How I Made $1,000,000 By 18... | Makenna Riley

What does it take to build a million-dollar online business before you turn 18? In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Makenna Riley, entrepreneur and co-founder of GSD, to break down how she started making money online at 12 years old, launched profitable businesses during COVID, and helped her mom, infomercial legend Forbes Riley, pivot online when the world shut down.

This is not a hype story. Makenna walks through the exact sequence of skills, mindset, marketing systems, and execution that turned webinars, funnels, and paid ads into real revenue, fast. If you care about online business, funnels, Meta ads, selling knowledge, building systems, or scaling without formal education, this episode is packed with practical insight.

What You’ll Learn:

- How Makenna made six figures by 17 and hit $1M before 18
- The webinar that closed $25,000 with just 25 attendees
- Why beginners often outperform “experts”
- How she learned funnels, ads, and marketing at 12 years old
- Why most people fail after buying courses
- The real difference between feeling productive and producing results
- Why websites don’t convert (and what works instead)
- How to structure funnels, offers, and product pipelines
- The biggest mistakes people make with thank-you pages
- Why low-ticket offers beat “free”
- How Meta ads still scale fast when done right
- How to build a business without college or formal training
- What actually separates successful students from everyone else

📚 Chapters

00:00 Early Business Start

04:20 Internet Exposure

09:03 Marketing College

14:17 Millionaire Goal

18:30 GSD Company Launch

23:47 No Formal Training

27:57 Passion for Business

33:17 GSD Launchpad Training

37:24 GSD Launchpad Goal

41:40 GSD vs ClickFunnels

46:12 Confidence & Success

50:15 Client Success Story

55:16 Marketing Diversify

01:01:26 Marketing Mistakes ‍️

01:05:18 Email Marketing Power

01:09:31 Russell Brunson's Work

01:15:51 Marketing Misfits Outro

Guest Makenna Riley Entrepreneur | Funnel Builder | Co-Founder of GSD Website: https://gsdyourbusiness.com Instagram: @themakennariley

About Marketing Misfits
Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with founders, marketers, and operators who built real businesses by testing, failing, and executing — not following trends. Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King.

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