10 Ways to Make One-Million Dollars in One Year

Being wealthy is a common goal. Financial freedom and stability open up many exciting doors in life. Plus, they close doors of anxiety and worry over paying bills or buying meals. Despite a common desire for wealth, though, many people are not able to reach that point. One large reason is that it is challenging, and another is that making money often involves taking chances. That said, it is totally possible to make one-million dollars in a short amount of time by taking calculated risks and by having the right approach.

Here are 10 things that you could do to make one-million dollars in even just one year:

1. Do freelance design or engineering work.

If you are a skilled designer or can do frontend/backend engineering, there is a lot of money to be made. But you can use those skills to do freelance design/engineering work.

In order to make one-million dollars over the course of a year, you would just need to work a lot of hours and find the right projects. There are people who are desperate to build a product or a website and will pay top dollar.

You just need to connect with them. If you can find twenty $50,000 projects, or forty $25,000 projects over the course of a year, you can make a million dollars.

2. Help companies with SEO.

There are hot trends always rising and falling within companies’ efforts for growth. One of the hottest topics right now is SEO. There are companies paying top dollar for help increasing their visibility on Google.

Becoming an SEO expert definitely takes time but learning the basics and being able to add value for someone who knows nothing is not that difficult. You could invest in learning about SEO and reach out to companies offering help to yield a significant amount of money.

3. Start a business (or, really, a service that people will pay for).

Starting a successful business is a pretty clear way to make one-million dollars or more. More fundamentally, though, all you need to do is create a service that people will pay for. You do not need to hire 100 people, raise a bunch of money and come up with complex future plans.

Instead, you just need to create something that will add value for people to the point where they will pay. The larger the problem that it solves or the more people whose problem you are solving, the more money you will be able to make.

There are countless industries and jobs right now that can be made more efficient through the use of technology. Pick one of these industries that you already know about, or spend the time learning about one. It will enable you to create something of value that can net you a million dollars in the next year.

4. Develop algorithms to find arbitrage opportunities in the market.

There are more things that you can bet on today than ever before. Between cryptocurrency, daily sports betting, or even who is going to win the next political race, there are countless opportunities to make one-million dollars.

There are also multiple sites and locations where you can wager these bets. You could create an algorithm that searches for arbitrage opportunities to make money where the value of the same thing is different in two places. For example, maybe you could buy Bitcoin for $10,000 on one exchange and immediately sell it for $10,100 on another.

You have to be careful with legality and with the transaction times. That being said, an effective algorithm could help you capitalize on opportunities within markets.

5. Sell something on Amazon.

Amazon is close to owning 50 percent of e-commerce sales in the U.S. It is also extremely easy to sell things on Amazon. There is inherent risk involved, but there is a lot of money to be made selling a product (or multiple) on Amazon.

You can choose a large market, find the issues with the current products being sold, and work with a manufacturer to make new ones that are better. Then, you can learn to navigate Amazon’s algorithms to rank highly, and you could make a significant number of sales.

6. Create highly valuable content.

It is easier today than ever to showcase and promote content. This could come in many forms. For example, you could start a blog about a topic that you are particularly knowledgeable in. You could also start a newsletter.

You could even create an e-book to publish in the Kindle store. With a large enough audience, especially one that is highly targeted, you can make significant amounts of money from affiliate links, sponsorships and sales.

7. Come up with something creative and put it on a crowdfunding site.

There are countless products that receive large investments on platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter. The ones that are the most successful tend to be consumer-facing products that come across as sexy. 

You could come up with a product idea, start a crowdfunding campaign to receive enough money to make it, and, subsequently, create something that could net you a million dollars.

8. Help a great restaurant expand.

Go find a great local restaurant that only has one, or a handful, of shops. You could help them expand to new locations and make a large sum of money in the process. Word spreads quickly about good food.

The problem is that people who are running great restaurants often do not know how or do not have a desire to expand. Therefore, you can help convince them and run the new restaurants to take a proven concept and allow it to succeed in other places.

9. Get into a startup early on.

A great way to hit it big is to join a soon-to-be successful company at an early stage. You can receive stock options that will go on to be worth a lot of money. The challenge here is actually finding the company and then convincing them to hire you. If you can manage it, though, you could make a lot of money and work on important/interesting problems.

10. Help a great product/company with sales and take a cut.

There are great products and companies out there that do a poor job with their sales and marketing. They add a lot of value to everybody that uses their services, but they struggle to reach more people.

There is, therefore, an opportunity for you to make a lot of money helping them out. You can aid in their sales/marketing efforts and take a cut of the revenue that you help generate. With a great service, the sales will not be particularly difficult and can yield large rewards.