Forward! No Looking Back!

[Midas Touch]

I'm so happy to be writing this progress report. The reason I haven't started one was because I wasn't truly ready to live in the fastlane. I read the book and slowly learned about business but my mind and heart weren't in it.

Last weekend, I quit my minimum wage, customer service job. The pay and stress wasn't worth it. However, that wasn't the only reason. The reason I quit was because I noticed a shift in my mindset. I was no longer negative and I started to see everything through a business perspective. Opportunity is everywhere! Money is abundant! I got a lot of ideas just taking a stroll through Target. One idea possessed me and I did whatever market research I could. Low start-up, passive and high profit margins. The bad news is the market is saturated. The good news is a lot of the products are half-assed. I could easily stand out with one change.

I took action day before I quit. I hired a guy on Fiverr to design what I needed and I'm going to do the rest. Today is the day the final draft will be sent to me. I will do whatever I plan to do then post it up online to sell.

If I sell at least two of what I create, I will make my money back. The rest is all profit I'm so glad I've been disciplined with the little money I made at my job. I can live two months without a job to make this work.

Wish me luck guys!

 

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[Peakdesire]

Good luck man!

What is your product? Mind sharing?

 

[Midas Touch]

I'm going to do you something even better and give you the mindset I reached.

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/i-went-for-a-drive-today.51582/#post-350636

This is one of the most underrated threads on this forum.

Think about it. Everything created has brought profit and value as it traded hands. Something as small as a fruit bowl (in my kitchen typing this) made a lot of companies money. The wood was first a tree before someone got the idea to start harvesting it for raw material. Someone else bought that raw material and turned it into lumber. Someone else bought that lumber and sent it to their factory to become fruit bowls. A store bought that fruit bowl and put it on display so the customer can put their fruit in it.

Sounds simple right?

Wrong.

What about the outside forces that helped get the wood turned into the fruit bowl? Someone's company had to ship that lumber and fruit bowls, right? Someone else's company had to maintain the vehicles used to transport. Someone else's company had to sell the maintenance people the equipment to fix those vehicles. It goes on and on.

This is why money and opportunity are everywhere.

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I'm not in a position to give you business advice since I'm barely getting into myself. However, I got my idea looking for a meaningful gift to give to my old friend who's having a baby soon. Since I don't have a lot of money to blow, it was perfect because it was simple and cheap to produce. The profit margins are high and the work required to make it is virtually non-existent.

Now we'll see if the market wants it.

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While I'm waiting for the Fiverr guy to give me the finished concept, I'm studying SEO from that Moz Guide.

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate

I learned so much. I stalled after I ate breakfast but I regained my stride. I'm taking mental notes on what increases and decreases my energy and productivity. Food (even good food) saps my energy and my wondering what the hell is taking that Fiverr guy so damn long is killing my focus. What makes me regain focus is reading the Moz text outloud and physically writing notes. Coffee helps too

 

[Testament]

Love your mindset man and wish you much fortune. I know what you mean about finally being able to start a progress report, and completely vibe with where you're coming from - it was the same thing for me around June.

If you're low on energy a lot, try lifting weights/exercising and green vegetable shakes. Those two things have helped me massively with energy problems I used to have. Also, check out The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod - a lot of it is about how your mindset can really make you tired.

(Just out of curiosity, what kind of service industry did you break free from? I was getting my soul ground down at a fast food/coffee place )

 

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[Midas Touch]

You talking about a certain cafe with a siren as its logo? If so, I left that job too. I'm grateful I had a chance to work there because I learned a lot. I even networked with a few people.

You are absolutely correct about exercising. I have some dumbbells in the garage I haven't used for two months. As for juicing, I did it for a bit but stopped because I was always scheduled when the farmer's market was around. No excuses! Exercise tomorrow and this Sunday, fresh vegetables for juice.

I think I've heard something about the book on this forum. It's going in my reading queue since a lot of people recommend it.

Thanks @Testament!

-------------------------------

Damn Fiverr guy has not responded.

 

[Midas Touch]

Quick update.

I got the draft from the Fiverr guy days ago but it needed another revision. It looked great! Unfortunately, I missed my goal to post it online. I want to do it ASAP! I used this waiting time to expand my knowledge. I finished the SEO Moz guide and I'm currently rereading TMFL and taking notes. The first time I read it, I took notes but I lost them. This was a blessing because I missed some details and was reminded of others.

I came across an interesting idea today. Let me do more research and I'll share it with the community. This will benefit everyone and anyone

 

[Midas Touch]

I haven't forgotten about everyone. I did not post any updates because I didn't make any progress!

My venture failed. I'll let everyone know what it is and if you can crack it, you can make some easy money.

Posters.

Yes, you can outsource your designs, post it on Ebay or Etsy and get some cash. Posters sell for $10-$20 depending on size and how much demand there is for it. I forgot the exact numbers but it's something like this:

Outsourcing design- Cost me $25 but you could get it for $5-$10 on Fiverr.
Print poster @ Fedex- $1.50
Container to ship it in- $1.10 (buy the tubes in bulk at Office Depot).
Shipping- They pay for it but I was putting $3.99 flat rate domestically.

My niche was adding pictures on popular text.

What I don't understand is how people are making money from selling things they don't have licenses to. Muhammad Ali, movie and celebrity posters. Are they deliberately stealing it and selling it? If so, then I guess no one is stopping them because my biggest competition on Etsy was taking movie images and quotes and selling them.

What I learned from doing this:

1. Know what the hell you want!- I didn't know what image should represent the text. I gave my designer carte blanche and he did a decent job. Decent doesn't cut it though. Average work gets average results. In this case, no results.
2. Don't be generous where generosity is not required- I paid the designer an extra $10 just because I was happy I finally got the design and a 5 star review. He took too long to make it and the communication was terrible. He didn't deserve what I gave him.
   
3. Posters are a numbers game- There's a reason the Etsy guy has so many posters. No customer wants a certain poster. Each customer has a different taste.
4. Process- My process was ok but it didn't get any results. I wanted to outsource posters, post it online, wait for someone to buy it, print it out at Fedex, package and ship it. Simple.

Another reason why this venture failed is because I didn't treat it like a business. All I wanted to do was hustle some money. This was not a brand and there was no marketing. All I did was look up how many posters were in a certain niche and put mine in there.

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I found out my priorities were screwed. I spent most of my day reading and taking minimal action. I need to take more action and spend less time reading. As such, I bought a lawn mower with a great brand and will hustle it. I just finished the CL post an hour ago.

I need to make money! I'm going to clean some gutters and continue flipping on CL.

ACTION ACTION ACTION

 

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[Midas Touch]

New Year's started off well but I took a day off and one thing led into another...

I began to freelance online as a writer. I I know it's not fastlane but the money helps and I get to set my own schedule. The biggest things I learned from freelancing are a lot of websites don't write their own content and have the money in escrow before doing any work. I got stiffed $80 and I don't think Elance is going to do anything about it.

It's time to get serious.

"There was no hardship; but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body."

-Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

 

[Midas Touch]

Getting back in the groove!

Learning HTML 5 online sucks so I checked out a book from the library. I plan to do at least an hour of reading and applying coding a day. Even if it doesn't become my fastlane, I find it interesting. I would like to take it to the next level and study Python and Java as well. One step at a time...

You meet so many people when you freelance online. Today, I had a Skype call with a guy who is #2 in his niche in youtube and is planning to drop some products at the end of the year. I picked his brain and he happily gave me information. I was so grateful and touched he took some time out of his day to school me. To be honest, a lot of what goes on in this forum intimidates me. I don't want to be that guy who asks a question then gets five snarky responses saying, "DO YOU EVEN SEARCH BAR BRO?" or "LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU F*CKER!"

Ouch.

The guy I met today offered to answer any questions I have about marketing. I didn't even ask! So in return, I offered to edit any documents he needed.

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I know what I want my fastlane to be. I need to bootstrap first.

 

[theag]

snarky responses saying, "DO YOU EVEN SEARCH BAR BRO?" or "LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU F*CKER!"

Stop the madness! Who says stuff like that on here?

 

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[Midas Touch]

Semi-exaggeration