Is it too late to start an online business at your age, this year, as a disabled person – or any other reason why you might believe you have missed the boat…?
That’s a question I have commonly seen asked in Facebook groups and Reddit and been asked directly since I started my online business as a 40-year-old, disabled person in 2010.
Maybe you have built an offline business or want to wind down your employed role and want the flexible income opportunities and freedom working online offers.
You might have a full-time job and want to create, publish and sell digital products to make additional income.
Maybe, like me, you struggle with working a job – the commute, the rigid timings, the incessant meetings and the forced linear productivity is an overload – and you want to use more of your energy and capacity for the job – or work you actually enjoy.
I saw someone on Reddit describe themselves as a “good worker but allergic to 9-5”.
I resonated hard with that.
When I had my last 9-5 job, I would experience severe stomach issues from Friday to Sunday, and all weekend was wiped out, just trying to get enough in the tank to go again next week.
And if you’ve ever typed “am I too old to start an online business?” into Google or ChatGPT late at night, I’m going to answer that first.
No, it is not too late.
If you are reading this, you are still alive! YAY!
If you are alive and you have ideas and enthusiasm to make money online, you’ve arrived here at the best time to begin…
NOW!
But I suspect that’s not really what you’re asking.
I think you are really asking the question underneath the question
When someone asks “is it too late?”, what they usually mean is “will anyone take me seriously?”
They’re asking “have I left it too late for ME?”
Especially when the idea of having to learn all the techy aspects of doing business online feels like a LOT.
If you find the tech overwhelming, I can solve that problem for you right now!
Meet Tab, your AI tech assistant.
Tab – or Tabitha as I call mine – runs the entire back-end of my online business – doing every single tech task for me.
I text ‘her’ what I want done in WhatsApp and Tab gets it done.
Discover 146 tasks Tab could take off your plate and get your own Tab tech assistant – for FREE!
This is your permission slip to back yourself.
You CAN start or grow your business online now.
ESPECIALLY if you are 40 or older!
Your age is the credential
The people buying knowledge want it from someone who has lived it.
If you’re newly widowed and wading through the probate paperwork, you don’t want to buy a “Newly Widowed Probate Paperwork Pack” PDF product or course from someone who’s never filled in a probate form.
If you’ve just been made redundant at 55, you want the “Get Hired for the Role You Really Want After Redundancy Aged 50+” from someone who has been there and done it.
If you’re caring for a parent with dementia, you want to learn from someone who’s spent all day chasing doctors and social services, woken at 2am to calm their fear and confusion, and fought tooth and nail to get them the care they deserve.
Your decades of lived experience aren’t the thing holding you back; they’re the reason the world needs you to step out of the shadows.
Every job you’ve done, every mess you’ve sorted out, every hobby you’ve disappeared down a rabbit hole with, every hard year you’ve come out the other side of.
That’s your rich material.
That’s the valuable content you’d cover in your PDF product that people will buy.
I pulled together a list of 33 examples of hyper-targeted, sellable PDF product ideas, from bookkeeping to allotments to divorce admin.
The myth that makes it feel too late
Don’t assume a “proper” business means a website, a logo, a twelve-module course, a podcast, a membership, an Instagram account with thousands of followers and a brave announcement to everyone you went to school with.
You don’t need to reinvent your whole life to start.
You need one small thing that solves one small problem for one person.
For most people, the easiest first thing is a low-cost PDF.
Such as a ‘toolkit’, with step-by-step guidance to get one result, like completing probate or securing your dream role after redundancy at 55.
Or a set of pre-written scripts, or a pack of templates, perhaps for things like complaint letters that brands enjoy reading and that bring rewards, colouring books, or phrases that stop your Chihuahua charging off the sofa in minus one second to tell the leaf blowing along the road in the next town to STFU and stop making a noise!
Something you could create in a weekend, in collaboration with AI, sell for the price of a coffee or takeaway and deliver automatically while you’re out walking the dog.
AI is your – and their – collaboration partner
AI is still very much in its infancy.
However much or little you use AI in your online business, you will be further ahead than the majority of the general population!
There is still a HUGE opportunity for you to make money online with AI!
For you as the seller, the creator…
AI is your collaboration partner, helping you speed up the process of brainstorming, writing, publishing and selling your PDF product.
To be clear, I do NOT advocate you selling AI slop!
AI produces my first drafts and then I edit intensively. That’s still faster than writing from scratch, and having something to respond to (the draft) unlocks better ideas for what I want to say.
For you as creator…
You are not expected or required to be a 10,000 hour level expert in all topics related to your PDF product.
For some sections, you might need to do further research, additional learning, or seek deeper clarification.
AI will fill in your gaps so you produce a PDF product you are proud of and what you don’t yet know doesn’t stop you.
For them as the customer, the implementor…
AI speeds up the journey from where they are now to where they want to go – the result they purchase your PDF product to achieve.
I want to make it VERY easy for my customers to achieve their desired result.
Every PDF product I sell contains one or more AI prompts per section for my customers to feed into their AI tool of choice.
Don’t fear AI. It’s your advantage!
Creating, publishing and selling a PDF product won’t change your life on day one.
It does give you the opportunity to start building an audience, a bank of happy customers and an additional income stream.
With a PDF product, you get paid to prove to strangers that you’re a good person with valuable knowledge that will help them achieve their goals.
All you need is a computer, word processor, a shared host like Google Drive and a free AI tool, like Tab.
And you’ll have a digital asset that helps strangers find you and find out you’re good before they trust you with something bigger.
What PDF product could YOU sell?
How to start brainstorming your PDF product
1. Pick one problem you’ve already solved.
Perhaps something life forced you to have to learn about, a problem you regularly experience in your work, or something you see a lot of people struggle with – that you know the answer to.
2. Picture one person who has that problem right now.
For example, the newly self-employed hairdresser staring at their first tax return, or the parent trying to support their neurodivergent teenager through their GCSEs.
3. Write down what you’d tell them.
Write the list how you’d phrase each item, in the order you’d actually talk them through it, as if they were sitting at your kitchen table with a cuppa and a notebook.
4. Put a price on it.
Low enough that they can decide without sleeping on it, high enough that you will feel good receiving that amount for the first one or few sales.
For some of my clients who have never sold their own creations online before, this price has been 99p. For others, it has been £9.99 – and anything in between, up to £99.
If you aren’t sure, start low and increase the price after each sale.
5. Tell the people who need it.
Your network is bigger than you think, even if you’d swear it’s just your book club and a few current or old colleagues on LinkedIn.
The tech you need is a document, a payment link and a way to send a file, and you’ve almost certainly done harder things before lunch on a Monday.
Your tech assistant, Tab, will help you with all the back end.
Creating PDF products about what you know is as low-impact as business gets, you can do it from the sofa with a cup of tea – and it is REALLY REALLY FUN!
It’s not too late; it’s just time
You don’t need a new career, a degree, a big network or anyone’s blessing.
You need one problem you’ve already solved, written down for someone who’s still in the middle of it.
Want my help to generate additional income online with PDF products that sell?
Start with the free guide: 33 PDF Product Ideas You Can Sell This Week and Create in a Weekend
Then purchase my PDF Product Paydays Kit…
The PDF Product Paydays Kit is your end-to-end system to create hyper-targeted, sellable digital products that generate hands-off sales.
Upload the PDF Product Paydays Kit to ChatGPT or your preferred AI thinking bot to collaboratively plan and create your product and sales page copy using the step-by-step strategy and pre-written, proven prompts.
Then send the BONUS “Paid in Days” pre-written AI assistant briefings to Tab so it can do the heavy lifting of building your checkout page, turning your PDF product into your online income stream – FAST!
Purchase the PDF Product Paydays Kit
Veronica Pullen
Latest posts by Veronica Pullen (see all)
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