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A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Departed

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Hello all,

I am 32, and I work for one of those awesome and super cool auditor firms some of you might have heard of. I just got a huge promotion and will receive a big pay raise (Woop Woop life is great!!111). In my current position, I get to travel the world, fly business class, stay in nice hotels, meet important people and have super important meetings. Excel and Powerpoint are my favorite tools, and I love to analyze data and draw beautiful pie charts. Did I mention that I work 60+ hours a week (and more when I am traveling)?

Ok enough of that. To be honest, life is not so great at the moment. Yes, I have a nice income compared to a lot of people. But I spent (+ I am spending) the best years of my life at my job. I have no hobbies, I stopped doing sports, I rarely read. I never get to meet other people in my spare time. All I do is work, come home, have dinner with my fiancée and then turn on the TV.

I want to change this after having finished reading the Fastlane last week.
And don't get me wrong... I don't have a problem with working a lot and my job is generally fun and I think I am blessed to have a good job. Also, I am not blaming my job for not having hobbies, etc. Others can work at their corporate job and still have hobbies and a lot of friends etc. However, apparently for me, it 's hard. Also, I want to have a new challenge!!

So my plan is to SLOWLY become my own boss by starting some "side hustle" in the beginning. From that, I will slowly try to build something up while decreasing my time spent at the job.

So what is the plan you ask?

1. Reduce time spent at work to 40-50 hours = DONE (Don't ask me how ;))
2. Work on side hustle after work and on the weekend = Planning stage
This should give me at least around 20-30 hours to work on my side hustle (2 hours from Mo - Friday + 10-20 hours on the weekend).
3. After 12 months, decrease work hours to 30-40 hours.
4. After 24 months Quit my job and completely live on my "side hustle."

What are the next steps?
I am at a very early stage. Currently, I am trying to figure out which road I should take:

1. Should I just take 5-10k out of my bank account and start e-commerce (no drop shipping)?
If I take that route, of course, I will start by doing my due diligence, read a couple of books and figure out which niche to choose. I

Pros:
- I can see pretty early if the niche I have chosen is right
- I can just buy products and do not have to invest a lot into development (for example app development, writing a blog, etc.)
Cons:
- Still, a lot to read to choose the right niche. Also, I have to learn about marketing, SEO, etc.
- I could lose my invested money (I don't worry about that too much...I rather lose 5k and say that I tried...)
- Difficult to find a market that is not too saturated (for me at least)

What do you guys say?

2. Should I start to write a blog/website?
I have a particular topic in mind that I would like to write about. I would like to write about personal development (but not the get rich quick kind of stuff). I have done a lot of research in the last years on topics such as "How to make a lasting impression on people," "How to be likable," "How to have a good voice when speaking" etc. This has helped me a lot in the corporate world and opened a lot of doors for me. I think this is something a lot of people are looking for. People always want to improve, be charismatic, etc.

Pros:
- I have barely any costs.
- I will develop my current skills and knowledge even further by writing about it
- It could be fun to write on a regular basis
- I can develop something that scales because I do not have a physical product
- I can work comfortably on the side (no shipping, no customer support, at least in the begging)
- After producing a lot of content, I could maybe still sell a physical product to potential followers

Cons:
- English is not my native language (as you probably can tell) and I don't live in the US. So, I could either focus on my local "market" (100+mio people) or try to write in English. Any thoughts on that???
- It could take a lot of time until I know that this could work not only as a hobby


3. Should I develop an app/web app?
I already worked on some apps with tools like bubble.is (let me know if you need help) and I have a couple of ideas in my head but no "lightbulb" idea which I am 100% confident of.

Pros:
- I don't have a lot of costs
- I can develop something that scales easily because I do not have a physical product
- I can work comfortably on the side (no shipping, no customer support, at least in the begging)
- I can outsource the development at some point

Cons:
- Difficult to find an idea which can also be monetized at some point
- A lot of work until I can evaluate if this could fly
- 90% of apps fail....

What do you say? Any advice?

NEXT STEPS:
One thing I promised to myself is to STOP reading, thinking and evaluating WITHOUT TAKING ACTION AT THE SAME TIME.

1. Evaluate my ideas (deadline Sunday, 31.)
2. Decide on a road to take (deadline Sunday, 31)
3. After deciding which route to take, start analyzing which niche, idea, topic, etc. to pursue (deadline, Sunday, 6th)
3. EXECUTION

I will update this thread on Sunday and post a detailed list of my next steps.

Thanks for reading and good luck to all of you.
PS. Sorry for my english....I am not a native speaker
 
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c_morris

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Welcome.

All I do is work, come home, have dinner with my fiancée and then turn on the TV

1. Reduce time spent at work to 40-50 hours = DONE (Don't ask me how ;))
2. Work on side hustle after work and on the weekend = Planning stage
This should give me at least around 20-30 hours to work on my side hustle (2 hours from Mo - Friday + 10-20 hours on the weekend).
3. After 12 months, decrease work hours to 30-40 hours.
4. After 24 months Quit my job and completely live on my "side hustle."

I would change #1 to: Don't turn on the TV. It's the easiest thing to solve of everything you listed.
 
Last edited:

Departed

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Welcome.





I would change #1 to: Don't turn on the TV. It's the easiest thing to solve of everything you listed.

I already canceled our cable tv subscription a week ago. We never watched a lot of TV (round 30min before going to bed). Nevertheless, very good advice. Thank you
 

NewYorkCity

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I started a blog recently and all my time is spent running the thing. I have a few writers write the 1-2k word articles for me. That way I don't have to take care of anything except the wordpress and running it.

If you have cash, which you do working at a Big4 firm, you can try spending 1-2k per month on writers and fill a blog very quickly.
 
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classichouse

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I think if you speak about the Big4 you are living in germany right? You have to ask following question? What product/service can i offer to which customers. And when i open my eyes and walk through the city, read newspaper and just look around germany ist a socialism society today. 70% taxes and socialpayments for normal working people like you. Merkel could tell every day we're a "rich country" but we are not!

In my opinion if you realy want to start a new business, you have 3 possible customergroups:

-private people: they have no money to spend or spend it to silly things
-business: if you sell something, that they could reduce their taxes, the buy your product
-government: the best customers are citys, land and national adminstration. They really love to spend money and say: "i don't care, its not my money!" The adminstration has unlimteted financial options. Find a product that a adminstration needs and the money will come to you. Big Problems for Adminstration: refugees, gender, minorities, justice, fight against right.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Welcome to the forum. My I suggest reading UNSCRIPTED (my next book after TMF ) as it might give you a little better insight into how to get started in an new business, especially while trying to work a job.

Good luck.
 

Departed

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I started a blog recently and all my time is spent running the thing. I have a few writers write the 1-2k word articles for me. That way I don't have to take care of anything except the WordPress and running it.

If you have cash, which you do working at a Big4 firm, you can try spending 1-2k per month on writers and fill a blog very quickly.

Great advice. Really. However, I think it is a bit of "taking the easy road". I think, what I will do is a mix: I start writing at least ten articles, blog posts and while writing those I hopefully figure out further/different topics along the way which could be written by writers. This will (hopefully) cater to a) quality and b)quantity.

I think if you speak about the Big4 you are living in germany right? You have to ask following question? What product/service can i offer to which customers. And when i open my eyes and walk through the city, read newspaper and just look around germany ist a socialism society today. 70% taxes and socialpayments for normal working people like you. Merkel could tell every day we're a "rich country" but we are not!

In my opinion if you realy want to start a new business, you have 3 possible customergroups:

-private people: they have no money to spend or spend it to silly things
-business: if you sell something, that they could reduce their taxes, the buy your product
-government: the best customers are citys, land and national adminstration. They really love to spend money and say: "i don't care, its not my money!" The adminstration has unlimteted financial options. Find a product that a adminstration needs and the money will come to you. Big Problems for Adminstration: refugees, gender, minorities, justice, fight against right.

I am shocked how much value I am getting from you guys just from 2-3 answers. I can relate to what you are saying. Especially, this one:
"-private people: they have no money to spend or spend it to silly things"

When I think about my potential customer/reader/whatever I tend to believe they are like me. So, for example, when I am thinking about publishing a blog or whatever on personal growth I think "Man if there were a comprehensive, actionable guide on how to improve skill X or Y I would gladly pay for that. I should start something like that". But then, I go outside and observe people or talk to them. And then I often realize: People -IN GENERAL- do not give a F*ck. People are not smart. Why is it always the same? YES, people want to have abs and a lean body. People want to be successful. But when it comes to putting in the work they give up quickly. They want everything free, fast and easy. And often, they are just happy with what they have (9-5, debt, 1x vacation per year, etc.) And HONESTLY, I am not complaining or ranting. Not at all. I just realize that this is the reality and the reality does not have to adjust to me. I have to adapt to the reality. On the other hand, when I think about "where can I deliver the most?" the answer "unfortunately" is always to "private customers." I don't think I can provide value to businesses or the government. Especially not while transitioning from the corporate world. I think (and maybe this is a limiting belief) that it is 10x harder to develop a B2B business in the evenings after work. Getting a deal with the government is not like opening a Shopify account and start selling. That's why I will (even though I completely agree with you) try to build something the first category (private customers). I just have to figure out some things before just jumping into an idea.
- Is there already a market? How big is it? Are people willing to pay for what I want to deliver? How many? How much are they willing to pay? etc.

Also, the best about pursuing my B2C idea is the following: I can only win . Why? I want to write about things that genuinely interest me. Things, where I still would benefit from developing them further. Even if not a single person reads what I am publishing...I could care less...because I am developing skills that will come in handy sooner or later anyway.

Welcome to the forum. My I suggest reading UNSCRIPTED (my next book after TMF ) as it might give you a little better insight into how to get started in an new business, especially while trying to work a job.

Good luck.

Thank you. I will most certainly get Unscripted . To get from reading and planning and pondering I put myself on a "book diet". it is so easy to think you are in "action mode" when the truth is that all you do is read books, read forum posts etc. pp. That's why I am currently only "allowed" to read the following 3 books/websites: the Fastlaneforum, The Millionaire Fastlane , and Tools of Titans (I like that is so broad and covers so many different topics). But instead of re-reading the Fastlane I should read Unscripted !


Thanks everybody for your input. After thinking about what my plans are, I think, I will generally do the following:

1. Start a blog about the topics that interest me. Just do it. Without expecting ANYTHING or ANY specific outcome. Still thinking about if I should write in English or my native language. Because obviously to write in English is difficult for me and is taking a lot more time. On the other hand it would be a great way to improve my english...
2. Slowly start to think about a niche or a type of product I could se... Ideally, something connected to 1. And then start small: "What’s the smallest possible footprint I can get away with? What is the smallest possible project that is worth my time? What is the smallest group of people who I could make a difference for, or to? “
That way, I could simultaneously try out two roads at the same time...

I will write another post about my next steps soon. Thanks for listening :)
 
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classichouse

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Everybody thinks business with private people is more easy then with b2b/b2g. Thats a big mistake only because everybody thinks it's the right way, everybody tries this way --> problem no profit margins.

I only earned some € with business customers and earned the BIG €€€€€ with government deals. Take the way nobody takes and look where the big money is (government). The workers of the government love to spend big money!
 

Departed

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Everybody thinks business with private people is more easy then with b2b/b2g. Thats a big mistake only because everybody thinks it's the right way, everybody tries this way --> problem no profit margins.

I only earned some € with business customers and earned the BIG €€€€€ with government deals. Take the way nobody takes and look where the big money is (government). The workers of the government love to spend big money!

But how did you do that? Freelancing? Selling goods?
 

Departed

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Hi everybody,

just want to drop a line and say that I have not given up. :)
What is going on currently in my life:

1. I started to build an app just for myself that (even though it is still a really rough Alpha) already is helping me a lot. It is a very simple app that reminds me of the goals I have and the system (What do you do EVERY day to come a little bit closer to your goals?) to achieve those goals.
I recognized that it is easy to set goals (I want to own a Ferrari, I want to make X money by August 2018, I want to get better at XYZ) but goals do not mean anything. So instead to commit to some goal/dream I rather try to stick to a process and not the goal alone.
If you don't know what I mean, read this: Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead.

If you are interested in checking out the app and seeing if this also works for you, send me a PM and I will send you the link (its a web-based app at the moment).

2. Besides building the app, I also try to read as much as possible on the forum about e-commerce. One thing I have to be careful is to not just read, think and plan and instead just START. On the other hand, there is still a lot for me to learn. I started to look for products that I could sell and I am in the process of checking out margins etc.

3. My job is still taking up a lot of my energy. Even though I decreased working hours. However, there will not be much to do about that in the short term.

4. I have not given up the idea of starting a blog. However, this will be more of a hobby. I do not think, writing a blog is fastlane. So, hobby=yes, potential business=no

Let me know if you have questions and I hope you have a great day!
 
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