The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Still hungry for a new reality

blurr

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
129%
Aug 14, 2018
7
9
Hey guys,

I'm happy that i arrived here. FINALLY!

Where Am I?

I am self employed project manager who takes care of eCommerce and small website projects on a freelance bases. So basically im an allround online marketer hustling in several projects.

In addition to that I run my own eCommerce business based on reselling sporting good products on tiny margin. During the season I need to do the order fulfillment to make the project somewhat profitable. The business is just about competing for daily best price on Amazon and eBay (Just to steal from MJ here)

So all this is more like working a job. Doing a lot of work just to work into the pocket of Amazon get back very little for myself.

Where I'm coming from?

I got hooked to work for myself very early on. During the Year 2000 I finished as a hotel trainee while having a good friend who was killing it with early days SEO (web spam). He was working his a$$ of creating systems to take advantage of the back then still weak Google algo.

Sure, this was not sustainable. But it made him a lot of money during the short time his method was exploitable. This made me see what is possible with a good idea, persistente and execution.

Spinning the wheel...

During the last years, like many others, im am sucking up information to create a more profitable online business. I looked into many ideas and even considered to create online courses or ebooks.

I am also running a typical Amazon affiliate website which is 100% based on SEO tactics. But the returns in relation to efforts are a joke.

As I listened to the "Unscripted " I was surprised that MJ labeled all this methods of blogging, ebook creation etc as lower quality because its so hard to create relative value. This will take a while for me to sink in since it appears the web is full of gurus who are killing it in their niche.

Where I want to go ...

I find it a little bit weird to think about ideas in the offline world for some reasons:
  • They need more upfront capital to get to a minimum viable product
  • I have the most experience in the online world (project management, access to developers etc)
I will double up on my research for wants and needs in different markets. Since im a guy who loves routine and structure I might sometimes lack some creativity to come up with ideas to solve / serve them.

I'm just wondering how you guys are going about to create ideas for improvements of products and services in different niches you don't have a lot of expertise.

I am exited to apply the tactics in MJ's book and stop creating websites that are more or less a copy of already existing stuff.

Let the journey begin...

Best Regards,

blurr

....



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

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
445%
Jul 23, 2007
38,076
169,488
Utah
Thanks for the intro and for sharing your story, sounds like you're already an entrepreneur, just transitioning into something more substantive. Welcome!
 

Fotis

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
207%
Feb 26, 2014
134
277
35
Welcome

@IceCreamKid started an offline business (or more than one) and you should check out his threads. Personally, I also want to try my hand in an offline business but only when certain online ventures start producing the cash I want.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

IceCreamKid

With Great Power Comes Great Electricity Bill
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
2,183%
Jun 8, 2010
942
20,567
California
They need more upfront capital to get to a minimum viable product
There are definitely ways to start with zero upfront capital(although I'd prefer to spend money on ads straight from the beginning).

Personally, I also want to try my hand in an offline business but only when certain online ventures start producing the cash I want.
If you want to skip waiting for your online ventures to produce cash and still minimize the risk of going broke from investing thousands of dollars in an offline biz, I'd recommend the following:

Let's pretend you want to start a lawn care biz:
1. Hire a gardener to mow your lawn
2. Tell him that you have some free leads and that you need someone to service them
3. Run an AdWords or EDDM campaign so you can gather some data on how much it costs to acquire customers
4. If you're satisfied with the data then move forward with starting your own offline biz

I totally oversimplified this one. The devil is in the details of AdWords/EDDM and I should probably make some organized info on that, but if you're willing to poke your nose all over the interwebs you'll be able to put all of the puzzle pieces together without spending a dime on snake oil guru courses.
  • Make sure the marketing is pretty and the best out there. You want a premium feel so that you're not competing based on price alone. Competing on price is a loser's game because it becomes a race to the bottom.
  • Make sure your product is the best out there so they use you again
  • Set up referral systems and follow-ups for getting online reviews
  • Make sure the marketing addresses the top problems/annoyances that they face. Find this info by searching the 1-star reviews on Yelp and Google reviews
Good luck my friend.
 
Last edited:

blurr

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
129%
Aug 14, 2018
7
9
Thank you guys for the warm welcome! I get a feeling of WE in this forum right away. Looks like everybody is here to support each others journey and success. Love it.

  • Make sure the marketing is pretty and the best out there. You want a premium feel so that you're not competing based on price alone. Competing on price is a loser's game because it becomes a race to the bottom.
  • Make sure your product is the best out there so they use you again
  • Set up referral systems and follow-ups for getting online reviews
  • Make sure the marketing addresses the top problems/annoyances that they face. Find this info by searching the 1-star reviews on Yelp and Google reviews
Good luck my friend.

Competing for prices. That's what im actually doing with my eCommerce biz. I'm selling goods that pretty much every other Joe has access to as well. I am currently experimenting with branding to keep other sellers off my Amazon listings. But as they can create their own listings with much lower prices it's just a never ending and time sucking game for pennies I'm so tired of playing.

After all the confirmation I got out of "Unscripted " creating something individual with REAL value to the customer I will now investigate and research how I can get out of this race.

Options in order of priority:
  • Creating and promoting a valuable info product in a niche with obvious demand
  • Creating a product line for my eCommerce niche to differentiate the business from competition
  • Just looking at the world with new eyes to spot demand in the offline world
I know this is still very vague. I will now use my motivation to get my hands dirty to do deep research and let you guys know once my direction is getting more concrete.
 

eWomenNetwork

New Contributor
Apr 11, 2018
16
14
Dallas , Texas , 75254
Thanks for your warm intro! It’s great that you have hands on on Amazon Affiliate Marketing Program to earn passive income. White labeling and Drop Shipping are also great ways to earn passive income in my opinion. White Labeling is a great marketing practice in which one company produces a product or a service and the other company re-brands it making it appear as their own. It is easier as compared with services like All Inked Out and Ali Express that also handle the shipping process and eliminate the need for keeping large inventories. This is a great idea to promote your brand with less time and money!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

More Intros...

Top