£3m (online) + £1m (offline) ~ approx $5.3m so far in 2021. Profit $1.5m+
First of all, THIS FORUM IS AMAZING. I only wish I had come across it sooner! Hoping to become an active participant adding value to this forum.
Yesterday evening a random thought popped into my ahead, how amazing it would be to find an online community full of people, like I. So I simply google searched 'millionaire entrepreneurial forum' and I found this beauty. I spent the whole night reading success stories and here I am now....introducing myself to the forum.
CAREER BEGINNINGS
At the early age of 13, there was only one thought in my mind - being a successful entrepreneur. From the ages of 13-15, I sold anything I could get my hands on through classified ads. Stuff like old electronics from second hand shops, junk from my mum's garage, old clothing etc. Having a few hundred in pocket money at all times at such a young age was amazing.
At the age of 15, I discovered cryptocurrencies after reading an article on the famous once known market called Silk Road. In the early days, BTC was super difficult to purchase since exchanges were not as easily accessible as they are today. 9/10 people in 2013 that were aware of Bitcoin, wouldn't have a clue on how to actually purchase it. Exchanges were limited, fees were super high and banks were stringent. Through a lot of research, making private banking connections (yes I was contacting higher-ups at financial institutions, acting way older/bigger than I was at the time), using foreign currencies / exchanges, I was able to buy Bitcoin at market rate + 0.1%. I would re-sell or broker the coins at the time with a mark-up of 7% which was relatively low compared to others at the time, this put me in the game. Buying coins for $70 and re-selling them for $75 was a great for me at the time. I would usually sell between 70 - 150 BTC per day including weekends, averaging around $15k per month in profits. Costs were really low, I didn't need staff and my biggest cost really was an office at $1400 per month. At my peak, I probably made around $70k net in a single month - this was largely due to a big sale I had brokered between Coinbase and an investment fund. The Coinbase guys had even visited my office just to discuss this opportunity when they heard about it, shows how small they were at the time
Over the next few years, as banks started accepting cryptocurrency exchange payments, countries legalising it and tax laws being put in place, the margins became thinner and thinner. Anyways, I never really considered this much of a success story, or an actual business. I didn't spend much time on it (apart from 30 mins or so per day executing trades), I had no company set up, I wasn't building on anything and I knew the future wasn't bright as bitcoin broker.FAILURES
FAILURES HAPPEN. Most of capital I had accumulated from my various crypto dealings were simply lost on various startups between 2015-2019. I mean...these ideas were like SURE THINGS in my mind that never really amounted to anything. Years of work, capital and a lot more wasted on failed business ventures. I knew the odds were against me, so I never gave up. I knew it was never going to be easy, its evident because only 1% of the worlds population is a millionaire. You probably hear this a lot...but, it's just that simple. If you keep at something, you'll eventually make it work. I legit probably had like 7-10 startups fail on me. I guess one of the reasons was that I was trying to do multiple things at once, following the famous saying "the average millionaire has 7 streams of income". In my opinion, they should replace the the word millionaire with billionaire. A million dollars is not much at all in the grand scheme of things, you don't need 7 streams of income to make a million. Maybe for a billion you do. As @G_Alexander said, I'd rather focus on one venture that brings in $20,000,00
STAY MOTIVATED AND KEEP KEEP TRYING!MY FIRST SUCCESS STORY
Mid-2017, I opened a e-commerce site after a solid 6 months of research. All on my own, no partners or mentors to help. The niche I had chosen was Home & Garden products. It was towards the end of April when the site launched and in our first full month, we did $35k in revenue. Yes I said that right, in May 2017, my first month trading, my store did $35k in revenue. I was shocked. Trying to stay in stock was so stressful since my capital was limited at the time, but...my hard-work had finally paid off. I did have my fair share of problems with product re-calls, electric hazards and things of that nature - standard stuff for someone as inexperienced as me, I learned from the mistakes I made though. That being said, things were looking up for me finally! This was nothing for what is to come though. The store was doing well, although my net profits were pretty low, I had 2 full-time staff members and life became enjoyable. In 2018, I ended up selling the store on EmpireFlippers. The offer was just so good that I could not refuse, the buyer had much more capital and experience to be able to increase its margins. It would have taken me years that make that sort of money in net profits. I knew that with the money from the sale and the experience I had gained, I could make an even better store, like much better. This time, I would make a proper brand from scratch, as oppose to just finding the products on Alibaba which was what I had done before.
With a low 6-figure investment from myself, I started the main venture in the summer of 2018. Aside from the website sale funds, I only had a small savings pot of around $70k, which would last me around 9 months (yes I do spend quite a bit... spending money on memories so no regrets here). When I started this venture, it wasn't like any of the other ventures I had started. Things got serious pretty quickly. I knew that if I really wanted to make it in this world, I would have to change my lifestyle, I needed to stop going out 4/5 times per week just because I could afford it. Becoming more productive was amazing, it had a massive impact on my performance and focus. I also started eating less junk food, working out and generally leading a healthier lifestyle. Fast forward to today, I am a millionaire (not to blow my own horn) and I HARDLY go out nowadays, I prefer doing this on a Tuesday night...working on my business and reading up on fellow entrepreneurs stories
Things were going as planned, I grew the brand slowly to ensure that things were being done correctly and to the highest quality. I won't specify the niche of my business, for now anyways. We did around $1.4m in revenue during 2018 and 2019, MAKING NO PROFIT IN THE FIRST 2 YEARS OF BUSINESS. This was all part of the plan but people thought I was crazy, even my own staff, PURPOSE BEYOND PROFIT! Don't be afraid of losing time/money.
When the pandemic came around, our business sky-rocketed in every sense. I had to hire more people, get a bigger office and upgrade all of our systems to be able to handle the increase in business. My 3PL couldn't handle the influx of orders so I decided to stop outsourcing logistics and resultantly, we got our first warehouse location in 2020. This increased our net margins to around 30%. 2020 ended strong with net profits being close to $1m. Yes, a whole million
This would have blown my mind a few years back.Fast forward to 2021, growth has been consistent in every department and we are on track to do around 2x our numbers in 2020. We have started trading B2B and supplying goods in bulk, this has amounted to 25% of our income. Furthermore, we've just secured the lease on a new and MUCH LARGER warehouse location, which has capacity 30-50 staff can work with state-of-the-art-tech. This allows us to move everything under one roof and the size should suffice for at least the next 2-3 years. We will move in on the 1st of January 2022! Please note, I still own 100% of the company, selling equity in anything I own isn't my cup of tea. I'd rather grow slower and keep all control. Maybe I'll change my mind in the future...I've just been given a nice 7-figure credit line facility, which will enable aggressive growth over the next 12-18 months.
BREAKDOWN OF GROWTH AND FIGURES
2018: $400k in revenue, hired 2 staff members and worked from a small 3 person office
2019: $1,000,000 in revenue, 5 staff members and worked from a medium sized 6 person office
2020: $2,900,000 in revenue, 10 staff members and worked from 2 locations (office and warehouse)
2021: $5,800,000 - $6,000,000 in revenue depending on how the rest of December turns out (fingers crossed), 19 staff, 4 VA's, 1 office and 2 warehouse locations
I have set myself a goal of $15m in revenue in 2022 and $50m by 2025.
Very excited to see what the future holds! If you have any questions or need assistance in any sort of way, I am here for all of you JUST ASK AWAY. Let's keep chasing our dreams!
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