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21 Years Old , $7K + Cashflow Business - How I kicked my a$$ into gear after years of action faking

Xolorr

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Jun 4, 2018
133
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Cape Town, South Africa
Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on this forum.

Hey guys, I'm Xolorr. I'm 21 Y/O from South Africa, and here's my story of how I kicked my a$$ into gear, finally started making some bread, and have some actionable advice that won't be fun but has helped me go from a broke-a$$ 21 y/o to now having $7k pm in MRR.

---

Backstory:

So, if you go back in my profile it'll be a picture-perfect display of action faking. I first found out about MJ and TMF when I was like 16/17, and I was hooked. What followed was years of mental masturbation and "attempts" at businesses. Looking back I'm disgusted to even call those attempts, and are more indicative of a millennial who's grown up on social media's expectations of overnight success, even though back then I swore I was working hard and "hustling".

Such is life, and I'll probably look back on this time in my life being like "wtf was I doing" in a couple of months.

If you don't feel slightly embarrassed/cringe about your past, you aren't growing.

(Not trying to act all high and mighty or as if I'm a millionaire, because I'm far from that lambo, but progress is still progress)

ANYWAYS, let's dive into what you all came for!

How did a broke-a$$ 21 Year old who had $35 in his bank account get to now having a business cash flowing $7k?

It's a long story, and I know that if I try to explain it all, it'll turn into a mini-book. But here's the gist of it.

I blame it all on grit and most importantly, an FTE.

You see, I've been reading and learning about business since I was like 16. I don't know why, but I've always had the surety that I would "make it". Ever since around 15 - 16 I realized school was BS, and I had to make it on my own if I wanted to personally be happy.

That being said, I grew up with bubble wrap. Middle class family, born into complacency in a small town, with no real hardships growing up. Yeah life was a rollercoaster and I have my fair share of childhood trauma, but there was always food on the table, and I lived in complacency. Never really had to work for anything, and kinda just had comfortable life in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

As soon as I turned 18 I wanted to leave, and after highschool I took the normal route of going to uni, except all I did was move to a uni-town, and study online.

I barely touched my books, and tbh had no clue what I was doing with my life. I'd spend all-day on TMF reading and rereading threads like this, and convincing myself I was taking action when truly I was just taking 2 weeks to build a terrible dropship Shopify store, buy an IG shoutout, and quit at the first signs of it not working. I convinced myself I was "taking actions", when tbh I was borderline depressed and lost.

From there I started freelancing photo and video, with whatever jobs came my way, and not actually going out trying to find my clients.

I had a lot of fun and crazy experiences in photo/video, but never earnt more than a couple of hundred bucks per job.

This brings me to the first biggest lesson:

Who you surround yourself with matters.


My roommates would go to uni, eat McDonald's, get drunk, and talk about girls they'd seen on Instagram all day. Compared to them, I was killing it making my $2000 per month off of random freelance gigs.

Things changed completely when I got a friend who "forced" me to start working out. I taught him about photo and video, and he'd train me, which is where everything started to click, and it was the first time I'd worked hard at something over multiple months as opposed to a couple weeks. The simple act of working out nearly every single day and the delay of seeing the results suddenly made me understand business, and how you aren't meant to see results for the first couple months.

After this, my video work started to take off and life improved. I quit drinking, started spending a load of time outdoors and really just feeling happy and passionate, but I definitely didn't have a business or any sustainable income.

Then I found the thread on here about a digital marketing agency, and decided thats what I was going to do.

Months went by of little to no work.

Making the perfect logo
Making the perfect website (Multiple times)
Building slideshow pitch decks

(None of which move the needle at all)

And time just carried on going by.

Then this year things started to change.

My family started to hit some financial struggle, and I saw the effect that it had on them

I made a load of money (at least what I thought at the time) by filming music festivals in the summer (December), but it made my lose my passion for videography and made me hate being treated with a lack of respect. I filmed 13 music festivals in one month, from 3pm to 3am, and finished the edits the next day every time. I slept in some crazy places, on friends couches, in my car, wherever I would find myself in the early hours of the morning, and at the New Years Eve festival, I vowed that it would be the last time I filmed out of necessity for money.

That's when I met my "mentor", who's now one of my best friends.

He had a youtube channel and he was visiting South Africa, and I sent a crazy DM offering to film his videos for him.

Somehow, it worked out.

For the first 5 months of this year, I worked myself to the grindstone.

Outreach during the day for Facebook advertising, in the evenings I would edit whatever I filmed that day and manage the channel.

I didn't get paid a cent, but he let me live with him and covered my food, so I was rent and grocery free for 5 month.

Nothing seemed to be working, and by March I had burnt through all of my savings, and had a whopping $35 in my bank account.

My Instagram made me look like a king from my video work (Trips to Dubai, Greece, Italy, Massive Parties, Jetskis, Etc.) because it was all a part of the job I was doing.

But I was broke asf.

That's when I believe my mental game finally switched on, and when it came to outreach I was on another level.

I would record 10 - 20 videos auditing companies every day, and send them out trying to get meetings, and finally one budged.

I signed my first client in April for $750 + 15% of the return from ads.

And after that, everything had clicked, and my next 2 clients came in like clockwork, taking me swiftly to a reoccurring income of $4000 per month.

More money than I'd ever seen in my life.

And that brings us to today, where I'm managing 5 client accounts (it was six but one dropped after a month because of a silver bullet 20ROAS expectation) and I have 3 deals in the pipeline.

Okay, your stories kinda cool, but tell me how to make money.

Well, I can't.

I'm but a guppy in this wild ocean of entrepreneurship, and there are much better sources than me who have given all of their secrets out on this forum.

You have it all in front of you.

BUT!

What I will do is give you some very practical advice on what has helped me!

#1) Trim the fat.


I don't mean go work out (Even though I should be). What I mean is trim the fat on your time.

Distractions and timesucks are what hold you back the most.

Do yourself a favour and check your screentime on your phone, and audit this CONSISTENTLY.

Hours are stolen by that little infinity box every day and you don't even realize it.

Unless you're crazy famous or an influencer, delete Instagram.

This will do WONDERS for your mental health and wellbeing, and I think everyone should do it.

It literally brings ZERO value to your life, whatsoever.

If you're so addicted that you can't be without it, check it on your computer. It's a much less enjoyable experience on your computer for some reason, and you'll spend ridiculously less time on it.

Same goes for TikTok!!!

I won't rant about this because we'd be here for days, but IMO it's the most brainwashing invention on earth, and it's turning people into zombies with a 2-second attention span.

#2) Prioritize sleep and get out of bed.

The days of "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "Hustle 24/7" are gone. Save those for the meme pages.

You're a lot more emotionally stable, high energy, and effective when you sleep properly. It should be prioritized above all else.

Get 7 - 9 hours of sleep a night, and wake up at the same time every day.

Like hitting the snooze button? Create a system to stop it.

Download alarms or military alarm, and set it so you have to scan a barcode in your kitchen or do some physical activity to turn off the alarm.

This will work wonders in stopping the fight against yourself.

While you're at it, buy a cheap second-hand phone just for your alarm app of choice and music/podcasts. That way you're disconnected from mainstream BS until you finish your morning work. My main phone doesn't get turned on until 13:00 when I just have calls for the rest of the day.

You can get more done in a morning deep work block than most people can in an entire week if you get rid of distractions.

#3) Get a high-value skill and sell it

I'm not writing about making a new invention, coding, real estate, or anything like that because I've never done it, and to add to that, it takes capital.

My goal has always been to get a cashflow business running on autopilot, and then self-fund more scaleable ventures from there.

IMO the best way to start from zero is to learn a high-value skill, sell that skill, and then hire to do fulfilment.

This doesn't mean that you don't know how to produce the results, but it frees up time from delivering work for clients and being a freelancer, to be able to keep prioritizing sales and allows you to scale to a certain extent.

#4) The internet is the great equalizer

This one goes out to all my third world homies reading this.

YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE OVER EVERYONE IN THE STATES AND YOU DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT.

You might think I'm crazy, but let's do a little maths here.

Off a google search that probably has very sketchy data, the average monthly costs for a single person in the US is $2,643.

I believe it's higher, especially in big cities. I mean, rent in LA is like $2k for a one-bedroom.

I'm currently writing this from a prime position, modern two-bedroom apartment in Cape Town, that costs me less than $900 a month, and this is me being extra and flexing my money.

If you're in a third world country or anywhere where your cost of living is low, imagine how well you could live on $2000 per month?!

You'll be spending less than the average American, and probably having 2-3X the quality of life.

SO DO BUSINESS WITH AMERICANS!!

With the internet, nothing is stopping you.

All of my clients are US based, and pay 3X more than what I would get working with local brands, FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF WORK?!

Why would you not want to get paid 3X for the same time and effort?

Leverage your low cost of living to enjoy life while being frugal (in the eyes of the US).

#5 Quality & Quantity

This applies specifically to sales based models and getting it off the ground, but in today's day and age copying and pasting a "good cold email script" off of Google isn't going to get you anywhere.

People are getting hit up more than ever, and you need to go above and beyond to get even a modest attempt to client ratio.

With the system I use, I expect a 6% attempt to meeting ratio, and I understand that if I send out 100 outreaches in a month, I can sign 1 - 2 clients per month, at around a $1000 - $3000 MRR and a minimum of a 3-month contract.

In the beginning, all of your time should be spent on finding and getting in contact with prospects.

---

Whatever you're doing now, if you don't have an income stream you can create one with zero capital, and whatever device you're reading this on.

Some good examples:
- Digital Marketing (Getting saturated, I'm already planning on what to do if Facebook ads were to go belly up)
- Copywriting
- Email Marketing
- Photo/video
- Web Design

-----

I hope this all made sense, it's right before bed and I wrote this all off the top of my head.

As I mentioned, $7k per month really isn't a lot compared to the big dogs, but I'm glad that I'm able to save around 50% of that every month while living an extremely comfortable life, and the next steps are scaling this to $30k per month, and using my resources and skills to create new income streams which have more leverage and potential.
 
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Xolorr

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
520%
Jun 4, 2018
133
692
25
Cape Town, South Africa
If not gold, this should be at least notable.

Thank you!

The forums given me a lot, and looking back I realize that I was one of the people MJ was trying to show how to get the roses. (Damn I need to reread unscripted again!)

I hope this helps at least one person make that mental break through needed :)
 

Xolorr

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
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Jun 4, 2018
133
692
25
Cape Town, South Africa
Inspiring thread @Xolorr

Will definitely be following. Impressed by your mentality at age 21. Wish I was more like you at that age, haha!

Hahaha man thank you so much!

It's funny because I don't feel 21 most of the time.

Day to day I feel like I'm 30, but I like to do things which keep me young :)

I'll be sure to keep the updates coming!
 

Simon Angel

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More than inspiring, glad you started an execution thread! Love how we both consider $2000 a month to be great money for the countries we live in, and it's true. Thank you for this.
 
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Odysseus M Jones

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Fresh from the distillers:

I would record 10 - 20 videos auditing companies every day, and send them out trying to get meetings, and finally one budged.

I signed my first client in April for $750 + 15% of the return from ads.

Some more tips:
I get all my clients through video audits via cold email, but if you just got a skype sub you could cold call to the US as well!
I actually do video audits on cold/no contact. You can publicly view any ads any Facebook page is running via page transparency > Facebook ads library. So although I can’t view the metrics/data, just from the ads their running I can get a general idea if they know what they’re doing or not.

for video audits I use loom, I seem to remember reading a thread on here of a very similar method by someone else.

then just make sure to find the Decision makers email (a bunch of softwares for this) as well as LinkedIn, etc. and send it out!
I won’t share one of my examples publicly for obvious reasons, but it goes a bit like this:

- find a list of qualified leads, and find the DM email via LinkedIn/Snov/hunter
- Start recording on their website, introduce myself and give a hook. “I want to show you how you’re missing out on $10k, if not $100k pm in sales”
- quick intro of myself
- audit (compliment) their website, product, reviews, IG, and content
- go to their FB ads library “this is why I was surprised to see that a business of your caliber wasn’t taking full advantage of FB ads”
- change tabs to a google slides which is a quick pitch for the agency (Shopify specialists, 800k+ in adspend, guarantee results)
- show case studies / results from previous clients (proof)
- audit ads (too few ads, copy, creatives, etc.)
- show case studies again and give a CTA “if you re interested in generating results like these, I’d love to book in a quick 15 min call”

and then rinse and repeat that 10x per day.

You're welcome
 

Wil22

Contributor
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Jun 8, 2020
41
53
Philadelphia,Pa
Thank you!

The forums given me a lot, and looking back I realize that I was one of the people MJ was trying to show how to get the roses. (Damn I need to reread unscripted again!)

I hope this helps at least one person make that mental break through needed :)
Thanks for posting. It provided me with a format to follow. Definitely helps. I look forward to reading your future posts!
 

PseudoBobSmith

New Contributor
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Jun 8, 2020
7
3
New York
Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on this forum.

Hey guys, I'm Xolorr. I'm 21 Y/O from South Africa, and here's my story of how I kicked my a$$ into gear, finally started making some bread, and have some actionable advice that won't be fun but has helped me go from a broke-a$$ 21 y/o to now having $7k pm in MRR.

---

Backstory:

So, if you go back in my profile it'll be a picture-perfect display of action faking. I first found out about MJ and TMF when I was like 16/17, and I was hooked. What followed was years of mental masturbation and "attempts" at businesses. Looking back I'm disgusted to even call those attempts, and are more indicative of a millennial who's grown up on social media's expectations of overnight success, even though back then I swore I was working hard and "hustling".

Such is life, and I'll probably look back on this time in my life being like "wtf was I doing" in a couple of months.

If you don't feel slightly embarrassed/cringe about your past, you aren't growing.

(Not trying to act all high and mighty or as if I'm a millionaire, because I'm far from that lambo, but progress is still progress)

ANYWAYS, let's dive into what you all came for!

How did a broke-a$$ 21 Year old who had $35 in his bank account get to now having a business cash flowing $7k?

It's a long story, and I know that if I try to explain it all, it'll turn into a mini-book. But here's the gist of it.

I blame it all on grit and most importantly, an FTE.

You see, I've been reading and learning about business since I was like 16. I don't know why, but I've always had the surety that I would "make it". Ever since around 15 - 16 I realized school was BS, and I had to make it on my own if I wanted to personally be happy.

That being said, I grew up with bubble wrap. Middle class family, born into complacency in a small town, with no real hardships growing up. Yeah life was a rollercoaster and I have my fair share of childhood trauma, but there was always food on the table, and I lived in complacency. Never really had to work for anything, and kinda just had comfortable life in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

As soon as I turned 18 I wanted to leave, and after highschool I took the normal route of going to uni, except all I did was move to a uni-town, and study online.

I barely touched my books, and tbh had no clue what I was doing with my life. I'd spend all-day on TMF reading and rereading threads like this, and convincing myself I was taking action when truly I was just taking 2 weeks to build a terrible dropship Shopify store, buy an IG shoutout, and quit at the first signs of it not working. I convinced myself I was "taking actions", when tbh I was borderline depressed and lost.

From there I started freelancing photo and video, with whatever jobs came my way, and not actually going out trying to find my clients.

I had a lot of fun and crazy experiences in photo/video, but never earnt more than a couple of hundred bucks per job.

This brings me to the first biggest lesson:

Who you surround yourself with matters.


My roommates would go to uni, eat McDonald's, get drunk, and talk about girls they'd seen on Instagram all day. Compared to them, I was killing it making my $2000 per month off of random freelance gigs.

Things changed completely when I got a friend who "forced" me to start working out. I taught him about photo and video, and he'd train me, which is where everything started to click, and it was the first time I'd worked hard at something over multiple months as opposed to a couple weeks. The simple act of working out nearly every single day and the delay of seeing the results suddenly made me understand business, and how you aren't meant to see results for the first couple months.

After this, my video work started to take off and life improved. I quit drinking, started spending a load of time outdoors and really just feeling happy and passionate, but I definitely didn't have a business or any sustainable income.

Then I found the thread on here about a digital marketing agency, and decided thats what I was going to do.

Months went by of little to no work.

Making the perfect logo
Making the perfect website (Multiple times)
Building slideshow pitch decks

(None of which move the needle at all)

And time just carried on going by.

Then this year things started to change.

My family started to hit some financial struggle, and I saw the effect that it had on them

I made a load of money (at least what I thought at the time) by filming music festivals in the summer (December), but it made my lose my passion for videography and made me hate being treated with a lack of respect. I filmed 13 music festivals in one month, from 3pm to 3am, and finished the edits the next day every time. I slept in some crazy places, on friends couches, in my car, wherever I would find myself in the early hours of the morning, and at the New Years Eve festival, I vowed that it would be the last time I filmed out of necessity for money.

That's when I met my "mentor", who's now one of my best friends.

He had a youtube channel and he was visiting South Africa, and I sent a crazy DM offering to film his videos for him.

Somehow, it worked out.

For the first 5 months of this year, I worked myself to the grindstone.

Outreach during the day for Facebook advertising, in the evenings I would edit whatever I filmed that day and manage the channel.

I didn't get paid a cent, but he let me live with him and covered my food, so I was rent and grocery free for 5 month.

Nothing seemed to be working, and by March I had burnt through all of my savings, and had a whopping $35 in my bank account.

My Instagram made me look like a king from my video work (Trips to Dubai, Greece, Italy, Massive Parties, Jetskis, Etc.) because it was all a part of the job I was doing.

But I was broke asf.

That's when I believe my mental game finally switched on, and when it came to outreach I was on another level.

I would record 10 - 20 videos auditing companies every day, and send them out trying to get meetings, and finally one budged.

I signed my first client in April for $750 + 15% of the return from ads.

And after that, everything had clicked, and my next 2 clients came in like clockwork, taking me swiftly to a reoccurring income of $4000 per month.

More money than I'd ever seen in my life.

And that brings us to today, where I'm managing 5 client accounts (it was six but one dropped after a month because of a silver bullet 20ROAS expectation) and I have 3 deals in the pipeline.

Okay, your stories kinda cool, but tell me how to make money.

Well, I can't.

I'm but a guppy in this wild ocean of entrepreneurship, and there are much better sources than me who have given all of their secrets out on this forum.

You have it all in front of you.

BUT!

What I will do is give you some very practical advice on what has helped me!

#1) Trim the fat.


I don't mean go work out (Even though I should be). What I mean is trim the fat on your time.

Distractions and timesucks are what hold you back the most.

Do yourself a favour and check your screentime on your phone, and audit this CONSISTENTLY.

Hours are stolen by that little infinity box every day and you don't even realize it.

Unless you're crazy famous or an influencer, delete Instagram.

This will do WONDERS for your mental health and wellbeing, and I think everyone should do it.

It literally brings ZERO value to your life, whatsoever.

If you're so addicted that you can't be without it, check it on your computer. It's a much less enjoyable experience on your computer for some reason, and you'll spend ridiculously less time on it.

Same goes for TikTok!!!

I won't rant about this because we'd be here for days, but IMO it's the most brainwashing invention on earth, and it's turning people into zombies with a 2-second attention span.

#2) Prioritize sleep and get out of bed.

The days of "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "Hustle 24/7" are gone. Save those for the meme pages.

You're a lot more emotionally stable, high energy, and effective when you sleep properly. It should be prioritized above all else.

Get 7 - 9 hours of sleep a night, and wake up at the same time every day.

Like hitting the snooze button? Create a system to stop it.

Download alarms or military alarm, and set it so you have to scan a barcode in your kitchen or do some physical activity to turn off the alarm.

This will work wonders in stopping the fight against yourself.

While you're at it, buy a cheap second-hand phone just for your alarm app of choice and music/podcasts. That way you're disconnected from mainstream BS until you finish your morning work. My main phone doesn't get turned on until 13:00 when I just have calls for the rest of the day.

You can get more done in a morning deep work block than most people can in an entire week if you get rid of distractions.

#3) Get a high-value skill and sell it

I'm not writing about making a new invention, coding, real estate, or anything like that because I've never done it, and to add to that, it takes capital.

My goal has always been to get a cashflow business running on autopilot, and then self-fund more scaleable ventures from there.

IMO the best way to start from zero is to learn a high-value skill, sell that skill, and then hire to do fulfilment.

This doesn't mean that you don't know how to produce the results, but it frees up time from delivering work for clients and being a freelancer, to be able to keep prioritizing sales and allows you to scale to a certain extent.

#4) The internet is the great equalizer

This one goes out to all my third world homies reading this.

YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE OVER EVERYONE IN THE STATES AND YOU DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT.

You might think I'm crazy, but let's do a little maths here.

Off a google search that probably has very sketchy data, the average monthly costs for a single person in the US is $2,643.

I believe it's higher, especially in big cities. I mean, rent in LA is like $2k for a one-bedroom.

I'm currently writing this from a prime position, modern two-bedroom apartment in Cape Town, that costs me less than $900 a month, and this is me being extra and flexing my money.

If you're in a third world country or anywhere where your cost of living is low, imagine how well you could live on $2000 per month?!

You'll be spending less than the average American, and probably having 2-3X the quality of life.

SO DO BUSINESS WITH AMERICANS!!

With the internet, nothing is stopping you.

All of my clients are US based, and pay 3X more than what I would get working with local brands, FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF WORK?!

Why would you not want to get paid 3X for the same time and effort?

Leverage your low cost of living to enjoy life while being frugal (in the eyes of the US).

#5 Quality & Quantity

This applies specifically to sales based models and getting it off the ground, but in today's day and age copying and pasting a "good cold email script" off of Google isn't going to get you anywhere.

People are getting hit up more than ever, and you need to go above and beyond to get even a modest attempt to client ratio.

With the system I use, I expect a 6% attempt to meeting ratio, and I understand that if I send out 100 outreaches in a month, I can sign 1 - 2 clients per month, at around a $1000 - $3000 MRR and a minimum of a 3-month contract.

In the beginning, all of your time should be spent on finding and getting in contact with prospects.

---

Whatever you're doing now, if you don't have an income stream you can create one with zero capital, and whatever device you're reading this on.

Some good examples:
- Digital Marketing (Getting saturated, I'm already planning on what to do if Facebook ads were to go belly up)
- Copywriting
- Email Marketing
- Photo/video
- Web Design

-----

I hope this all made sense, it's right before bed and I wrote this all off the top of my head.

As I mentioned, $7k per month really isn't a lot compared to the big dogs, but I'm glad that I'm able to save around 50% of that every month while living an extremely comfortable life, and the next steps are scaling this to $30k per month, and using my resources and skills to create new income streams which have more leverage and potential.
WOW.... Respect. I appreciate your story, and truly enjoy the insights of what you've provided.
 
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Xolorr

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
520%
Jun 4, 2018
133
692
25
Cape Town, South Africa
Let's start from the ground up...

I'm glad I started this thread and pieces are falling into place because to be honest, I've slipped the last month.

I think I worked so hard for the first 6 months of this year that I reached a mild burnout, and in all honesty, 24th of June to where I am now, I've let myself get complacent, thinking I'm some badass for earning way more than my friends, moving into a new crib, etc.

I got an email today from one of our clients stating that they want to end their time with us as they are under massive financial strain. It shocked me as we were getting profitable results for them and had an amazing relationship, and without going into detail their business has been hit hard by Covid and they're owed over $300k in unpaid invoices by companies who are bankrupt.

Luckily we're ending on very good terms, and he's said that he would love to write me a good testimonial and send any referrals he can.

His business was doing $8m a year pre covid, and when he signed with me (one of my first clients), he did $5k through his Shopify the previous month. I'm happy that I was able to get him to $20k this month, and I'm very understanding of the situation he's in because he's had the rug pulled out from underneath him.

In our contract, we also had a $2k performance bonus, so although I've just lost $1500 in retainers, I've just invoiced the $2k bonus, so effectively I won't feel the cashflow impacts until one months time. (While I'm finishing up this post the $2k just hit my PayPal)

Best believe this woke me up from my little slumber of complacency.

This is the little nudge I needed to get the fire burning again, and now I want to document my moves going forward towards $30kpm.

---

My mentor always said something to me which stuck:

"You don't have a business problem, you have a personal problem which is being reflected in your business"

So what's my personal problem?

In the interim of change from having a roommate who's a successful business owner to me living on my own, I've lost a lot of my foundational habits which the business is built on.

I've started neglecting sleep, spending more time with friends, prioritizing my health less, doing less outreach, etc.

Now it's time to build back up, so here's the plan of action:

- In bed by 22:00 every night Mon - Fri. I take Saturdays to chill, and Sundays for higher-level planning/tasks.

- Main phone turned off at 9pm, and turned back on only after my team call (13:00/14:00)

- Read over goals & plan every morning (I have my alarmy set to a barcode I have on my goals & intention doc)

- At least 5x video audits per day to new leads. I know I can do 10, but I want to start with baby steps

- Go above and beyond with my current clients to boost retention

- I've hired someone to help with outreach, on a pure commission basis, so across the company, we should be doing 50+ outreaches per week as a hygiene standard

As of now, these are the goals:

I've got a badass new website that's nearly done. I just need to write the copy & then my designer will wrap it all up, so I need to write up that copy this weekend.

There are 2 deals in the pipeline. One at $1k + 10% ROAS, another at $1500 + 10%. The $1500 one just emailed me and I aim to close on that next week.

My higher-level goal is to build a brand around ecom + marketing through a content-based blog. (I know you just threw up in your mouth reading that, but I've got a very different system to everything else out there, and I think this will shift the way I get me clients from my grinding my a$$ with outreaches to having 1000s of leads sitting in an email list. Won't give too much away on this, but it'll develop as we go.

For now, my biggest priority is creating the habit of daily outreach.

Peace

- Xolorr
 

Xolorr

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Okay cool, so I wasn't going to post this, but I thought it could help someone who thinks that money solves all your problems.

Guess what, it doesn't haha.

Yesterday afternoon/night was one of the toughest mental days I've had that I can remember.

I'm not someone who suffers from depression/anxiety, but something exploded yesterday.

Anyways, I won't go into detail, but I remember reading through a couple progress threads where someone will have one negative life event / mental slip up / spell of anxiety and they'd just stop or give up, and I think the thought process of a lot of people is that once you start making money you get some type of mental armour and real-life issues don't impact you or affect you anymore.

Guess what, they do.

You just can't let them change the direction of your cruise ship.

So yeah, I stayed up until like 3 am this morning dealing with some BS, and after a couple hours of sleep I got up and did the bare minimum today.

Just handled any urgent tasks, delegated a bit to my team, had the call, and then hung out with some friends I haven't seen in awhile, watched the sunset, and basically just focused on getting my mindset back and ready to tackle work again tomorrow.

So yeah. IMO too many people scream and shout about how you should be heartless and hustle 24/7 regardless of circumstance, but that's just not true.

You perform your best work when you're in a healthy mental space, so prioritize that.

I'm not saying you should stop working if you're not a 10/10 mood, but I am saying on those days where things just aren't going your way, it's better to rest up and reattack the next day than break yourself today.

Anyways, having a bit of time to chill today made me think a lot more about the direction I want to take this business.

So at the moment I'm still pretty heavily attached to time. I'm getting more and more divorced as we progress, but the agency still needs me a decent few hours a day. So my steps towards that are training up my teammate to be a 2IC or CMO type position who handles 99% of what happens in the agency. Then hire another media buyer underneath him to increase client capacity.

Majority of the time suck is finding new clients to grow, so I'm prioritizing building a system to generate inbound leads. This will take time to build, but will have an indirect output correlation to time vs the linear one I have now.

It's been a while since I read Unscripted , but I remember one of the key points being: listen to what your customers are saying.

Anyways, I was chatting to the $1500pm deal on Skype, and they desperately want someone to handle their creatives specifically for ads. Initially, I dismissed it, but after doing a bit of digging I found an EPIC solution to this which I'm going to implement in the next month or two, so then we will handle the copywriting + media buying + graphic design & editing of our client's ads.

Basically the goal here is to become as ridiculously valuable to our clients as possible to keep retention high, and also to hedge against an implosion/explosion of FB ads and having my income pool suddenly dried.

Anyways, it's time for me to catch an early night.

90% sure that the 1.5k deal will come through and onboard this week, they're very keen but just need the CEO to write off on it. That'll bring me back to the 7 - 8K PM region which makes me more comfortable.
 
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Xolorr

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Yes. I sense you're not a fan of his?

To be honest not really...

From what I understand, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have an agency (Same with a ton of those dudes), so I'll let you do the math on what that means.

Also, not a fan of those agency program/youtube guys at all, just because everybody copies their stuff for 2 weeks and then quits when they don't get a client, or they get a client and can't deliver results and the client just gets burnt.

IMO, whatever the masses are doing, do the opposite.

That's my goal with how I'm building/structuring things, so if Joel or any of these other gurus says go right, I go left and it seems to work better.

My mentor runs 2 of his own ecom brands, so I learnt what he does to market his brands and apply that to my clients.

In the future, once South Africa gets it's act together with payment processing I plan on launching my own brand(s), but right now there's no viable solutions to accept payments without killing your conversion rate with sketchy redirects, etc.

Edit: These are just my thoughts. I'm not claiming Joel doesn't have an agency/know what he's doing, but this is my view on it + 90% of the people selling online courses
 

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To be honest not really...

From what I understand, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have an agency (Same with a ton of those dudes), so I'll let you do the math on what that means.

Also, not a fan of those agency program/youtube guys at all, just because everybody copies their stuff for 2 weeks and then quits when they don't get a client, or they get a client and can't deliver results and the client just gets burnt.

IMO, whatever the masses are doing, do the opposite.

That's my goal with how I'm building/structuring things, so if Joel or any of these other gurus says go right, I go left and it seems to work better.

My mentor runs 2 of his own ecom brands, so I learnt what he does to market his brands and apply that to my clients.

In the future, once South Africa gets it's act together with payment processing I plan on launching my own brand(s), but right now there's no viable solutions to accept payments without killing your conversion rate with sketchy redirects, etc.

Edit: These are just my thoughts. I'm not claiming Joel doesn't have an agency/know what he's doing, but this is my view on it + 90% of the people selling online courses

Thanks for replying. I'm actually in one of his groups. He does have an agency. I can understand how you feel though, I'm sick and tired of seeing gurus selling courses now!

The good thing about Joel is that he cut's through all the BullSh*t, when people are talking about doing this or doing that which is not getting them any closer to a client - he tells them to focus on setting appointments with potential new clients and closing appointments. No website design, no designing logos for two days. Stuff that moves the needle!
 

Xolorr

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New client signed & paid :)

$1500 + 10% return.

Excited to get them up and running at the end of this week.

Their previous agency was delivering a 1.7 ROAS which is barely break-even for them.

We're starting with 3k in ad spend, so I'm aiming for a min 3-4x ROAS which would blow their old results out the water & give us a good foundation in the first month.

Dealing with the mental BS and getting back up to speed on work!

Goal is to bring on 2 clients next month & Get pushed over that $10k mark.

Total billables for July was $9100, so I can taste it.
 
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Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on this forum.

Hey guys, I'm Xolorr. I'm 21 Y/O from South Africa, and here's my story of how I kicked my a$$ into gear, finally started making some bread, and have some actionable advice that won't be fun but has helped me go from a broke-a$$ 21 y/o to now having $7k pm in MRR.

---

Backstory:

So, if you go back in my profile it'll be a picture-perfect display of action faking. I first found out about MJ and TMF when I was like 16/17, and I was hooked. What followed was years of mental masturbation and "attempts" at businesses. Looking back I'm disgusted to even call those attempts, and are more indicative of a millennial who's grown up on social media's expectations of overnight success, even though back then I swore I was working hard and "hustling".

Such is life, and I'll probably look back on this time in my life being like "wtf was I doing" in a couple of months.

If you don't feel slightly embarrassed/cringe about your past, you aren't growing.

(Not trying to act all high and mighty or as if I'm a millionaire, because I'm far from that lambo, but progress is still progress)

ANYWAYS, let's dive into what you all came for!

How did a broke-a$$ 21 Year old who had $35 in his bank account get to now having a business cash flowing $7k?

It's a long story, and I know that if I try to explain it all, it'll turn into a mini-book. But here's the gist of it.

I blame it all on grit and most importantly, an FTE.

You see, I've been reading and learning about business since I was like 16. I don't know why, but I've always had the surety that I would "make it". Ever since around 15 - 16 I realized school was BS, and I had to make it on my own if I wanted to personally be happy.

That being said, I grew up with bubble wrap. Middle class family, born into complacency in a small town, with no real hardships growing up. Yeah life was a rollercoaster and I have my fair share of childhood trauma, but there was always food on the table, and I lived in complacency. Never really had to work for anything, and kinda just had comfortable life in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

As soon as I turned 18 I wanted to leave, and after highschool I took the normal route of going to uni, except all I did was move to a uni-town, and study online.

I barely touched my books, and tbh had no clue what I was doing with my life. I'd spend all-day on TMF reading and rereading threads like this, and convincing myself I was taking action when truly I was just taking 2 weeks to build a terrible dropship Shopify store, buy an IG shoutout, and quit at the first signs of it not working. I convinced myself I was "taking actions", when tbh I was borderline depressed and lost.

From there I started freelancing photo and video, with whatever jobs came my way, and not actually going out trying to find my clients.

I had a lot of fun and crazy experiences in photo/video, but never earnt more than a couple of hundred bucks per job.

This brings me to the first biggest lesson:

Who you surround yourself with matters.


My roommates would go to uni, eat McDonald's, get drunk, and talk about girls they'd seen on Instagram all day. Compared to them, I was killing it making my $2000 per month off of random freelance gigs.

Things changed completely when I got a friend who "forced" me to start working out. I taught him about photo and video, and he'd train me, which is where everything started to click, and it was the first time I'd worked hard at something over multiple months as opposed to a couple weeks. The simple act of working out nearly every single day and the delay of seeing the results suddenly made me understand business, and how you aren't meant to see results for the first couple months.

After this, my video work started to take off and life improved. I quit drinking, started spending a load of time outdoors and really just feeling happy and passionate, but I definitely didn't have a business or any sustainable income.

Then I found the thread on here about a digital marketing agency, and decided thats what I was going to do.

Months went by of little to no work.

Making the perfect logo
Making the perfect website (Multiple times)
Building slideshow pitch decks

(None of which move the needle at all)

And time just carried on going by.

Then this year things started to change.

My family started to hit some financial struggle, and I saw the effect that it had on them

I made a load of money (at least what I thought at the time) by filming music festivals in the summer (December), but it made my lose my passion for videography and made me hate being treated with a lack of respect. I filmed 13 music festivals in one month, from 3pm to 3am, and finished the edits the next day every time. I slept in some crazy places, on friends couches, in my car, wherever I would find myself in the early hours of the morning, and at the New Years Eve festival, I vowed that it would be the last time I filmed out of necessity for money.

That's when I met my "mentor", who's now one of my best friends.

He had a youtube channel and he was visiting South Africa, and I sent a crazy DM offering to film his videos for him.

Somehow, it worked out.

For the first 5 months of this year, I worked myself to the grindstone.

Outreach during the day for Facebook advertising, in the evenings I would edit whatever I filmed that day and manage the channel.

I didn't get paid a cent, but he let me live with him and covered my food, so I was rent and grocery free for 5 month.

Nothing seemed to be working, and by March I had burnt through all of my savings, and had a whopping $35 in my bank account.

My Instagram made me look like a king from my video work (Trips to Dubai, Greece, Italy, Massive Parties, Jetskis, Etc.) because it was all a part of the job I was doing.

But I was broke asf.

That's when I believe my mental game finally switched on, and when it came to outreach I was on another level.

I would record 10 - 20 videos auditing companies every day, and send them out trying to get meetings, and finally one budged.

I signed my first client in April for $750 + 15% of the return from ads.

And after that, everything had clicked, and my next 2 clients came in like clockwork, taking me swiftly to a reoccurring income of $4000 per month.

More money than I'd ever seen in my life.

And that brings us to today, where I'm managing 5 client accounts (it was six but one dropped after a month because of a silver bullet 20ROAS expectation) and I have 3 deals in the pipeline.

Okay, your stories kinda cool, but tell me how to make money.

Well, I can't.

I'm but a guppy in this wild ocean of entrepreneurship, and there are much better sources than me who have given all of their secrets out on this forum.

You have it all in front of you.

BUT!

What I will do is give you some very practical advice on what has helped me!

#1) Trim the fat.


I don't mean go work out (Even though I should be). What I mean is trim the fat on your time.

Distractions and timesucks are what hold you back the most.

Do yourself a favour and check your screentime on your phone, and audit this CONSISTENTLY.

Hours are stolen by that little infinity box every day and you don't even realize it.

Unless you're crazy famous or an influencer, delete Instagram.

This will do WONDERS for your mental health and wellbeing, and I think everyone should do it.

It literally brings ZERO value to your life, whatsoever.

If you're so addicted that you can't be without it, check it on your computer. It's a much less enjoyable experience on your computer for some reason, and you'll spend ridiculously less time on it.

Same goes for TikTok!!!

I won't rant about this because we'd be here for days, but IMO it's the most brainwashing invention on earth, and it's turning people into zombies with a 2-second attention span.

#2) Prioritize sleep and get out of bed.

The days of "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "Hustle 24/7" are gone. Save those for the meme pages.

You're a lot more emotionally stable, high energy, and effective when you sleep properly. It should be prioritized above all else.

Get 7 - 9 hours of sleep a night, and wake up at the same time every day.

Like hitting the snooze button? Create a system to stop it.

Download alarms or military alarm, and set it so you have to scan a barcode in your kitchen or do some physical activity to turn off the alarm.

This will work wonders in stopping the fight against yourself.

While you're at it, buy a cheap second-hand phone just for your alarm app of choice and music/podcasts. That way you're disconnected from mainstream BS until you finish your morning work. My main phone doesn't get turned on until 13:00 when I just have calls for the rest of the day.

You can get more done in a morning deep work block than most people can in an entire week if you get rid of distractions.

#3) Get a high-value skill and sell it

I'm not writing about making a new invention, coding, real estate, or anything like that because I've never done it, and to add to that, it takes capital.

My goal has always been to get a cashflow business running on autopilot, and then self-fund more scaleable ventures from there.

IMO the best way to start from zero is to learn a high-value skill, sell that skill, and then hire to do fulfilment.

This doesn't mean that you don't know how to produce the results, but it frees up time from delivering work for clients and being a freelancer, to be able to keep prioritizing sales and allows you to scale to a certain extent.

#4) The internet is the great equalizer

This one goes out to all my third world homies reading this.

YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE OVER EVERYONE IN THE STATES AND YOU DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT.

You might think I'm crazy, but let's do a little maths here.

Off a google search that probably has very sketchy data, the average monthly costs for a single person in the US is $2,643.

I believe it's higher, especially in big cities. I mean, rent in LA is like $2k for a one-bedroom.

I'm currently writing this from a prime position, modern two-bedroom apartment in Cape Town, that costs me less than $900 a month, and this is me being extra and flexing my money.

If you're in a third world country or anywhere where your cost of living is low, imagine how well you could live on $2000 per month?!

You'll be spending less than the average American, and probably having 2-3X the quality of life.

SO DO BUSINESS WITH AMERICANS!!

With the internet, nothing is stopping you.

All of my clients are US based, and pay 3X more than what I would get working with local brands, FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF WORK?!

Why would you not want to get paid 3X for the same time and effort?

Leverage your low cost of living to enjoy life while being frugal (in the eyes of the US).

#5 Quality & Quantity

This applies specifically to sales based models and getting it off the ground, but in today's day and age copying and pasting a "good cold email script" off of Google isn't going to get you anywhere.

People are getting hit up more than ever, and you need to go above and beyond to get even a modest attempt to client ratio.

With the system I use, I expect a 6% attempt to meeting ratio, and I understand that if I send out 100 outreaches in a month, I can sign 1 - 2 clients per month, at around a $1000 - $3000 MRR and a minimum of a 3-month contract.

In the beginning, all of your time should be spent on finding and getting in contact with prospects.

---

Whatever you're doing now, if you don't have an income stream you can create one with zero capital, and whatever device you're reading this on.

Some good examples:
- Digital Marketing (Getting saturated, I'm already planning on what to do if Facebook ads were to go belly up)
- Copywriting
- Email Marketing
- Photo/video
- Web Design

-----

I hope this all made sense, it's right before bed and I wrote this all off the top of my head.

As I mentioned, $7k per month really isn't a lot compared to the big dogs, but I'm glad that I'm able to save around 50% of that every month while living an extremely comfortable life, and the next steps are scaling this to $30k per month, and using my resources and skills to create new income streams which have more leverage and potential.
Fuking Awesome!!! You dropped a gem my friend!!!
 

didicoimp

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My mentor runs 2 of his own ecom brands, so I learnt what he does to market his brands and apply that to my clients.

In the future, once South Africa gets it's act together with payment processing I plan on launching my own brand(s), but right now there's no viable solutions to accept payments without killing your conversion rate with sketchy redirects, etc.

Nice thread bro, congrats on your results! Keep growing

what do you mean by ecom brands?
Like your mentor's got a product, like an appearl brand or by ecom brand you mean like a digital marketing agency? What's the path you are looking for?

Thank you bro
 

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Have you thought of getting around even better people? I know you surrounded yourself with good people... what If you get around even better?
 
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Xolorr

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Have you thought of getting around even better people? I know you surrounded yourself with good people... what If you get around even better?

I can't tell you how serendipitous the timing of this was.

I've spent most of the last couple days with this on my mind, and I've been thinking how I've somewhat outgrown my friend group, and how, although it sucks, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that my best friend is bringing more negativity into my life than positivity.

So yeah, right now I'm not spending a lot of time with/talking to a lot of people, and of the people who are in my life currently, I don't feel like they're pushing for me/happy about the business I have.

At risk of sounding like a twat, I listened to a podcast the other day where they spoke about how you leveling up can create a crab in a bucket syndrome because everyone around you looks at you thinking "why does he deserve it and not me?"

So long story short, I'm feeling a void in my social circle, and usually I would go out/socialize/meet people but the lockdowns in South Africa are still ridiculous so I need to find ways of advancing socially in this climate.

If this is something you've done, how did you go about initiating and doing this?

My biggest worry is that young people who are actually doing something with their lives is pretty rare, and more so in South Africa.

I'm thinking of booking a flight overseas soon and spending some time with friends there/travelling for a while if the borders open up soon enough.
 

Simon Angel

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I can't tell you how serendipitous the timing of this was.

I've spent most of the last couple days with this on my mind, and I've been thinking how I've somewhat outgrown my friend group, and how, although it sucks, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that my best friend is bringing more negativity into my life than positivity.

So yeah, right now I'm not spending a lot of time with/talking to a lot of people, and of the people who are in my life currently, I don't feel like they're pushing for me/happy about the business I have.

At risk of sounding like a twat, I listened to a podcast the other day where they spoke about how you leveling up can create a crab in a bucket syndrome because everyone around you looks at you thinking "why does he deserve it and not me?"

So long story short, I'm feeling a void in my social circle, and usually I would go out/socialize/meet people but the lockdowns in South Africa are still ridiculous so I need to find ways of advancing socially in this climate.

If this is something you've done, how did you go about initiating and doing this?

My biggest worry is that young people who are actually doing something with their lives is pretty rare, and more so in South Africa.

I'm thinking of booking a flight overseas soon and spending some time with friends there/travelling for a while if the borders open up soon enough.

Going through the same with my friend group. The crab in a bucket syndrome is relatable, though I've helped all of my friends quite considerably with a lot of things - I experiment by doing stuff like nofap, being more stoic, acquiring discipline, attracting the women I want, and then I share it all with them.

Most of them are still losers, even though there's this air of high self-esteem around them.

I could really tell some of them got envious when I had my initial ecom success in 2017, months before we graduated HS, then again when I got my current girlfriend, and now again when I'm sharing my small but still notable recent successes. They didn't envy me when I was rotting in a hospital bed though. But they aren't all like that. Some just don't care regardless.

I've told my girl this and I'll say it here as well - I've went through extreme ups and downs, life changing events, trauma, recovery, depression, happiness in the last 4 years.. however, most of my friends and acquaintances are the exact same people, doing the exact same shit they were doing 5 years ago and will probably be the same 5 years from now too. It's like they're stuck in time, cursed to be mediocre.

20s are short as F*ck though. I remember going to my first nightclub, losing my virginity and drinking like a moron what seemed like yesterday (I was 17). I'm well into 22 going for 23 and it really does feel like each year passes by quicker than the previous.

Anyways, I have one friend that is also living the entrepreneur life. He was an.. unlikely candidate seeing as we weren't very close until high school but after my initial ecom success he was the ONLY one to ask me for advice on what to do to earn money that isn't what I do. I was really impressed and sent him the web design thread by Fox.

Years later we're doing very, very similar stuff and it's awesome to be able to go out with someone in the same neighborhood that understands. In fact that's what we did today after not seeing eachother for a few weeks and we brainstormed solutions for our problems. We're so different and so are our thought processes, but it works really well for us.
 

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Wow, it's been a long time since I've been on this forum.

Hey guys, I'm Xolorr. I'm 21 Y/O from South Africa, and here's my story of how I kicked my a$$ into gear, finally started making some bread, and have some actionable advice that won't be fun but has helped me go from a broke-a$$ 21 y/o to now having $7k pm in MRR.

---

Backstory:

So, if you go back in my profile it'll be a picture-perfect display of action faking. I first found out about MJ and TMF when I was like 16/17, and I was hooked. What followed was years of mental masturbation and "attempts" at businesses. Looking back I'm disgusted to even call those attempts, and are more indicative of a millennial who's grown up on social media's expectations of overnight success, even though back then I swore I was working hard and "hustling".

Such is life, and I'll probably look back on this time in my life being like "wtf was I doing" in a couple of months.

If you don't feel slightly embarrassed/cringe about your past, you aren't growing.

(Not trying to act all high and mighty or as if I'm a millionaire, because I'm far from that lambo, but progress is still progress)

ANYWAYS, let's dive into what you all came for!

How did a broke-a$$ 21 Year old who had $35 in his bank account get to now having a business cash flowing $7k?

It's a long story, and I know that if I try to explain it all, it'll turn into a mini-book. But here's the gist of it.

I blame it all on grit and most importantly, an FTE.

You see, I've been reading and learning about business since I was like 16. I don't know why, but I've always had the surety that I would "make it". Ever since around 15 - 16 I realized school was BS, and I had to make it on my own if I wanted to personally be happy.

That being said, I grew up with bubble wrap. Middle class family, born into complacency in a small town, with no real hardships growing up. Yeah life was a rollercoaster and I have my fair share of childhood trauma, but there was always food on the table, and I lived in complacency. Never really had to work for anything, and kinda just had comfortable life in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

As soon as I turned 18 I wanted to leave, and after highschool I took the normal route of going to uni, except all I did was move to a uni-town, and study online.

I barely touched my books, and tbh had no clue what I was doing with my life. I'd spend all-day on TMF reading and rereading threads like this, and convincing myself I was taking action when truly I was just taking 2 weeks to build a terrible dropship Shopify store, buy an IG shoutout, and quit at the first signs of it not working. I convinced myself I was "taking actions", when tbh I was borderline depressed and lost.

From there I started freelancing photo and video, with whatever jobs came my way, and not actually going out trying to find my clients.

I had a lot of fun and crazy experiences in photo/video, but never earnt more than a couple of hundred bucks per job.

This brings me to the first biggest lesson:

Who you surround yourself with matters.


My roommates would go to uni, eat McDonald's, get drunk, and talk about girls they'd seen on Instagram all day. Compared to them, I was killing it making my $2000 per month off of random freelance gigs.

Things changed completely when I got a friend who "forced" me to start working out. I taught him about photo and video, and he'd train me, which is where everything started to click, and it was the first time I'd worked hard at something over multiple months as opposed to a couple weeks. The simple act of working out nearly every single day and the delay of seeing the results suddenly made me understand business, and how you aren't meant to see results for the first couple months.

After this, my video work started to take off and life improved. I quit drinking, started spending a load of time outdoors and really just feeling happy and passionate, but I definitely didn't have a business or any sustainable income.

Then I found the thread on here about a digital marketing agency, and decided thats what I was going to do.

Months went by of little to no work.

Making the perfect logo
Making the perfect website (Multiple times)
Building slideshow pitch decks

(None of which move the needle at all)

And time just carried on going by.

Then this year things started to change.

My family started to hit some financial struggle, and I saw the effect that it had on them

I made a load of money (at least what I thought at the time) by filming music festivals in the summer (December), but it made my lose my passion for videography and made me hate being treated with a lack of respect. I filmed 13 music festivals in one month, from 3pm to 3am, and finished the edits the next day every time. I slept in some crazy places, on friends couches, in my car, wherever I would find myself in the early hours of the morning, and at the New Years Eve festival, I vowed that it would be the last time I filmed out of necessity for money.

That's when I met my "mentor", who's now one of my best friends.

He had a youtube channel and he was visiting South Africa, and I sent a crazy DM offering to film his videos for him.

Somehow, it worked out.

For the first 5 months of this year, I worked myself to the grindstone.

Outreach during the day for Facebook advertising, in the evenings I would edit whatever I filmed that day and manage the channel.

I didn't get paid a cent, but he let me live with him and covered my food, so I was rent and grocery free for 5 month.

Nothing seemed to be working, and by March I had burnt through all of my savings, and had a whopping $35 in my bank account.

My Instagram made me look like a king from my video work (Trips to Dubai, Greece, Italy, Massive Parties, Jetskis, Etc.) because it was all a part of the job I was doing.

But I was broke asf.

That's when I believe my mental game finally switched on, and when it came to outreach I was on another level.

I would record 10 - 20 videos auditing companies every day, and send them out trying to get meetings, and finally one budged.

I signed my first client in April for $750 + 15% of the return from ads.

And after that, everything had clicked, and my next 2 clients came in like clockwork, taking me swiftly to a reoccurring income of $4000 per month.

More money than I'd ever seen in my life.

And that brings us to today, where I'm managing 5 client accounts (it was six but one dropped after a month because of a silver bullet 20ROAS expectation) and I have 3 deals in the pipeline.

Okay, your stories kinda cool, but tell me how to make money.

Well, I can't.

I'm but a guppy in this wild ocean of entrepreneurship, and there are much better sources than me who have given all of their secrets out on this forum.

You have it all in front of you.

BUT!

What I will do is give you some very practical advice on what has helped me!

#1) Trim the fat.


I don't mean go work out (Even though I should be). What I mean is trim the fat on your time.

Distractions and timesucks are what hold you back the most.

Do yourself a favour and check your screentime on your phone, and audit this CONSISTENTLY.

Hours are stolen by that little infinity box every day and you don't even realize it.

Unless you're crazy famous or an influencer, delete Instagram.

This will do WONDERS for your mental health and wellbeing, and I think everyone should do it.

It literally brings ZERO value to your life, whatsoever.

If you're so addicted that you can't be without it, check it on your computer. It's a much less enjoyable experience on your computer for some reason, and you'll spend ridiculously less time on it.

Same goes for TikTok!!!

I won't rant about this because we'd be here for days, but IMO it's the most brainwashing invention on earth, and it's turning people into zombies with a 2-second attention span.

#2) Prioritize sleep and get out of bed.

The days of "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "Hustle 24/7" are gone. Save those for the meme pages.

You're a lot more emotionally stable, high energy, and effective when you sleep properly. It should be prioritized above all else.

Get 7 - 9 hours of sleep a night, and wake up at the same time every day.

Like hitting the snooze button? Create a system to stop it.

Download alarms or military alarm, and set it so you have to scan a barcode in your kitchen or do some physical activity to turn off the alarm.

This will work wonders in stopping the fight against yourself.

While you're at it, buy a cheap second-hand phone just for your alarm app of choice and music/podcasts. That way you're disconnected from mainstream BS until you finish your morning work. My main phone doesn't get turned on until 13:00 when I just have calls for the rest of the day.

You can get more done in a morning deep work block than most people can in an entire week if you get rid of distractions.

#3) Get a high-value skill and sell it

I'm not writing about making a new invention, coding, real estate, or anything like that because I've never done it, and to add to that, it takes capital.

My goal has always been to get a cashflow business running on autopilot, and then self-fund more scaleable ventures from there.

IMO the best way to start from zero is to learn a high-value skill, sell that skill, and then hire to do fulfilment.

This doesn't mean that you don't know how to produce the results, but it frees up time from delivering work for clients and being a freelancer, to be able to keep prioritizing sales and allows you to scale to a certain extent.

#4) The internet is the great equalizer

This one goes out to all my third world homies reading this.

YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE OVER EVERYONE IN THE STATES AND YOU DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT.

You might think I'm crazy, but let's do a little maths here.

Off a google search that probably has very sketchy data, the average monthly costs for a single person in the US is $2,643.

I believe it's higher, especially in big cities. I mean, rent in LA is like $2k for a one-bedroom.

I'm currently writing this from a prime position, modern two-bedroom apartment in Cape Town, that costs me less than $900 a month, and this is me being extra and flexing my money.

If you're in a third world country or anywhere where your cost of living is low, imagine how well you could live on $2000 per month?!

You'll be spending less than the average American, and probably having 2-3X the quality of life.

SO DO BUSINESS WITH AMERICANS!!

With the internet, nothing is stopping you.

All of my clients are US based, and pay 3X more than what I would get working with local brands, FOR THE SAME AMOUNT OF WORK?!

Why would you not want to get paid 3X for the same time and effort?

Leverage your low cost of living to enjoy life while being frugal (in the eyes of the US).

#5 Quality & Quantity

This applies specifically to sales based models and getting it off the ground, but in today's day and age copying and pasting a "good cold email script" off of Google isn't going to get you anywhere.

People are getting hit up more than ever, and you need to go above and beyond to get even a modest attempt to client ratio.

With the system I use, I expect a 6% attempt to meeting ratio, and I understand that if I send out 100 outreaches in a month, I can sign 1 - 2 clients per month, at around a $1000 - $3000 MRR and a minimum of a 3-month contract.

In the beginning, all of your time should be spent on finding and getting in contact with prospects.

---

Whatever you're doing now, if you don't have an income stream you can create one with zero capital, and whatever device you're reading this on.

Some good examples:
- Digital Marketing (Getting saturated, I'm already planning on what to do if Facebook ads were to go belly up)
- Copywriting
- Email Marketing
- Photo/video
- Web Design

-----

I hope this all made sense, it's right before bed and I wrote this all off the top of my head.

As I mentioned, $7k per month really isn't a lot compared to the big dogs, but I'm glad that I'm able to save around 50% of that every month while living an extremely comfortable life, and the next steps are scaling this to $30k per month, and using my resources and skills to create new income streams which have more leverage and potential.
I'm also from South Africa, Cape Town. I can relate to your story because I took the same road as you. I went to varsity but I got depressed because I wasn't enjoying my course. I decided to drop out and pursue digital marketing which was my interest at the time. I followed the advice on this platform on how to setup everything and I even drew up a business plan and registered a company. I was rejected by most institutions and even youth based organizations. I was discouraged by all of that and I left it for a while. I'm now completing a coding programme and I'd like to combine these skills and officially open a business but I'm doubting myself still. What would your advice be seeing that we are in the same country. How should I do things differently. All advice will be much appreciated.
 
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Xolorr

Silver Contributor
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133
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I'm also from South Africa, Cape Town. I can relate to your story because I took the same road as you. I went to varsity but I got depressed because I wasn't enjoying my course. I decided to drop out and pursue digital marketing which was my interest at the time. I followed the advice on this platform on how to setup everything and I even drew up a business plan and registered a company. I was rejected by most institutions and even youth based organizations. I was discouraged by all of that and I left it for a while. I'm now completing a coding programme and I'd like to combine these skills and officially open a business but I'm doubting myself still. What would your advice be seeing that we are in the same country. How should I do things differently. All advice will be much appreciated.

Here's my advice:

If you're able to reply to this and learn code (Meaning you have access to the internet and some type of computer) there's really no excuse.

You don't need a business plan (I still don't have one)
You don't need any organizations
You don't need a registered company

All you need is to get infront of people, and offer them a service.

What can you offer?

It sounds like you know how to code, so why not start freelancing code?

(Don't reach out to South African businesses, we want to earn dollars. It's easier to earn $1000 than R17000)

So have a look at @Fox 's threads on web design, it's all there, and start sending emails to companies who could need your services.

Start building websites, writing copy, and build a portfolio around whatever you want to do.

Here's the blueprint:

You've got a PTY LTD, so it sounds like you already have a business name, if not, come up with one.

This shouldn't take more than 10 - 15 minutes, use Business Name Generator - Easily create Brandable Business Names - Namelix

Keep it simple, names really don't matter.

Have a name?

Cool, let's make it official

Get a domain from godaddy.com or some other registrar

Get a .com, most clients will be boomers and won't trust a .xyz or something else that looks spammy

Get yourself a website, don't be tempted to go down the rabbit hole here, we want to get you up and running asap. You can change it later.

I'd recommend using Carrd - Simple, free, fully responsive one-page sites for pretty much anything, it's dead simple.

This shouldn't take more than an hour or two, use unsplash.com for photos

Get a logo, again, don't overthink this. There are a ton of logo generators, you can literally just make your logo text saying the company name as well.

Fiverr

Dead easy.

Sweet! So now you've done literally nothing that will earn you money (most people think the $$$'s should start rolling in after they spend 5 days crafting the 'perfect' logo & put entrepreneur in their insta bio.

All you've done is make your business look legit in the eyes of your customer, which reduces the friction when it's time for them to get out their credit card.

So what are you going to sell?

I recommend code, copywriting or digital marketing.

Find something where you can trade time & expertise for money.

Not Fastlane, but nothing is from the start.

You can outsource delivery later to focus on a more scaleable bus later, let's just get you your first $1000

Now that you've decided on something you're gonna sell, split your time between two things:

Learning & implementing (these go hand in hand, you can't just watch youtube videos without implementing what you learn and call yourself an expert. Write mock ads, create websites, whatever you need to do to actually implement your skills).

Selling.

Selling is what's going to move the needle.

Selling 101:

- Pick a niche

There are SO many out there, just pick one where your services are valued

- Find a database of leads:

Selling to architecture firms?

Google: California + architecture firms should be good

Have a look at their websites/FB ads/Copy/Email List, whatever you're selling, and check how you can improve it.

If you can improve it, add it to a google sheet

If you can't, move onto the next.

Cool! Now you have a list of leads!

Next is to get in touch of the decision makers.

There are SO many ways to do this.

- Cold Email
- Cold Calling
- LinkedIn
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Messenger Pigeons

Pick one, and get in touch.

Your only objective is to get them on a call. (In your case skype or zoom)

Sell the meeting, not the service

You landed a sales call? HOLY $H*T, TAKING ACTION ACTUALLY WORKS!

You've still got a long way to go from here, but I'm proud of you.

It'll probs take you multiple calls to sign a client, but that's the name of the game.

Explain what you can do, how it's going make them WAY more $$$, show them examples of your work, and explain why what you're going to do for them is 20X more valuable than the money they have sitting in their platinum Amex.

Name a price.

They said yes?!

Now things are rolling...

Get yourself a PayPal or Transferwise so that you can claim your $$$

Make an invoice with some online generator

Now all you have to do is deliver on what you promised, get a good review, ask for referrals, then rinse & repeat.

There are nuances to every part, but that's for you to figure out by trial and error.

Create systems which you can replicate, and this becomes second nature.

& there it is, your ticket to R100k per month ($8k)

I challenge you to send out 15 emails today to prospects & see what happens
 

Xolorr

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
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Jun 4, 2018
133
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Cape Town, South Africa
So I've changed the way I'm going to update this.

Instead of me ranting and raving like a lunatic, I'm going to try dropping what I think are lil golden nuggets as I find them and summaries of my work.

I'll show you what hit a home run for me, and what was an absolute dud.

Basically going to be the digital, budget boron letters, except I ain't in jail (yet).

So here goes:

Outsourcing to robots

Up until now, I've been manually doing lead gen via video audits every day.

This has been great, but it's trading time for leads & meetings, and basically time -> money.

In the long term, I'm going to be creating a machine that brings inbound leads, but that's still in it's infancy so I'll give you a rundown of what I'm going to be doing now to detach my time from leadgen.

I stumbled across a goldmine about cold email on Twitter, and decided to give it a bash.

I've never really hit it big with vanilla cold email, but now things are clicking.

I've started doing automated cold email campaigns as a way to automate the leadgen process.

Before we get into that, if anyone's going to be doing this there's a couple of things to do upfront to prep.

Just like Abe said, better sharpen your axe.

- Never run cold emails from your main domain (I wish I knew this before)

Simple as that, it could ruin your domain rep, especially if you haven't warmed it up properly, and you won't be able to use your main email address without it hitting spam.

Nobody checks spam.
Nobody gives dollarinos to people in their spam.
Especially Mr CEO

We want Mr CEO's $$$, so we better stay out of spam-land at all costs.

So to get around this, you're going to need a new domain that's very similar to your current one

(mine is bizname.com, so my new one is biznamemarketing.com)

I'd advise setting it up through google domains and getting the upsell to G Suite (It'll save you a lot of manual work)

So now you have domain B, there's a bit we need to do before we can even think about sending emails, namely to stay away from spam.

- You need to set up your MX & SPF records

This is literally so that you can send emails, it won't work without this.

Next is your DMARC.

All very technical, but Google's AI ninjas will literally make your email disappear if you don't have this set up properly, especially on a new domain.

(Not even joking, your emails just won't exist. No spam folder, no promos, they won't even hit the mailbox)

So get that set up.

Don't ask me how, if you can't google & do this you don't deserve Mr CEO's dollars anyways.

Now you have a functioning Gmail, you need to warm it up.

I just got someone from Fiverr to do it, but I recently found there's a cool lil software that'll do it.

Not going to list most software because I use a ton in different price brackets, plus it's fun to find your own way.

Now that you've got it set up, it's time to find people to email!

Quality >> quantity here.

A bit like your dating life, ideally you want both, but a 9/10 is much better than 9 1/10's.

You're going to need to do this manually via IG or Google or somethin, or find a scraping software.

I use a lil robot that categorizes websites based on tech, spend, location, traffic, etc.

I also pay an arm and a leg for this.

You can do it manually if you have more time than money.

Next get them all in a google sheet & do some quality control, and find personal emails for the CEO/CMO/Owner/marketer. Whoever you're trying to reach.

NOW, this is where most people go wrong with this whole automated lead gen thing.

Path A: The wantrepreneurs path to a blacklisted domain, no sales calls, and screaming "it doesn't work!!!" while order 5 mcflurry's on uber eats


- Google "Cold Email Scripts that convert"

- Copy Paste the same list into email automation software

- Personalize with {{name}} & {{company}}

- Get blacklisted, have no sales calls, and scream "it doesn't work!!!"

(Can you tell I'm trying to work on my copy?? This is fun)

Path B: Xolorr's yellow brick road to the email promised land

The reason Path A doesn't work is because everyone is doing it.

When everyone does X, we do Y.

(Edit: I hit post before I finished writing, whoopsies. Sorry if you saw the half written post)

Basically, your results are determined by 4 factors:

- Subject
- Hook
- Angle
- CTA

Now, only one of these is a variable.

Everything stays the same on a campaign except for the hook.

The hook is what keeps someone reading, and how do you get someone to keep reading?

Talk with them 1-on-1.

So, here comes the golden nugget that'll catapult your replies to another level.

Every email needs to be SO customized and directed to the prospect, that they believe there's NO way that we could've automated it.

Even though we did.

How do you do this?

So in your google sheet with your 10, 20, 30+ lead in it, you're going to want to create a new column for a "personal touch".

This is basically the first line of the email, and the first thing the prospect will read when they open your email.

Now this is the time consuming part, which I've done manually for the first bit, but I'm in the process of hiring a VA to automate it.

For every verified lead on your list, you're going to check out their linkedin & website, and give them a one-liner compliment so customized that they're going to:

a) Feel special
b) Have no doubt in their mind that they're on an email list

So your email will look like this:

Subject:

{{name}}, I can increase the number of visitors to your crackhouse by 50%

Body:

Hey {{name}},

{{Personal Touch}}

By the way, I help crackhouses just like {{crackhouse name}} get 10x more degenerates inside through Pinterest advertising.

I recently just had some amazing results with a den similar to yours!

Are you free for a call this week so I can share some ideas on how you can get the same?

Obviously, the email stays the same for each prospect in the list, but everyone will get a wildly personalized {{personal touch}} making them feel good about their crackhouse.

(Not sure why I'm ranting about crackhouses, but it was the first goofy establishment that came to mind)

Add in a couple follow-ups, and you're having sales calls all week.

As I said, it's still pretty time intensive if you're doing the data entry yourself, but I way prefer it to sitting in front of a camera reciting the same script over and over and over until I'm blue in the face.

Cue an abrupt ending because I'm tired, but I just launched some campaigns targeting cosmetics brands, so next time I drop by, I'll fill you in on how it goes & maybe share the next lil golden nugget I come across.

Adios Fastlane Amigos
 
Last edited:

Santiaggo

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
109%
Feb 2, 2018
23
25
22
Uruguay
So I've changed the way I'm going to update this.

Instead of me ranting and raving like a lunatic, I'm going to try dropping what I think are lil golden nuggets as I find them and summaries of my work.

I'll show you what hit a home run for me, and what was an absolute dud.

Basically going to be the digital, budget boron letters, except I ain't in jail (yet).

So here goes:

Outsourcing to robots

Up until now, I've been manually doing lead gen via video audits every day.

This has been great, but it's trading time for leads & meetings, and basically time -> money.

In the long term, I'm going to be creating a machine that brings inbound leads, but that's still in it's infancy so I'll give you a rundown of what I'm going to be doing now to detach my time from leadgen.

I stumbled across a goldmine about cold email on Twitter, and decided to give it a bash.

I've never really hit it big with vanilla cold email, but now things are clicking.

I've started doing automated cold email campaigns as a way to automate the leadgen process.

Before we get into that, if anyone's going to be doing this there's a couple of things to do upfront to prep.

Just like Abe said, better sharpen your axe.

- Never run cold emails from your main domain (I wish I knew this before)

Simple as that, it could ruin your domain rep, especially if you haven't warmed it up properly, and you won't be able to use your main email address without it hitting spam.

Nobody checks spam.
Nobody gives dollarinos to people in their spam.
Especially Mr CEO

We want Mr CEO's $$$, so we better stay out of spam-land at all costs.

So to get around this, you're going to need a new domain that's very similar to your current one

(mine is bizname.com, so my new one is biznamemarketing.com)

I'd advise setting it up through google domains and getting the upsell to G Suite (It'll save you a lot of manual work)

So now you have domain B, there's a bit we need to do before we can even think about sending emails, namely to stay away from spam.

- You need to set up your MX & SPF records

This is literally so that you can send emails, it won't work without this.

Next is your DMARC.

All very technical, but Google's AI ninjas will literally make your email disappear if you don't have this set up properly, especially on a new domain.

(Not even joking, your emails just won't exist. No spam folder, no promos, they won't even hit the mailbox)

So get that set up.

Don't ask me how, if you can't google & do this you don't deserve Mr CEO's dollars anyways.

Now you have a functioning Gmail, you need to warm it up.

I just got someone from Fiverr to do it, but I recently found there's a cool lil software that'll do it.

Not going to list most software because I use a ton in different price brackets, plus it's fun to find your own way.

Now that you've got it set up, it's time to find people to email!

Quality >> quantity here.

A bit like your dating life, ideally you want both, but a 9/10 is much better than 9 1/10's.

You're going to need to do this manually via IG or Google or somethin, or find a scraping software.

I use a lil robot that categorizes websites based on tech, spend, location, traffic, etc.

I also pay an arm and a leg for this.

You can do it manually if you have more time than money.

Next get them all in a google sheet & do some quality control, and find personal emails for the CEO/CMO/Owner/marketer. Whoever you're trying to reach.

NOW, this is where most people go wrong with this whole automated lead gen thing.

Path A: The wantrepreneurs path to a blacklisted domain, no sales calls, and screaming "it doesn't work!!!" while order 5 mcflurry's on uber eats


- Google "Cold Email Scripts that convert"

- Copy Paste the same list into email automation software

- Personalize with {{name}} & {{company}}

- Get blacklisted, have no sales calls, and scream "it doesn't work!!!"

(Can you tell I'm trying to work on my copy?? This is fun)

Path B: Xolorr's yellow brick road to the email promised land

The reason Path A doesn't work is because everyone is doing it.

When everyone does X, we do Y.

(Edit: I hit post before I finished writing, whoopsies. Sorry if you saw the half written post)

Basically, your results are determined by 4 factors:

- Subject
- Hook
- Angle
- CTA

Now, only one of these is a variable.

Everything stays the same on a campaign except for the hook.

The hook is what keeps someone reading, and how do you get someone to keep reading?

Talk with them 1-on-1.

So, here comes the golden nugget that'll catapult your replies to another level.

Every email needs to be SO customized and directed to the prospect, that they believe there's NO way that we could've automated it.

Even though we did.

How do you do this?

So in your google sheet with your 10, 20, 30+ lead in it, you're going to want to create a new column for a "personal touch".

This is basically the first line of the email, and the first thing the prospect will read when they open your email.

Now this is the time consuming part, which I've done manually for the first bit, but I'm in the process of hiring a VA to automate it.

For every verified lead on your list, you're going to check out their linkedin & website, and give them a one-liner compliment so customized that they're going to:

a) Feel special
b) Have no doubt in their mind that they're on an email list

So your email will look like this:

Subject:

{{name}}, I can increase the number of visitors to your crackhouse by 50%

Body:

Hey {{name}},

{{Personal Touch}}

By the way, I help crackhouses just like {{crackhouse name}} get 10x more degenerates inside through Pinterest advertising.

I recently just had some amazing results with a den similar to yours!

Are you free for a call this week so I can share some ideas on how you can get the same?

Obviously, the email stays the same for each prospect in the list, but everyone will get a wildly personalized {{personal touch}} making them feel good about their crackhouse.

(Not sure why I'm ranting about crackhouses, but it was the first goofy establishment that came to mind)

Add in a couple follow-ups, and you're having sales calls all week.

As I said, it's still pretty time intensive if you're doing the data entry yourself, but I way prefer it to sitting in front of a camera reciting the same script over and over and over until I'm blue in the face.

Cue an abrupt ending because I'm tired, but I just launched some campaigns targeting cosmetics brands, so next time I drop by, I'll fill you in on how it goes & maybe share the next lil golden nugget I come across.

Adios Fastlane Amigos

I seriously don't get why this went unnoticed... but here's a comment to send it to the front lol

Also, I'm following your thread closely, hope you keep on killing it @Xolorr !!
 
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Xolorr

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
520%
Jun 4, 2018
133
692
25
Cape Town, South Africa
I seriously don't get why this went unnoticed... but here's a comment to send it to the front lol

Also, I'm following your thread closely, hope you keep on killing it @Xolorr !!

Thanks for the kind words and the bump haha!

Cooking up the next post but I'm very wary of spending too much time talking vs doing.

Some fire is coming as this venture progresses.

Stay tuned :)
 

Kid

Gold Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
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Mar 1, 2016
1,736
1,707
@Xolorr take what i'll write as directly as you can*:
Organize exact thing you do right now into software.

If you want opinion, $30K/m is selling yourself short.
Save up money, find devs, rake millions.

That all i can say.


*People tend to look for double meanings, something in between lines and metaphors ,
if you don't get that sentence on top of this post, re-read it slowly few times.
Good luck.
 

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