Ask HN: How do I earn money as a teenage programmer?
Don't use UpWork or similar. The rates are low even for a teenager.The best projects and rates are through your network.Family friends, businesses your family uses like you mention.So start asking around who needs a website or web application. Those will be your best gigs, projects and clients.Look for ways to setup recurring revenue. Maybe a business needs a website offer to build them a basic website, maintenance, hosting, backups and updates for $99/mo set it up with Stripe or Paypal recurring payments. Increase the cost as pages grow. Offer to include once monthly limited updates, usually clients will only update a page every month or so but you can adjust pricing accordingly.Or if you build a web application for a client offer a maintenance plan that includes hosting, maintenance, database backups, etc.This podcast has some great information to start building your own products and apps.Startupsfortherestofus.comAnd like others have mentioned patio11 has tons of great info.Good luck.