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The Fail Thread

MrDDub24

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This may be therapeutic......

2010 - 2012 After being outsourced from computer tech job, used severance /401K package to purchase franchise sales broker business...2 years, 0 sales after realizing that my awesome personality didn't bring home any bacon.

2012 - Back in the slow lane with a job of Tech Recruiting trying to work to get more capital to go back into business....laid off after 3 months after understanding how bad it sucked doing 14hrs of a tiny cube and a phone.

2013 - 2015 Took a job selling cars, was able to eat and avoided living in my car or park bench....yearly income cut in half...no money for business. Evicted from apartment in 2015, lived with ex baby mama's mother's house....Low point

2016 - Took a job another sales job at home security firm, salary still sucked left that in November. New independent contractor job in sales lots of potential....to be continued.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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SquatchMan

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1. Lawn mowing business when I was 13. Lived in a crap neighborhood for it, but I just wasn't willing to put in the work.

2. YouTube prank channel in 2012 when I was 18. I made a few hundred with this and gave up once I ran out of ideas. I was also famous at my college after a few videos. People would literally know who I was when I approached them. The biggest plus was this project cured my social anxiety. And I still get a couple thousand views per week off videos I made over 4 years ago. I was one of the original ones and I had solid execution so my vids still do well, don't try to do pranks now. The market is way too saturated and everyone makes fake prank videos.

3. Self publishing erotic fiction at 20. I hated writing it and gave up fast. My book has 3 sales on Amazon. No, I won't tell you what it is.

4. Affiliate marketing. Made a few sales with purely organic growth. Again, not really too excited about the niche or the 'business' of being an affiliate. I want to write the paycheck, not cash it.

First failure - drone photography lead gen business. Not a big enough need.

Not yet. I think this could be big in a few years.
 

MJ DeMarco

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I'd like to post my failures...

But I really don't feel like writing another book.

I learned I need to avoid over saturated markets

Lemme guess... the shit advice "follow your passion" led there?

1. Lawn mowing business when I was 13. Lived in a crap neighborhood for it, but I just wasn't willing to put in the work.

2. YouTube prank channel in 2012 when I was 18. I made a few hundred with this and gave up once I ran out of ideas. I was also too famous at my college after a few videos. People would know who I was when I approached them. This project cured my social anxiety and I still get a couple thousand views per week off videos I made 4 years ago. The prank market is way too saturated now, but I was one of the original ones and I had solid execution so my vids still do well.

3. Self publishing erotic fiction at 20. I hated writing it and gave up fast. My book has 3 sales on Amazon. No, I won't tell you what it is.

4. Affiliate marketing. Made a few sales with purely organic growth. Again, not really too excited about the niche or the 'business' of being an affiliate. I want to write the paycheck, not cash it.

This reads like the introduction to a great story yet to come. IOW, these a really good failures. Be proud of them!
 

dave773

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Some failures..and some just stupid decisions

-Imported my first product to sell online - green lasers. Got suspended on ebay making it difficult to sell stock. Managed to sell it at break-even, but caused green lasers to get banned in Australia.. people shining them at planes.

-Got scammed for $1k making an order of products. The guy was only the middle man. Managed to find who the supplier was and connected with him.

-Made me money back and more. But it came at a price. I dropshipped on eBay for 7 years, ended up getting permanently life banned on ebay and also on paypal. The price you pay when you dropship..(it was not worth it)

-Started an app, burned through $4k on indian developers that couldn't develop for shit. Dropped the app when I realised it would not generate enough income to be leveraged.

-Lent $5k to a friend who then disappeared. Fail.

-Started multiple eCommerce stores and niche sites with terrible products/suppliers that all did not that great or just sucked.

Moving city next month, more fails to come .. but looking for some successes this year.
 
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applesack

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YouTube prank channel in 2012 when I was 18. [...] I was also famous at my college after a few videos. People would literally know who I was when I approached them. The biggest plus was this project cured my social anxiety.

Best fails are educational fails... this one is awesome!

One of my best win/fails was when I was 15, I lived in the South Pacific and technology was... a tad bit behind the times. If I needed a computer disk (yes, this was the actual stone ages) I had to pay the equivalent of $5 which is also what I got for mowing a single, enormous lawn. But, I saw that the same disks went for $.35 a piece in the back of Byte magazine, and I ordered 200. Oh man, I had made it. I was rich. I was selling them for $3 each and making $2 profit on each and every one.

On my next order I decided to go all out and purchased color disks... theses suckers were yellow, red, green, blue, orange... I was introducing the space age to this little island.

I don't think I sold a single one. Why? All my customers had single color monitors and were sure that color disks wouldn't work in their computers. Shortly thereafter my parents (and I) moved back to the US.
 
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GlobalWealth

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I'd like to post my failures...

But I really don't feel like writing another book.

My thoughts as well. I had another massive failure that I just don't have the energy to write about.

It could be a decent ebook at a minimum.

I'd rather just get to work on my current projects.

Sent from my SM-G900FD using Tapatalk
 

thinkandgrowrich

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Failures are what make a great story. The success stories we read about would be so fuc*king boring had it not been for the failures. Imagine a story that goes like, "Yeah me and my friend started a company and within a year we grossed 10 million dollars". Sounds cool and everybody would love for that to happen, but its not a good story.

But anyways;

2010- My dad's business fails. In the early 2000's he failed to capitalize on a deal that would've made his company 80 million dollars. For the next few years he goes on to work three jobs at a time, sometimes working 20 hours a day just to provide for the family. I would say witnessing all this is what started it for me.

Early 2015- After a year in community college I decided to drop out. And here's the crazy thing, I dropped out because I wanted to become a rapper. You could imagine how everyone around me reacted to that. I still wanna become a rapper lol, but I also understand that sometimes you must put your passions on the backburner while you work to create a lifestyle that can help you pursue your passions. But goddamn, I took a 5k loan for nothing lol.

Since Dropping out of school;
- I've walked out on 4 jobs and got fired from one before even starting lol.
- I've missed a handful of interviews for good jobs because I am dysfunctional and erratic with my behavior
- Turned down a 75k job because working a 9-5 job in an office makes me miserable. Call me self entitled or whatever, I don't regret that decision at all.
- Attempted to make a skin care review and affiliate product website with a friend...failed.
- Created a video game tips website thinking that google adsense would somehow get me rich....failed.
- Created a news/tabloid website. I actually got tens of thousands of views in a month but for whatever reason I stopped and I never knew how to monetize the site either...failed.
- Planned to make a local computer repair business with my friend, never even launched...failed.
- Attempted to make a business out of buying and reselling products...failed.
- Attempted to make a business out of buying and reselling products you get from Ali Baba...failed
- Tried freelance writing, it just was not worth the time and so I was like fu*k it...failed
- Family gave up on me, got kicked out. Took a train to another city and spent more than a week living at a friend's college dorm. During this period I spent time with some of the most peculiar people, I'm talking like homeless people and prostitutes. Seeing that these people were able to be happy and have a sense of humor no matter what they're circumstances were made me realize I have nothing to be depressed about. During this period I also somehow came across the book Think and Grow Rich, shit changed my life.
- Added Note: From 2014-2016 I would I say spent 75% of my time high, I probably smoked 2,000 blunts over the course of that time. It was the only thing that helped me cope with life.

As of a few months ago, I have a few ventures going on that I firmly believe will finally lead to the success I am looking for.

I'm only 21 but sometimes all this failure and time I'm spending makes me feel like I'm wasting away my youth. I pray it will all be worth it soon.


damn I wrote too much lol
 
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BaraQueenbee

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I have been avoiding the Forum out of shame and not wanting to see/ be confronted with the failures. *honest dark moment*


And I am definetely not glad to see all the failure, but it most surely does give a good light at the end of the tunnel.

*angels singing, hope is rising again*

Just this year:
- put all my money in an app developer, developer left me, with no finished product. Working now at freakin Samsung
- working hard again, doing another attempt. This time I (think) I recognized the signals very fast
- spend ALL the money in one time at a certain product
- being scammed, ripped off and what not.

That's past year just.
Well. What a wonderful year it has been.
 

OrangeFlip

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When I was maybe 16 or 17 I started a YouTube channel that I was kicking around on. It could have been great but I got distracted and let it waste away. I was a lazy teenager who was all geared up to work at the mall... Yeah...

In 2012 I had a (scattered) taste of entrepreneurship and started a fashion and hair brand. I never really gave it my full attention and was stuck creating instead of selling. It was a passion business to it's core. My market research was sparse and I was selling in all the wrong places. It was a race to the bottom and now I know better than to compete on price. And saturated markets are no place for a passionate hobby pretending to be a business. I bought into the follow your passion message and it was a lesson and a half.

A few years later I worked in video and still focused on my passions - not what the people were buying. Made a bunch of videos and content that I thought were hot shit... Except they weren't and I was serving my own interests. Again, self serving and self centred. Never really got off the ground.

Jobs were also a thing. Often, I'd burn the hell out and stop caring and then leave. Worked at a shelter, in a crisis centre and in group therapy sessions. All of which would start off fine but trading my mental well-being, mental health and emotional health for practical pennies got hard and miserable fast. These jobs taught me so much about myself but I had to get the eff out for my own good. You know those burnt out therapists, social workers and community workers? That was my path and I got the hell out. These jobs while challenging taught me so much about my own shit and that is something I will never regret. This chunk of my life could be it's own novel on success and failure but I am not getting in to that just now.

Plowing on, I worked under the table and never went hungry in my industry but never really took off either. I was happy to do what I needed to but held myself back from kicking a$$ and taking names. This is where I started to find community of like minded people. We were all in the same hustle and it was nice to be part of that. It was pretty special to have blogs and forums and chats where we all "got it" and could share.

My business has been s-l-o-w-l-a-n-e and is married to my time and me doing the work. I have a job for myself rather than being an entrepreneur. Working on it.

Before writing this all out I didn't see myself as someone who has been trying to work for myself. Seeing it all written out is giving me a different look on things.
 

JAJT

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This will likely be my answer to the question "why haven't I posted more updates about my business(es)".

I personally find this fairly embarrassing (because I feel like they were all highly avoidable and at 33 I'm old enough to have known better about most of them). Still, even as a late learner I HAVE learned from all of them so here's the "short" list:

- Quit my 9-5 job too early, felt great at the time but was a terrible financial decision fueled by optimism, early (perceived) success, and high stress/frustrations at my job.
- As a result, started living on my business profits, which made reinvestment and growth very difficult. Used debt to press forward anyway.
- Didn't track my numbers very well in the early days. Only after learning how to do something resembling a profit-loss statement were my eyes REALLY opened to the actual state of things, which was quite a bit different from what the bank deposits were showing. Suddenly the feeling like I was running on a hamster wheel made sense.
- As a result of quitting early and not tracking funds properly, I was not prepared for multiple hits that came all at once: needed a new roof as the shingles were literally blowing off my house, my car died requiring a new one, my fence and side door to the house literally blew away in a storm, wife lost her stable full time job of 10+ years and we experienced very high financial stress for a long while, a few large appliances in the house all died together in what I can only assume was a damn suicide pact, and a few others (but those were the biggies)
- Started a new business in the skin care market on amazon, spent a ton of cash building funnels and websites that I never ended up using (not using them was another huge mistake), did everything in my power that I could think of to increase sales on amazon but all efforts were short-lived blips that quickly flattened back out to mediocre levels. Doubled down on marketing / ranking efforts to no avail. Was still profitable but marketing efforts were taking the lion's share. Side note: I was really proud of this business, great branding (I think), solid product, happy customers, great reviews, tons of great emails coming my way from hapy customers, awesome website, etc... it took a lot to get me to decide to sell but alas...
- Decided to sell through a broker who promised the world and delivered a pittance while taking a bounty for themselves. Desperation and naievity killed me here. Company value plummeted before we found a buyer, leaving me with crumbs. Was proud to get my first business sale but it was a very hollow victory. Took me a long time (too long) to recover from the mental blow from this. I was in a bad place for a long while.

I can't describe all the lessons I've learned here. There are far, far too many. All I can say is that I've learned more about "real world" entrepreneurship in the last 3 years than I could have ever expected. None of it resembled the textbooks and lessons in school. I made amazing contacts and friends along the way who have all helped me more than I can hope to ever repay (but that won't stop me from trying as I'm able!).

And I'm still alive and learning and pressing forward.

Here are some random wins to brighten the post up a bit:

- As a result of quitting my job, I've grown closer to my children than I ever could have at my old job. I went from "weekend father" hauling my kids grocery shopping and doing errands in the only time I had during the week to being a full time dad to them. I couldn't be happier about this.
- My wife and I have come out of the other side of a tremendously difficult financial situation and still love each other more than ever and have learned a lot about personal and business finances and loving each other through the hard times. I'm truly blessed to have her.
- My wife found an amazing new job that allows me to keep pressing forward on my own ventures.
- I'm still not discouraged at this lifestyle despite the hard knocks and will not be giving up any time soon. It's this or nothing. My wife and I like to say that she's got the traditional way locked down (rrsps, solid job, good income, long game plan) so I can focus on the risky higher-potential-reward plays. We're totally in love with this arrangement for as long as it takes.
- Out of my "dark times" I've come out the other side and instituted a ton of very healthy positive habits to my life that were hit and miss until recently and are now all solid habits: reading more, exercise, healthy diets, earlier waking times, goal setting, financial planning, etc...
- I'm refreshed, encouraged and excited about 2017.
 
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G-Man

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Very interesting to see how much different people have been through.

Also very interesting how many of these debacles were essentially self-inflicted. Kind of thought I was unique in being able to attribute most of my failures to just plainly stupid decisions.

Even more interesting that everyone here is still trying and plans to keep trying :clench:
 
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Vigilante

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And I'm still alive and learning and pressing forward.

JAJT is a friend who I know personally, have entertained in my home, and respect. He's also a fighter. His road is the road of a typical entrepreneur. It's not an easy road, but one that is hallmarked by perseverance, life lessons, and eventually a breakthrough.

In my opinion, this is the most important sentence of this whole thread:

And I'm still alive and learning and pressing forward.

Are you struggling? Print that sentence out and tape it to your bathroom mirror, computer, and journal. There's a light at the end of the tunnel and as long as you have breath--- you're still alive with the ability to press forward.

This one sentence from @JAJT has the ability to undergird you through the darkest storms.

Speed+
 
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rollerskates

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Lemme guess... the shit advice "follow your passion" led there?

This pretty much sums up my entire business life as well as my avatar--for anyone who doesn't know, it's from the movie Up, where there is a dog easily distracted by squirrels, and I am easily distracted by the shiny . In my line of business, because I'm artistic and make widgets, I have a ton of artistic passions and interests and I've spent my whole business life going "SQUIRREL!" and jumping from one thing to another. :) But I LOVE my failures and my SQUIRREL! mentality, because over the years I have perfected a lot of techniques. So much so, that at least one is on my list of how-to books to write. Turing lemons into lemonade. :smile2:
 
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JAJT

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JAJT is a friend who I know personally, have entertained in my home, and respect. He's also a fighter. His road is the road of a typical entrepreneur. It's not an easy road, but one that is hallmarked by perseverance, life lessons, and eventually a breakthrough.

Thanks man, I truly appreciate the very kind words!

Your friendship, and all the others I've made on this journey (thankfully many!), have been priceless gifts and constant sources of strength, inspiration and encouragement that I am eternally grateful for!

Now, onward and upwards we go :)
 

applesack

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Created a news/tabloid website. I actually got tens of thousands of views in a month but for whatever reason I stopped and I never knew how to monetize the site either...failed.

This is something you should resurrect! This was a win, not a fail. If you can re-create this and the traffic, do it. Put some time into it and ask questions here. Monetization comes from selling a product to that traffic. I (and other here to be sure) can show you how.
 
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JuliaLV

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2008 – 2013 I chose safety. I thought it's 'the coolest thing in the world' to own a successful business but I'm not smart/good/practical enough. So I ended up choosing safety and doing what I'm good at (I studied philosophy). Then I got bored from sitting in my head/not doing anything 'tangible' and worked at different jobs.

2014 – failed attempt to build a company in entertainment industry (with a friend). I learned that friends do not always make a good business partners. I ended up 'working on it' alone and got scared of the need to take a big loan to start.

2015 – failed attempt to make a consistent passive income with Kindle (I used an online course). Noticed that niches are overcrowded or got overcrowded pretty fast. Learned the importance of commandment of entry.

2016 – failed attempt to organize events for youth. 'Do what you love' lesson. I didn't like to do it for money and I had no idea how to make it work without me – commandment of time.

2016/2017 – forgot the main purpose of making a website (lack of focus). Main goal was to find a good problem to solve by testing ideas on the website. Instead I ended up focusing on making a website informative and 'easy to use'.


I'm 'bad' at being an entrepreneur, huh. And I don't mind. It's better than not daring to try and just keep dreaming.
 

applesack

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Started a new business in the skin care market on amazon, [...] did everything in my power that I could think of to increase sales on amazon but all efforts were short-lived blips
Amazon SEO is weird but important. IMO, the most important thing to know is that the 5 keyword values are actually seen by the Amazon search engine as one long string of keywords. In other words, you should use every character of the 5 x 50 char input boxes for every product. Don't repeat words, just action pack those suckers with relevant keywords and sequences. This post is great, look at the "Search Terms" header for an example.

By the way, your post was inspiring. Thanks!
 

Ravens_Shadow

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2007-2009 - Worked on a video game, complete failure
2010-2013 - Worked on another video game, 5 million downloads, success
Started college in 2012, dropped out in my 3rd semester (summer 2013).
2013 - Tried to start a security camera company - failure
2014 - moved out to new mexico to learn from a "mentor"
2014-2015 helped launch a startup company, went to indonesia to ensure our investors got what they wanted, lost it all, biggest failure I've ever had.
2015 - Tried to compete for the carbon x-prize, got into a private event free, met the CEO's of Chevron and Shell and had a great talk with them - good lessons learned, decided not to go into that industry.
2016 - Cut ties with said mentor.
2016 - Tried to start a beauty company - failure
2016 - Present Day - Started a new internet business with a partner. - I think we're kicking a$$, this is my main gig that i spend the majority of my time on. We've got 10 employees.
November 2016 - Present Day - Launched a small side software company - Doing excellent, currently 200+ downloads in 2 weeks. Why start a second project? I've wanted to do it for a very long time, and at night found myself coding anyway, so might as well make use of my time. It's a hit.
 
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Jonathan Polley

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1997 - Set up a dog walking business, parents picked up a phone call from a perspective client, went ballistic that I was walking strangers dogs at age 14.

This was a kick in the balls and set me back from trying anything for a long time.

2005 - Split up with my girlfriend of over 5 years because I had no ambition and was stuck in a rut. Basically I was doing nothing with my life and she wanted more. She is now semi-successful in business.

Edit: 2006 (How could I forget this one?) Realised that I would like to run my own business one day, so took a deadend job working in sales. Utterly sucked at it, got sacked after three weeks. But I learn a few things about how to sell (not enough though)

2007 - Found myself in a good job, (which I am still in that field) but still very much slowlane, not a fail per se but not where I want to be. But. I did learn a lot about what makes me tick and how to work with people.

2009 . Promoted a music tour and produced an album - Tour failed to break even, album never materialised. Failed because I thought there were shortcuts to promoting a product. I just didn't do my research enough

2010 - 2012 Sold Christmas cakes on ebay. A failure only because it could never be a viable business without a slowlane job supporting it. Had a lot of fun baking cakes though. Did make a small amount of money every December.

Learnt a huge lesson, which I didn't even realise I had learned at the time, the penny only dropped when I read the Millionaire Fastlane . That is I identified a problem, that it's almost impossible to buy gluten free Christmas cakes in stores. So I sold these as well as others. Sales went up, but still not a viable business.

2013 Wrote an e-book about public misconceptions in science and how we have an irrational fear of new science. Failed because I followed my passion and tried to break into an already oversaturated market.

2016- Present
Working on a science education website. I have found a problem, that needs solving. I am using my skills from my job (teaching) I am producing a product that I know (from personal experience and testing with students) that is better than anything out there right now.

I am building on all the lessons I have learned from my failures. I am now equipped to identify my weaknesses and areas where my skills are not up to scratch (still marketing and driving traffic to a website) and I am addressing those now. Before they lead to failure.
 

Mac

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Not yet. I think this could be big in a few years.

Being too early is the same as being wrong. I've been trying to think about pivoting to look at it from a different angle, but there isn't a high enough demand for aerial photographers at the moment.

There's still opportunity in the drone market - maybe not in the exact model I had in mind. I'm thinking software, accessories and delivery services will provide more value to people.
 

Mr.Chaos

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Well, I cannot remember the exact years but there have been a few going all the way back to my very first taste of entrepreneurship.


1. I sold jewelry from a wholesale catalog in middle school. Had a few sales learned the basics of supply and demand. Didn’t do this long too busy being a child smh.

2. Sold candy from 9th-11th grade. Made decent money for my age. I learned how to calculate profit and margins. I also had my first taste of control and entry. Teachers didn’t like me selling and one teacher actually began selling candy and drinks herself.

3. Started a computer repair company in the 11th grade had a few clients but my own personal beliefs and esteem kept me from growing and scaling. I didn’t cold call, sometimes I was even afraid to go to the client’s house fearing I didn’t know enough. I would always beat myself up thinking about how they perceived me. Ended this Sophomore year of college.

4. Started a Marketing Agency – Didn’t know jack sh** about marketing. End of story

5. Started a Vapor-E Smoke Company, created social media garnished a following but never took action on trying to sell to them. At that time, I didn’t know of Shopify or other e-commerce platforms and eBay put a ban on selling those items.

6. Sold super hero themed flash drives on eBay did great! Then I was hit with a cease and desist. I learned to be careful about copyright laws.

7. Started selling cigars and other 420 related materials to college students. Made good money but unscalable since technically I had no tobacco license. I learned need and demand. Most students didn’t have cars, so in order to get tobacco or to get papers for their 420, they had to either ask someone to drive them or look locally. I solved that need.

8. Started a tie business. Yep, I said a tie business lol. No demand and the Chinese will call anything silk even if it isn’t. Wasted about 100$.

9. Started a beard oil company. The execution was on point and we earned a few paying customers through influencer advertising. (IF YOU DON’T USE INFLUENCER ADVERTISING DO IT NOW!!)

Market saturation was overbearing, ad cost skyrocketed and any post we made on facebook or IG was overshadowed by other beard oil companies attempting to grab a sale. Closed this after wasting hundreds on failed advertising and materials.

10. Started INTOXICUP an adult drinking cup. This was more of an exercise than anything. I did manage to grab a presale however supplier and freight cost far outweighed the viability of this project.

11. My current project is ecomm brand building and marketing/copywriting. So far so good in 2017 excited to see what the year holds.


It’s crazy I had forgotten about 90% of these FAILURES.
Actually listing these has given me a little confidence ability wise.
 
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NewYorkCity

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Failures:

1. Copywriting client..local business owner. Asked for a few hundred depending on the project (He kind of studdered... "Only a few hundred?", and then wrote me a check for $500). Turns out that was WAY low. I probably could have asked for several thousand. This was during college where 1k to me was a ton of money.

The business was a regional concrete company. Revenue was probably in the millions. He could have probably written me a 15k check and forgotten about it within an hour.

2. Internet marketer asked me to be a copywriter for him during college. Couldn't do it because of the demands of school. He went on to create a 7 figure web dev firm (revenue, not profit). I only imagine if I had kept doing it late nights and ridden the success he had as his "go to copywriter".
 
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jsk29

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My biggest failure of 2016:

- June 30th - Quit one of two part-time jobs with $7k saved up for launching a scalable business venture with my newly freed up time.

- July 1st - Go out for drinks with friends for the first time in months, giving myself a little reward and pumping myself to begin working my a$$ off on my new venture starting Monday

- July 2nd - Get pulled over at 4am, end up in jail for 36 hours, and am charged with a DUI

- July 3rd+ The $7k I saved up has been burnt on towing fee, lawyer fees, ignition interlock device, increased insurance rates, and alcohol evaluation test+classes
 

minivanman

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I see a pattern here. What I've noticed is that most people quit one thing before they have the other making profit. When I first started my cleaning business, I kept my job until we had customers and making money. It only took 45 days but I wasn't going to quit until I was sure we could make money at it no matter how long it took. So the cleaning business ended up making a boatload of profit and I turned the day-to-day over to my girlfriend at the time and I tried several different things. I can't say as all of them failed but the problem was that I'd open a business and within 2 months I'd get tired of it and close it.... but I still had my solid foundation, the cleaning business. It paid the rent while my side business was for fun to see if I could make it work and work better than the cleaning business. Even today I'm not above starting a business and even if it is making profit, if I get tired of it I'll close it down but I can only do this because it is not paying the bills. If you have a job, don't quit the job until you've proved you can make a profit for your new business. Then grow your business to a profit of what you are making at your job. Once you do this, you can quit your job. That is called not getting the boat close enough to the dock if you quit before you should..... you get anxious and put 1 foot on the dock while the other foot is still in the boat and then the boat starts to drift backwards and before you know it... SPLASH ...you are screwed!
 
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KSR

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2014 - Dabbed in Internet Marketing, spent about $300-500 on software/hosting/domains/content etc. Gave up because you can be hit with a Google update
2014 - Researched into a charitable wristband business, could've been successful but never followed through - had website done, but no product.
2015 - Tried YouTube, failure.
2016 - Present - Learned coding, trying to learn quite a few languages before I feel confident enough to freelance
2017 - Currently trying my hand at a gaming niche, we'll see how that goes soon!
 

Ika

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What I've noticed is that most people quit one thing before they have the other making profit.

Or they quit the business before making money.

Don't get me wrong, quitting because you realise this business won't work out is good - quitting because you are afraid of progress is not.

This is a 'message' to half a year younger me:
Don't quit because of your fear of the unknown.
Don''t quit because you are afraid to really change your life.
Don't quit because you are afraid to change your comfort into commitment.

Ironically, as soon as there was a realistic chance of me making money, I bailed - afraid to leave my comfort zone, afraid that I am not good enough to do the job.

Instead of quitting, bash throught that fear.
It still takes me effort to make the call, accept that offer or grab this opportunity.
But so far, only good has come to me by that.


Sorry for hijacking this thread, but hopefully it helps those that aren't afraid to loose, but afraid to win.

~Ika
 

Hejduk

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- Dropped out of university after studying Physical Therapy for 5 years. It took me 2 years to finally have the guts to drop out.
- Started studying Psychology the next year and dropped out 1.5 years later. Funnily enough, having the guts to drop out now only took 2 days. Learned from the above mistake. Also notable: the decision was made while going on holiday to Crete, Greece, during a lecture week (not sure how Americans call this). This is a very big no-go in the Netherlands. Insert Cartman: "Whateva, I do what I want."
- The two points above have resulted in a debt of about €30k (+/- $35k)
- Started a business out of 'do what you love' as a Life Coach (dude, what were you thinking?)
- After struggling for over a year, I took on a 32 hour part-time job and 'tried' to build a freelance business on the side (which did actually earn a little cash)
- 8 months later my money was running out and I took on a fulltime 9-5 job at a big travel agency. Which is my current situation.

Although the above points all feel like failures to me, I did actually learn a ton by failing.

Also, I'm VERY happy that while I went to university, I self-taught web development (eg. HTML5, CSS3, Wordpress) and online marketing (copywriting, SEO, SEA, Social Advertising, (customer) psychology)) on the side on sites like Udemy, Lynda, Coursera etc. and reading a shitload of books on building a business, psychology, self-development and the like. Also, psychology is a big part of (online) marketing. This made it possible to hack the system here in the Netherlands by landing a decent fulltime (starter) job as an online marketeer at a big travel agency. It's very uncommon to be able to get a decent starter job here without a degree. 'Luckly' for me, the man that hired me doesn't have an official degree himself.

Now I need to get out of this Slowlane rut before I can add Staying in the Slowlane forever to my failure list and die a very unhappy man.
 
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Sequential

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I built a business out of creating websites, throwing info on them that I compiled from multiple sources and wrote as my own info, and then putting Adsense on them, back in 2004-2006. It did crazy numbers so I dropped out of my computer science degree to do that. I thought it would last forever, it was my first venture, even back then I did it differently - instead of just cutting and pasting content like everyone else, I took the time to find good info, weeding out the bad - and never copied and pasted. This actually meant when they cracked down the sites lasted longer than most. I was on track to become a millionaire at 19. I heard a rumor I was being investigated for fraud because it looked wierd that a 19 year old in 2004 was making so much money.
Didn't last though. Taught me a lot.
1. Nothing lasts forever!
2. Be careful of attracting slow lane "friends" whilst being a fastlaner. They treat you like a baller at a casino and when the money runs dry, they have already left.
3. Careful of LE, they will investigate you because people can't believe someone else is doing what they cannot.
4. Being rich doesn't make you any better than anyone else. I had a bad attitude problem back then.


Then a few years of another university, which I hated, I didn't do anything in these years but study and party.

Then Amazon. Firstly decided to buy returns and sell them on the 2nd hand market. Low profit margins, annoying entitled customer service. From that went into Kindle where I worked my a$$ off for months at a time writing 50 page books, again doing the business model I did with Adsense - filtering and regurgitating information in a clear way that people can read. 110 books later, including some ghostwritten ones, I packed it in. I was too late, market flooded with people doing shady things like copy and pasting your content and DMCA'ing you, or copying and pasting the entire encyclopedia and putting it in the back of their book so they make $400 per kindle unlimited borrow of their books. Or customers reading your book then refunding it. Customers on goodreads boasting how they have read 2000 books and refund-scammed all of them...

This taught me
1. I hate customer service.
2. Be careful of trends, they come and they normally go because the internet marketer, warrior forum types come and mess it up for everyone with devious scams.
3. There is no such thing really as get rich quick. If by some reason you do, it won't last. See #1 from Adsense above.
4. I prefer income streams that take a while to build and then stay at a fixed rate, or grow slowly, to instant wealth.
5. Long term data analysis is key to making growth decisions.
6. From a mindset point of view, try and ignore what the competition is doing, otherwise the whole business gets negative and you won't want to continue. I don't think I would bother with kboards etc if I was to do it again.
7. Internet marketers will ruin anything good. They will take something innocent and make it dark in the pursuit for easy money.
8. Money. I lost £13k doing Amazon. I lost more doing Kindle because I decided to sacrifice my paycheck and put the money into Ghost writers. I ended up hiring people with great reviews on Odesk who were ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. All the money went down the drain. I can't trust Odesk or Elance or Upwork (both of them combined now) because it appears the reviews are faked. My advice would be to bootstrap your company at first and make sure not to borrow until you have positive ROI.

My latest has not matured enough to give any pointers. But I get to promote good products, take a comission, and I don't have to deal with end customer service.

When I have built a war chest the plan is to go down the Shopify + FB ads + Fulfilment centre route. I have a few ideas for things not been seen on shopify before.

edit2: Just because an idea looks good doesn't mean it is worth the time. For example someone hit me up with a place that sells refurbished Dell computers at around 1/5th of the price they sell for on Ebay. I could go tomorrow and buy 50 of them and sell them for a 300% roi after shipping etc.

But is it worth my time? I am unsure. Time to go buy them, test them, pack them, advertise them, deal with the inevitable scammers, dealing with ebay problems and dealing with silly EU regulations... I figure it might take me around 50 hours to sell them. That's 50 hours I could be spending doing something that doesn't want me to make me pull out my hair...
 
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