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Overwhelmed and tired of inaction. I need to do something!

Vlav

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Hello. I’ve been lurking this forum for about 2-3 years and now decided to make an account and here comes my introduction. I hope someone will read it, because it’s probably going to be long as a novel.

I am 21 years old guy from eastern Europe, really interested in entrepreneurship and business.

I discovered this forum when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and visited it now and then since.(I've also read Unscripted )

Even though I read amazing info and advice both in books and here on the forum, in terms of business, I’ve moved nowhere.

But I’ve tried several things:

- sold soaps on markets
- Imported and sold chocolate on markets
- crypto - made some money, lost even more
- After Fox’s thread about web design I tried that too

There were also several things I did as a child - sold sweets to classmates, crestig websites hoping to monetize them with ads (but honestly, I had no idea what I was doing :smile:), etc.

At about the age of 16-17, I became extremely anxious and depressed. Finally I fought it mainly the past year when I was living on my own, which I will mention later. But since I moved back to my parents, I feel that it is slowly coming back.

As I said, I tried doing web design as Fox. Back then, I was in university, from which I dropped out.

I sent out hundreds of cold emails, did tens of cold calls, and closed just one client. Why? Well... price. Nobody was willing to pay me some rational amount of money. As I mentioned, I am from Eastern Europe and people are poor here and even most businesses see even 100€ as a big investment. I closed that one guy for 500€ which was great. The others weren’t willing to pay me even 200€.

Since then, I am in a rut. I moved out of my parents, lived one year abroad in a big city and worked as a salesman. I had a big problem in finding a place to live and was about to become homeless, so I came back to my parents.

Now I live with them, in a town that’s in the middle of nothing and I feel like I am rotting away. I am extremely bored and passive.

I want to go into some new venture but I am really stuck. At this point, I honestly just don’t know what to do.

I know this is going to sound stupid, because it is often said that ideas mean nothing, but I literally have zero business ideas.

I know that my business needs to be online centered and worldwide, because in my country I don’t see a point in starting a business.

I’ve cut out main distractions from my life - social media, netflix, etc... and I find myself with even more time that I don’t know how to spend productively. I am tired of reading books and doing “self development” over and over.

I need to somehow get moving. If I could just make 1000€ a month on my own, I could again move out and find some nice place to live.

I know that I just need to take some massive action, but don't know in which direction.

I don’t know what even I am asking here, but seeing the community here, how everybody tries to help everyone, I hope I can get some advice.

Thanks for reading.

(Reading this back, it's just "I, I, I, I,..." Don't want to sound selfish, but this is my introduction after all.)
 
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Burton

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I think you need to focus on one thing at time and do whatever it takes to get some clients. Just don't jump from one idea to another in short period of time. Pick one of your business options and start taking action. Of course it will be so hard at the beginnings but the final result is worth it. If your market isn't good enough for you there are no problems to look for foreign clients. Btw. where're you from? I see Eastern Europe so you could probably be my neighbour. :smile: If you want some more info don't hesitate to DM me.

Welcome to the forum and good luck!
 

ZF Lee

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Welcome. Good to have you here.

I sympathise.

Do you have a regular job with steady income? Not very business-like, but if you are not in university now, that would be important.
I sent out hundreds of cold emails, did tens of cold calls, and closed just one client. Why? Well... price. Nobody was willing to pay me some rational amount of money. As I mentioned, I am from Eastern Europe and people are poor here and even most businesses see even 100€ as a big investment. I closed that one guy for 500€ which was great. The others weren’t willing to pay me even 200€.
Then those aren't the businesses you should be working with.

Good businesses you can help will always pay you cash.

Have you tried selling to oversea clients? In the US? UK? Even some Asian countries would be fine. Or can you sell to neighbouring countries.

Some of my first gigs were with the Phillipines and Singapore, so there was room for demand then.

I know that my business needs to be online centered and worldwide, because in my country I don’t see a point in starting a business.
Impossible.

Do you have a business section in the local newspapers? You might have an inkling what's coming up in your country.

If you have a job, who is the head honcho? Who are your elders or older people you look up to? Do they have friends or connections that work outside the city or elsewhere?

Do they talk about their work? Problems they face? New resources that they find?

You might be surprised at what you can discover.
 

ZCP

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Get a sales job. Network. Look for opportunities that a business could fill. Move out. Start your life.
Sales job during the day. One small business (at a time) at night / weekends.

Get up right now and apply to every sales job in the city. Then study local businesses and find something that has good margins and go GET a sales job there. While doing this, listen / study / review / think about problems that you see that need to be solved.

Get to work! Now!
 
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Vlav

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Do you have a regular job with steady income? Not very business-like, but if you are not in university now, that would be important.

No, right now I don't have any job. As I said, I live in the middle of nowhere right now. Only job opportunities here are to go work as a human robot to car factories for 12 hour shifts while getting paid minimum wage (around 550€). I don't want to sound soft, but that's not how I want to live. After january I will have an opportunity to have a job and have a steady income. Until then, I want to focus on building a base for business.

Have you tried selling to oversea clients? In the US? UK? Even some Asian countries would be fine. Or can you sell to neighbouring countries.

Honestly, I haven't. Don't really know how to approach them from different country. How did you get clients from those countries? Haven't you had any problems with communication or overall?

Impossible.

Do you have a business section in the local newspapers? You might have an inkling what's coming up in your country.

I don't want to persuade you on this, but really, I don't see a potential of starting a business in my country. In a country where average payment is 950 €, where "entrepreneurs" are working their whole life and act like ballers on old cars and making like 5k a month as a lifetime achievement. In a country where you can't really niche down to something (it's hard to "carve" a niche when your market is limited to max 5 million people).

Thanks for your answer. I know I sound negative in my response but that's how I really see things here after a long thinking.
 

Vlav

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Move out. Start your life.

Honestly, this is probably what I should do really. But I have tried it once as I mentioned and failed badly. But trying it again is probably a very good idea.

Thank you very much for your answer.
 

Get Right

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ZCP

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Honestly, this is probably what I should do really. But I have tried it once as I mentioned and failed badly. But trying it again is probably a very good idea.
Thank you very much for your answer.
You know what to F*cking do. F*cking do it. - GP
 

evanascent

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Hello. I’ve been lurking this forum for about 2-3 years and now decided to make an account and here comes my introduction. I hope someone will read it, because it’s probably going to be long as a novel.

I am 21 years old guy from eastern Europe, really interested in entrepreneurship and business.

I discovered this forum when I read The Millionaire Fastlane and visited it now and then since.(I've also read Unscripted )

Even though I read amazing info and advice both in books and here on the forum, in terms of business, I’ve moved nowhere.

But I’ve tried several things:

- sold soaps on markets
- Imported and sold chocolate on markets
- crypto - made some money, lost even more
- After Fox’s thread about web design I tried that too

There were also several things I did as a child - sold sweets to classmates, crestig websites hoping to monetize them with ads (but honestly, I had no idea what I was doing :smile:), etc.

At about the age of 16-17, I became extremely anxious and depressed. Finally I fought it mainly the past year when I was living on my own, which I will mention later. But since I moved back to my parents, I feel that it is slowly coming back.

As I said, I tried doing web design as Fox. Back then, I was in university, from which I dropped out.

I sent out hundreds of cold emails, did tens of cold calls, and closed just one client. Why? Well... price. Nobody was willing to pay me some rational amount of money. As I mentioned, I am from Eastern Europe and people are poor here and even most businesses see even 100€ as a big investment. I closed that one guy for 500€ which was great. The others weren’t willing to pay me even 200€.

Since then, I am in a rut. I moved out of my parents, lived one year abroad in a big city and worked as a salesman. I had a big problem in finding a place to live and was about to become homeless, so I came back to my parents.

Now I live with them, in a town that’s in the middle of nothing and I feel like I am rotting away. I am extremely bored and passive.

I want to go into some new venture but I am really stuck. At this point, I honestly just don’t know what to do.

I know this is going to sound stupid, because it is often said that ideas mean nothing, but I literally have zero business ideas.

I know that my business needs to be online centered and worldwide, because in my country I don’t see a point in starting a business.

I’ve cut out main distractions from my life - social media, netflix, etc... and I find myself with even more time that I don’t know how to spend productively. I am tired of reading books and doing “self development” over and over.

I need to somehow get moving. If I could just make 1000€ a month on my own, I could again move out and find some nice place to live.

I know that I just need to take some massive action, but don't know in which direction.

I don’t know what even I am asking here, but seeing the community here, how everybody tries to help everyone, I hope I can get some advice.

Thanks for reading.

(Reading this back, it's just "I, I, I, I,..." Don't want to sound selfish, but this is my introduction after all.)


I have been in a similar position in the past (years ago) where I was very fixated, and ultimately totally paralyzed, by the idea that I MUST find some kind of business idea... all this did was cripple me. I was temporarily living with my parents, and that was only making things worse. Things dramatically and rapidly improved when I left home to move in with my boyfriend (in Eastern Europe). I'm still living there now, (I'm from the US), so I understand your situation and that being around relative poverty can make it seem like there is little out there, especially when you are 21. I have lived in areas of extreme wealth and areas of relative poverty so I encourage you not to think that there is little money to be made where you are--there is a lot of money to be made out there, even if your surroundings make it seem like that's not the case.

Take some kind of action, however small it is. Be prepared that most of the actions won't lead anywhere, but all you need is that one action that starts to lead you towards something useful and it is worth it. Also, you said you are starting a job in January; the human contact should help you to start seeing potential business ideas because your mind will have the opportunity to relax from the constant worrying about coming up with a business idea.

I recommend reading this Gold thread GOLD! - A physicist's guide to learning hard things. I think if you have a strategy for confronting problems, it makes the prospect of taking action easier.
 
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Castillo

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If you aren't willing to work for minimum wage then you aren't willing to do what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

I'm sorry but honestly all the things you've attempted to do have not at all solved a need, or were "me too" money makers.

Stop trying to get ideas from other people and start trying to solve peoples problems. Don't chase money as it seems you have been.

To be able to solve issues you must listen to what other people are complaining about. Go get that minimum wage €550 job you were talking about since right now it sounds like you're not making any and persistently keep on building your business. Don't stop when things get rough. Build a skill and work with it.
 
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ZF Lee

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Honestly, I haven't. Don't really know how to approach them from different country. How did you get clients from those countries? Haven't you had any problems with communication or overall?
I started out with regular platforms like Upwork and Fiverr.
Haven't really explored emailing them outside, but it should work the same way.

Everyone speaks English, even in developing countries, so no problem communicating. The hard part was during the rest of the gig with them of course.

You would have to do more research on their companies and hires though.
 

lowtek

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Welcome to the forum. Your perspective is puzzling. You say you've accomplished nothing, yet you've imported and sold multiple products and closed people over the phone on a website as well as making a few bucks on crypto. That's hardly nothing.

Give yourself some credit. You've gotten in the arena and given it a shot. You've already experienced some degree of success and failure, so now it's just a matter of picking better projects that fulfill the CENTS framework and doing it up.
 

Vlav

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Welcome to the forum. Your perspective is puzzling. You say you've accomplished nothing, yet you've imported and sold multiple products and closed people over the phone on a website as well as making a few bucks on crypto. That's hardly nothing.

Give yourself some credit. You've gotten in the arena and given it a shot. You've already experienced some degree of success and failure, so now it's just a matter of picking better projects that fulfill the CENTS framework and doing it up.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Maybe I should give myself a little bit credit, but I really want to aim high so I sometimes forget about the past.

now it's just a matter of picking better projects that fulfill the CENTS framework and doing it up

This is definitely it. This is basically the reason I started this thread to get some help with this. But I understand that no one is going to just give me some magical business idea to work on and suddenly I'll become successful and everything will be great...
 
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Vlav

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If you aren't willing to work for minimum wage then you aren't willing to do what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

I'm sorry but honestly all the things you've attempted to do have not at all solved a need, or were "me too" money makers.

Stop trying to get ideas from other people and start trying to solve peoples problems. Don't chase money as it seems you have been.

To be able to solve issues you must listen to what other people are complaining about. Go get that minimum wage €550 job you were talking about since right now it sounds like you're not making any and persistently keep on building your business. Don't stop when things get rough. Build a skill and work with it.

Does this even make sense?

Every entrepreneur says that time is the most valuable asset you can have. I now have A LOT of time for the next 2-3 months which I can devote to some project.

What would be the reason to throw it all away and go do a slave at a minimum wage job when right now I am in ideal position where I don't really have to care about rent, food cost, etc. and I have money saved.

I would literally throw away 3 months of time just to work 12-14 shifts for a minimum wage like a robot. Right now I own the most important asses - time.
 

The Abundant Man

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Does this even make sense?

Every entrepreneur says that time is the most valuable asset you can have. I now have A LOT of time for the next 2-3 months which I can devote to some project.

What would be the reason to throw it all away and go do a slave at a minimum wage job when right now I am in ideal position where I don't really have to care about rent, food cost, etc. and I have money saved.

I would literally throw away 3 months of time just to work 12-14 shifts for a minimum wage like a robot. Right now I own the most important asses - time.
Yes! You have time but a liminted amount! Use that time to do something. It's going to run out fast. Go do something. Stop analyzing and take some action.
 

ZF Lee

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Does this even make sense?

Every entrepreneur says that time is the most valuable asset you can have. I now have A LOT of time for the next 2-3 months which I can devote to some project.

What would be the reason to throw it all away and go do a slave at a minimum wage job when right now I am in ideal position where I don't really have to care about rent, food cost, etc. and I have money saved.

I would literally throw away 3 months of time just to work 12-14 shifts for a minimum wage like a robot. Right now I own the most important asses - time.
It doesn't have to be a dead-end job. Or pays minimum wage.

A minimum wage job is the very worst. If you do have prior skills from past experience, you needn't get these jobs.

It can be any job in the industry which you are interested in. It's not just about the money. It's about building your network and learning up stuff. So of course, you'd have to choose your employer carefully.

But just because it's a job in a decent industry, doesn't means it's going to be easy. I've had gigs and jobs where I was left out to dry, with my work peers acting dumb, and deadlines that made me stay awake till 3am.

And even if you have savings, they don't last forever.

The first business testing of products will eat some capital as well. Gotta have some cash flow to service that, without costing you your savings.
 
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JG17

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I think Malta could be a good place for you. Look into it.
 

scott.legendre

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This thread was started on Monday and it is now Wednesday. What action have you taken since this thread was started to move forward?

It all starts with small steps. Somebody, somewhere needs help with something.

Here’s a small idea that I just paid money for that might help get your brain churning. I was made an offer by a trusting individual to come to my building and hang a flag up for me on all national holidays for a small fee. By offering this service to me, I now don’t have to remember to put flags out on these days, nor do I have to keep up with storing flags either. It also makes my business look good having the flag out, especially being on a main road of my little town.
 

Vlav

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Hey all. I haven't been active on the forum for some time now and I want to thank you for all your answers.

For the past days I've been working - my mother is starting this small travel agency and I've been doing a lot of work on it. We've put a plan together for the next year, I ran the numbers, created spreadsheet, calculated expenses, estimated revenue etc. I've also went for a trip with the agency as a tour guide.

I've realized important thing - I love working on some stuff. I completely forget about time and focus solely on what's in front of me. I am going to continue helping her and I'll be going to the trips as a guide, but I finally need to decide on something that will be my own. And the next few days should be spent on that. Then I can focus my energy entirely on that thing and work nonstop.

I think Malta could be a good place for you. Look into it.

Hah, I'd love to live there. Have been looking at it since you wrote it here. Still kinda expensive for me at the moment, but I might consider it in the future :)
 
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