Why I'm Dropping Out Of College

[daivey]

Here's what I don't get... if you're a trainer at the gym and hate it so bad, why not get some clients and teach them privately? Like someone said, $10 a session, get 10 people = $100. Setup 5 of those per week, that's $500, or $2000 per month. Work on scaling that... Do 2 courses a day...... rinse and repeat.

When you can't handle the work load, hire someone, pay them $30 to run a session.

Get the cash that way, build yourself a cushion.

Move out of your parents house.

Rinse repeat, save money and working the business on the side..

Most trainers ARE DOING THIS... They are trying to teach people on the side for cash. You need to build up you cash reserves so that spending $500 on a shipment from China doesn't break your bank account.

Your racing to be the CEO tomorrow... I can see it in your posts. It's like your frantic to become millionaire tomorrow. You're doing "profit projections" already..... frantic to show us that you got money coming in or to show us that you're not like every one else?

It reads like you're trying to be a super man... like ADD or something, maybe it's why you dropped out of school?

you don't want to trade money for time... but you realize you are doing just that right?

maybe school is a waste of time, but for some people it humbles them, helps them get some humility.

you said somehwere in your post that you feel like a fraud??? so are you, or are you not a trainer? are you skilled, can you actually train people??? why not try to get credentials in that so you can leverage it and make cash on the side???

learn copy, who cares. if you have a good product and some decent marketing knowledge, copy is a waste of your time. seems like the "instant stardom" button on these forums = LEARN COPY!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!! lol
step 1 learn copy.
step 2 bro down
step 3 profit!!

if your product sucks, no amount of copy will get people to buy it.. people aren't stupid clueless robots that just buy stuff online. They do research. They read reviews. They are looking for a product to fulfill a need at a good price.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ljb7]

I dropped out of college and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made (mind you, I'm only 20). I had a little success with social media marketing prior to university, but when I dropped out I really had nothing. I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad now that I didn't rack up tens of thousands of pounds in debt that come with a university degree here.

As a few others have said, start selling on Amazon now. Not 3 months from now, definitely not a year from now... Now. I began by selling on ebay from July 2014 with little success (aside from learning a shit ton). I moved on to Amazon early 2015, of course like anyone who sells on Amazon I wished I would had done it sooner but that's how things go. Lesson learnt.

The Amazon hype is at an all time high right now so you need to start cashing in now or you'll become a part of the masses that'll be complaining about how 'they never got a piece of the pie' a year or two from now.

Good luck with things.

 

[Royael]

Great journey, will follow FOR SURE! I literally dropped out of college a few days ago - it was a no brainer for me! My reasons were 1. opportunity cost, 2. great income alternatives and 3. shift in education. Just published a post today on the blog with more details..

 

[Rudynate]

For what it's worth . . .

I have an old friend, a unique guy. He dropped out of high school, didn't finish his last year, and ran away from home.

He ended up in Phoenix and started taking martial arts lessons. He progressed so quickly that before long he was teaching martial arts.

He taught himself to speak Russian, fluently.

He taught himself to play the piano. He's never had a lesson in his life and is able to play virtuoso-level pieces beautifully.

He became a whiz at IT and made piles of money in various IT-related businesses and consultancies.

In spite of all of that, because his formal schooling was terminated so prematurely, there are all these peculiar gaps in his background. I've known him so long that I'm used to it, but I used to be astonished at the things I had to stop and explain to him because he had never learned them. There was a whole body of knowledge, that we take for granted that anyone would know, that he didn't know.

He tried to brush it off - but I could tell that he was embarrassed by it and felt like he had missed out.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[IceCreamAction]

Initially reading your thread the first thing I saw was that your parents are both educated with good jobs. When you started talking about them giving up on dreams and one life my first thought was maybe you didn't appreciate them maintaining a 19yr old kid who after all the pain is trying to dropout of college.
Don't get me wrong as I maybe dropping out soon,but don't start hot and heavy to only fizzle out and burn, really looking forward to your progress.

Definitely look into private training or something else, why train building someone's business when you can do that with yours? You complained about trading your time for money yet the value you provide from training and marketing development is free?

Note I'm not trying to bash you.

I want to finish my Math degree but my dropping out may be more with necessity than choice. At its worst, if you can afford to do it, and mentally do it, then do it.
Or Fastlane this bitch! Either way you have my best wishes with your business and grinding, I hope to get invited to the yacht party.

 

[PTP]

Any updates to report @Ben S. ?

 

[Jeremy Groover]

bump?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ben S.]

Update 5: Back From the Dead
​

Hey all. I'm still alive. Im sitting on a couch on the balcony of my apartment in Santa Barbara, California. It's pretty cold out here. But the air is clear and it's a beautiful night.

Disclaimer: The following is a recap of what's been going on since I last made a post. If you want to know what I'm doing NOW, read the following post.

It's been a crazy 7 months or so. I had to put my head down and get to work. For anyone who's followed up to this point, thank you. I'll briefly sum up these past few months. Here's the highlights:

1) Firstly, I have long quit my job as an MMA instructor. As great as it was, I really had enough of it. You can only have little kids fart on you from a top-mount so many times. My boss wanted me to take over his studio eventually. But it's just not something I'd be interested in.

2) Shortly before quitting MMA, I started working for a wholesaler who was looking to expand his business onto Amazon.

He hired me to write the Amazon description copy, take product photos, and launch his products. Awesome! Why? Well, I learned TONS about selling on Amazon. Almost every moment of down-time was spent listening to podcasts about selling on Amazon. Not to mention, working for someone forced me to take action. No education loop, since I had to show results.

All was great until he insisted that I do the product research as well, and find him good products to sell...Ha. I might as well do the whole thing myself then. Screw getting paid $10 an hour.

So I did. I quit. And that's what I'm doing now. (More about that soon.)

3) I moved out of my house. I won't lie. I'm incredibly fortunate.

My parents and grandparents saved a decently large amount to go towards my college fund. After some discussion with the parents, we agreed that I could move out to Santa Barbara (right by the University here) to complete the classes I dropped from my community college. I'm taking these classes now at the Santa Barbara City College. I don't plan to pursue university education until I'm successful with my first business. Rather my parents want me to at least have the classes done, which are necessary for transferring to a university. In the meantime, my parents are paying for literally everything.

And I hate it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly grateful. But the idea that I'm still completely dependent on them for everything pisses me off. Rent? Parents. A couple pairs of jeans? Parents. Food? Parents. Gas? Parents.

BUT...On a more positive note, it's incredible here. The amount of resources available is amazing. The gym is 5 minutes away by skateboard. The beach is a 5 minute walk away. There's a 7 story library with a view of the ocean, where I can work in silence. I can sit in on relevant/useful university classes, for free. I won't get credit for them of course, but I want the lessons more than the points. There's no shortage of clubs or unique people either.

The way I see it, its not what you have. It's how you use what you have. And given how lucky I am, there is NO EXCUSE for taking it easy. It has been a crazy change of perspective though. It goes like this:

Students finish their school stuff. And party or hang out with the remaining free time.

I'm basically living among college students, but don't really participate in any of the things they do. This has made me a lot more aware of how lonely things can be. It was easy to hustle when I lived at home and didn't really see what I was missing out on.

Any free time I have goes to working on my business. And staying in on the weekends to work, while I can literally hear partying going on in the streets makes the loneliness sting just a little more. I've found myself questioning my decisions several times. Can I balance things? Should I be having more fun while I'm young? Will I regret spending these years like this?



And then I went to a Lamborghini dealership a couple days ago. And guess what? All of those questions seemed to magically disappear.

 

[Ben S.]

Update 5 (continued): Selling On Amazon
​

There was a time when selling on Amazon was easy.

You'd find a high margin product without too much competition. You'd find what reviewers had complained about. You'd link up with a supplier on Alibaba and see if they could fix whatever issues the product had. You'd place a sample order. If things looked good, you'd place the bigger order. You'd take killer photos and blast away competition with your superior copy. Then you'd give away 100+ units "in exchange for an unbiased review"

POOF! Overnight (relatively speaking) you've got more reviews and a higher ranking than established sellers in your niche.

Such was my mindset when I placed my first order with Taiwan. The product is in the outdoors/fitness niche. Here are the analytics I pulled from Amazon and my competitors:

Average Selling Price: $33
Sales Per Month (among the top 5 sellers): 650
Cost Per Unit Landed: $12
Amazon's FBA fees: $8
Estimated Profit Per Unit: $13

Interestingly, a majority of the sales are going to one seller in particular. He's got over 115 reviews, while the other listings have no more than 50. Other than the reviews, he has a pretty poor listing. Lacking images and good copy.

My plan? I figured I'd take WAY better photos. Write a WAY better description. Improve the product by waterproofing it and offering a limited warranty. And I'd give away 100 units to be right on his level with reviews.

So I placed the order. $9,000. I took loans from friends and family to make up for what I couldn't afford.

This was three months ago. Taiwan gave me a ridiculous lead time, but they had by FAR the best quality product. My order is finally arriving within the next week.

Going deeper...

I did some more research while waiting for my inventory. I found a product that paired very well with the Taiwan product. I decided to create a full set and sell it as a variation on the same listing that I'll be creating for the first product. I sourced this set with a Chinese manufacturer.

More money...

$8,000 to be exact. But my margins on the this full set will be closer to $20 per unit. The lead time for this is actually 1 month. So it should arrive around the same time as the Taiwan order. Now I'm $17,000 deep and getting 1,250 units within two weeks. Super pumped!

Here's the thing though...

Amazon changed.

Surprise surprise. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. In the three months that I was waiting for my inventory to come in, Amazon made a couple announcements.

1) No more incentivized reviews.

2) New FBA sellers cannot send in inventory until January. (After 4th quarter)

What this means for me is two things:

Firstly, I will have to find a 3rd party fulfillment center, OR drive to the post office every day to fulfill orders.

Secondly, I cannot easily generate reviews any longer. And no reviews = no sales. Now every review I get has to be organic. How am I supposed to get organic reviews when I'm stuck on page 12 of an Amazon search because I don't have any reviews?

It's a cache 22. With only one solution:

I have to drive outside traffic to my listing.

Product Launch Plan​

I plan on doing a product giveaway. I will give away three items related to my niche.

1) High ticket item- $150 value
2) My product set- $50 value
3) My product alone- $35 value

I will market this by running Facebook ads to people interested in my niche. The ad will say something like, "Win a FREE ______ ($150 value)". Clicking on it will take people to my landing page. This will have more information, as well as the 2nd and 3rd prizes.

People can enter into the contest by providing their email. They can boost their odds of winning if they like my company Facebook page or share the contest on their own Facebook page. If a friend actually joins, they get even higher odds of winning!

Im currently looking into using Gleam.io, which automates a lot of the contest process. Alternatively, I may just set up a landing page with Leadpages, since I feel it would convert better. The only drawback is that I would have to do a lot of the contest process manually.

I also plan to reach out to relevant bloggers and influencers in my niche and ask them to promote my contest. I'll give them my product for free in exchange for their post. I may even write a guest post on their blog if they're okay with it.

I plan to run the giveaway for two weeks.

The goal: Collect leads! Ideally, I'll get at least 1,000 relevant leads. My reach goal is 3,000 leads.

Once the two weeks are over, I'll announce the contest winners via email and on my Facebook page.

Here's the cool part. Most people will NOT win. That's why I will offer everyone who entered the contest 30%-35% OFF my product and provide a coupon code. They will be able to get this discount by buying from my Amazon listing and using the code.

This will bring a TON of outside traffic to my listing. Im hoping it will generate enough reviews for my product to be competitive, and generate traffic within Amazon.

That's my plan for now! I'll go more into depth as I start executing on this plan. I'll be a lot more active here from now on. Great for holding myself accountable. Let's goooo!

 

[Eli Cohen]

Hi I wanted to comment. So your family has money for you to go to college debt free? They are paying your rent, food, gas, bills, and everything.

Dude I wish I had parents like that..

I'm in a similar situation pursuing fastlane business ideas while in college but I don't come from a background like that. I was fortunate to have loving parents who fed and clothed me but beyond that I was and am on my own.

I dropped out of college to pursue fastlane business ideas and after strings of failures I went back after a year and a half, while living at home that whole time.
I'll tell you honestly it doesn't feel so good at family events, birthday parties, and siblings graduation when people ask what you are up to and you don't have a solid answer.

But that didn't deter me from trying, and while I'm continuing my education I will still pursue my fastlane interests. Going to college does not mean failure, but it is one of many options, fortunately for you it seems like your parents want a bright future for you so they are willing to invest in it for you. The jobs they work that seem to be monotonous to you provide you with a nice future that you can bank on. I see a lot of my friends are like you, they see some results that other people get after years of working on their business/hobby/skill and think they can do that too.

But behind all of that are strings of regrets, failed relationships, whacked credit scores, bankruptcies, and the fundamental question of is it really worth it?

Is it really worth it to you to sacrifice your youth in the pursuit of fastlane business success? I ask myself this everyday and I know my answer because I know my WHY and I know my HOW.

Food for thought, good luck on your journey.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MJ DeMarco]

Question, what would have been your focus of study at college? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere.

 

[Envision]

Update 5 (continued): Selling On Amazon
​

There was a time when selling on Amazon was easy.

You'd find a high margin product without too much competition. You'd find what reviewers had complained about. You'd link up with a supplier on Alibaba and see if they could fix whatever issues the product had. You'd place a sample order. If things looked good, you'd place the bigger order. You'd take killer photos and blast away competition with your superior copy. Then you'd give away 100+ units "in exchange for an unbiased review"

POOF! Overnight (relatively speaking) you've got more reviews and a higher ranking than established sellers in your niche.

Such was my mindset when I placed my first order with Taiwan. The product is in the outdoors/fitness niche. Here are the analytics I pulled from Amazon and my competitors:

Average Selling Price: $33
Sales Per Month (among the top 5 sellers): 650
Cost Per Unit Landed: $12
Amazon's FBA fees: $8
Estimated Profit Per Unit: $13

Interestingly, a majority of the sales are going to one seller in particular. He's got over 115 reviews, while the other listings have no more than 50. Other than the reviews, he has a pretty poor listing. Lacking images and good copy.

My plan? I figured I'd take WAY better photos. Write a WAY better description. Improve the product by waterproofing it and offering a limited warranty. And I'd give away 100 units to be right on his level with reviews.

So I placed the order. $9,000. I took loans from friends and family to make up for what I couldn't afford.

This was three months ago. Taiwan gave me a ridiculous lead time, but they had by FAR the best quality product. My order is finally arriving within the next week.

Going deeper...

I did some more research while waiting for my inventory. I found a product that paired very well with the Taiwan product. I decided to create a full set and sell it as a variation on the same listing that I'll be creating for the first product. I sourced this set with a Chinese manufacturer.

More money...

$8,000 to be exact. But my margins on the this full set will be closer to $20 per unit. The lead time for this is actually 1 month. So it should arrive around the same time as the Taiwan order. Now I'm $17,000 deep and getting 1,250 units within two weeks. Super pumped!

Here's the thing though...

Amazon changed.

Surprise surprise. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. In the three months that I was waiting for my inventory to come in, Amazon made a couple announcements.

1) No more incentivized reviews.

2) New FBA sellers cannot send in inventory until January. (After 4th quarter)

What this means for me is two things:

Firstly, I will have to find a 3rd party fulfillment center, OR drive to the post office every day to fulfill orders.

Secondly, I cannot easily generate reviews any longer. And no reviews = no sales. Now every review I get has to be organic. How am I supposed to get organic reviews when I'm stuck on page 12 of an Amazon search because I don't have any reviews?

It's a cache 22. With only one solution:

I have to drive outside traffic to my listing.

Product Launch Plan​

I plan on doing a product giveaway. I will give away three items related to my niche.

1) High ticket item- $150 value
2) My product set- $50 value
3) My product alone- $35 value

I will market this by running Facebook ads to people interested in my niche. The ad will say something like, "Win a FREE ______ ($150 value)". Clicking on it will take people to my landing page. This will have more information, as well as the 2nd and 3rd prizes.

People can enter into the contest by providing their email. They can boost their odds of winning if they like my company Facebook page or share the contest on their own Facebook page. If a friend actually joins, they get even higher odds of winning!

Im currently looking into using Gleam.io, which automates a lot of the contest process. Alternatively, I may just set up a landing page with Leadpages, since I feel it would convert better. The only drawback is that I would have to do a lot of the contest process manually.

I also plan to reach out to relevant bloggers and influencers in my niche and ask them to promote my contest. I'll give them my product for free in exchange for their post. I may even write a guest post on their blog if they're okay with it.

I plan to run the giveaway for two weeks.

The goal: Collect leads! Ideally, I'll get at least 1,000 relevant leads. My reach goal is 3,000 leads.

Once the two weeks are over, I'll announce the contest winners via email and on my Facebook page.

Here's the cool part. Most people will NOT win. That's why I will offer everyone who entered the contest 30%-35% OFF my product and provide a coupon code. They will be able to get this discount by buying from my Amazon listing and using the code.

This will bring a TON of outside traffic to my listing. Im hoping it will generate enough reviews for my product to be competitive, and generate traffic within Amazon.

That's my plan for now! I'll go more into depth as I start executing on this plan. I'll be a lot more active here from now on. Great for holding myself accountable. Let's goooo!

This is incorrect.

-Stop focusing on reviews - they don't factor into sales to the extent that you think they do

-I was selling on Amazon without incentivizing my reviews when it was allowed and I was killing off my competitor's because my product was better. If your product is better you will do fine.

-If your parent's/grandparents have a college fund for you - you should use it to actually go to college. Believe it or not it will help you and if you dont have to go into debt for it there's literally no reason you cant work on your business and go to school.

-When you are driving traffic, do it to collect emails but dont send the traffic to the listing because this will tank your conversion rate. Feed them native content (articles/reviews) that include your product through a drip and upsell them by including discounts/incentives within the content.

- You better hope to god you figure out how to pay back the $17k you borrowed plus the interest if they charged you any. I would never borrow money on a product that hasnt shown sales history and I would never borrow money without knowing how I was going to pay it back.

-Have you run a P&L (other than the short description above) on your 17k order for the inventory costs, shipping from manufacturer/into amazon, ad spend, FBA fees, etc to determine your margins and how you can pay back the money and keep purchasing more inventory to not lose your momentum on Amazon?

Entreprenuers dont take risks, they take calculated risks - there is a huge difference and from the explanation I've read from you, I would say you took a risk without calculation or proof with money you dont have from people who matter most.

That's a bad spot to be in and if I were you I would get a job ASAP to begin paying off that loan so you can keep the money in your business for more inventory

 

[SLOE GRIND]

Keep song what you're doing! There is no right or wrong answer on what you should do. Relax ..

Just follow your heart and do what you think is best for you and keep that positive mindset ..

Stay focused on your goals and keep grinding like you've been doing and you will find your way ..

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ben S.]

Question, what would have been your focus of study at college? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere.

I originally wanted to transfer to UC Berkeley to study business administration. When I thought about where that would lead, I really didn't see any connection to were I actually want to be. What would that degree give me? What does business administration even mean? Hence, dropping school altogether. Maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe I'm undermining the type of knowledge, experiences, and connections I would have gained there. But I kind of just went with my gut feeling.

College is actually something I'm very very uncertain about right now. I have no problem going to school. My problem is going to school without knowing why. Maybe I'd go back to major in something more applicable...like computer science or engineering. I'd love to be a part of the major revolutions coming our way. Namely augmented reality, AI, space exploration.

 

[Ben S.]

This is incorrect.

-Stop focusing on reviews - they don't factor into sales to the extent that you think they do

-I was selling on Amazon without incentivizing my reviews when it was allowed and I was killing off my competitor's because my product was better. If your product is better you will do fine.

-If your parent's/grandparents have a college fund for you - you should use it to actually go to college. Believe it or not it will help you and if you dont have to go into debt for it there's literally no reason you cant work on your business and go to school.

-When you are driving traffic, do it to collect emails but dont send the traffic to the listing because this will tank your conversion rate. Feed them native content (articles/reviews) that include your product through a drip and upsell them by including discounts/incentives within the content.

- You better hope to god you figure out how to pay back the $17k you borrowed plus the interest if they charged you any. I would never borrow money on a product that hasnt shown sales history and I would never borrow money without knowing how I was going to pay it back.

-Have you run a P&L (other than the short description above) on your 17k order for the inventory costs, shipping from manufacturer/into amazon, ad spend, FBA fees, etc to determine your margins and how you can pay back the money and keep purchasing more inventory to not lose your momentum on Amazon?

Entreprenuers dont take risks, they take calculated risks - there is a huge difference and from the explanation I've read from you, I would say you took a risk without calculation or proof with money you dont have from people who matter most.

That's a bad spot to be in and if I were you I would get a job ASAP to begin paying off that loan so you can keep the money in your business for more inventory

Thanks for the fresh perspective. With regards to college, I hope I'm not putting myself off as some ungrateful kid who takes his situation for granted. I'm incredibly grateful that my parents are so heavily invested in my future. I literally have an opportunity that most people do not have. College debt is something I never will have to think about.

Regardless, I feel that it would do a disservice to their hard work to simply go to school with no idea why. Should I get some degree paper just to please them? Or should I get an education that will provide me with invaluable tools for my future? (And get them that paper as a result) I'd like to finish what I've started. I'd like to see success here first. Then I'd like to learn about where I want to go with my life, and how a college education could help me get there. Until then, I'd be going with no purpose. Just wasting their hard earned money.

With regards to Amazon sales, I do in fact have a P&L. I ran the complete costs on my end, including FBA storage fees, FBA fulfillment fees, import duties, monthly services (email services, landing page services, etc), and everything else. I ran the numbers for several price points, as well as for different sales velocities. I based the likely monthly sales off what my competition is doing on Amazon. Though it may appear that I just "jumped into the lake" my risks were calculated. In fact, I can liquidate everything at a 43% mark down over my competition and break even.

HOWEVER, I did not calculate for a change in Amazon's review policy. My whole launch strategy was based around incentivized reviews. Luckily I aimed to provide a better product overall, so I have that advantage. I've had to adjust to the change. I'm actually incredibly happy that Amazon did this. It weeds out the "me too" sellers who don't want to actually put in the work.

While I may have taken action a little pre-maturely, I'd much rather act fast and figure things out...than spend ages running the numbers and never actually placing the order.

 

[Daniel A]

I originally wanted to transfer to UC Berkeley to study business administration. When I thought about where that would lead, I really didn't see any connection to were I actually want to be. What would that degree give me? What does business administration even mean?

Maybe I'd go back to major in something more applicable...like computer science or engineering. I'd love to be a part of the major revolutions coming our way. Namely augmented reality, AI, space exploration.

This seems legit.

http://met.berkeley.edu/

"In a four-year curriculum, you earn two Bachelor of Science degrees in one program that combines the best of the top-ranked College of Engineering and Haas School of Business. You’ll choose between two tracks:

Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS) + Business
Industrial Engineering & Operations Research (IEOR) + Business
You’ll be in a small cohort, benefiting from close mentoring, a tight-knit community and opportunities to connect everything you’re learning in one integrated experience.

You’ll get hands-on practice turning great ideas into real-world solutions. Go ahead. Match your engineering talent with business expertise — and become the kind of innovative leader the world needs."

P.S. I joined the forum after having left college. I've since gone back and I'm close to finishing. I haven't posted much about my experiences or thoughts on it yet because I want to graduate first.

P.P.S. Wishing you the best of fortune bro.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ben S.]

Update 6: Bro, Do You Even Funnel?

​

Does anyone else love white boards as much as I do?

I swear... when I buy my house I'm going to have a room in my house where every single surface is a dry-erase board. Ceiling. Floor. Walls. Desks. You name it. I'll call it the doodle room. It'd be like opening up your brain and being able to see all your ideas at once. Of course, by that time we'll probably have augmented reality and we'll be able to draw things mid-air. Anyways...

I spent a majority of the last few days at these epic, huge white boards in the UCSB library. My goal was to create a complete sales funnel, including:

• Identifying my exact target audience and creating customer avatars
• Lead magnet ideas
• Channels to use to direct traffic to my contest (FB ads, Pinterest posts, blogging partnerships)
• Extremely relevant, quality content (to maintain high open rates, and low unsubscribe rates)
• Content delivery schedule, leading up to the contest winner announcement
• List expansion using current leads
• Revenue streams
• Future content creation methods

Here's the method I used:

1. Start with the product:
   -What features does it have? What are the benefits of these features? What are the benefits of those benefits?
   -Who would benefit from these features and benefits? In what application would they use your product? These are your customers.
2. Move onto your customers:
   -What age range are they? Male or female? Location? Education level? Work from home? Athletic? Kids? Married?
   -What's their attitude? How do they perceive their life situation? What are their hobbies? Where do they spend their time online?
   -HERE'S A TIP, find a relevant Facebook group around your niche. Click into many member's profiles and see if you notice any trends.
3. Create a customer avatar:
   -Create a particular person. Here's an example:
   "Andy is 33 years old. He works as a programmer at a tech company. He's very passionate about what he does and he's on the verge of a major promotion. He wants to put in more time into work, but he also wants to spend time with his son, who is soon turning 7. Balancing his work life, with his daily gym routine, and raising a smart, athletic kid is hard. Especially since his son hasn't expressed too much interest in sports so far. He loves his wife very much, but she hasn't done much to get their son into sports. He wants to find some fun way to get involved with his son."

By doing this I realized something kind of unfortunate. My product has two very different target audiences. And guess what? The one I'm less interested in, is the one that has the biggest value gap! There's a strong need for a leader in this niche. I found a Facebook group with over 40,000 members. No product leader for this niche. No leading bloggers. Just a group of people that share things with one another. It will be a lot easier for me to successfully target this niche, than the second one.

The funny things is that my branding strongly caters to sports/outdoors niche. My products all are branded accordingly. At this point, it just seems weird that a company with this name and this branding is targeting to a different niche. Not sure how big of a problem this will be. I'm thinking of breaking my website into two subdivisions. One targeting each niche. We'll see.

Anyways. Now everything is in place. I want to start my funnel this Monday. I have my work cut out for me.

I need to set up and learn how to use MailCheat(Chimp).
I need to polish up my website.
I need to create at least 2 of the 6 pieces of content that will be delivered over the duration of the contest.
I need to contact bloggers
I need to contact related companies for potential co-marketing
I need to create a Pinterest account
I need to schedule interviews with leaders in my niche
I need to optimize my Facebook page

These are just a few things I need to do by Monday. Oh. And my first 750 units of inventory gets here Monday. Super pumped. Lets go!

 

[Ben S.]

This seems legit.

http://met.berkeley.edu/

"In a four-year curriculum, you earn two Bachelor of Science degrees in one program that combines the best of the top-ranked College of Engineering and Haas School of Business. You’ll choose between two tracks:

Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS) + Business
Industrial Engineering & Operations Research (IEOR) + Business
You’ll be in a small cohort, benefiting from close mentoring, a tight-knit community and opportunities to connect everything you’re learning in one integrated experience.

You’ll get hands-on practice turning great ideas into real-world solutions. Go ahead. Match your engineering talent with business expertise — and become the kind of innovative leader the world needs."

P.S. I joined the forum after having left college. I've since gone back and I'm close to finishing. I haven't posted much about my experiences or thoughts on it yet because I want to graduate first.

Yep. I f*cked up. Never even saw this. Never cared to investigate. Thank you for this. This is something I didn't even know existed. After I make this current project work, this is the first program I'll look into.

I just wrote off college. I'm stubborn. But I don't regret my decision. I wouldn't be where I am now, if I had pursued college right out of high school. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's a bad thing. But I don't regret it.

 

[Envision]

Thanks for the fresh perspective. With regards to college, I hope I'm not putting myself off as some ungrateful kid who takes his situation for granted. I'm incredibly grateful that my parents are so heavily invested in my future. I literally have an opportunity that most people do not have. College debt is something I never will have to think about.

Regardless, I feel that it would do a disservice to their hard work to simply go to school with no idea why. Should I get some degree paper just to please them? Or should I get an education that will provide me with invaluable tools for my future? (And get them that paper as a result) I'd like to finish what I've started. I'd like to see success here first. Then I'd like to learn about where I want to go with my life, and how a college education could help me get there. Until then, I'd be going with no purpose. Just wasting their hard earned money.

With regards to Amazon sales, I do in fact have a P&L. I ran the complete costs on my end, including FBA storage fees, FBA fulfillment fees, import duties, monthly services (email services, landing page services, etc), and everything else. I ran the numbers for several price points, as well as for different sales velocities. I based the likely monthly sales off what my competition is doing on Amazon. Though it may appear that I just "jumped into the lake" my risks were calculated. In fact, I can liquidate everything at a 43% mark down over my competition and break even.

HOWEVER, I did not calculate for a change in Amazon's review policy. My whole launch strategy was based around incentivized reviews. Luckily I aimed to provide a better product overall, so I have that advantage. I've had to adjust to the change. I'm actually incredibly happy that Amazon did this. It weeds out the "me too" sellers who don't want to actually put in the work.

While I may have taken action a little pre-maturely, I'd much rather act fast and figure things out...than spend ages running the numbers and never actually placing the order.

Well my assumption would be you'd wanna study business..Im not trying to persuade you either direction but coming from a 22 year old kid who had to drop out and figure out entreprenuership/investing on his own because his parents couldnt afford college and the other option was racking up 10k+ student debt/year it seems silly to pass on a free education that will only help you.

Devise a plan to pay back your loan. It's good to know your numbers - its better to execute them because that puts you in the clear.

Good luck with everything though - looks like you've made some considerable growth from the start of this thread thats for sure.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Frushe]

Progress Update 3: Getting Very Pissed. Then Getting Slightly Less Pissed. Yet Still Remaining Pissed.

F*ck this.

Staring at disbelief at the check in my hands. My boss at my MMA job underpaid me. He paid me insultingly low. I worked a little under 85 hours last month for his studio. How much was my check for? $900.

Yeah. Thats barely $10.60 per hour. God damn I wanted to quit the instant I saw that check. So I put in tons of extra hours to cover for an employee (who was only supposed to be on vacation for 2 weeks, but ended up gone for the whole month). And I'm rewarded with a deduction of over $5 an hour? Hell no. Luckily I had to wait for Monday after getting my check Saturday. I would have been a lot less rational...if I didn't have the weekend to think about how to handle it.

Today I came in to talk to him before my shift. No accusations. No anger. Just a simple question: "Hey, I got this check and I was wondering if you may have made a mistake?" He felt that he hadn't. So this was intentional? (Steam coming out of ears) To make a long story short, he apologized and agreed to pay the difference. Got a second check for $365. My current hourly? $15. Hence remaining pissed. I know jobs I can take where I get paid $15 to sit in a coffee shop and occasionally deliver food every couple hours.

I would have quit and given him a two weeks notice if it weren't for the main reason I'm working this job: To gain experience to launch a marketing business. And here I have complete control over all aspects of building his business. Including funding. So, briefly, here's what's happening:

My Three Wives​

I'm a cheater. I'll admit it. One simply isn't enough. I need three. I know I know. I'm violating MJ's rule of committing to one thing. But they all seem so necessary and connected. As it is, I have three goals that I am dedicating all of my waking hours to:

1) MMA Studio Expansion
2) eBay business
3) Studying Copy

I'm starting to see how this is ineffective. But I feel like I can manage. Time will tell.

MMA Studio Expansion
​

It's been around a week. So here's what I've done for my first wife:

1) Typed out a 16 page plan for expansion. ( I would post the PDF of it here but I would have to move this to the Inside.) Here are the categories:

• Relocation (includes sketched blueprint of the new location, as well as things to buy)
• Current Customers
• Promotional Video
• Curriculum
• Class Structure
• Extras (Ways to boost monthly revenue with events, trips, movie nights, etc)
• Merchandise
• Projections
• Marketing Plan

2) Established my hourly pay and reduced my hours to 13 per week
3) Scheduled a discussion of this plan with my boss for tomorrow

Here's where I am clueless...obviously this plan will take immense hours out of my day. So I need some sort of compensation arranged tomorrow. Hourly does not seem appropriate because there's no real way of tracking the hours I work at this plan. A retainer does not seem appropriate because I have no qualifications. I may be naive but I truly feel that I can double his business. You know what he said to me today? "One day you'll take this business over." Ha! Very far from my intentions. But it indicates to me that an equity deal may be very possible. So what will I ask for? 10% equity. If I can DOUBLE his business within 6 months, I feel that asking 10% isn't too big an arrangement. (Especially considering everything else on that plan which is unrelated to clients)

Now my long term plan which stems out of this is the following:

Within 6 months I will reach my goal of doubling the MMA Studio's Business. I will have a 10% equity arrangement and a glowing piece for my portfolio. This ideally would amount to around $1,500 of passive monthly income. Perhaps a referral from the owner to other businesses who may be interested. From there, I will make similar arrangements with other brick and mortar businesses. Upon this rock I will build my church. This will give me the money to move out of my parents' house.

eBay Business
​

My second wife hates me. I think she's getting jealous of the attention I've been giving my first one. Here's what I've done:

1) Sold out of my 5 samples of Product 1. Discussed with the factory. Placing my first larger order of 50 units, with a couple OEM sample versions with my logo for the next order.
2) Realized that my other 4 products were poor choices in oversaturated markets. I'm dropping the price to get rid of them.
3) Bought tons of cheap items to build up my eBay feedback score. (Currently sitting at 11 feedback 100% positive. Woohoo.)
4) Ensured Product 1 has an optimal listing. All listings were very well done from the get-go however. I already did keyword research for the title. I used decent copy in the product description. I took professional photos with a homemade light box and GIMP. So not many changes to be made.
5) Learned to ship professionally through screwing up. God.. my first package compared to the ones I send now...I wrote the address in permanent marker on my first ones. Now I'm printing labels. And sending a personal letter with each shipment to build a good customer relationship. It has humorous copy and tips for how to use my product in the best way.
5) Looked into making an Amazon listing @Bananas suggestion. Tomorrow I have no MMA shift and will do this.

My plan as of now is to perfect Product 1. It is in the fitness niche. I am personally into fitness. So? I'm creating an eBook to include for free as well as a physical product add-on. Then I will begin to actively market it. I'm thinking of using direct mail marketing, which I've heard so many great things about in the copy books I'm reading. No idea how this works but I'll figure it out.

Studying Copy
​

As usual, I am reading my copy books. Here's the list and what's done (Blue is completed):

• • Scientific Advertising
  • Cashvertising
  • No B.S. Direct Marketing
  • The Boron Letters
  • How to Write a Good Advertisement
  • Tested Advertsing Methods
  • The Lazy Man's Way to Riches
  • 7 Steps to Freedom
  • The Robert Collier Letter Book

I am half way through with the Robert Collier Letter Book. After I finish all of them, I will return to annotate every single one. At the same time, I am USING what I am learning for my first two wives. I plan to look into freelancing as well.

Conclusion
​

So with everything on the table, my time is pretty divided. This isn't mentioning my 3:30 alarm and 5 AM gym seshes. But I consider these part of a good morning routine and essential to stay focused and balanced. I will update after tomorrow's meeting with my boss. Thanks all for the inspiration and help!

​

Let's go!

I would make an agreement with him before actually doing anything with your boss. In the first post you said he was gonna let you market and THEN he would pay you. But by what you are telling I would not trust him.

Edit: Ok I just finished reading your posts. Good that you quit with the mma studio. Good luck with everything man. Keep it up!

 

[PedroG]

There was no explosive "Get out of this house!" reaction. Luckily my parents are very understanding. However my mother insists that I at least get an A.A. degree from my Community college. I looked up the requirements and found that I would have to complete 5 more classes (16 more units) and to get an Associate in Science Business Administration Degree.

I don't think it's worth it. 16 units is a LOT of time. But at the same time if I chose not to do it, I will very likely have to leave my house. I do have plenty of time to decide. Next semesters classes don't begin until mid August. Until then, I'll hustle my a$$ off.

Associate's degrees are useless. You may as well not get any degree at all, in my opinion.

 

[Gerrald]

Hi @Ben S.

I just have read your topic.
How did your amazon business end/where is it now?
How far are your other plans?

How do you look now to the fact that you wanted to drop out of college?

I'm a 20 year old from The Netherlands, currently in the third year of my four years college. I've also thought about it, but I have to repay the government because the government pays me money to go to school. If I graduate they remit the money. Currently about 12k.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Omerroz]

I've read all your comments on this post
It's good that you retired from the club
I work in a restaurant and I also saw like you this big opportunity to increase the business .. but the business isn't mine so despite all the experience that can be added to me it isn't worth it in the end.
If I were you, I'd really concentrate on shopify
And drive all the traffic to your site and from there to Amazon after you have already created a reputation for yourself,
Good luck!!
Waiting for an update

 

[KSR]

Paging @Ben S. for an update? I love the growth in this thread. I still believe you should've gone to College (since it's free education that gives you credentials), but we all make our beds and lay in it.

I sincerely hope you've at least sold all product and paid off those personal loans since last updated.