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My way (April 2009 - December 2010) - a rollercoaster ride!

dkt91

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Hey guys,


Well - I am back - it's been some time since I did my last post here. I wonder if the guys from back in the days are still active and if anyone remembers me. Anyway, I've been missing y'all!

I wish my first post here after quite some time was a bit more positive but unfortunately I think it fits best under the category "Failure, Mistakes and Goofs". However, in my opinion failures are just as valuable as success, even more at a young age like mine. This is why I want to share my story with you and maybe it will be inspiring.

To get you started, you might want to read how it all began. How in the springtime of 2009 a 17-year old high school student decided to take control over his life before he even gets the chance to be sucked into the rat race. You find the thread right here.

If you read this you will most probably be of the opinion that I was (and I believe that I still am) on a good way. But what went wrong? What happened? What follows is a reconstruction of the time between June 2009 and December 2010.

What I did not mention until this point - the business I founded is a webdesign and online marketing business. This may be good to know when reading through this article.


The big step forward: summer/fall 2009

After some hard times which I also mentioned in the other thread some better times followed. I managed to close a good deal with another company and it eventually brought many new clients to my company. By the end of fall I had kind of lost oversight and I decided to pause the customer acquisition until the beginning of 2010 and instead concentrate on the ongoing projects. Until then everything went quite well. I was satisfied.


The next big step and the beginning of a downturn?: late winter 2009/beginning of 2010

I stuck to the promise I had give to myself and I made some new great marketing efforts at the beginning of 2010 which turned out well at the beginning. However, it did not take long until some problems evolved:


  • The employees I had hired had gotten rather unreliable and they took much longer to deliver their work than at the beginning. It was, however, hard to replace them since they were already in the middle of the projects.
  • Customers took their time until they payed me which led to a shortage of money and hence I was unable to continue the marketing efforts that had been really successful until this point
  • The competition in the chosen way of marketing got more fierce and the ROI went down... and down... and down... and down.
Consequently I had to cancel the deal I had made and I had to look for other ways of finding new clients.


Direction: Upwards!

And I did. Through a combination of persistence, luck and people I knew I managed to close another deal. This time with one really big webdesign agency in Germany. The deal looked simple and low-risk. They were interested in outsourcing some of their work to my company since they were convinced by the quality they had seen in our portofolio and by our competitive prices.

To start off they gave us 8 new projects at once which we had to work on and it was our common goal to arrive at about 60 projects per month. In $ this would have meant profits of 15.000$ monthly. Still not that much for a lot of guys on here but for me it was (and still is) and I was really euphoric about it. It felt like this was going to be the great break-through because with 15.000$ monthly I could have moved a lot more than before and used them to expand the business beyond my - until then - wildest dreams.

At that time my company even made it into the biggest German newspaper (and some others), an interview featuring a business partner and me went online on an important career platform and I was asked to give a presentation at some research center or something.

This all sounds very good but actually the company was not as far yet as the media was telling. The public reacted rather negative because they saw a not too big company which was the truth. Not what the media was trying to sell them. All in all the media presence caused more harm than it did good.


Damn it...

The 8 projects got executed in a fast pase and I was very confident it was going to go on like that. But then not my wildest dreams came true but rather my wildest nightmares. The person I had worked with was not really representing the company he said he represented. He was only a middleman making profit from taking outsourced work from the big company and then outsourcing it again to other companies like mine. The problem was: The middleman had screwed something up (I still do not know what exactly) and went into bankruptcy. I received not one cent for the work I had done and the big company was rather... not amused about the whole thing. And suddenly... yes - suddenly I had debts that I could not pay!

I felt very bad and what was really getting on my nerves was when the guys at school talked about how awesome it was that they earned 8€ an hour now working at gas station. And for a moment my mind was going to agree and say... yes - maybe I am just not made to be an entrepreneur. Maybe I should take the same way as everyone else. I can still make some decent money. People say that I am smart and in regards to marks I rank in the top 1% of my school without studying anything at home or doing homework regularly. But then I reminded myself again of what this all would mean. Waste another 5 to 6 years at university. Work until I am 67 or 70. Spend my time being commanded by incompetent jerks! And I said to myself:

Never will I prostitute myself by applying for a job. I am not going to sell my soul for a few € an hour and even if I do not make it big as an entrepreneur: I'd rather live in a trailer for the rest of my life working as a successless entrepreneur than to live in a little mansion working in some company from 9 to 5.


New hope: summer 2010


I managed to make deals with the developers. They understood my problems and agreed on relinquishing a part of the payment they should have gotten. Furthermore I contacted the big webdesign company and asked if they were able to give me a little compensation. And they did - they really did pay me some money and all in all I had arrived at 0 again. I had no money but I had no debts either. And I saw another chance: Why should this company not be able to work with me directly? I talked to the company's bosses a few times and in the end they agreed on giving me another test project.


At least it was worth a try...: late summer 2010

I was SO determined to finish this project perfectly. I put a lot of effort into it and even though it was a low-budget project and the information provided by the client were really stingy the result looked great and I was confident I had found a new big client.

Then the problems started again. The client asked for more and more changes to the project. The problem was not that it cost me money (I had already calcualted that in the budget). The real problem was that whenever one change was made it took about 1 - 3 weeks to get a reaction from the client.

(Just a short side note: This project STILL has not been finished)

Then one day I got called and they told me they were not really happy with the delivered work. According to them the "design structure" had been to minimalistic. The weird thing was - the design structure was the only thing that had been given by them prior to the project start.

I cannot tell what is the real problem they had - maybe their company has stopped moving forward - or maybe they have decided to outsource less work. It does not matter - the result is the same for me.

So it began:


Looking back

Until now I have at least recovered from what happened this year, got some new clients by online marketing and some old clients ordered extensions for their website. On the 25th of April 2009 I started with a total neworth of 800€. My networth now is about 5000€. I don't know how to judge this. On the one hand I have all in all made significantly more than the I-am-working-at-the-gas-station-and-earn-8€-per-hour-guys. On the other hand I have made much less than I could have and compared to other entrepreneurs I have made close to nothing. I could blame it on the fact that I still have to go to school until 4pm everday (school in Germany takes 13 years) or on the fact that I started of with only 800€ in my pocket. But still I know that other people have succeeded in similar or even worse situations.

Hence I am not.


The reasons why things did not work out as I wanted to / what you should try to avoid or do different:


  • Make sure to be outstanding. Don't be just cheaper than anyone else but try to be the best.
  • Only work with RELIABLE people who know what they are doing. Tripple-check this.
  • Don't trust too much into business partners. Try not to put all one's eggs into one basket
  • Stay focused
  • Stay motivated
  • Keep believing in yourself
  • If you see that something is going wrong, change it
  • Bring out true innovation
  • Reduce the time you spend doing dirty work. Automatize processes or let the I-work-at-the-gas-station-for-8€-per-hour-guys do it.

The present situation: Where am I going to?

If I may be honest - at the moment I feel quite miserable and from time to time I fall into depression. Not only because of the business but because I have no time to change the things that are going wrong. I still have to attend school from the early morning to 4pm. I have already abandoned doing homework or studying but we all need to write a scientific paper and there is no way I can get around this. My days lack fun, I hardly see my friends (if I ever had real friends) and my parents seem to have given up on me, as well. Ah yeah... and the weather sucks.

I am going to be done with school forever by the end of April 2011. About two years after starting my business.

I know I am the only one who can decide about my future but it would be great to hear some tips from y'all because y'all have always turned out to be a source of inspiration and new hope. What I have thought of:


  • abandon trying to be an entrepreneur, study at university and get a job at some big company working my a$$ off from 9 to 5 or even worse.---> Erm. How about..... no :smx8:?
  • Turn my existing business into a real fastlane business
  • Start another business with a different approach
  • Do any of the above but leave the country and go to Spain where I could live with my girlfriend and enjoy sun and probably also "sunnier" people

It has taken me about 90 minutes to put together all these information and write the article. I hope it will be of help for some people who read this. Also I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to read this all (if you did not scroll down to the bottom... you little cheater :eusa_naughty::smxA:). If you have any advise to share with me or any questions or remarks - thank you even more.

Believe me, this situation right now is not exactly easy for me and I really don't feel to well mentally. But I am not going to surrender!

I just don't know how to go on either...
 
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laicy

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change your approach

Dkt91:

Grüß Gott !

I spent 2 years in Regensburg, so I know really well how horrible the weather in Bavaria can be :smug2: .

Here's my suggestion: it appears that you have good knowledge in website design and online marketing. Why don't you change your business model? Instead of looking for clients, you can publish websites, drive traffic and turn those hits into $$ with advertising and affiliate sales.

Ok, the idea is not new nor innovative. Regardless, it works. With this methods, I and many others are able to make a living online. I know many people who earns up to 6-7 figures yearly (I am on my way there!). Best of all, you can operate the business anywhere as long as the place has decent internet connection.

If you want to talk, feel free to PM me.

CY
 

Runum

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Sorry I missed this earlier. I'm also sorry to hear about your struggles.

Can you tell us what lessons you have learned and how you would do things differently next time? +++speed for sharing your story.
 

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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On the 25th of April 2009 I started with a total neworth of 800€. My networth now is about 5000€.

That is a 600% increase. Congrats.

Thanks for putting this together -- your struggles are what is creating your story and many other entrepreneurs just like you. You just gotta keep chugging away, find the need, solve the problem, and keep providing value. As long as you continue to try, and never give up on YOUR DREAM, you are a success.
 
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G

Guest3722A

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Live and learn. This time will be behind you sooner then you know. Take the wisdom and keep trucking.
 

dkt91

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Thanks for your encouraging words, guys! Even though the journey until this point has felt more like failure in the business sense I have gained a lot of knowledge that will me more than helpful for me in my future endeavors. Because obviously I am not giving up...

What I do know, however, is that I need to change my approach and this is what I am working on right now. You can follow each of my steps in my progress thread if you like.

To answer Runum's question about what I have learned and what I'd do differently:


  • Fail quicker: If you realize that something is not going to get you anywhere let it fail and do something else. Don't hope for it to get better if there is no obvious reason that can justify your hope. Do not confuse this with giving up as soon as you face the first obstacles - this is a bad type of giving up. But if you are on the road from New York to Chicago and you hope to reach Phoenix better give up and change the road!
  • Work only with reliable people: If you are reliable but your suppliers or employees are not, eventually you will look unreliable to your client. Make sure you check how reliable someone is before you work with them.
  • Don't trust in the wrong people: Watch out who you trust! Many people will pursue their own good and not care about the fact that this pursuit is destroying your business. Trust is important but make sure that the people you trust in actually deserve your trust
  • Be different: Don't do what everyone else does. Be innovative and awesome.
 
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