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From a broke Uber Driver $9k behind on rent to $30k Per Month...QUESTIONS?

Fr33zerPop

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Incredible read. Very happy for you! Must have been a wonderful feeling going for being in debt to actually seeing real money come in.

One suggestion though, I would maybe remove some of the details of your product.. This part of the forum is public and you might entice some people to replicate it exactly... using X to solve X... Your business doesn't have a high barrier to entry, so it might bring some people into your market. Don't mean to sound cynical but just trying to help avoid a headache.

Best of luck and continued success!

Ug. I hate seeing you write this, but know that's the frustrating reality sometimes. I really appreciate his willingness to use enough details that it doesn't just sound like everyone else's story. Hopefully, the truth is that it's his personal connection and knowledge of his product that adds the value that creates his success.
 
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todonelist

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Do you recommend a particular resource for learning facebook ads or is it simple enough to just try things and test?
I learned from a few folks, Gabriel St-Germain, King Comm, Sam Ovens, Alex Becker to name a few. Gabriel St-Germain's free Youtube content sh*ts on many paid courses.

Good to know you can be earning 35K a month and having the fulfillment done by just you and your wife! I've done similar numbers but it was dropshipping and lower profit margins, so fulfillment although a HUGE pain logistically, it wasn't exactly physically draining. However, back in 2016 I was fulfilling 20-30 orders per day manually in AliExpress since we didn't know better and it sucked.
Yeah we can pack and ship 30 orders in about an hour and a half. So I figured we can get up to 100 orders a day by ourselves. We typically ship out 100+ orders on Monday's since we have orders pile up over the weekend and that's usually a full, hectic workday. The profit margin with tea is INSANE btw.
Amazing journey brother. We really appreciate your post, really. It inspired me to take a different point of view on Ads and the idea of going all in.

Me and my wife would love to try the product!!! We are big tea drinkers.

Congratulations!!

Let me know if you need any help with your trademark at any point, I will be happy to be of consult for anything you need.
Thanks!!! Shoot me a message!

Really good story of success :clap::.

I got one question,
about 6-7 months ago I was thinking to buy Greta's course and I coudn't dare to buy it was too expensive for me. Do you recomend that course or is it just another money trap?
I don't know, I haven't taken the course. But the free information she gives on interviews is insanely useful so I'd imagine a course would be worth it but you never know.
I've spent years "collecting info", reading, studying, watching the "free" portion of webinars and dreaming of pivoting at the worst possible phase life (40s, with kids), during my worst possible year (2020). My wife also has an auto-immune disease (resulting in joint inflammation) so I appreciate your story. I only hope one day I can write something similar, but I can't seem to identify and conquer the hurdles keeping me back year after year. Thanks for your inspiring story, and congrats.
Solve the problem and go for it. As shown by the medical industry, solving a problem doesn't always mean a cure, either. But if something is effective and gets results, people will rave about it.
 

todonelist

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Ug. I hate seeing you write this, but know that's the frustrating reality sometimes. I really appreciate his willingness to use enough details that it doesn't just sound like everyone else's story. Hopefully, the truth is that it's his personal connection and knowledge of his product that adds the value that creates his success.
At this point, I'm too far ahead for anyone to even come close to taking our spot in our particular niche and the specific demographic within that niche. But I welcome anyone to follow the same path if it's relevant to their real-life situation and not some phony, made-up attempt to replicate it - which wouldn't work anyway because people who suffer from a specific illness can smell through bullshit easily. For example, I read a comment on one of our ads and a guy was talking about how he had leaky gut and cured it. He gave a list of the herbs he used. He could easily re-sell those herbs and use his story of healing his leaky gut and that would work with the right creative and copy. And that's just one thing, being Leaky gut. If someone has gone through something similar, they should absolutely follow this framework and help heal the world. It's the most fulfilling career I could have picked.
 

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I'm happy to be able to make this post and hopefully share some inspiration and motivation to you guys.

First off, I found MJ DeMarco while driving for Uber. I'd work 12+ hours a day so listening to music became annoying after a while so Audible became my best friend. I read Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted audiobooks about 3 times each along with a ton of other books that really helped me push through the shitty time I'm about to briefly cover in a second. So, first MJ if you're reading this, THANK YOU because your books rank at the top as far as ones that woke me TF up. I related to your story of your limo days, that night in the snowstorm. I had many of those nights out there working for Uber. IT SUCKED. Your book came at the right time because hearing your story as a limo driver really gave me a lot of hope to keep going on numerous days where I felt like I wanted to just disappear off the face of the earth.

I'm gonna be 32 on July 30th. I've been doing internet marketing for about 10 years now... not very successfully but still, I've learned a few things. My first success way back when was with CPA marketing. My first sale was a $2 CPA offer for Free Diapers. That was cool but I went on for a few years trying a bunch of things and failing. I eventually started learning Facebook Ads back in 2014. Then, I found a website called Teespring. It was blowing up at the time and several of the people in my I.M. circle were doing well. I had been studying FB ads for a while so I tried it. And this was my real first success w/ Internet Marketing. The next 4 years, I lived a very average I.M. lifestyle by selling t-shirts w/ Teespring and selling little $47 info-products based around teaching FB ads or selling t-shirts. For the time being, this was great. Looking back, I now realize how little money I was making. I was working 100% as an internet marketer but I was only making enough to pay my bills and have all the basic necessities I wanted/needed. Every once in a while, I'd hit a big Teespring campaign or have a nice product launch and be able to save up more money than I'd ever seen before growing up. At one point, I had $18k saved. Problem was, I wasn't building a business at all and there were way too many times where I'd go forever without a winning t-shirt OR a good product launch. I had no idea what to do with $18k so it just became my source of income when things were slow. Well, that $18k eventually dwindled down to $0.

I was burnt out selling t-shirts and products about t-shirts. It was way too much up and down and after 4 years I ended up with basically nothing to show for it. About 3 months after I had moved into a new house, EVERYTHING started going wrong. Nothing was working. Nothing was selling. For a while, I was only down to selling FB ads courses and helping a couple small businesses run their FB ads. This stuff kept my lights on for a while but at this point EVERYTHING collapsed. Problem was, I was now in a house paying $1,500 a month in rent and I didn't have ANY income coming in. This is when Uber came into the picture. I had to do something FAST, so I applied for Uber, hoping to get in, pay up some bills and save up some money to invest in a business idea I had brewing in my head for a while.

Well, two years passed and I was still doing Uber and I was in the WORST position I have ever been in. I was doing Uber and a couple Internet things here and there to keep my head above water but IT WASN'T WORKING. Now, I know you're probably wondering how the hell can someone get $9,000 behind on rent? The answer: I don't know lol. Maybe I had an angel as a landlord but he was extremely cool and worked with me because I communicated with him the entire time. I told him the truth about everything. Don't get me wrong, he got pretty pissed by the time I started approaching $9k. During this time, Coronavirus was just hitting the U.S. He gave me one last chance to catch up and told me I had to pay $1k every week PLUS be on time w/ rent for the next two months or he would be filing for eviction.

I guess this was my back against the wall moment that I needed to kick my a$$ into action. I have 3 daughters. 2018 - 2020 doing Uber was one of the hardest times of my life. I was soooo broke, not living paycheck to paycheck but living daily payout to daily payout. I had my water and lights turned off multiple times. I messed up my credit. All while working long hours with Uber/Lyft and getting nowhere. So like I said MJ's book and other Audible treasures kept me hopeful enough that this wouldn't be forever...and it wasn't :)

So about that business idea I said I had brewing in my head for a while. It was time to go balls to the wall with it and there was no more excuses. I had two months to pay back $9,000 in rent to make sure I had a place for my family to stay. Up until that time I had let fear of failure/success stop me from doing many things, but at this point the fear of losing EVERYTHING outweighed fear of success by a long shot. I didn't care about a pandemic, riots, recession or anything... it was time to stop bullshitting.

So, I'll just put it out there. I know people want to know. I sell tea. Herbal tea. My wife experienced health issues many years ago. After she suffered with this condition for over a year, we eventually put together the right pieces of information and she was able to heal herself with mindset exercises and changes in diet, including the use of specific herbs. So that was that, she recovered completely and we went on struggling financially for the next few years.

One day, I saw an interview with a lady named Greta, CEO and Founder or SkinnyMeTea.com. Great interview btw, she's a beast and gives out tons of knowledge related to eCom/Shopify. After I watched the interview, I ran to get my wife and we watched it again together. At the end of it, we both knew what we were going to do. She was already drinking the same tea that she used to recover years before and at this point, my knowledge in Facebook Ads was quite proficient. I had the product. I had the knowledge to market it. I just needed a budget and some balls. For the two years of me doing Uber, these two important "B's" eluded me and my idea sat dormant.

Fast forward back to my landlord's final, mission impossible payment arrangement. So he gave me a week to get things together. I was about to make a partial payment of $1,000 to bring my balance down to $8k, but since he gave me until the following Monday to start with the arrangement, I decided to risk it all and spend $1,000 on Facebook Ads. Side Note: Before this, we did sell a few bags of tea w/ FB ads but it didn't make any profit. We had sold maybe 10 bags of tea of the course of a year before this last ditch effort. So it's important to note that while that didn't make any profit, it DID get us a couple great reviews, which would come into play later on.

So it was time to get cracking. I knew I needed a better creative if I was going to throw $1,000 at ads in a one week span. I had never scaled that high before, I used to run a lot of punk $5 adsets and rarely ever surpassed a total of $50 in adspend a day. The current photo ad I was using only had gotten me 10 sales for negative ROI so I knew I wasn't going to spend my money on that creative. So, one day, my wife and I went out to the park and shot a video promoting the tea. All she did was basically look badass and work out at a natural trail, I wrote a script telling her story. We recorded it separately and I put them together with some cool music and voila. At that park, we were in the worst position ever but after shooting the last scene and looking over the footage, I felt something. I knew this was going to be it.

I posted the video May 11th, 2020 and started running ads right away. I didn't come to play. The first day, I launched a few ads at $50 per day each, so I would be spending $150. This was a huge risk to me at this time, as I said I had never surpassed $50/day in adspend so this was a big jump for me. It was scary, but I've believed in our product for a long time and this was the time to show and prove.

Here was the results:
View attachment 34117
$340.87!!

I damn near sh*t myself. I had made almost $200 profit. It would literally have taken me 14 - 16 hours driving all over my city to make that much profit w/ Uber. That first day, I knew it was time for my life to change. I was done having a limited mindset, fearing failure, procrastinating, I was going to drop everything else and focus 100% of my time on this business. I quit Uber that day.

Well, long story short. It's currently 9:17 EST on July 19th, 2020. It's been the best couple of months of my freaking life. Today, I'm sitting at $1,347 in sales. I had my biggest day a couple days ago hitting $1,800 in sales in single day.

For the past 3+ years, I have obsessed over the number $25k per month. I wrote it probably a million times. It WAS my password for everything. Well, now it's time to set my eyes on a much higher goal because I'm here. Here's our numbers in the past 30 days:
View attachment 34118
$34,437.57!!!!!!!!

We're on course to do $50k in the next month and I want to hit $100k/mo in the next two months. Of course, I say this not to brag at all. I know people doing $50k a day! I dream of reaching that level, too! One thing I learned for sure is that only YOU set your own limits in your mind.

Here's some tips from the top of my head and I'm also open to questions.
1. Find something that solves a real problem. My wife's health issues + learning about Greta's story opened my eyes to the fact that we had a solution to a HUGE problem sitting under our noses the entire time. Look closely at the problems you or your loved ones are going through or have gone through. If there's a big enough problem, your ticket to freedom is in finding that solution(and marketing it correctly).
2. When you find something that solves a real problem, if you believe in it, FOCUS ON IT. Give it your 100%. I had a bunch of little stupid Internet Marketing things I was trying to do and I had to drop it all to focus on building a real brand. I highly recommend niche stores where you build a brand around a product that either solves a huge problem or has a great story behind it or preferably BOTH.
3. Creatives and copy are the kings. The change from photo ads to a video ad was the best thing I could have ever done. People nowadays love to SEE and HEAR about the product. We focused on writing a captivating script that people could relate to and shot a simple but clean video. It changed everything by gaining trust far beyond what any static image could do.
4. It takes money to make money. Sure, old tired saying but damn is it true in my circumstance. I was always scared to spend a lot on testing. I held myself back a lot, for many years. On May 11th, I made a leap and spent $150. The next day I spent $250. I dropped my fear because that was my only option. Don't let yourself get $9k behind on rent before having that wake tf up moment. (Though, I don't know if your landlord is as cool as mine so I wouldn't try this at home)
5. Use very targeted audiences when testing on Facebook. 100k to 1.5M audience size is good. Being really tight in targeting will train the pixel a lot faster.
6. Lookalike audiences are everything. I used to hear this all the time but never got into Lookalikes. Dumb mistake. The Facebook machine is incredibly, freakishly good at finding customers who are more likely to purchase(Always optimize for purchase). The more data you give it, the better it performs. Right now, I'm using only Lookalike audience and ads with absolutely no targeting or lookalikes.
7. NEVER. GIVE. UP.

I'm gonna grab some dinner now...

Any questions?
What/who did you use as your manufacturer for the tea product? I may have missed that in the read. Did you rebrand your tea as something else? I'm curious on the product end on how you achieved this!
Congrats! I hope to one day be like you!

My 100% thanks to you for sharing and inspiring me. I'm quitting my job this week so I'm scared. And trying to get ready for the next part of the journey.
 
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todonelist

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What/who did you use as your manufacturer for the tea product? I may have missed that in the read. Did you rebrand your tea as something else? I'm curious on the product end on how you achieved this!
Congrats! I hope to one day be like you!

My 100% thanks to you for sharing and inspiring me. I'm quitting my job this week so I'm scared. And trying to get ready for the next part of the journey.
There are many wholesale herb suppliers online. We created our blend using herbs we purchased from these suppliers. Check out Greta and SkinnyMeTea's business model, she has blends that were formulated for weightloss and other accomplishments. She didn't even have a powerful backstory to help sell the blends she just used beast marketing.

Good luck to you on your journey, quitting your job can definitely be scary but gives you so much time to make your dreams come true IF you stay away from procrastination.
 

levelupinnovator

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There are many wholesale herb suppliers online. We created our blend using herbs we purchased from these suppliers. Check out Greta and SkinnyMeTea's business model, she has blends that were formulated for weightloss and other accomplishments. She didn't even have a powerful backstory to help sell the blends she just used beast marketing.

Good luck to you on your journey, quitting your job can definitely be scary but gives you so much time to make your dreams come true IF you stay away from procrastination.
Thanks for the thoughts and answer to my questions. That makes sense, you innovated but only as much as you needed to make your own brand!
That is fantastic and seriously you are a rockstar!

I have the resignation letter signed and I am giving it in person this week. I am terrified but I have been creating an escape route through my mechanical design skills and getting royalty income percentages from peoples ideas.
Thanks again!
 

Private Witt

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Congrats man on your success!

I bootstrapped as an Uber driver for 5 years and Ill say it was a complete nightmare. 14,000 rides and at the end thought I was totally gonna lose it. I was in the Seattle market which could be gamed for 30 - 50 an hour so it was worth it as was able to create a schedule that would allow me to take off to do business when I needed. I stopped full time back in last September and its still taking me time to adjust my body and sleep patterns. My car is so happy I dont do that anymore.

Even though my business revenue took a massive dive to 0 with Covid (hold events) I got lucky as I was able to use my 1099 from year before from Uber to get on UI and in a high payout state, so caught one break from that Ubering hell.
 
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AFMKelvin

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Congrats on you success. This is something I tried to do a few years back. Me and brother even built a greenhouse to grow herbs. But than I started researching on how to sell home remedies and came to a roadblock with the FDA regulations.

Are you mentioning cancer at all in your ads and product? I know you can't directly tell people it'll cure anything. So how are you getting around that. Is there a disclaimer on the package or the ads?
 

df1992

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This is such an amazing story. Thanks for sharing and I hope you continue smashing it and have amazing success, sounds like you thoroughly earned it!

I have a few questions that I'd be really grateful for your insight on:
  1. Did you have any challenges with making the product in your home along with packing it? Do you think you'll transition to someone producing this for you at scale?
  2. What are your top tips for building a brand?
  3. What are your learnings on marketing a product with health benefits? Any thing to stay clear off, anything you wish you knew earlier?
  4. Are you going to stick with one blend? Or do you hope to expand your range?
  5. Facebook ads can be hella expensive, obviously not knowing you product cost, how do you ensure that you still have healthy margins after your cost of acquisition?
Thanks!!
 

Jadus

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Thanks for the story and congratulations on your success. According to your figures, you're getting about $33 for one order. I had no idea people would pay that much for tea!
 
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Simon Angel

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Did you pay your landlord the $9k? Just curious what he said when you gave him a huge chunk of money all of a sudden!

"HEY! You've finally come through! Thanks for not violating my trust but uhh.. be honest with me.. how did you get this money?"

- "I'm selling tea."

"Right, yeah.. "tea". I don't mind this for the time being, but if you were to get caught I don't know anything and we haven't held this conversation, got it?"

- "I know how it looks like right now, but I AM selling tea."

"Come on man, if tea were this profitable I'd have opened a store by now. Do you honestly think I'm THAT stupid?"

- "Ask my wife if you don't believe me."

"Oh god, your wife's in it too?"

- "Yup, we're mixing the tea at home togther."

"Mixing the tea huh? And AT HOME? You think you're in Breaking Bad or something? F*cking pandemic made you this desperate?"

- "Look, we've opened an online store selling tea and it's just going really well. Come inside and I'll show you!"

"And leave my fingerprints all over!? No thanks, I have to go.. just.. be careful ok?

- "Got it."

Landlord walks away shaking head in disbelief

"He said selling tea..my god!"
 
Last edited:

MJ DeMarco

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Finally got around to reading your story. So awesome to hear it. Once again, your failures and the knowledge-set created within them led to this unfolding story.

Look forward to reading more. MARKED GOLD.
 
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Andy Black

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Thanks for sharing. It will inspire many.

The bit I love most? How all those “failures” gave you the skillset and experience to come out swinging for this venture.

Congratulations on your overnight success!
 

todonelist

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Congrats man on your success!

I bootstrapped as an Uber driver for 5 years and Ill say it was a complete nightmare. 14,000 rides and at the end thought I was totally gonna lose it. I was in the Seattle market which could be gamed for 30 - 50 an hour so it was worth it as was able to create a schedule that would allow me to take off to do business when I needed. I stopped full time back in last September and its still taking me time to adjust my body and sleep patterns. My car is so happy I dont do that anymore.

Even though my business revenue took a massive dive to 0 with Covid (hold events) I got lucky as I was able to use my 1099 from year before from Uber to get on UI and in a high payout state, so caught one break from that Ubering hell.
You deserve every damn penny of that UI man. Make it work!! I'm soooo happy to be finished with Uber. It had it's positives but hell of a lot of negatives. It DID help me grow in the area of patience, though.

Congrats on you success. This is something I tried to do a few years back. Me and brother even built a greenhouse to grow herbs. But than I started researching on how to sell home remedies and came to a roadblock with the FDA regulations.

Are you mentioning cancer at all in your ads and product? I know you can't directly tell people it'll cure anything. So how are you getting around that. Is there a disclaimer on the package or the ads?

I do not mention cancer, no. That's not my niche. I see a cancer ad running all the time with this same framework, though. His copy was 100% him telling his story on he recovered and then recommending his nutritional course. Not once did he claim he had a cure. Of course we have a disclaimer on the site that the product is not intended to cure any disease.
This is such an amazing story. Thanks for sharing and I hope you continue smashing it and have amazing success, sounds like you thoroughly earned it!

I have a few questions that I'd be really grateful for your insight on:
  1. Did you have any challenges with making the product in your home along with packing it? Do you think you'll transition to someone producing this for you at scale?
  2. What are your top tips for building a brand?
  3. What are your learnings on marketing a product with health benefits? Any thing to stay clear off, anything you wish you knew earlier?
  4. Are you going to stick with one blend? Or do you hope to expand your range?
  5. Facebook ads can be hella expensive, obviously not knowing you product cost, how do you ensure that you still have healthy margins after your cost of acquisition?
Thanks!!
Thanks! My pleasure to write this post!!!

1. My biggest challenge has been keeping everything in stock. But I'm seeing this solved by just spending more upfront on supply. I'm looking to hire locally soon to help us pack and ship the tea.
2. Top tips for building a brand... Have a cool, minimal logo. Have a cool backstory that connects to the product. Make having the best customer service priority #1. Produce solid content. That's all I got.
3. Stay clear of wording the ad copy in a way that speaks TO an audience. Story-based copy works best or copy based on a testimonial. Don't do weightloss on Facebook. Don't claim to cure.
4. We already have about 5 other blends that do well without further promotion from people just adding it to their carts.
5. True. Luckily, herbs are quite inexpensive wholesale so making a profit is pretty easy. I had a much harder time making profit selling t-shirts as the costs were waaaay higher.

Thanks for the story and congratulations on your success. According to your figures, you're getting about $33 for one order. I had no idea people would pay that much for tea!
Nice math. That's currently our AOV! Yep, lots of people buy all of our blends and spend $100+ at once.
 

todonelist

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Did you pay your landlord the $9k? Just curious what he said when you gave him a huge chunk of money all of a sudden!

Yep! I kept my promise of $1k every week and.....
34161

Seeing that $0 balance was a crazzzzyyyyyyyyy feeling. Couldn't believe it. He sent me a nice text thanking me for keeping the agreement and a couple days later a gift basket showed up at my door with some chocolates and stuff, so that was cool.


"HEY! You've finally come through! Thanks for not violating my trust but uhh.. be honest with me.. how did you get this money?"

- "I'm selling tea."

"Right, yeah.. "tea". I don't mind this for the time being, but if you were to get caught I don't know anything and we haven't held this conversation, got it?"

- "I know how it looks like right now, but I AM selling tea."

"Come on man, if tea were this profitable I'd have opened a store by now. Do you honestly think I'm THAT stupid?"

- "Ask my wife if you don't believe me."

"Oh god, your wife's in it too?"

- "Yup, we're mixing the tea at home togther."

"Mixing the tea huh? And AT HOME? You think you're in Breaking Bad or something? F*cking pandemic made you this desperate?"

- "Look, we've opened an online store selling tea and it's just going really well. Come inside and I'll show you!"

"And leave my fingerprints all over!? No thanks, I have to go.. just.. be careful ok?

- "Got it."

Landlord walks away shaking head in disbelief

"He said selling tea..my god!"

Lmao!! Funny. He didn't even ask. All he knows is that I'm an internet marketer. He expressed the pandemic was hitting him hard with his other tenants so I'm sure paying my debt back helped him enough to not care how I got it lol.
 
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todonelist

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Finally got around to reading your story. So awesome to hear it. Once again, your failures and the knowledge-set created within them led to this unfolding story.

Look forward to reading more. MARKED GOLD.
The man!! Thanks for reading and marking this Gold wow! That's awesome man. You're absolutely right, it was a very long road but how everything came together for this business was incredible. Thanks again, forever, for helping me stick in there!!!

Thanks for sharing. It will inspire many.

The bit I love most? How all those “failures” gave you the skillset and experience to come out swinging for this venture.

Congratulations on your overnight success!

When I first signed up for this forum, I dreamed of making a post like this. All my pleasure :)

You're right man. In hindsight, the way it came together looks magical. Back then, it all felt like a dead-end. Thank you!!
 

Zahida A. Khan

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SoOoo very happy for you - the hero's journey!!

I wish you continued success and will look forward to your update when you crack $100K/month :smile2: You can do it!!
 

todonelist

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SoOoo very happy for you - the hero's journey!!

I wish you continued success and will look forward to your update when you crack $100K/month :smile2: You can do it!!
Thanks a lot!!! This was the longest overnight success ever, if I can do it, anyone can make it happen :)
 
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ChachasBone

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I'm happy to be able to make this post and hopefully share some inspiration and motivation to you guys.

First off, I found MJ DeMarco while driving for Uber. I'd work 12+ hours a day so listening to music became annoying after a while so Audible became my best friend. I read Millionaire Fastlane and Unscripted audiobooks about 3 times each along with a ton of other books that really helped me push through the shitty time I'm about to briefly cover in a second. So, first MJ if you're reading this, THANK YOU because your books rank at the top as far as ones that woke me TF up. I related to your story of your limo days, that night in the snowstorm. I had many of those nights out there working for Uber. IT SUCKED. Your book came at the right time because hearing your story as a limo driver really gave me a lot of hope to keep going on numerous days where I felt like I wanted to just disappear off the face of the earth.

I'm gonna be 32 on July 30th. I've been doing internet marketing for about 10 years now... not very successfully but still, I've learned a few things. My first success way back when was with CPA marketing. My first sale was a $2 CPA offer for Free Diapers. That was cool but I went on for a few years trying a bunch of things and failing. I eventually started learning Facebook Ads back in 2014. Then, I found a website called Teespring. It was blowing up at the time and several of the people in my I.M. circle were doing well. I had been studying FB ads for a while so I tried it. And this was my real first success w/ Internet Marketing. The next 4 years, I lived a very average I.M. lifestyle by selling t-shirts w/ Teespring and selling little $47 info-products based around teaching FB ads or selling t-shirts. For the time being, this was great. Looking back, I now realize how little money I was making. I was working 100% as an internet marketer but I was only making enough to pay my bills and have all the basic necessities I wanted/needed. Every once in a while, I'd hit a big Teespring campaign or have a nice product launch and be able to save up more money than I'd ever seen before growing up. At one point, I had $18k saved. Problem was, I wasn't building a business at all and there were way too many times where I'd go forever without a winning t-shirt OR a good product launch. I had no idea what to do with $18k so it just became my source of income when things were slow. Well, that $18k eventually dwindled down to $0.

I was burnt out selling t-shirts and products about t-shirts. It was way too much up and down and after 4 years I ended up with basically nothing to show for it. About 3 months after I had moved into a new house, EVERYTHING started going wrong. Nothing was working. Nothing was selling. For a while, I was only down to selling FB ads courses and helping a couple small businesses run their FB ads. This stuff kept my lights on for a while but at this point EVERYTHING collapsed. Problem was, I was now in a house paying $1,500 a month in rent and I didn't have ANY income coming in. This is when Uber came into the picture. I had to do something FAST, so I applied for Uber, hoping to get in, pay up some bills and save up some money to invest in a business idea I had brewing in my head for a while.

Well, two years passed and I was still doing Uber and I was in the WORST position I have ever been in. I was doing Uber and a couple Internet things here and there to keep my head above water but IT WASN'T WORKING. Now, I know you're probably wondering how the hell can someone get $9,000 behind on rent? The answer: I don't know lol. Maybe I had an angel as a landlord but he was extremely cool and worked with me because I communicated with him the entire time. I told him the truth about everything. Don't get me wrong, he got pretty pissed by the time I started approaching $9k. During this time, Coronavirus was just hitting the U.S. He gave me one last chance to catch up and told me I had to pay $1k every week PLUS be on time w/ rent for the next two months or he would be filing for eviction.

I guess this was my back against the wall moment that I needed to kick my a$$ into action. I have 3 daughters. 2018 - 2020 doing Uber was one of the hardest times of my life. I was soooo broke, not living paycheck to paycheck but living daily payout to daily payout. I had my water and lights turned off multiple times. I messed up my credit. All while working long hours with Uber/Lyft and getting nowhere. So like I said MJ's book and other Audible treasures kept me hopeful enough that this wouldn't be forever...and it wasn't :)

So about that business idea I said I had brewing in my head for a while. It was time to go balls to the wall with it and there was no more excuses. I had two months to pay back $9,000 in rent to make sure I had a place for my family to stay. Up until that time I had let fear of failure/success stop me from doing many things, but at this point the fear of losing EVERYTHING outweighed fear of success by a long shot. I didn't care about a pandemic, riots, recession or anything... it was time to stop bullshitting.

So, I'll just put it out there. I know people want to know. I sell tea. Herbal tea. My wife experienced health issues many years ago. After she suffered with this condition for over a year, we eventually put together the right pieces of information and she was able to heal herself with mindset exercises and changes in diet, including the use of specific herbs. So that was that, she recovered completely and we went on struggling financially for the next few years.

One day, I saw an interview with a lady named Greta, CEO and Founder or SkinnyMeTea.com. Great interview btw, she's a beast and gives out tons of knowledge related to eCom/Shopify. After I watched the interview, I ran to get my wife and we watched it again together. At the end of it, we both knew what we were going to do. She was already drinking the same tea that she used to recover years before and at this point, my knowledge in Facebook Ads was quite proficient. I had the product. I had the knowledge to market it. I just needed a budget and some balls. For the two years of me doing Uber, these two important "B's" eluded me and my idea sat dormant.

Fast forward back to my landlord's final, mission impossible payment arrangement. So he gave me a week to get things together. I was about to make a partial payment of $1,000 to bring my balance down to $8k, but since he gave me until the following Monday to start with the arrangement, I decided to risk it all and spend $1,000 on Facebook Ads. Side Note: Before this, we did sell a few bags of tea w/ FB ads but it didn't make any profit. We had sold maybe 10 bags of tea of the course of a year before this last ditch effort. So it's important to note that while that didn't make any profit, it DID get us a couple great reviews, which would come into play later on.

So it was time to get cracking. I knew I needed a better creative if I was going to throw $1,000 at ads in a one week span. I had never scaled that high before, I used to run a lot of punk $5 adsets and rarely ever surpassed a total of $50 in adspend a day. The current photo ad I was using only had gotten me 10 sales for negative ROI so I knew I wasn't going to spend my money on that creative. So, one day, my wife and I went out to the park and shot a video promoting the tea. All she did was basically look badass and work out at a natural trail, I wrote a script telling her story. We recorded it separately and I put them together with some cool music and voila. At that park, we were in the worst position ever but after shooting the last scene and looking over the footage, I felt something. I knew this was going to be it.

I posted the video May 11th, 2020 and started running ads right away. I didn't come to play. The first day, I launched a few ads at $50 per day each, so I would be spending $150. This was a huge risk to me at this time, as I said I had never surpassed $50/day in adspend so this was a big jump for me. It was scary, but I've believed in our product for a long time and this was the time to show and prove.

Here was the results:
View attachment 34117
$340.87!!

I damn near sh*t myself. I had made almost $200 profit. It would literally have taken me 14 - 16 hours driving all over my city to make that much profit w/ Uber. That first day, I knew it was time for my life to change. I was done having a limited mindset, fearing failure, procrastinating, I was going to drop everything else and focus 100% of my time on this business. I quit Uber that day.

Well, long story short. It's currently 9:17 EST on July 19th, 2020. It's been the best couple of months of my freaking life. Today, I'm sitting at $1,347 in sales. I had my biggest day a couple days ago hitting $1,800 in sales in single day.

For the past 3+ years, I have obsessed over the number $25k per month. I wrote it probably a million times. It WAS my password for everything. Well, now it's time to set my eyes on a much higher goal because I'm here. Here's our numbers in the past 30 days:
View attachment 34118
$34,437.57!!!!!!!!

We're on course to do $50k in the next month and I want to hit $100k/mo in the next two months. Of course, I say this not to brag at all. I know people doing $50k a day! I dream of reaching that level, too! One thing I learned for sure is that only YOU set your own limits in your mind.

Here's some tips from the top of my head and I'm also open to questions.

1. Find something that solves a real problem. My wife's health issues + learning about Greta's story opened my eyes to the fact that we had a solution to a HUGE problem sitting under our noses the entire time. Look closely at the problems you or your loved ones are going through or have gone through. If there's a big enough problem, your ticket to freedom is in finding that solution(and marketing it correctly).

2. When you find something that solves a real problem, if you believe in it, FOCUS ON IT. Give it your 100%. I had a bunch of little stupid Internet Marketing things I was trying to do and I had to drop it all to focus on building a real brand. I highly recommend niche stores where you build a brand around a product that either solves a huge problem or has a great story behind it or preferably BOTH.

3. Creatives and copy are the kings. The change from photo ads to a video ad was the best thing I could have ever done. People nowadays love to SEE and HEAR about the product. We focused on writing a captivating script that people could relate to and shot a simple but clean video. It changed everything by gaining trust far beyond what any static image could do.

4. It takes money to make money. Sure, old tired saying but damn is it true in my circumstance. I was always scared to spend a lot on testing. I held myself back a lot, for many years. On May 11th, I made a leap and spent $150. The next day I spent $250. I dropped my fear because that was my only option. Don't let yourself get $9k behind on rent before having that wake tf up moment. (Though, I don't know if your landlord is as cool as mine so I wouldn't try this at home)

5. Use very targeted audiences when testing on Facebook. 100k to 1.5M audience size is good. Being really tight in targeting will train the pixel a lot faster.

6. Lookalike audiences are everything. I used to hear this all the time but never got into Lookalikes. Dumb mistake. The Facebook machine is incredibly, freakishly good at finding customers who are more likely to purchase(Always optimize for purchase). The more data you give it, the better it performs. Right now, I'm using only Lookalike audience and ads with absolutely no targeting or lookalikes.

7. NEVER. GIVE. UP.

I'm gonna grab some dinner now...

Any questions?
Thank you for sharing your story in such detail. I live in Argentina and at some point I tried to do it with coffee but my biggest impediment was that in order to blend the product in my house, one has to process an establishment registration and another registration for the product. This if I wanted to make it 100% legal. Meanwhile I can sell it at fairs or neighborhood markets. In the US you do not have that problem, or if but it is more "allowed"?
 

prestige99

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The man!! Thanks for reading and marking this Gold wow! That's awesome man. You're absolutely right, it was a very long road but how everything came together for this business was incredible. Thanks again, forever, for helping me stick in there!!!



When I first signed up for this forum, I dreamed of making a post like this. All my pleasure :)

You're right man. In hindsight, the way it came together looks magical. Back then, it all felt like a dead-end. Thank you!!

This is the most amusing conversation I saw in a while ;) Nice!, can you teach me to open Online store and how to invest right money!? I can give you 5% of all income for life.
 

Wisith

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Thanks so much for sharing. Very inspiring story! Like others have mentioned, I learned to believe that everything in your life happens for a reason. The 'useless' skills thought at certain times become handy later in life.

Regarding Uber, I've had some of the best conversations with Uber/Lyft drivers since most I've experienced with are doing something themselves, and driving was a mean to get some money in.

I drink tea daily; one in the morning before I break my fast, and one at night before bed while I read. If yours are caffeine free and all natural, feel free to send me a link so I can support. I've been buying tea from Amazon since COVID19 started because I can't just stroll into Trader Joe's anymore. But if you want to keep your brand anonymous then I'd understand as well. Always happy to support friends how I can.
 
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Ocean Man

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I have obsessed over the number $25k per month. I wrote it probably a million times. It WAS my password for everything. Well, now it's time to set my eyes on a much higher goal because I'm here.
What a beautiful story. I'm happy for your success and hope to see you have continual success!
 

Flint

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Great work @todonelist, kudos.

Thank you for sharing. It's one thing to know there's a switch to flip and quite another to see someone else flipping it. Well done.
 

humananalytics

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Thanks for sharing!

Quick question - have you thought about private label or contract manufacturing for your tea? Or you haven't reached the scale yet where that makes sense.
 
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todonelist

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Thank you for sharing your story in such detail. I live in Argentina and at some point I tried to do it with coffee but my biggest impediment was that in order to blend the product in my house, one has to process an establishment registration and another registration for the product. This if I wanted to make it 100% legal. Meanwhile I can sell it at fairs or neighborhood markets. In the US you do not have that problem, or if but it is more "allowed"?
Is it difficult to establish these registrations? Why didn't you move forward with it?

This is the most amusing conversation I saw in a while ;) Nice!, can you teach me to open Online store and how to invest right money!? I can give you 5% of all income for life.
Youtube can teach you. No 5% required. Study Gabriel St-Germain for solid Shopify content.

Thanks so much for sharing. Very inspiring story! Like others have mentioned, I learned to believe that everything in your life happens for a reason. The 'useless' skills thought at certain times become handy later in life.

Regarding Uber, I've had some of the best conversations with Uber/Lyft drivers since most I've experienced with are doing something themselves, and driving was a mean to get some money in.

I drink tea daily; one in the morning before I break my fast, and one at night before bed while I read. If yours are caffeine free and all natural, feel free to send me a link so I can support. I've been buying tea from Amazon since COVID19 started because I can't just stroll into Trader Joe's anymore. But if you want to keep your brand anonymous then I'd understand as well. Always happy to support friends how I can.
Glad to inspire! :) You're totally right about the 'useless' skill thing. Sure! I'll send you a message.
 

todonelist

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What a beautiful story. I'm happy for your success and hope to see you have continual success!
Thanks a lot man! Appreciate it.

Great work @todonelist, kudos.

Thank you for sharing. It's one thing to know there's a switch to flip and quite another to see someone else flipping it. Well done.
My pleasure to share!!

Thanks for sharing!

Quick question - have you thought about private label or contract manufacturing for your tea? Or you haven't reached the scale yet where that makes sense.
Haven't reached that scale yet. I'm thinking I'll be looking into it as a approach 100k/mo in sales.
 

Altitude

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Thank you so much for sharing your inspiring story with us @todonelist.

@MJ DeMarco is definitely the man, how he deconstructs the fast lane mindset with great eloquence in his book. Once the mind understand that you do not need work in a job for long hours and very little pay just to survive and there is a better way to live a good life by building a business and creating a system that can work 24/7 for us is a game changing mindset shift.

My biggest takeaway from your writings is that sometimes having your back to the wall can be the greatest motivator to rise up and find a way forward no matter how much fear we may have of failing.

Wishing you much blessings on your journey ahead.
 
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Thanks a lot man! Appreciate it.


My pleasure to share!!


Haven't reached that scale yet. I'm thinking I'll be looking into it as a approach 100k/mo in sales.

Exciting! I remember when I was at $30K a month.
 

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