<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 38068" data-quote="Sanj Modha" data-source="post: 553659"
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I like this forum but I will say that it depends on who you follow.<br />
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There are quite a few guys who are still stuck in the Slowlane. But there are some serious ballers on here too.<br />
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Follow the right people and unfollow the rest. That's my motto.
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I see what you're saying for sure and its important to vet who you are learning from to ensure that the quality of information is high so you dont get led down the wrong road and waste alot of time. Alot of people tend to do this and I do it still thinking someone is for real and learning afterwards that it would have never benefited me...<br />
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But there is always things to learn from people even if their starting out because as soon as you start learning and building in the fastlane you have lessons you've learned.<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 25213" data-quote="Tristan2k0" data-source="post: 553667"
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Hell yah brother! Threads like these are why I think the Fastlane Forum is one of the best resources for young minds. I'm turning 20 in a few days, am pretty much in the same boat as you were when you first turned 20. Reading Bold and Determined, Danger and Play, Think and Grow Rich and of course The Millionaire Fastlane.<br />
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There is so much more for me to learn, seams kind of overwhelming at times. They are all challenges that will make me stronger. I'm gonna use your year journey as a basic guide for my year. It's honestly badass to see a young buck like you already killin it, definitely gives me more fire.<br />
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First things first is that I need to start socializing on here a lot more and find me a mentor (All my friends are losers and no getters) so finding a higher class of man is the first thing on my list. Gonna sign up on meetup.com and definitely check out Toastmasters (you were the first person to tell me about Toastmasters, so thanks man)<br />
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Right now I am going to make a list of what I need to achieve this year. I honestly think moving out of my parents house would be beneficial on my fastlane journey. I need to sell all my useless shit. (Exotic Pet Snakes, BMW M3 that I financed, etc.) If I sold my BMW I could pay off all my debt which is just parasitic.<br />
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Anyways sorry about the long rant/reply. Thanks for posting this thread bro, definitely gonna be following your journey.<br />
~Tristan M.
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Thanks Tristan, yeah ditch the car that will destroy your progress and keep you held back through payments, maintenance, etc.<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 33696" data-quote="Slavi" data-source="post: 553684"
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<a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/23274/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="23274" data-username="@Envision">@Envision</a> it is great to see how you did manage to make the best out of your situation, much respect! And especially how you and your thought through and targeted action is giving your dad some confidence back. Thanks a lot for sharing your path here.
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Thanks man!<br />
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<blockquote data-attributes="member: 23497" data-quote="Peakdesire" data-source="post: 553690"
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Awesome story man.<br />
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I can relate to you a lot, and you sound exactly like me lol.<br />
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What kind of initial investment was is to get an apparel line going? In terms of inventory and marketing?<br />
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I run an info product business and looking to get into apparel soon.
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Awesome man, I would <u>avoid</u> clothing if I were to go back and do it all over and I have pivoted to other items to make this business a success. The magnitude and scalability of clothing is way too hard to build out and you need to have a competitive advantage if you're going to make any sort of progress. I've probably put 10-15k into it all in. <br />
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Here is my advice to myself 2 years ago and keep in mind, I never knew this, didnt understand this, and have only learned it through learning from my mentor, the threads on here, and actually doing...<br />
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Think about creating a product that can scale fast but also have a high price point. If I were to sell my current business and start another one I would think about doing something that could sell for $100-200/unit or if I couldnt have a product that would sell for that price I would ensure that I had created a product that filled a need that could sell for 10x the cost of production.<br />
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For example: Make it for $5 and sell for $50 (read below as to why)<br />
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When I sell a $20-40 shirt or piece of apparel my cost of goods sold is about ~$8/unit printed because I dont have volume (yet) but then I also need to account for packaging, card processing, shipping, labeling which might bring it up to ~$10-12/unit for example.<br />
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From there if I am going to scale a company like this and reach the volume needed to drop my COGS in half then I need to create a really strong conversion rate when acquiring a customer through a specific advertising channel (facebook, reddit, instagram, google ads, pinterest, etc). <br />
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If you're a 20 something year old kid with limited funds then you are not going to have enough money to spend to find that conversion rate because you HAVE to spend money and study how your ads are reacting to the marketplace. <b>This is why I think everyone needs a job while creating their fastlane business because you need to spend money to learn, pivot, and grow. </b>So it's not a viable business model because you will just blow all your money on inventory you cant sell and ads that dont convert. Now..<br />
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Say for example that you somehow are an advertising genius and you really know facebook and you can acquire a customer for $4 (20% of your retail sales cost) that clicks through to your website and will actually purchase. Then after your cost of EVERYTHING, $8 shirt + $3 misc costs + $4 ad spend you are at $15 and you sell a shirt for $20 then you just made $5 and you didnt pay yourself and we didnt account for any overhead in terms of shipping services, website costs, warehouse etc services.<br />
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<i>Also a helpful tip</i>, when you send traffic to an ecommerce store you generally get a shit conversion rate unless you REALLY understand your target customer and have grown a significant business with multiple products in different categories (which takes time). In turn, you will blow money on ads because you are giving the customer too much direction to go in, instead you need to create a funnel to drive traffic to a particular product with upsells on a single niche or market. <br />
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Back to what I was saying...This can't grow unless Im missing something because you dont have the volume to make it work (and in general most brands are really lame and try hard brands so they actually dont even sell because their product doesn't even fill a need).<br />
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Now understand this, if you create a $50-200 product that has a 10x selling price meaning you can make it for $5-20 you then expand your spread to spend more $ to acquire a customer and scale...<br />
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<b>For Example:</b><br />
Product Cost: $10<br />
packaging, card processing, shipping, labeling: $10<br />
Ad Spend to acquire a customer: $30<br />
Total cost: $50<br />
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Selling Price: $100<br />
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Net Profit: $50<br />
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<i>This is an example to demonstrate what I am trying to explain, you could literally spend $5 on ads and expand your net profit or your product cost might be $30 but you know you can sell it for $120... im just trying to get the point across.</i><br />
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You can generally scale when you are not paying yourself out of a business like this and reinvesting everything back into the business infrastructure and product expansion. <b>And just so you know I have 0 expectation to ever pay myself until my business can do 2 things.<br />
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1. Sustain itself through its own profits<br />
2. Grow itself through its own profits.<br />
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Once, it can sustain and grow itself, then it is a legitimate business and I would consider paying myself (but probably would keep investing into the business or pump it into more rental properties).<br />
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You can see the success of the high priced product with <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/13509/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="13509" data-username="@Vick">@Vick</a> and his insiders thread - Dont copy his product or idea just use it as a framework to learn from. <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/23/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="23" data-username="@biophase">@biophase</a> and <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/8023/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="8023" data-username="@AllenCrawley">@AllenCrawley</a> also have PHENOMENAL ecommerce advice in their threads. They are utilizing Amazon to scale as their advertising platform and as their brands have grown they create their own websites and learn and test on their own platforms to gain and maintain <b>control</b> removing it from Amazon's hands.<br />
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TLDR: Don't do another clothing brand - Find a need, create a high priced product that fills the need and is better than anything else in the marketplace OR has a huge competitive advantage that differentiates it and appeals to a segment of the marketplace. Outline a business model and try it. If it fails but your product is good then your model or marketing sucks and you need to pivot. If your product sucks and your model and marketing is good then you might be successful for a time being but you wont last and you need to create a better product..<br />
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Hit all the points, dont quit when you fail, and you will make it.<br />
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Hope this helps.</div>
