Hey, amazing Fastlaners!
I'm a 35 y.o. from Bulgaria and have been trying to escape the rat race since 2013 or so. Been lurking here for a while.
I've read a ton of business books, but MJ's are the best by a landslide.
Here's a timeline:
I recently dumped all of my savings + SaaS income from the past ~4 years into bitcoin (I would've bought farmland as usual but realized bitcoin's trajectory is only up). Well, talk about buying at $100K+...
I'm now considering selling off all of my land and buying BTC, but I'm holding off on that as the income truly is hassle-free, zero-risk, and passive.
I make a shitton of money compared to most people in my country, and yet I AM BROKE!! Inflation has skyrocketed; I can't even fathom the prices at the grocery store...
At this point, I'm just coasting at my job and doing the bare minimum I can get away with (so far, successfully, but they'll catch on eventually, and my tech skills have been deteriorating as I've been focusing more and more on business).
Trying to come up with something CENTS, fast.... Been failing and grasping at straws, as you can see. Basically impossible to make cash were it not for my job.
Anyway, I can't seem to find painful problems to solve. I think that's my biggest sticking point. And I don't seem to be taking enough action, I guess.
Thank you for reading my rant!
I'm a 35 y.o. from Bulgaria and have been trying to escape the rat race since 2013 or so. Been lurking here for a while.
I've read a ton of business books, but MJ's are the best by a landslide.
Here's a timeline:
- [SUCCESS?] In 2013, after graduating, got a job at a call center and started buying farmland with the salary
- [FAIL] In 2014, launched an HR service to connect rare-language speakers to call centers (even built a website in WordPress, don't know how I managed that). No clients, though I succeeded in getting language speakers to sign up
- [FAIL] In 2015, switched to playing poker 'professionally' full-time after having played for 5 years. Barely broke even
- [SUCCESS] In 2015, became a very solid all-around full-stack dev in 5 months (locked myself in a room). Landed a junior position
- [SUCCESS??] 2015-2020 -> Worked really hard at climbing the corporate ladder and leapfrogged from junior -> tech lead
- [FAIL] In 2016, tried to launch a weight-loss coaching service for men (I'm almost elite at calisthenics). No marketing, sales or clients to speak of. Just some mockup website
- [FAIL] 2016-2021 various blogs and newsletters that got nowhere
- [SUCCESS] In 2022, launched the largest farmland SaaS in Bulgaria. But the effort I've put in doesn't justify the returns. TAM is too small. Can't even quit my job
- [FAIL] In 2022, made connections with local lamp manufacturers and dropshipped their lamps in the EU (made sales but lost too much money on ads)
- [FAIL] In 2023, launched a YouTube 'rant' channel where I brain dump on men/women/business. Didn't get anywhere
- [FAIL] In 2024, tried to go down the freelancing route with dev/AI automation services on UpWork, Fiverr
- [FAIL] January '25, launched a lead generation agency. Sent a ton of cold emails, did a bunch of sales calls, couldn't land a single client
- [FAIL?] March '25, launched an AI-automated YouTube channel. Got monetized but realized I'm rowing in the wrong boat, getting oversaturated etc... It's made ~$80 so far.
- [FAIL] July '25, launched an Etsy store
- [FAIL] August '25, launched a review management service in a day and sent a bunch of cold emails. Zilch and nada. It's here: JumpInterval | Done-for-you Review Responses
I recently dumped all of my savings + SaaS income from the past ~4 years into bitcoin (I would've bought farmland as usual but realized bitcoin's trajectory is only up). Well, talk about buying at $100K+...
I'm now considering selling off all of my land and buying BTC, but I'm holding off on that as the income truly is hassle-free, zero-risk, and passive.
I make a shitton of money compared to most people in my country, and yet I AM BROKE!! Inflation has skyrocketed; I can't even fathom the prices at the grocery store...
At this point, I'm just coasting at my job and doing the bare minimum I can get away with (so far, successfully, but they'll catch on eventually, and my tech skills have been deteriorating as I've been focusing more and more on business).
Trying to come up with something CENTS, fast.... Been failing and grasping at straws, as you can see. Basically impossible to make cash were it not for my job.
Anyway, I can't seem to find painful problems to solve. I think that's my biggest sticking point. And I don't seem to be taking enough action, I guess.
Thank you for reading my rant!
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