Federico was first paid 35 days after joining, for “pennies”, and now makes 5K to 10K a month: a Strategic Marketing case study

At a glance

• Who

  Federico. The Real World’s caption gives the age as 24 and shows an Italian flag; Federico says “I lived in Italy” (2:44) and doesn’t state an age.

• Starting point

  “a university student, broke, obviously, as all university students, or most of them, completely broke” (4:29).

• Campus

  The caption says Copywriting, now Strategic Marketing. Federico doesn’t name a campus; the first paid job was “a couple of emails” (1:57).

• Timeline

  “I got paid 35 days after I joined. So around, I believe February or late, super late January” (1:17). The video doesn’t name the year; it was on The Real World’s home page by 8 June 2023.

• Result (video)

  “two months ago, I surpassed the 10K threshold”; December “around 7.5K” (0:49 to 0:59); typically “around 5K, 10K, this kind of range” (1:09). No currency; revenue or profit not said.

• Result (caption)

  The Real World’s caption: “New revenue: $10,000/month”, and “Starting from ZERO when” Federico joined, “Frederico now lives in a mansion in Thailand with brothers from TRW.”

• Now

  “I literally live with people I deeply respect” (3:21): “we fight, we train, we make money, we come up with new ideas.”

The caption’s $10,000 a month is the top of Federico’s own range, “around 5K, 10K”; Federico reached it in one month (“I surpassed the 10K threshold”), and December was about 7.5K. Federico gives no currency and doesn’t say whether these are revenue or profit. The caption spells the name “Frederico” and adds Thailand and a mansion; in the video Federico says only “another continent” and living with people met through it. The figures are Federico’s and The Real World’s own; this site hasn’t seen them.

What Federico said

7 lines from the interview, copied exactly, each with what it means in plain English. The times are where they fall in the video.

What Federico did, step by step

1. Federico was a broke student

   “a university student, broke, obviously”, in a town in Italy where “people like me are rare” (2:49).

   In the video at 4:29

2. Federico joined

   “If I see something makes sense and it’s 50 bucks, come on”: “I’ll just go for it and give everything I’ve got.”

   In the video at 4:08

3. Federico got paid, 35 days in

   “like pennies”, for “a couple of emails” that took about a day: “wait a second, this is real” (1:37).

   In the video at 1:17

4. Federico reached a first 1K win

   “my first 1K win, man, that was crazy”, one of “like four or five wins in total”.

   In the video at 0:23

5. Federico got to 5K to 10K a month

   “It varies”: one month past “the 10K threshold”, December “around 7.5K”, “around 5K, 10K, this kind of range” (1:09).

   In the video at 0:44

6. Federico moved abroad with other members

   “I literally live with people I deeply respect”, “10K in another continent with people I like” (4:37).

   In the video at 3:21

Full transcript

What the Strategic Marketing campus offers

What the Strategic Marketing campus looks like from a member’s account, how a new member starts, and what the support is like. The Strategic Marketing campus page covers what it teaches, and the Strategic Marketing campus review covers the costs and what can go wrong.

How you get started

1. Join and add the Strategic Marketing campus

   One membership covers every campus: $99 a month or $996 a year on the official checkout. Inside the app you add campuses from the “My Campuses” list. Strategic Marketing is the campus that used to be called Copywriting.

2. Read START-HERE

   “Stay updated”: new strategies “drop regularly inside the announcements”. “Have questions?”: drop them in #newb-chat “and someone smart from the team will help you FAST”.

3. Take Start Here - What is Strategic Marketing?

   Its first module, Rig The Money Game In Your Favor, has two lessons and opens with Welcome To The Strategic Marketing Campus. Next in the Learning Center come 1 - Strategic Marketing Bootcamp, 2 - Full Marketing Project Walkthroughs (2026), 3 - How To Sell To Business Owners and 4 - Get Your First Client in 24-48 Hours.

4. Follow the daily flow

   The #daily-schedule post, “Best simple daily flow”: say GM in #daily-GM, attend the Morning Power Up Call in #power-up-live, do the Dojo Drill of the Day in #the-dojo-hq and the #daily-dojo-puzzle, attend the other live calls when you can, or “watch the recording”.

5. Expect a small first job

   Federico’s first paid job was “a couple of emails”, paid “like pennies” (1:44), 35 days after joining. Asking for more came later: “I felt weird, awkward to ask a lot of money in the beginning”.

What support is like

• #newb-chat. START-HERE sends every question there. The Real World publishes no response-time promise.
• Other members. Federico: “I also found brotherhood” (3:14), and now lives with people met through it: “we fight, we train, we make money, we come up with new ideas”. That is Federico’s account.
• Live calls. The Morning Power Up Call runs in #power-up-live; a post in #daily-schedule asks members to turn on livestream notifications for the campus’s pop-up calls.
• The Dojo. A channel group with #daily-dojo-puzzle, #the-dojo-hq (the Dojo Drill of the Day) and #the-dojo.
• No guarantee. The Real World’s Terms of Use say it doesn’t guarantee any financial outcome. Every campus starts from the fundamentals and assumes no prior knowledge.

Real wins and reviews

No posts from the Strategic Marketing campus’s own #wins channel have been captured for this site yet, so these are other members’ wins from across The Real World, with names and avatars blurred (any that show this campus come first). Tap any screenshot to see it full size. They are individual results, not typical ones, and not a promise: The Real World doesn’t publish average member earnings.

What members said on Trustpilot

Trustpilot has since removed The Real World’s profiles. These excerpts come from archived copies of those pages, read on 25 October 2026, with the reviewer’s first name, country and date as shown; “Invited” is Trustpilot’s label for reviews that came through a business link. The jointherealworld.com.de profile was not run by The Real World; reviewers used it anyway. They are reviews of The Real World as a whole, not of one campus, and other people’s words, not this site’s findings.

For the record, the scores on 27 February 2025: the profile at trwstudent.com showed 2.9 from 23 reviews, and therealworldeducation.com showed 4.4 from 82, most of them invited through a business link over two days. Both profiles have since been removed.

Is this path for you?

Federico’s numbers are one student’s account, given in an interview The Real World chose to publish. For more on who it suits and how long it took to feel confident, see the Strategic Marketing campus review, from a member who took the campus when it was still Copywriting, in the Hustlers University days.