The Problem With Making Money Online: Ed Lawrence

The Problem With...

James Smith

Society & Culture

4.9 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ed Lawrence joins James Smith for a brutally honest conversation about the problem with making money online, the illusion of quick success and the hidden grind behind overnight wins. From starting 12 years ago with terrible videos to generating $300,000 from a single YouTube upload, Ed reveals how the "make money online" promise is sold as easy… but requires years of eating shit instead. They discuss the reality of building a business, the trap of chasing views over revenue, the burnout of ad-dependent income and why most people give up right before the breakthrough. Ed opens up about parasites nearly killing his business, the obsession required to succeed and learning to build a sustainable income through content, tracking and understanding what actually converts rather than what goes viral. He explains: ◼️ Why making money online takes 10x longer than you think ◼️ How to escape the 9-5 without going broke ◼️ The trap of building followers who never buy ◼️ Why 800 views can make $33,000 (and millions of views can make nothing) ◼️ How YouTube teaches you every business skill you need Timestamps: 00:00 – The Problem With Making Money Online 02:14 – Why Side Hustles Fail vs Full-Time Focus 05:08 – The Trap of "Free" Gym Memberships 06:33 – The Truth About Business Ownership 08:48 – Don't Start a Business Just for Money 11:05 – Building Followers vs Making Money 13:17 – The Stress of Ad Revenue Dependency 16:38 – YouTube is Not a Search Platform 19:15 – Binge-Watching by Design 24:13 – YouTube Makes You Better at Everything 29:35 – Fail as Fast as You Can 32:56 – Packaging Boring Content 37:13 – Everything Has Been Done Before 41:55 – Copy Your Own Outliers 44:41 – Views Don't Equal Money 49:13 – The 10-Year Overnight Success 53:05 – Getting Stuck in Your Comfort Zone 56:12 – The Parasite Wake-Up Call 59:11 – Is AI the Biggest Opportunity Ever? 1:02:00 – Bitcoin vs Gold vs Traditional Money 1:04:09 – Stop Researching Investments, Build Your Business 1:05:13 – Closing Remarks Welcome to "The Problem With" where each week we look into a problem to get a better understanding of it. This podcast has no sponsors, only my businesses and investments, please check out the links below. I'm on a mission to help men check their levels of Testosterone, more info here: https://www.manual.co/smith Please check out and try Neutonic here: https://www.neutonic.com/jamessmith For a free trial of my online personal training app go here: https://www.affordableonlinecoaching.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The problem is getting eyeballs is significantly harder than making money.
0:03.3	If I want to get a million views, that's probably harder than making 10K. I remember seeing in your Discord once, there was a guy who made $33,000 from 800 views. And I was shocked. I was rocked. I still think, but if I had more views, I'd make your money. It just doesn't work. I can see what is generating me income. But the difference wasn't a small bit. There's one video that made $300,000.
0:23.7	And then there's one video of like... just doesn't work. I can see what is generating me income. But the difference wasn't a small bit.
0:21.6	There's one video that made $300,000. And then there's one video of like five times the views,
0:26.2	making nothing. Everyone on YouTube is potentially doing the exact opposite of what will grow their
0:30.8	business because you are taught to repeat what gets views. Ed Lawrence is the YouTube mastermind
0:35.4	responsible for turning ordinary people into six and seven figure business owners.
0:40.1	In this episode, James and Ed discuss building a business on YouTube without going viral and...
0:45.2	What the problem is with making money online?
0:47.4	You either solve a problem and you can make a lot of money without a lot of traction or you get a ton of traction and then you sell cheaper things, mass market things.
0:54.3	But if it was me starting again, I would never go for the mass market because times have changed. The barrier to presenting is gone. The barrier to editing is getting smaller. The barrier to audition. All these barriers that stop people getting involved are gone. What that means is there's going to be more competition than ever, which means getting more views that's going to be even harder. So what we need to be looking at is how can I position myself as the number one expert in the
1:14.7	world at solving a specific problem? And you do that by making...
1:19.2	Ed Lawrence, what is the problem with making money online?
1:22.4	There's so many. Where do we start?
1:25.0	So as a bit of a preface to this, I've worked with you maybe over two years ago.
1:31.4	Yeah.
1:31.7	Help me grow my YouTube.
1:32.7	Help me grow in my businesses.
1:34.1	But I thought this would be such a good opportunity for other people to understand the amount of problems that there are, whether it is social media, running an online business.
1:42.4	What would be the first thing that you would tackle
1:44.8	when working with some of the ones to make money online?
1:48.3	Well, I think the problem making money online, if we go back to the original question,
	...

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