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24 Years old: QUIT six-figure Job, Launched two Businesses

James Beattie

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Great thread really inspirational, I know this was write back in 2014 but it's time for me to start digging through these 6 pages :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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G_Alexander

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I'm also in Investment Banking - was there any reason you chose eCommerce as your side hustle while you were still on the IB grind instead of say copywriting/aff marketing/something else?

Also, how did you manage the real estate side business while working the IB stint?

@tpm767 Just because it simply appealed to me the most.

I hired out management for 5% of my gross income. Totally worth it to not have tenants knocking on my door. When it came to construction projects, I would just get up EXTRA early to get bids and quotes, and then manage the process along on my phone.

Are you growing your online business so that you can acquire more properties or are you changing focus?
Do you find more excitement from your online business vs Real Estate?

@EvanOkanagan
You basically hit the nail on the head. Ecommerce is sexier, but more work to remain relevant. I am still investing all the money I earn into new RE deals, which I will continue to post about as well.

I'm fairly sure @biophase went through this same tribulation. He began by investing in real estate and was more attracted to the ecommerce in the end. I do have an avenue in real estate that is almost as interesting as the ecommerce business, which I have brewing behind the scenes right now. I will keep you posted as that deal progresses.

Real estate is boring, but boring makes money too. Barrier to entry in the mid-sized real estate market makes it attractive as well. Anyone in the world can throw up an ecommerce site...not everyone can get financed on a 50+ unit apartment building.

Right now my owned real estate takes about 1 hour of attention per week. New projects in the pipeline consume about 15-20 hours of analyzing, paperwork, etc. My ecom website has me on the phone for about 1 hour a day and then 15 minutes to send out order tags end of day.

Without my "future projects" hours...I would be working about 10 hours a week (but we all known 10 hours ain't gonna cut it for Murciealgos and a couple contemporary homes ;)).

Life is good my friend :cool:. The hustle has only begun!!
 
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GenYJourney

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I'm incredibly glad I stumbled across this thread tonight. Thank you OP for keeping us updated with your journey as it's very motivational to hear fellow hustlers making it happen.
 

fff

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Great thread! I own my own business. I am a franchisor with two corporate stores and two franchisees. We are in the early stages of real growth so every now and then in like to pop in and read a post like this one for motivation. Well done, thank you for the inspiration, good luck!
 

MoneyDoc

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Great thread! I own my own business. I am a franchisor with two corporate stores and two franchisees. We are in the early stages of real growth so every now and then in like to pop in and read a post like this one for motivation. Well done, thank you for the inspiration, good luck!
Mind me asking, in what sector? (don't need to answer)
 

Dami-B

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Thanks buddy @The-J!

Biggest things I can note were I installed YOTPO reviews app (it's free). Make sure the review stars show on your products on every page where items are (home page, individual product pages, product category pages, etc.). May need to add a bit of easy code to get this right. PM me if you get this far with YOTPO and have a question....but basically...you want customer validation wherever your new customers are going / looking. I also set up a seperate reviews page on my home page and said "Customers Love our Stuff! Read about us" where you can click on the about us and see reviews / yotpo badges , etc. The more your customers trust you the more they shop.

SEO: Also kept up the blog posts (1 per week of good content). Went and asked website owners in relevant niches, but mainly "info" sites....to give me a link. etc. etc.

Also refined the navigation of my site. Think about user experience. Ask your sisters/brothers/friends what would make navigating your site easier. 75% of recommendations will overlap, so implement those items.
Great and Inspiring post, Thank You. You have proven that unquenchable hunger for success is unstoppable.you're not only hardworking, but you have proven to be more productive and effective in your methods and strategies towards business, which is a big lesson. A personal revelation for me is the ability to apply CENTS checkup not only to products and services to be rendered to customers, but also to the marketing and distribution strategies for improvement. Now I have a lot of questions to ask myself of my business.
 
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FreshStart87

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I built my ecommerce site late at night during the last few months of my job. I would get home at 11pm or 12am and then work until 2am or 3am on my site (loading product, back-end, learning basic HTML and CSS, SEO).
What books or programs did you use to learn HTML CSS AND SEO?
 
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G_Alexander

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jason91

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@FreshStart87 - HTML and CSS = www.codeacademy.com

SEO was self taught through Warrior forums, blogs, and google searches. Start here: http://www.ecommercefuel.com/ecommerce-seo-guide/

Then google for the SEOmoz SEO PDF. It was helpful. You may need to give them your email address somewhere on their website for it.

Edit: Here, I did it for you guys! Beginners Guide to SEO
Hey dude, awesome answers. Got a question regarding your Magento backend since I'm in the same boat,

How did you take care of tax? Did you use an extension or manually add each region's tax?

Thanks!
 

jec1521

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Great thread. Just read it all for the first time. Didn't see this asked but is this a private label product that you are building a brand from the bottom up?
 

G_Alexander

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Hey dude, awesome answers. Got a question regarding your Magento backend since I'm in the same boat,

How did you take care of tax? Did you use an extension or manually add each region's tax?

@jason91
I use Bigcommerce.

Great thread. Just read it all for the first time. Didn't see this asked but is this a private label product that you are building a brand from the bottom up?

@jec1521 I sell other people's products (dropship). But have opportunities to make my own now.
 

mnov5534

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@G_Alexander what an inspiring thread, I've just read it from page 1. I can see many similarities between your journey and that of Jack Edwards in his epic progress thread.

Your growth has been phenomenal, how did you choose the niche, was it something you'd been studying/following for some time or a niche that you're passionate about and found the need to serve the customers better? Again, I see the similarities here with what Jack did.

I've been in a similar position, after 7 years in the corporate world I knew enough is enough! I've been "selling online" for many years, not not seriously. The past year I've started getting more serious, market testing many products and preparing to build an eCommerce site.

My biggest hurdle for now is coming up with a short, catchy, easy to remember name for my business/website. My niche is a lot more crowded, which makes it a lot harder. How did you come up with your store's name? Was SEO driven, or niche-specific?


For anyone new who's wondering what I'm talking about referring to the Jack Edwards progress thread, read it from start to end, its worth every hour you'll spend:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/diary-of-opening-a-new-business.29468/
 
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MantisX

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Six figure job that you dint like, trying to start your own business, working late nights for your business which at your day job - We do have quite some similarities. Kudos to you on your effort.. !

One difference - I hedge my bets a lot more and have decided to quit only after my business can make as much as my salary :)
 

G_Alexander

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Another Friday night, another update for my Fastlane Family. At the beginning of this year I set a goal to hit $100k in sales this year. I hit that yearly goal in just 5 months (in May) when I had $26k in sales just a little more than halfway through that month and posted about it. At the time that $26k was more than what I had done in all of the past year (my first 6 months ever).

The snowball is really rolling now. May finished out with $42k. June was $52k. July is chugging along at pace. And BOOM:



$200k already and still 5 months + 1 week to go. Let's see what we can really do this year. I am setting a stretch goal of $350k in sales.

Hope this motivates some of you to trust yourself and make your leap of faith. You get one life. It is slipping away from you each day. Everyday you wait to start could set your plan back 1 month, 6 months, a year, or even a lifetime! There are no excuses.

Plan -------> Get out of your comfort zone = success (even in failure). When things get difficult you are just "leveling up" like in a video game. Embrace the challenge. GO GET IT.

In the meantime, I am going to continue to travel, spend time with family and friends and to wake up when I want and do what I want each day (which is hustle). I will improve the site little by little, and submit LOIs on properties for my real estate business. Have something big in the works right now. Won't be able to share for a while, but excited to let you all in when the time is right!

Also finishing up an eBook I am doing to help you guys by diving into deeper detail on my "STOP: Paying rent, live for free" thread. I will literally spoon feed everything I have learned about buying properties from 7 years of mentors, reading and real world investing into a compact 30 pages which will outline the live free process. I will keep you posted on that as well!

ONE LOVE
 
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IceCreamKid

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Shit. I have no words. I love you man. lol

Looking forward to see how you close out the year.

When things get difficult you are just "leveling up" like in a video game.

I have a feeling we are following the same entrepreneur accounts on Instagram.
 
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G_Alexander

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Shit. I have no words. I love you man. lol

Looking forward to see how you close out the year.

I have a feeling we are following the same entrepreneur accounts on Instagram.

@IceCreamKid

Feelings mutual man, and I told myself I would give a $50 cookie out to whoever caught that instagram post reference. You never disappoint me. We need to catch up soon and to hang out this year :cool:.
 

Hassen

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Knew it was an investment banker's thread as soon as I saw the title haha (and it took me a sec to realize BB was blackberry, naturally read it as bulge bracket first lol)

Not a bad way to exit after a two year gig as an analyst, really. ('13 or '14's bonus pool was also phenomenally bad street-wise, if I recall. Wouldn't be surprise to see anyone just call it a day on their IB career around then.) I wish more i-bankers would consider it instead of just moving to the buy side or staying to become associates, because bankers are some of the smartest & most determined & driven people out there, it's really a shame to see a lot of them piss away their own personal finances (bottles & models, hello?) slaving for someone else.

Mad respect for putting in additional hours after work.
 

Rawr

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Killin' it! Way to inspire ambition and drive Alex.

Hope this motivates some of you to trust yourself and make your leap of faith. You get one life. It is slipping away from you each day. Everyday you wait to start could set your plan back 1 month, 6 months, a year, or even a lifetime! There are no excuses.

Plan -------> Get out of your comfort zone = success (even in failure). When things get difficult you are just "leveling up" like in a video game. Embrace the challenge. GO GET IT.

Well said.

Look forward to the ebook!
 
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Johnny_Hopkins

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Awesome posts. Awesome story. I'm making my moves now and plan to have great results like you in a years time! Shoutout to 2016! :notworthy:
 

FeaRxUnLeAsHeD

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How are you doing these days @G_Alexander ? Do you still live in NY (Doing the live for free strategy i assume) ?

Were you able to save up enough $$ from IBanking to survive for a few years while you try to scale your own businesses?
 
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Bouncing Soul

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Right thread, right time. The slowlane is desperately trying to pull me back in. Many thanks for the shares and updates!
 

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