to work with ChatGPT recursively, don't let it make something all in one go and then proceed to marketing it. Tinker and improve it until it's really up to your standards.

The only thing you really need then is get eyes on the product, and this is only a question of scale and starting capital if you do this with Meta ads and a graphics design app like Canva and you have more than average skills in that domain (which can be trained). I did this quite successfully while recruiting research participants for my university studies.

As for concrete examples, I'm planning to do this with a brain training app I use every other day (I want to make a simple and straight-to-the-point version that recreates everything I use every day and only that, and I know people will use it because I know I use it and others use it that way). It's also a funny example, but Jan Esmann the spiritual teacher who was a painter was using Photoshop and figured there was a plugin he could need but it didn't exist, so he bought a book on C++ and taught himself how to code and created that plugin, and then he licensed it and thus he created a software company and that became his main source of income.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard