Bump.
OK so here's my idea. Now, I changed up the rules a little bit, meaning that at any time, you can restart from $3000 and go again for the $1 million as long as you make $1 million off that new $3000 only. So failure shouldn't scare anyone, it's not like you can't just start over.
This is based on (but not entirely) my personal plan. This assumes that your job income or other businesses covers your expenses only (or you live with mom and dad), so $3000 is really all you have.
You'll need to set aside about $1500 for the main Fastlane (get money later) and the other $1500 will be for other things (get money now). Most of the time will be spent on the main Fastlane, something like the 80-20 rule. 80% of time on main Fastlane, 20% of time on the other stuff. You'll be spending an average of 6 1/2 hours on the main Fastlane and 1 1/2 hours on the other stuff. The other stuff will take more time in the beginning and less time later but the main Fastlane will take a lot of time as time goes on (lots of time in this sentence).
The end result will be $1 million in cash, in the bank. Not in assets. It will not end with the sale of a business or any other assets at month 15...
Again, split the money in half.
The First Half: Sort-of Passive Income
The point of this is to use half the money to get a steady, although small, stream of revenue that you can simply set and forget and make money off of. You can do this with affiliate marketing, writing an e-book about anything really, buying vending machines and placing them in good locations, making a YouTube video and using AdSense money form that, and/or buying a cheap application and selling it (this assumes that you're a kid who has no idea how to program an app).
The goal of this is to make a very small amount: $500 a month profit. Most teenagers make more than $500 a month from their part-time job at McD's, but that's OK. This isn't money to be used for personal reasons. But the point is you have about three months to make $500 a month. Three months is plenty of time to set up $500 a month.
This $500 a month will be used for the supplementing of the Fastlane business. This Fastlane will experience slow growth at the beginning: it's possible to start a Fastlane and have it profitable in a month but that's not the point of this. If you save $500 a month for 15 months you'll have $7500, which is piddly. We're going for a million.
The $1500 will be spent on domains, hosting, affiliate fees, and advertisements. If you choose a real-world pseudo Fastlane like vending machines or a lawn care business, the money will be spent on equipment. If you buy a lawnmower for $1500 and can mow one lawn every day for $30, you can pay off the mower in less than two months and have $900 a month income from an hour or two of work.
Summary: build pseudo-Fastlane semi-passive income streams (you must have more than one!) that, by the end of the third month, can bring in a steady $500 a month with 2 hours a day of work. If you can, spend the two hours to increase the streams to $1000 a month. That's not required but it would be nice. Unless you can take it all the way to the million, don't try to expand it much more than $1000/month because at a certain point, it will become a pain in the a$$ to scale further. After you get to $500-$1000 a month, focus as little time on these streams as possible and focus it more to your Fastlane
Note: If you can make a sellable income stream that nets $500 a month, you'd have to sell it for $7500 or more in order to 'cheat' effectively. But that probably won't happen, because some of the income streams I suggested can't really be sold.
The Other Half: A Fastlane Business
Month One to Three
This $1500 will be used to create a Fastlane business. A legit business with CUL (Controllable Unlimited Leverage) that will only take 6-8 hours a day to work on. (You're not allowed to drop out of school. You can quit your job if it becomes absolutely needed to scale the business further but most businesses can be scaled to the point without having to spend more than 8 hours a day on average on it). This will also require you to be extremely efficient with your time.
The first three months will provide zero or limited revenue. But that's OK because you'll have $500-1000 a month of revenue from your other stream to pad this venture forward. But by the fourth month, you should be profiting and on your way to exponential growth.
The first three months will be focused on building your concept from the ground up. This will be an Internet business (you have no choice, really) and must be one of the seven Internet Fastlanes (subscription-based, content-based, lead gen, social network, brokerage system, ad network or e-commerce). If it doesn't fit one of these models, don't use it.
Also, one more thing: you must be selling something of value. You must have paying customers. Selling 'free content' and mooching off of ad revenue is too much of a gamble for fifteen months. We're trying to do something that can actually be done by a 17 year old.
You'll need to learn how to use Wordpress. You can opt to use Wordpress for all 15 months but I would recommend against it: in fact, when it becomes evident that Wordpress doesn't fit your needs fully, you should get a programmer. If you can't start making money with a Wordpress or Joomla version of your site, throw your idea out.
When drafting your concept, it must fit the CENTS (Need, Entry, Control, Scale, Time) and if you don't know what this is, buy MJ's book. (Duh) It must be an Internet Fastlane and you must be able to start earning money off of $2000. ($1500 starting + $500 earned frm your pseudo-Fastlanes). You must be able to run and scale the business off of your profits PLUS $500. So exponential growth is a must.
You're going to need to do a lot of work in the first month alone: market research, due diligence, number crunching, product/service development, filing as a corporation and getting a tax license, creating a brand, drafting your concept from the ground up, defining your need, defining your target market and your avenues, buying the domain and hosting, and garnering traffic. (Phew!)
By the end of the third month, you must have profit. By the end of the fifth month, you must have paid off your initial $1500 investment. By the end of the sixth month, you must be on track for exponential growth until the end of month 15.
Month Four
Your job will change after you start gaining profit. You'll be spending most of your time trying to develop your current customer base so you can capture everyone in a niche market. If you have a total audience of 100 people, you must be grasping the 38 people who are most likely to pay for your service. You're building a brand after month four. You're getting yourself situated into the sphere of your market and you're not making your business big, you're making it STRONG.
Month Six
Between month six and ten, you're working your balls off and life is kinda sucking, but not really. You still have to graduate with good enough marks, you can't have a girlfriend (or boyfriend) cuz all your time is spent in your business, your friends are wondering what the hell you're doing with your life... but it's OK. You're on track for exponential growth and little do they know, you'll be a millionaire before they have an internship.
Exponential growth means that you must be increasing your revenue by a lot each month. If you hit profit of $100 at month four, you must be set for $800 by month five, and $1800 month six, $3290 month seven, etc etc. These are example numbers and will probably not fit your real numbers. With exponential growth, you must be pocketing your money exponentially. This means your expenses CANNOT be growing at the same rate as your profits. They must be growing at a much lower rate so you can profit more and also pocket more.
Month 10
After about month ten, you're starting to expand, and fast. You're no longer targeting the 38, you're targeting all 100, and then some! You have the reviews, the good press, the Web presence, the traffic. People know what your business is, they pay for it and it shows in the numbers. It's time to scale, baby. Scaling your audience and scaling your numbers. This is also hard work, but it's different work. Your expenses are about to go way up and you're gonna need a bunch of new things, new ad campaigns, and more traffic. Increasing conversion rate while at the same time increasing traffic. You're starting to swerve onto the Fastlane.
Also, taxes are due April 15th. You did do them, right?
Month Twelve
So around month twelve, you notice your earnings are through the roof. You can't believe you've made it this far, but it's still a lot of work. By this time, it's summer vacation (assuming you started something in late May or June and spent your last summer vacation Chuma-moding this entire thing while going to summer school cuz your grades sucked) and you're still spending a lot of time on the business. But it's OK, it's still a lot of fun and your bank account is busting at the seams.
Some example numbers you may fulfill are here. You can go at a different rate (you could even pocket $1 million after a year or less!) but these are just examples. They start at month four. Also, the profit adds $500 automatically to show your pseudo-Fastlanes at work. Truth is, that $500 will simply be a drop in the bucket, rofl. This also assumes you're pocketing all the profits.
Month: 3, 4, 5,..., 15
Revenue: $200, $800, $1800, $3290, $6029, $10320, $19382, $34,918, $58,949, $102,293, $239,930, $308,389, $392,293
Expenses: $600, $692, $801, $1209, $1310, $1702, $2309, $3039, $4950, $6948, $7893, $10,039, $17,394
Profit: $100, $608, $1499, $2581, $5219, $9118, $17573, $32379, $54499, $95845, $232537, $298850, $375399
Total Profit: $1,123,626
Are these numbers possible? Absolutely. You just have to be really efficient with your time and knowledgeable with your money. It will probably take many tries to get this right, but even if it takes you ten tries, each time failing somewhere around month six, you'll only be 24 1/2 when you hit your million. (Or 7 1/2 years older if you're not 17 lol)
The Aftermath
So, month 15, you're 18 years old and a millionaire. Congratulations! Now you can do so much: pay for college with one single payment, buy yourself a supercar, get a nice home wherever you want... but don't neglect your business. You're still not earning completely passive income. The goal is by month 24, to disconnect your time from your business and put it up for sale so you can enjoy a hefty retirement off of bonds and treasuries, young and living large and in charge.
Whew, this took a while. My girlfriend fell asleep while I was writing this. Poor thing.
How does my plan mirror this? Well, I get paid to go to school so I use that money in my business! Hahaha. I'm currently starting month two! Hopefully in 13 months I'll be a 20 year old millionaire.
So yeah, that's what I think. Someone should try it with me.
)
Thank you so much for taking the time in writing a incredibly creative way to reach the 1mill!
