23 Years Old and Quit my 9 to 5

[NielsA]

Greetings everyone, I recently finished reading "The Millionaire Fastlane " and joined its corresponding forum. My name is Niels, I'm a 23-year-old entrepreneur with big dreams and plenty of ambition. I used to work as a cybersecurity engineer and earned a monthly salary of around 2000 euros. However, I grew tired of making someone else rich with my skills, so in October 2022, I decided to turn my passion for ethical hacking and cybersecurity into a business.

I started off with small projects, which earned me around 1000 euros per project, and gradually became more familiar with the business world as a business owner. I reinvested the profits into new client acquisition attempts. Eventually, I partnered up with an old friend who had a digital marketing agency, and after a few meetings, we went into business together. We struck a deal where I paid for the ads, but he provided the services at a reduced rate. I also rebuilt his website for him and boosted his SEO, which helped us both to grow.

As the ads began to perform better, I started landing bigger projects. Two weeks ago, I received a project proposal that was lucrative enough for me to quit my 9-5 job. I offer a recurring service that makes cybersecurity easy to understand for my clients on a monthly basis, and I work only 4 days a month for it, earning 10,000 euros per month. Currently, I am in the process of automating these 4 days' worth of work, making it a form of passive income.

With this newfound free time, I have also been able to delve into Forex and day trading to generate additional income. My focus now is to fully automate my service and take on more clients to increase my monthly income slowely.

I know according to the book it is not a fastlane method yet but I like my work that I deliver so much that I am willing to give up these 4 days for it. With that I can do this of any country so I want to see more of the world.

there are still many things I need to learn, that is also why I am making this post so I can get some tips from bigger entrepreneurs in general. So your feedback is always welcome and I would like to continue pushing with the feedback, thank you for reading

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JarvisTheCarpent]

Hi NielsA,

I found your post really inspiring, I'm currently studying Cyber Security and a bit younger than yourself. Now my knowledge is relatively broad, but I lack any specific expertise. How did you go around acquiring the necessary skills to make working as a freelance pentester?

Thank you.

 

[NielsA]

Hi NielsA,

I found your post really inspiring, I'm currently studying Cyber Security and a bit younger than yourself. Now my knowledge is relatively broad, but I lack any specific expertise. How did you go around acquiring the necessary skills to make working as a freelance pentester?

Thank you.

Hello Jarvis,
I am sorry for the delayed answer.

As a Pentester, standing out from other hackers can be challenging. To differentiate myself, I researched various types of pentesters/hackers, such as Mobile Pentesting, Network Pentesting, Cloud Pentesting, Web Application Pentesting, Physical Pentesting, Application Pentesting, and Secure Code reviewing/Code-specific Pentesting.

Next, I chose one area to specialize in based on my current strengths and interests. It's essential to become proficient in one skill and excel beyond others. To achieve this, I sought out courses and training specific to my chosen area of focus. I also honed my skills by practicing on websites like Tryhackme and HacktheBox, concentrating only on my selected skill from the aforementioned list.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me for help.

 

[Vivielle]

Hello Jarvis,
I am sorry for the delayed answer.

As a Pentester, standing out from other hackers can be challenging. To differentiate myself, I researched various types of pentesters/hackers, such as Mobile Pentesting, Network Pentesting, Cloud Pentesting, Web Application Pentesting, Physical Pentesting, Application Pentesting, and Secure Code reviewing/Code-specific Pentesting.

Next, I chose one area to specialize in based on my current strengths and interests. It's essential to become proficient in one skill and excel beyond others. To achieve this, I sought out courses and training specific to my chosen area of focus. I also honed my skills by practicing on websites like Tryhackme and HacktheBox, concentrating only on my selected skill from the aforementioned list.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me for help.

So inspiring! I'm studying computer science too and I was very interested in the cybersecurity field since it's something imo that's going to be always more important. standing out from other hackers worry me in some way but thanks for advising the websites

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JarvisTheCarpent]

Hello Jarvis,
I am sorry for the delayed answer.

As a Pentester, standing out from other hackers can be challenging. To differentiate myself, I researched various types of pentesters/hackers, such as Mobile Pentesting, Network Pentesting, Cloud Pentesting, Web Application Pentesting, Physical Pentesting, Application Pentesting, and Secure Code reviewing/Code-specific Pentesting.

Next, I chose one area to specialize in based on my current strengths and interests. It's essential to become proficient in one skill and excel beyond others. To achieve this, I sought out courses and training specific to my chosen area of focus. I also honed my skills by practicing on websites like Tryhackme and HacktheBox, concentrating only on my selected skill from the aforementioned list.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me for help.

Hi, thank you that's really useful advice.

I think my concern was that you couldn't necessarily freelance in the pentest fields or that I needed many decades of experience to actually make some form of income doing it.

I've utilized TryHackMe quite a lot but always found that it felt like I was learning a bit of everything and for no real reason. I think I'll have a look into the specific sub-divisions like you mentioned and see which I find most interesting, concentrating my studies on that area.

Thank you.

 

[JarvisTheCarpent]

So inspiring! I'm studying computer science too and I was very interested in the cybersecurity field since it's something imo that's going to be always more important. standing out from other hackers worry me in some way but thanks for the advising the websites

Hi Vivielle,

From what I do know if you're interested in the field, the sites NielsA recommended are fantastic. I'd also recommend looking into some of the CompTIA certifications, if you're wanting to go for the job route then the certifications will definitely help, but just studying all the material taught me a whole lot.

I found it can be quite daunting when you look up how to get into the industry, so having a structured course makes it it far less scary.