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21 Years Old, Long Time Lurker, Quick Life Story & Intro

Jaxson D

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Oct 17, 2020
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What's Up FLF! (excuse my forum skills, as ive never really been apart of one, so i dont know how to use all the tagging stuff)

Anyways, my name is Jaxson, I just turned 21 about 2 months ago and figured id introduce myself after lurking since march.

Now where do i start?

I stumbled across this forum shortly after i launched my first (legitimate) business. I hopped on the digital marketing train and fell in love with it.

There's something crazy about putting an ad up, and in my case, "listening" to money pour in. Its like a drug almost. Once you get that taste its very very hard to quench it.

I started off trying to be a jack-of-all trades, you know, the Facebook ads, social media management, google ads, all that jazz. Safe to say that didn't work as well as i wanted it to.

I found myself obsessing over my ad campaigns, how many likes i was getting for my client, what my CPC was every SINGLE HOUR. It wasnt healthy.

The offer needed a total rework. So thats what i did.

Now i focus on one thing, specifically lead generation for my blue collar guys.

I primarily use google ads as well ( i legit learned everything i know about google ads from Andy Black).

I took all the information i had learned from Andy's posts on here to build out my first campaign (I sold my first client without their knowledge ;)) and not even an hour after i launched...

What do you mean sold them without their knowledge? Well say you're a business owner who gets no business, and out of no where you sign a $3,000 contract... See where im going with this?

That's where i am now, so lets rewind so i can tell you about my journey...

My craze for entrepreneurship started almost 8 years ago when i was a freshman in high school.

i didn't grow up in a "poor" family, we were just pretty average, and i have a lot of siblings (4 brothers and a sister, all from different parents). Most of what i owned was 2nd-3rd generation of hand-me-downs from my older brothers.

This was a huge no-no when i was getting into high school, we've all been there, caring about what jessica is going to think about my over sized, overly stretched, and faded sweater. My craze came from women and status.

So i did what any kid with internet access and a drive for money would do, i looked up how to make money online quick. Cue the Bitcoin age (back when they were like $300/coin) pfffffff i couldn't afford one of those bitcoins, let alone a fraction of one, as i had no money... back to the drawing board i went.

There was a semi popular game i spent hours and hours playing, and there was a HUGE real world trading market for it (selling in game items and accounts for money). I built out my first account to sell within a week (playing about 5 hours a day...) for SIXTY WHOPPING US DOLLARS! I was rich, my life was a breeze, and i bought a new sweater...

Quickly i had realized how broken my system was, 35 hours for $60... But i did it for some time (money is money when you're 13 going on 14), i wasnt allowed to work because my "job" was school.

When i turned 16, i got my first real "job" i was a "sales champion" at taco bell. Just another word for cashier. Worked there for around 4 months before i found a new job that payed me more, a whole $1.25/hour more. A few short months after that i left that job as well...

Being one of the many high school kids who though it was a good idea to party, drink and drive, do drugs, my dad WAS NOT having it at all. I came home from school one day and he said i had an hour to pack my things and he drove me 4 hours to my mothers house.

My mom lived up in the mountains of California (yosemite area) and there's almost nothing to do. Withing a week of going to my new school i met my best friend, lets call him james.

James drove a BADASS truck, big ol dodge 4x4 on 35in mud terrains at 17 years old (with the 12in subs under the back seats for the ladies), and i wanted to know how.

He told me he spent the previous summer cutting down trees, splitting and stacking the wood, and weed-eating properties in preparation for fire season (the county fines you if you dont do it, so someone had to get it done).

Summer of 2017 after i graduated, James taught me everything he knew and i got paid while learning. We ended up raking in almost $15,000 in profit as 17 year olds in less than 3 months, he had all the tools already, our only expenses was gas really, as most people we worked for were older and would make us lunch and leave coolers full of drinks for us (california summers are no joke). I pissed that money away on booze, dates, cigarettes, dip, drugs, and gas before i left for the navy.

I had enlisted in the Navy and James left for the marines, i haven't seen him since but we still talk almost every day.

Currently, im still in the navy (i work in cyber security) but im leaving in less than a month to focus on my business full time. Right now the business brings me $0 as its almost impossible to manage while im at sea (im getting like 1mbps on internet speed LOL and ive been gone for 2 weeks out of the month since February).

Ive got a killer job i work on the weekends and sometimes during the week to give me the extra funds i need to be comfortable while being able to network (detailing yachts for the business guys in San Diego).

As you can probably now tell, i am no copywriter HAHA, but this is my introduction and i hope as i move through my business ventures and life, that i can give back to this community for it has provided so much for me!

P.S. Thank you MJ for the wise words both inside Unscripted and TMFL (haven't read the short story yet), and to the others for your endless amounts of knowledge which is dumped into this forum, i am not "successful" by any means, but i definitely wouldn't be on the right track without y'all!
 
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Jaxson D

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Oct 17, 2020
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Welcome to the forum. Why not do cybersecurity, since you're professionally trained in it?
Good question, reason being is that i dont have any up to date training. All windows server 2008 and 2003 (and the military has their own proprietary network security system). The navy is pretty far behind but it still gets the job done. Our whole network is locked down pretty hard so most of my job is just monitoring/checking security logs once a day, not really proactive work. The only time where i actually get to do anything is if we have an incident and have to do an investigation, super rare that happens though.
 

lowtek

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Good question, reason being is that i dont have any up to date training. All windows server 2008 and 2003 (and the military has their own proprietary network security system). The navy is pretty far behind but it still gets the job done. Our whole network is locked down pretty hard so most of my job is just monitoring/checking security logs once a day, not really proactive work. The only time where i actually get to do anything is if we have an incident and have to do an investigation, super rare that happens though.
Makes sense, but you would at least have a jump start on something that is really high value. Copy writers are quite common, cyber security experts aren't.
 
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Jaxson D

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Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
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Oct 17, 2020
6
7
San Diego, CA
Makes sense, but you would at least have a jump start on something that is really high value. Copy writers are quite common, cyber security experts aren't.
I havent really thought of it from a business standpoint now that i think about it, or even for IT skills in general. Thanks for the input, ill look into it!
 

Jaxson D

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Read Fastlane!
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Oct 17, 2020
6
7
San Diego, CA
Update 1/16/2021

these last few months have been both stressful, yet amazing.

there’s really something about taking imperfect action and just going out and DOING SOMETHING that’s truly amazing.

revenue since the original post: $12,200

$8800 of that was from 1st of January until now.

only paid for my self to survive off of that money (rent, bills, groceries, etc.)

the rest gets reinvested into things that I can really use to grow and allow me to rebrand in a way that I think is more suitable for what I do.

some of my next steps I’m taking to grow,
Building a funnel to generate more leads on slight autopilot, most of my day is spent conversing with people through organic means. I’ve got a killer idea that I haven’t tested yet but I’ve got a great feeling about it, and if it works, I’m turning on the paid ads.

I set the goal of $350k in revenue by the end of this year, definitely think it’s attainable.

ill continue to update here every so often

cheers!

-J
 

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