17, profited $60k already, but completely lost in life.

ericbodrenok · Oct 2, 2023

I'm 17 years old, and throughout the las year or so, I've been hopping around from business to business, side hustle to side hustle, and managed to save up $60k. However, none of these "side hustles" have been scalable, and at my best I made just under 7k in one month. For the last month or two, I've dropped all my side hustles and have been looking to find a scalable business model that I'm ready to go all in on, with the goal to make 50k/month over the next few years. The thing is, I start something new, realize all the flaws, think something else is a better option, then quit and restart. Now, I'm barely making any money and starting to stress out like crazy. I know my exact problem, and if I stick through with one proven business I have a good chance of success, but I just don't know what business model I want to go with. I've got a good amount of experience in sales and marketing, so I was thinking an agency, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make as good of an offer as there's so much competition. To be completely honest, I know what to do, I'm just looking for someone to tell me "do this business model because of x, y, and z." If anyone has suggestions on a good business model that I can leverage my marketing and sales skills with, I'd really appreciate the advice. Or if anyone has any general advice, I'm all ears. Appreciate it! For context, I've done copywriting, appointment setting, home services, sold solar panels, and worked for a marketing agency.

Muhammad Ibrahim · Oct 2, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
I'm 17 years old, and throughout the las year or so, I've been hopping around from business to business, side hustle to side hustle, and managed to save up $60k. However, none of these "side hustles" have been scalable, and at my best I made just under 7k in one month. For the last month or two, I've dropped all my side hustles and have been looking to find a scalable business model that I'm ready to go all in on, with the goal to make 50k/month over the next few years. The thing is, I start something new, realize all the flaws, think something else is a better option, then quit and restart. Now, I'm barely making any money and starting to stress out like crazy. I know my exact problem, and if I stick through with one proven business I have a good chance of success, but I just don't know what business model I want to go with. I've got a good amount of experience in sales and marketing, so I was thinking an agency, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make as good of an offer as there's so much competition. To be completely honest, I know what to do, I'm just looking for someone to tell me "do this business model because of x, y, and z." If anyone has suggestions on a good business model that I can leverage my marketing and sales skills with, I'd really appreciate the advice. Or if anyone has any general advice, I'm all ears. Appreciate it! For context, I've done copywriting, appointment setting, home services, sold solar panels, and worked for a marketing agency.

You need to look at your unique situation.
The idea of having a business model that works and all you have to do is put effort in is flawed because every situation is unique and a 100 millionaires may make money a 100 different ways
What you should do is find out what you can do with what you know, and what people want done, combine the two and then find the right business model to package that solution into.
You said you know what to do but you're looking for someone to tell you to do a certain business model because of x, y and z.
1.What do you mean by that
2.There IS no right answer for that. Someone might tell you a great business model that works perfectly fine for most people but maybe not for you, and vice versa. What you CAN instead do, is look at multiple business models, find out their pros and cons and how they fit you, and decide from there.
P.S. 60K at 17 is not bad at all. You have it in you.

The-J · Oct 2, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
I've got a good amount of experience in sales and marketing, so I was thinking an agency, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make as good of an offer as there's so much competition.

Everyone seems to think this. That's why there are so many agencies. Thing is, agencies are a service business. They're a way for companies to reduce marketing costs. That's why they exist.

The flip side of agencies, which is another reason there are so many, is that you don't need many clients to do well. Some boutique agencies make well over $100k/mo in profit with a very small client list.

Be proud that you saved $60k at 17. That's unusual.

---

As far as which one you should pick, it matters a lot less than you think it does. But let's grade what you were doing:

Copywriting: Selling time for money. At best you get a rev share from successful web pages. Most won't agree to this. Hiring copywriters to take on the work is hard. Lots of people think they're good copywriters but they're not. Training a copywriter is also hard, because a copywriter needs to understand a lot more than just human psychology to be a good copywriter. If you can crack this like Agora did, you could make millions, but you won't make millions doing copy for people. Think owning loads of web properties that generate cash.
Appointment setting: Easy to train, pretty valuable, but lots of competition. You could hire employees for pretty cheap, train them up, and scale by just getting more clients. Hire $15/hour labor and sell it for $100. You beat the competition by being specialized. If you ran the #1 dental marketing agency appointment setting company, how well do you think you could do?
Home services: We've got several people here that are succeeding with home services. Again, same model: it's labor arbitrage. You get $100/hour work and pay a guy $15/hour to do it. Simple, simple, simple. Competition is less of a threat since it's inherently harder to scale, so the business attracts sole prop type guys who just want to earn enough to make a living. But scaling isn't impossible.
Solar panels: Another simple business that can scale really well. I don't know enough about this business though. Seems similar to selling HVAC: would do well door-to-door or with direct mail. Lots of competition. The main point is scaling a sales team that can do DTD for you. If you can do that, you can do well: just scale up by territory. Similar to home services except the numbers are bigger.
Marketing agency: an insane amount of competition, a super low barrier to entry, and most of your competition sucks a$$. But the reason they suck is because everyone does the same thing: hire freelancers off Upwork to take care of the work & focus on sales at the expense of client performance. Or they care mostly about client performance but don't trust people to actually do the work, so they never do any sales or scale up at all, it just ends up being a living for them.

Don't choose a business based on how easy it seems. In fact, you should do the opposite. Do the hard thing. All of those businesses you described, except maybe copywriting, are very scalable, and $50k/mo profit is well within reach, but you have to scale them! You have to find a way to get the volume you need to reach scale. You have to find a way to handle all the work you get. You have to find a way to keep costs (financial & operational) low as you grow.

Also, ignore YouTube and TikTok money gurus. They'll make any business seem like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

MJ DeMarco · Oct 2, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
'm 17 years old, and throughout the las year or so, I've been hopping around from business to business, side hustle to side hustle, and managed to save up $60k

Wow, congratulations. Be proud of your accomplishments. Give yourself a big pat on the back.

ericbodrenok said:
However, none of these "side hustles" have been scalable, and at my best I made just under 7k in one month.

That's not a bad month, for a 17 year old. Can you list these hustles? Scale to $7K implies there is SOME scale.

ZCP · Oct 2, 2023

@ericbodrenok nice work! be REALLY proud of what you HAVE done!
take a moment each evening to be THANKFUL for what you have done.
take a moment each morning to note what you are looking FORWARD to that day.

now, in a positive mindset, you know what to do. commit to ONE thing for 8 hrs of focused work per day for 30 days.
allow yourself to work on other shit during your off time. during those committed hours each day FOCUS on making that area / project / business SUPER F*cking successful.

now, even if you don't think it is right or the 'perfect' option / business / path, you badly NEED to teach yourself how to FOCUS and stay on something through the boring parts. Turn the handles each day and grow.

you got this!!

StrikingViper69 · Oct 2, 2023

Your side hustles may be more scalable than you think. Someone else made a thread on here recently about selling pizza, and it was pointed out (by @Kak, see his post here), that when you open more stores and sell frozen pizza, a pizza business is very scalable.

So you might be sitting on the answer already.

ericbodrenok · Oct 2, 2023

Muhammad Ibrahim said:
You need to look at your unique situation.
The idea of having a business model that works and all you have to do is put effort in is flawed because every situation is unique and a 100 millionaires may make money a 100 different ways
What you should do is find out what you can do with what you know, and what people want done, combine the two and then find the right business model to package that solution into.
You said you know what to do but you're looking for someone to tell you to do a certain business model because of x, y and z.
1.What do you mean by that
2.There IS no right answer for that. Someone might tell you a great business model that works perfectly fine for most people but maybe not for you, and vice versa. What you CAN instead do, is look at multiple business models, find out their pros and cons and how they fit you, and decide from there.
P.S. 60K at 17 is not bad at all. You have it in you.

Right, that's a good way to look at it. And yea, im pretty well aware ive done well but I have pretty big expectations for myself.

1. so, I kinda just meant that i've been looking at a million ideas and each time i find a reason to not do it. So i just kinda want someone to tell me - just do this - to give me the clarity to go all in. I know I shouldnt depend on someone else, but otherwise i keep on backing out.

2. Totally agree with you there

ericbodrenok · Oct 2, 2023

The-J said:
Everyone seems to think this. That's why there are so many agencies. Thing is, agencies are a service business. They're a way for companies to reduce marketing costs. That's why they exist.

The flip side of agencies, which is another reason there are so many, is that you don't need many clients to do well. Some boutique agencies make well over $100k/mo in profit with a very small client list.

Be proud that you saved $60k at 17. That's unusual.

---

As far as which one you should pick, it matters a lot less than you think it does. But let's grade what you were doing:

Copywriting: Selling time for money. At best you get a rev share from successful web pages. Most won't agree to this. Hiring copywriters to take on the work is hard. Lots of people think they're good copywriters but they're not. Training a copywriter is also hard, because a copywriter needs to understand a lot more than just human psychology to be a good copywriter. If you can crack this like Agora did, you could make millions, but you won't make millions doing copy for people. Think owning loads of web properties that generate cash.

Appointment setting: Easy to train, pretty valuable, but lots of competition. You could hire employees for pretty cheap, train them up, and scale by just getting more clients. Hire $15/hour labor and sell it for $100. You beat the competition by being specialized. If you ran the #1 dental marketing agency appointment setting company, how well do you think you could do?

Home services: We've got several people here that are succeeding with home services. Again, same model: it's labor arbitrage. You get $100/hour work and pay a guy $15/hour to do it. Simple, simple, simple. Competition is less of a threat since it's inherently harder to scale, so the business attracts sole prop type guys who just want to earn enough to make a living. But scaling isn't impossible.

Solar panels: Another simple business that can scale really well. I don't know enough about this business though. Seems similar to selling HVAC: would do well door-to-door or with direct mail. Lots of competition. The main point is scaling a sales team that can do DTD for you. If you can do that, you can do well: just scale up by territory. Similar to home services except the numbers are bigger.

Marketing agency: an insane amount of competition, a super low barrier to entry, and most of your competition sucks a$$. But the reason they suck is because everyone does the same thing: hire freelancers off Upwork to take care of the work & focus on sales at the expense of client performance. Or they care mostly about client performance but don't trust people to actually do the work, so they never do any sales or scale up at all, it just ends up being a living for them.

Don't choose a business based on how easy it seems. In fact, you should do the opposite. Do the hard thing. All of those businesses you described, except maybe copywriting, are very scalable, and $50k/mo profit is well within reach, but you have to scale them! You have to find a way to get the volume you need to reach scale. You have to find a way to handle all the work you get. You have to find a way to keep costs (financial & operational) low as you grow.

Also, ignore YouTube and TikTok money gurus. They'll make any business seem like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

that puts a lot of new perspective on what I was thinking, some great stuff I gotta take in here. home service was actually the only one i could measurably see scale in, its just that winters coming along so business is slow. Appreciate your advice lots!

ericbodrenok · Oct 2, 2023

MJ DeMarco said:
Wow, congratulations. Be proud of your accomplishments. Give yourself a big pat on the back.

That's not a bad month, for a 17 year old. Can you list these hustles? Scale to $7K implies there is SOME scale.

Thank you!

Yea absolutely. So my best month I made just under 7k which was in June 2023 - this was the revenue split

$3k - Working for a marketing agency (did all client account management)
$2.7k - Home services (pressure washing, gutter cleaning, window cleaningetc)
$1k - appointment setting (working for a coaching offer) got a few sets and some deals got closed

ericbodrenok · Oct 2, 2023

ZCP said:
@ericbodrenok nice work! be REALLY proud of what you HAVE done!
take a moment each evening to be THANKFUL for what you have done.
take a moment each morning to note what you are looking FORWARD to that day.

now, in a positive mindset, you know what to do. commit to ONE thing for 8 hrs of focused work per day for 30 days.
allow yourself to work on other shit during your off time. during those committed hours each day FOCUS on making that area / project / business SUPER F*cking successful.

now, even if you don't think it is right or the 'perfect' option / business / path, you badly NEED to teach yourself how to FOCUS and stay on something through the boring parts. Turn the handles each day and grow.

you got this!!

facts man, love that advice. I actually dont have much of an issue working, just doing 1 task for a long time! i usually hop between tasks because i get super bored which is something i should defintely address. that way of thinking will really help, realizing that either way the time im spending is not going to waste

Now i want to ask - say i go with running a marketing agency.

obviously, the more i put in the more i get out. but would you consider studying my niche, learning how to run my service, etc as a part of that 8 hour work day?

or would that 8hrs be purely service delivery, taking meetings, outreach, etc?

im also in highschool and gym is a non negotiable for me, so more than 8 hours a day of work aside from those is tough

ZCP · Oct 2, 2023

you pick. create a standard schedule for the next 11 weeks and FOLLOW IT to the T.
teach yourself to work long hours with FOCUS on a singular task. then report your results and what you learned.
you got this!

amp0193 · Oct 2, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
To be completely honest, I know what to do

ok, do that then.

And stop changing your mind and focus.

Shiny object syndrome is a great way to make no progress.

MattR82 · Oct 2, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
$2.7k - Home services (pressure washing, gutter cleaning, window cleaningetc)

Plus lawn mowing, gardening, domestic cleaning, garage doors and on and on.

I chose office cleaning (no move in move out or builders cleans, just office, around 35 to 45% margin on the smaller accounts) as it was the least labour intensive meaning staff turnover could be less, and it pays well in my area.

There was a guy on my roof yesterday pressure washing. Looks a bit dangerous and I'd be a bit scared having staff doing that, personally.

rpeck90 · Oct 3, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
I'm 17 years old, and throughout the las year or so, I've been hopping around from business to business, side hustle to side hustle, and managed to save up $60k. However, none of these "side hustles" have been scalable, and at my best I made just under 7k in one month. For the last month or two, I've dropped all my side hustles and have been looking to find a scalable business model that I'm ready to go all in on, with the goal to make 50k/month over the next few years. The thing is, I start something new, realize all the flaws, think something else is a better option, then quit and restart. Now, I'm barely making any money and starting to stress out like crazy. I know my exact problem, and if I stick through with one proven business I have a good chance of success, but I just don't know what business model I want to go with. I've got a good amount of experience in sales and marketing, so I was thinking an agency, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make as good of an offer as there's so much competition. To be completely honest, I know what to do, I'm just looking for someone to tell me "do this business model because of x, y, and z." If anyone has suggestions on a good business model that I can leverage my marketing and sales skills with, I'd really appreciate the advice. Or if anyone has any general advice, I'm all ears. Appreciate it! For context, I've done copywriting, appointment setting, home services, sold solar panels, and worked for a marketing agency.

Firstly, ensure you pay tax on the money you've earned. I appreciate you're young and there is a certain level of naivety you can get away with, however one of the key things you can do early on is get into the habit of paying tax & getting an appropriate financial system set up. It's important.

Secondly, you're experiencing something that many business builders face - you're currently in the "hustle" phase. This is survival mode where you have few assets and end up trading either your time or some shady / low value products in order to generate cash. It sounds to me that you're looking at how to move from that phase into the next one, which is "product". I'll briefly explain how to do so below.

-

In my experience, there are 3 "phases" to building a company (there are 2 preceding these (mindset + belief) but they don't matter here): -

Hustle
Product
Scale

Everybody sees the results of "scale" (Shopify screenshots etc) but few see the other two, which are more important.

The "hustle" phase is about survival; your focus is on getting money through independent means and your worldview is focused on the next "thing" you can do to bring in money. Some people happen to make a lot of money in this phase and it F*cks them up because they have very little equity in the business, leading them to struggle later. Ideally, you want to make some money here but not enough to retire off (similar to your experience, according to what you've written). This will push you to set things in place to build something more substantive later.

The "product" phase is where you take something valuable that you have created/built and turn it into a marketable asset. This allows you to start focusing on building equitable value, which can grow independent of your input. MJ's idea of a "productocracy" is here.

The "scale" phase is where you see the massive success stories that are pulling in millions in revenue. These tend to not only find what's known as a "product/market fit", but manage to get a sales funnel set up which they can scale to significant levels. This is where many entrepreneurs want to be as once you start getting decent throughput, you can start to invest in more creative pursuits that people actually care about. This is where many "brands" sit.

-

From what you've written, you are looking to move from "hustle" to "product".

Unfortunately, there is no simple way to do this. Your age is likely going to be an inhibiting factor as you don't have the skills or life experience that someone older might. Thus, you may need to take a more "long term" view of things and reduce speed in order to build a more substantive foundation which can scale into your 20's.

The way I've found it works is as follows: -

Everyone has a "thing" they do. Richard Hamming called it your "style". Mine was creative technical design. Anything I did (with the primary focus of making money), I would always focus on improving the underlying code / system that I was using. I tried a ton of things ranging from selling scammy Clickbank products (forex trading bots, weight loss supplements) to Wordpress themes - EVERY time, I would focus more on the backend technology than the product itself.
The most important thing you can do is develop your "style". What's your USP? Are you the flamboyant ladykiller? The nerd? The jock? The way you do things is actually (at least in my experience) more valuable than the thing itself. By investing your energy in ways that only you can, people begin to take notice and you start to develop rapport beyond the physical. When you notice that someone (typically a man) "has it", this is why. They invested in their own abilities and it shows. The same glow women get men get too - except the glow for men comes from their capacity to perform & the assurance this creates.
You should approach your work as a set of projects that you can use to develop your style. As mentioned above, the "hustle" phase is mostly about figuring out ways to generate cash. However, what you're actually doing is investing into yourself. By approaching ideas as projects, you do something super important - you're developing a system which you are able to bring to bear on bigger + more complex projects.
The "system" you create will enable you to take on more complicated projects. Your focus should be to make as bigger investments into yourself as possible, constantly taking on higher level work in order to extend your expertise & experience. The "system" you created to do this is what brought you the money you made presently and is what will take you to the next level. Without it, you will end up jumping from project to project in the hope you'll strike the motherlode. Even if you do, the victory will by Pyrrhic as you'll not have gained any experience beyond the getting of money. You'll feel unfulfilled and will begin seeking fulfilment from the likes of drugs etc.
Over time, you'll find specific things that "you" are able to do with your system that others cannot. These will be unique to you; often at odds with how a "market" will typically work. At this point, the onus is upon you to take the creative, financial & personal risk required to release your own products based on the work you've been doing with the system stuff. I can explain specifics if required -- basically, you will find certain opportunities, you'll make investments and (if you do it properly), you'll end up with an independently valuable products which should generate sales on their own. They may not make a lot but that doesn't matter.
Some of the products you create will pop. There will come a point where you'll start to see regularity in sales patterns. Certain people will keep coming back; particular products get talked about more than others. You need to learn how to identify these and go "all in" on pushing them forward. This is where the "scale" aspect comes from and is when you will likely start to feel more like you've "made it". At this point, you will begin to take a much more systemic approach to the business - hiring teams of people to do certain things, such as develop the core product(s), develop & maintain the sales funnel and improve brand equity.
Once this is done, you'll end up with a thriving business that can be sold or scaled.

-

I appreciate the above is likely quite convoluted but is based on my experience.

Regarding what you should do next, I would not suggest you approach any "business model" as that is externalising what should be an internal process. You may need to work on your mindset (the primary 2 steps I did not explain above) before being able to accelerate growth properly. I can explain those two steps if needed.

--

im also in highschool and gym is a non negotiable for me, so more than 8 hours a day of work aside from those is tough

This is a slowlane mindset.

You need to think about working "less" (not literally -- you'll end up putting in a shit ton of time if you find the right thing, but on a point of principal, you should always be looking at ways to cut down the amount of time you spend doing something).

Anyone who got super rich didn't clock 8 hour days; they innovated and created things, which takes a lot of time whilst doing very little. If you're measuring success by how much time you invest, you're going to end up with problems.

ericbodrenok · Oct 3, 2023

rpeck90 said:
Firstly, ensure you pay tax on the money you've earned. I appreciate you're young and there is a certain level of naivety you can get away with, however one of the key things you can do early on is get into the habit of paying tax & getting an appropriate financial system set up. It's important.

Secondly, you're experiencing something that many business builders face - you're currently in the "hustle" phase. This is survival mode where you have few assets and end up trading either your time or some shady / low value products in order to generate cash. It sounds to me that you're looking at how to move from that phase into the next one, which is "product". I'll briefly explain how to do so below.

-

In my experience, there are 3 "phases" to building a company (there are 2 preceding these (mindset + belief) but they don't matter here): -

Hustle

Product

Scale

Everybody sees the results of "scale" (Shopify screenshots etc) but few see the other two, which are more important.

The "hustle" phase is about survival; your focus is on getting money through independent means and your worldview is focused on the next "thing" you can do to bring in money. Some people happen to make a lot of money in this phase and it F*cks them up because they have very little equity in the business, leading them to struggle later. Ideally, you want to make some money here but not enough to retire off (similar to your experience, according to what you've written). This will push you to set things in place to build something more substantive later.

The "product" phase is where you take something valuable that you have created/built and turn it into a marketable asset. This allows you to start focusing on building equitable value, which can grow independent of your input. MJ's idea of a "productocracy" is here.

The "scale" phase is where you see the massive success stories that are pulling in millions in revenue. These tend to not only find what's known as a "product/market fit", but manage to get a sales funnel set up which they can scale to significant levels. This is where many entrepreneurs want to be as once you start getting decent throughput, you can start to invest in more creative pursuits that people actually care about. This is where many "brands" sit.

-

From what you've written, you are looking to move from "hustle" to "product".

Unfortunately, there is no simple way to do this. Your age is likely going to be an inhibiting factor as you don't have the skills or life experience that someone older might. Thus, you may need to take a more "long term" view of things and reduce speed in order to build a more substantive foundation which can scale into your 20's.

The way I've found it works is as follows: -

Everyone has a "thing" they do. Richard Hamming called it your "style". Mine was creative technical design. Anything I did (with the primary focus of making money), I would always focus on improving the underlying code / system that I was using. I tried a ton of things ranging from selling scammy Clickbank products (forex trading bots, weight loss supplements) to Wordpress themes - EVERY time, I would focus more on the backend technology than the product itself.

The most important thing you can do is develop your "style". What's your USP? Are you the flamboyant ladykiller? The nerd? The jock? The way you do things is actually (at least in my experience) more valuable than the thing itself. By investing your energy in ways that only you can, people begin to take notice and you start to develop rapport beyond the physical. When you notice that someone (typically a man) "has it", this is why. They invested in their own abilities and it shows. The same glow women get men get too - except the glow for men comes from their capacity to perform & the assurance this creates.

You should approach your work as a set of projects that you can use to develop your style. As mentioned above, the "hustle" phase is mostly about figuring out ways to generate cash. However, what you're actually doing is investing into yourself. By approaching ideas as projects, you do something super important - you're developing a system which you are able to bring to bear on bigger + more complex projects.

The "system" you create will enable you to take on more complicated projects. Your focus should be to make as bigger investments into yourself as possible, constantly taking on higher level work in order to extend your expertise & experience. The "system" you created to do this is what brought you the money you made presently and is what will take you to the next level. Without it, you will end up jumping from project to project in the hope you'll strike the motherlode. Even if you do, the victory will by Pyrrhic as you'll not have gained any experience beyond the getting of money. You'll feel unfulfilled and will begin seeking fulfilment from the likes of drugs etc.

Over time, you'll find specific things that "you" are able to do with your system that others cannot. These will be unique to you; often at odds with how a "market" will typically work. At this point, the onus is upon you to take the creative, financial & personal risk required to release your own products based on the work you've been doing with the system stuff. I can explain specifics if required -- basically, you will find certain opportunities, you'll make investments and (if you do it properly), you'll end up with an independently valuable products which should generate sales on their own. They may not make a lot but that doesn't matter.

Some of the products you create will pop. There will come a point where you'll start to see regularity in sales patterns. Certain people will keep coming back; particular products get talked about more than others. You need to learn how to identify these and go "all in" on pushing them forward. This is where the "scale" aspect comes from and is when you will likely start to feel more like you've "made it". At this point, you will begin to take a much more systemic approach to the business - hiring teams of people to do certain things, such as develop the core product(s), develop & maintain the sales funnel and improve brand equity.

Once this is done, you'll end up with a thriving business that can be sold or scaled.

-

I appreciate the above is likely quite convoluted but is based on my experience.

Regarding what you should do next, I would not suggest you approach any "business model" as that is externalising what should be an internal process. You may need to work on your mindset (the primary 2 steps I did not explain above) before being able to accelerate growth properly. I can explain those two steps if needed.

--

This is a slowlane mindset.

You need to think about working "less" (not literally -- you'll end up putting in a shit ton of time if you find the right thing, but on a point of principal, you should always be looking at ways to cut down the amount of time you spend doing something).

Anyone who got super rich didn't clock 8 hour days; they innovated and created things, which takes a lot of time whilst doing very little. If you're measuring success by how much time you invest, you're going to end up with problems.

Woah man, that's a lot of new information. You seem to understand my situation pretty well. Really appreciate the detail and the extent you went out in order to help me.

Definitely gonna take this in, and plan my actions based off what you wrote here.

Just curious, what kind of business/businesses do you run?

ericbodrenok · Oct 3, 2023

MattR82 said:
Plus lawn mowing, gardening, domestic cleaning, garage doors and on and on.

I chose office cleaning (no move in move out or builders cleans, just office, around 35 to 45% margin on the smaller accounts) as it was the least labour intensive meaning staff turnover could be less, and it pays well in my area.

There was a guy on my roof yesterday pressure washing. Looks a bit dangerous and I'd be a bit scared having staff doing that, personally.

That's an interesting business model, never heard of cleaning specifically for offices!

When you say office cleaning, do you mean offices in commercial buildings like law firms or whatever, or was it more for offices in residential homes kinda like for those who work at home?

Also how were you able to market such a unique service? I'm guessing in some ways it would be easier since i'm sure it's high demand, but if you don't mind running me through your marketing strategy for that, It'd be greatly appreciated!

Last question would be how did you go about pricing? by Sq foot?

Thanks Matt!

rpeck90 · Oct 3, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
Woah man, that's a lot of new information. You seem to understand my situation pretty well. Really appreciate the detail and the extent you went out in order to help me.

Definitely gonna take this in, and plan my actions based off what you wrote here.

Just curious, what kind of business/businesses do you run?

I write software. I've got a progress thread I need to update.

Don't take what I've written too seriously, you need to explore your own path. I think it's important to understand what "the process" looks like, as one of the bigger issues I've found is the entrepreneurial journey can be fraught with emotive highs + lows.

There's also a lot of bullshit spewed to influence people to take different paths. You're 17 - work hard but don't forget that you'll be competing with guys twice your age.

perchboy · Oct 3, 2023

rpeck90 said:
don't forget that you'll be competing with guys twice your age.

Yes don’t forget that you’re competing with guys twice your age.

They’re easy competition since most are adverse to technology. Look at them and tell yourself that you can beat them. Don’t limit yourself to age.

Gordon · Oct 3, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
I'm 17 years old, and throughout the las year or so, I've been hopping around from business to business, side hustle to side hustle, and managed to save up $60k. However, none of these "side hustles" have been scalable, and at my best I made just under 7k in one month. For the last month or two, I've dropped all my side hustles and have been looking to find a scalable business model that I'm ready to go all in on, with the goal to make 50k/month over the next few years. The thing is, I start something new, realize all the flaws, think something else is a better option, then quit and restart. Now, I'm barely making any money and starting to stress out like crazy. I know my exact problem, and if I stick through with one proven business I have a good chance of success, but I just don't know what business model I want to go with. I've got a good amount of experience in sales and marketing, so I was thinking an agency, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make as good of an offer as there's so much competition. To be completely honest, I know what to do, I'm just looking for someone to tell me "do this business model because of x, y, and z." If anyone has suggestions on a good business model that I can leverage my marketing and sales skills with, I'd really appreciate the advice. Or if anyone has any general advice, I'm all ears. Appreciate it! For context, I've done copywriting, appointment setting, home services, sold solar panels, and worked for a marketing agency.

Good job. In 1998 I was commissioned by Marketer Ben Suarez to do a 20 year research project, going back to 1978. He wanted to know which business model had withstood the test of time. I wrote about the results in his newsletter at that time, The NPGS UPDATE HOTLINE, which had several thousand subscribers.

In 2018 we revisited that report. I don't wish to write a book, so these are shorthand notes, and if you have questions regarding any of them, I'll follow up, fair enough? First point, TMF , the book which brought us all here...one of MJ's books. Take note.

One of the more successful business models was (is) PUBLISHING. And one of my favorites was MELVIN POWERS, you can see his company at mpowers dot com, and note they still sell THINK AND GROW RICH (TAGR), which they sold over 50 years ago. Melvin passed in 2013, and a decade later his business is still going on.

Although he did author many books, as a publisher, he sold many, many works by other authors too. TAGR is one of the all time best selling business books. So consider adding information to your tool kit, and with AI being what it is and what it is becoming, entry into InfoPreneurship is small, both time and money small.

Another All Star of my research report was/is HARVEY BRODY, who also had a publishing company, but the reason he was chosen is because of his continued success selling ONE PRODUCT. As of today, and still going strong, Harvey sells millions of dollars of his Zoom Spout Oiler, and his Pistol Grip via outlets like Walmart, Napa Auto, and hardware stores. Harvey shuffles papers a couple of hours a day to retain his multi-millionaire status. Harvey teaches what he calls a TOLL POSITION, where you basically control a product and let it do all the work for you. If interested, I'll share some more, but these two had 20 years of continuous success in 1998, and both business models are still working...25 years after that, so if long term success is something you might be interested in, these two Masters are worthy of your time and attention.

Thaddeus · Oct 3, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
I'm 17 years old, and throughout the las year or so, I've been hopping around from business to business, side hustle to side hustle, and managed to save up $60k. However, none of these "side hustles" have been scalable, and at my best I made just under 7k in one month. For the last month or two, I've dropped all my side hustles and have been looking to find a scalable business model that I'm ready to go all in on, with the goal to make 50k/month over the next few years. The thing is, I start something new, realize all the flaws, think something else is a better option, then quit and restart. Now, I'm barely making any money and starting to stress out like crazy. I know my exact problem, and if I stick through with one proven business I have a good chance of success, but I just don't know what business model I want to go with. I've got a good amount of experience in sales and marketing, so I was thinking an agency, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make as good of an offer as there's so much competition. To be completely honest, I know what to do, I'm just looking for someone to tell me "do this business model because of x, y, and z." If anyone has suggestions on a good business model that I can leverage my marketing and sales skills with, I'd really appreciate the advice. Or if anyone has any general advice, I'm all ears. Appreciate it! For context, I've done copywriting, appointment setting, home services, sold solar panels, and worked for a marketing agency.

Thank You for posting this. I'm also 17 and it's bizarre to see another 17 year old making $60k in profit. I barely scratched the $1k mark after around 1 year of jumping from business model to business model. Since then I've been focusing on learning important skills, like web development, sales, marketing, design. But you've given me some inspiration, that there's a decent chance to make a good amount of money at 17. THANKS!

MattR82 · Oct 3, 2023

ericbodrenok said:
That's an interesting business model, never heard of cleaning specifically for offices!

When you say office cleaning, do you mean offices in commercial buildings like law firms or whatever, or was it more for offices in residential homes kinda like for those who work at home?

Also how were you able to market such a unique service? I'm guessing in some ways it would be easier since i'm sure it's high demand, but if you don't mind running me through your marketing strategy for that, It'd be greatly appreciated!

Last question would be how did you go about pricing? by Sq foot?

Thanks Matt!

Commercial cleaning, but offices only, so yeah, accountants, lawyers, surveyors, auto parts stores, RV sales offices, whatever. Then as you get a name and experience, and have floating staff that can run around and cover others, move into larger office buildings that need daily cleaning.

All my experience is in Australia and when I got a coach experienced in the industry as a commercial cleaning business owner themselves, it started going well. But if I was in the US, I would look into this guy, AJ Simmons, and his cleanbiz network. Coaching plus all the calculators etc you need, from a guy that's been in the trenches, starting off with the classic mistake of beginning with a franchise then going it alone and killing it. Looks legit and a great way to start off. I haven't personally used his program but he has a good name and hopefully it's a cancel anytime type thing. I'm just saying, research it more, that's all.

https://m.youtube.com/@AjSimmonsOnline/videos

Clean Biz Network

Everything you need to start, grow, and scale your cleaning business all in one place! CRM, bidding calculators, proposals, forms, coaching, mentorship, network, and more!

www.cleanbiznetwork.app

Octoclean is another great YouTube channel to learn the nuts and bolts. Ricky Regalado at Route TV Cleaning and cocktails podcast is great for hearing success stories and learning about the industry in general.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GDTuiPBRB7s

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WM48cujWn04

Also a thread from someone that built and sold one here:

EXECUTION - What I Learned Operating A Commercial Cleaning Company

I hope this helps someone, somewhere... A little background…I owned and operated a non-franchise commercial cleaning business for almost 10 years and sold it recently (New role will be business development as a 1099 (only way I would) with an upfront commission and backend reoccurring/residual...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

ericbodrenok · Oct 4, 2023

MattR82 said:
Commercial cleaning, but offices only, so yeah, accountants, lawyers, surveyors, auto parts stores, RV sales offices, whatever. Then as you get a name and experience, and have floating staff that can run around and cover others, move into larger office buildings that need daily cleaning.

All my experience is in Australia and when I got a coach experienced in the industry as a commercial cleaning business owner themselves, it started going well. But if I was in the US, I would look into this guy, AJ Simmons, and his cleanbiz network. Coaching plus all the calculators etc you need, from a guy that's been in the trenches, starting off with the classic mistake of beginning with a franchise then going it alone and killing it. Looks legit and a great way to start off. I haven't personally used his program but he has a good name and hopefully it's a cancel anytime type thing. I'm just saying, research it more, that's all.

https://m.youtube.com/@AjSimmonsOnline/videos

Clean Biz Network

Everything you need to start, grow, and scale your cleaning business all in one place! CRM, bidding calculators, proposals, forms, coaching, mentorship, network, and more!

www.cleanbiznetwork.app

Octoclean is another great YouTube channel to learn the nuts and bolts. Ricky Regalado at Route TV Cleaning and cocktails podcast is great for hearing success stories and learning about the industry in general.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GDTuiPBRB7s

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WM48cujWn04

Also a thread from someone that built and sold one here:

EXECUTION - What I Learned Operating A Commercial Cleaning Company

I hope this helps someone, somewhere... A little background…I owned and operated a non-franchise commercial cleaning business for almost 10 years and sold it recently (New role will be business development as a 1099 (only way I would) with an upfront commission and backend reoccurring/residual...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Appreciate that! means a lot, will def look into those sources!

Ive done some home services in the past like i mentioned, but all residential, so clients were pretty easy to get and I got the ball rolling quite quickly. How long did it take you to begin landing jobs consistently if you dont mind me asking? I'm in Toronto, Canada, so big city with tons of businesses. Good market!

ericbodrenok · Oct 4, 2023

Thaddeus said:
Thank You for posting this. I'm also 17 and it's bizarre to see another 17 year old making $60k in profit. I barely scratched the $1k mark after around 1 year of jumping from business model to business model. Since then I've been focusing on learning important skills, like web development, sales, marketing, design. But you've given me some inspiration, that there's a decent chance to make a good amount of money at 17. THANKS!

For sure bro! I spent a ton of time reading, watching, and learning, in the beginning. It definitely pays off to learn those skills. One thing I really advise is to start connecting with others as much as possible. Kinda like on here, if you wanna chat i'd be happy to help because I know I really appreciated it when someone took the time to help me through the beginning stages.

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