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Failed several times to move into the fastlane, looking for the success

twincivet

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Hi there,

Husband and father of 3 with a good but slowlane career in the software industry. I love my job, but I trade my time for it. My dream is to make passive or quasi-passive income in the fast lane, make enough money, and shelter the money to retire early on its interest. I've started or tried to start many things in the past 5 years, including affiliate/network marketing, physical products, online course teaching, selling on eBay/Amazon, and earning money by contributing to Quora, but nothing has really worked out for me yet. I'm determined to keep trying - as @MJ DeMarco says in TMF , I only need one hit. I know I need to have a better vision and focus, among other things.

It's really great to see like-minded people here. Y'all seem very genuine. Much more authentic than the many Youtube entrepreneurs I've listened to.

Looking forward to learning more and connecting with y'all.
 
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MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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Welcome, software is a great stepping stone to Fastlane .. is it engineering or development?
 

Johnny boy

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Tell us more about your job and what your role is, what your skills are, and what industry you work with (not just “software”, but what kind of software, what types of businesses does your company work with, etc) so we might be able to give some more useful and pointed advice.
 

twincivet

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Welcome, software is a great stepping stone to Fastlane .. is it engineering or development?
You know, I've read many best-selling authors over the years, but this is the first time I've been able to correspond with one directly. And that too so quickly. I'm flattered you took the time to respond!

I've been a researcher and developer (individual contributor roles) all my career, but recently got promoted to what we call a "development manager" at my company. I manage a small team of engineers and developers. I still spend a good bit of my time coding, so not all my time is spent on leadership and people management.

I'm almost done with TMF . Congrats on writing such a great book - it's opening my eyes to the disadvantages of a slow lane that I hadn't really thought about. It's also helping me better articulate things have thought about.
 
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twincivet

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Tell us more about your job and what your role is, what your skills are, and what industry you work with (not just “software”, but what kind of software, what types of businesses does your company work with, etc) so we might be able to give some more useful and pointed advice.
Thanks for responding!

Adding to my response above, I have a bachelors and PhD in Computer Science. I now work for a large data analytics software company. My specialty is image processing and computer vision. I use a lot of AI in my work, so it's all cutting-edge stuff.

Our customers are other businesses that need data analytics. My team's customers specifically are those that have any type of image data (photos, medical images, etc.). Our software helps them convert (large amounts of) image data into metrics that they can use for decision making, e.g., automatically counting cars from a street camera feed.
 

Johnny boy

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Thanks for responding!

Adding to my response above, I have a bachelors and PhD in Computer Science. I now work for a large data analytics software company. My specialty is image processing and computer vision. I use a lot of AI in my work, so it's all cutting-edge stuff.

Our customers are other businesses that need data analytics. My team's customers specifically are those that have any type of image data (photos, medical images, etc.). Our software helps them convert (large amounts of) image data into metrics that they can use for decision making, e.g., automatically counting cars from a street camera feed.
Your competitive advantage is quite obvious then. You are lightyears ahead of a typical person if you were to start a business in your industry given your training, and having years of experience in your industry.

You are intimate with the industry you are in, so you should keep your eyes peeled for market inefficiencies, opportunities, etc. Look for things that can be done better. Look for things that no one else is offering. That is the most likely chance for you to have a scalable, 7+ figure business that runs itself that you could grow in just a few short years.

The relationships you have made, the people you know, the pain points you notice...all of these things are invaluable.

I don't know 5% of your industry as well as you do so I would be awful at spotting a good opportunity to jump into.

To me it is an opportunity similar to a relative of my best friend. He was an actuary at a large firm and was quite successful. He used his connections and experience to start his own firm. He landed Tyson foods as a client and now is worth around 30 million and enjoys a nice life in his mid 40's. I think you have a similar opportunity in some ways.
 

peterb0yd

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It's really interesting that you have this background, I'm a software engineer that's been studying data science on the side. I often wonder how to use AI and data analytics as a service to start a high-ticket B2B analytics firm.

Knowing what you know, would you be able to offer a service?

Examples:
  • Analyzing medical data and helping companies build models for prediction/diagnosis
  • Helping marketing teams analyze their data and build models for customer targeting

What would you say? What's the industry you know best and what's the skill or service that you are most qualified to help them with?
 
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twincivet

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Your competitive advantage is quite obvious then. You are lightyears ahead of a typical person if you were to start a business in your industry given your training, and having years of experience in your industry.

You are intimate with the industry you are in, so you should keep your eyes peeled for market inefficiencies, opportunities, etc. Look for things that can be done better. Look for things that no one else is offering. That is the most likely chance for you to have a scalable, 7+ figure business that runs itself that you could grow in just a few short years.

The relationships you have made, the people you know, the pain points you notice...all of these things are invaluable.

I don't know 5% of your industry as well as you do so I would be awful at spotting a good opportunity to jump into.

To me it is an opportunity similar to a relative of my best friend. He was an actuary at a large firm and was quite successful. He used his connections and experience to start his own firm. He landed Tyson foods as a client and now is worth around 30 million and enjoys a nice life in his mid 40's. I think you have a similar opportunity in some ways.

Thanks for sharing! This is encouraging. The kind of things your friend's relative does (risk assessment, etc.) is likely part of the market my company serves.

Starting a business selling data analytics software will probably mean a conflict of interest with my employer, so I'll likely have to quit my job to do it. Being the sole bread winner of my family, my goal is to keep my full-time job while starting a business. I came across a stat somewhere that about 40% of businesses are started as side hustles by people who kept their full-time jobs, so I believe what I have is a reasonable plan. Of course, I'm definitely open to quitting my job if a business I start takes off.

I do still look for needs where AI, etc. can be practically applied as part of a side hustle I would start. It's possible that I can find a sweet spot where my primary skills can be applied without having a conflict of interest with my company.
 

twincivet

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Oct 9, 2020
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It's really interesting that you have this background, I'm a software engineer that's been studying data science on the side. I often wonder how to use AI and data analytics as a service to start a high-ticket B2B analytics firm.

Knowing what you know, would you be able to offer a service?

Examples:
  • Analyzing medical data and helping companies build models for prediction/diagnosis
  • Helping marketing teams analyze their data and build models for customer targeting

What would you say? What's the industry you know best and what's the skill or service that you are most qualified to help them with?

That's great that you study data science on the side. Educational sites like Udemy have great content on the topic, and so do Youtube, blogs, etc. There's also so much free, open source software you can use.

The ideas you list are definitely possibilities. I can see the medical one as being really challenging because of the regulatory processes involved. But the main obstacle to selling data analytics software (as a service or otherwise) will be the conflict of interest with my full-time employer. See my response above to @Johnny boy.
 

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