Are you ignoring the gold right in front of you?

[James90]

I got one, I’d appreciate some insights

Aircraft Technician / Line Maintenance (we work on live passenger flights)

I work for a major Airline, based out of Honolulu, Hawaii. Every aircraft technician working in the U.S is required to have an FAA A&P license, which allows us to work on basically any aircraft (with specialized training in between by the employer)


I can’t think much of Fastlane ideas in this particular profession I’m in.

 

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[reedracer]

I got one, I’d appreciate some insights

Aircraft Technician / Line Maintenance (we work on live passenger flights)

I work for a major Airline, based out of Honolulu, Hawaii. Every aircraft technician working in the U.S is required to have an FAA A&P license, which allows us to work on basically any aircraft (with specialized training in between by the employer)


I can’t think much of Fastlane ideas in this particular profession I’m in.

Beyond checking the seats for loose change....
Pay attention to processes and look for opportunities to streamline or improve something that will save the airline, airport, or passenger time and money.

Make a course laying out the steps to get licensed

Show folks cheaper ways to travel

 

[reedracer]

1st line Helpdesk here.

My company created this cool portal where you can request software, once approved by the manager it adds to your account and deploys to your machine without any human intervention. Same with new starter accounts etc, sets them up on its own.

Software is assigned to Active Directory groups -> SCCM Deploys the software, so the portal literally just adds an account to a group. Seemless. Always thought it would be a good idea to make myself, but not sure how you would go about getting clients. How do you market something like that

Hi I'm an SCCM engineer over here in the states. The companies that enable that cool portal make a mint! 1e, adaptiva, etc. Plus, there is training, certification, etc.
A broader look at an Helpdesk person is customer service. If you can handle a phone there is cold calling, warm calling, etc. Just a few ideas.

 

[NMdad]

I got one, I’d appreciate some insights

Aircraft Technician / Line Maintenance (we work on live passenger flights)

I work for a major Airline, based out of Honolulu, Hawaii. Every aircraft technician working in the U.S is required to have an FAA A&P license, which allows us to work on basically any aircraft (with specialized training in between by the employer)


I can’t think much of Fastlane ideas in this particular profession I’m in.

A friend of a friend who used to be a firefighter & paramedic--and who's a bit older & wanted to get out of the trenches--switched jobs & now does sales for a firefighting training & training equipment company.

So, you might consider something similar: creating a company that does specialized training for aircraft technicians.

 

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[James90]

A friend of a friend who used to be a firefighter & paramedic--and who's a bit older & wanted to get out of the trenches--switched jobs & now does sales for a firefighting training & training equipment company.

So, you might consider something similar: creating a company that does specialized training for aircraft technicians.

I would imagine the specialized training for aircraft technicians is ultra-high. Major airlines like to keep all training in-house for quality assurance and economics. I've only worked for major airlines, and I have not come across 3rd party trainers before. Although my company does train other employees from other airlines, it's because they are hired to work on our planes on out-stations.

Although there could be an opportunity for sales training equipment, that increases the effectiveness and cuts costs of flying technicians out to training. Perhaps Virtual Reality software.

 

[DrScream]

1st line Helpdesk here.

My company created this cool portal where you can request software, once approved by the manager it adds to your account and deploys to your machine without any human intervention. Same with new starter accounts etc, sets them up on its own.

Software is assigned to Active Directory groups -> SCCM Deploys the software, so the portal literally just adds an account to a group. Seemless. Always thought it would be a good idea to make myself, but not sure how you would go about getting clients. How do you market something like that

Lots of different ways to get clients. Create an MVP & hire someone to create an animation that shows what your software does (aka what the problem most managers have & how you intend to solve said problem). Then you just run ads on different platforms with the animation and assess which platform performs the best for your market niche. Facebook learns as you pump money into it so you'll lose some money in the beginning but after you metaphorically hit the vein you'll start bringing in sales. Easier said than done obviously but not impossible.

 

[Fastlane Liam]

Lots of different ways to get clients. Create an MVP & hire someone to create an animation that shows what your software does (aka what the problem most managers have & how you intend to solve said problem). Then you just run ads on different platforms with the animation and assess which platform performs the best for your market niche. Facebook learns as you pump money into it so you'll lose some money in the beginning but after you metaphorically hit the vein you'll start bringing in sales. Easier said than done obviously but not impossible.

this is a bloody good idea

 

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[diogoatmelo]

I'm a software developer, able to develop backend and frontend. I currently work for a company that develops software to optimize transportation.

My biggest interests are football (soccer in the US) and reading.

Maybe I'm missing a way to combine software developing + football or software developing + reading/books.

 

[DONTRAY]

Supervisor at a cleaning company.
I went from cleaner>team leader>assistant supervisor>supervisor

 

[Low Chi]

@NMdad I like the "acres of diamond (Russell Conwell) approach" of your initial posting a lot!

When I read @AceVentures line "What could I use that skillset for? " I thought of another of my income streams I used:

How can your expertise be used to trade ideas for money? I've been a serial solver (single solver and contributor in solver teams) in the Open Innovation field for several years in many OI challenges.

Many people in this thread learned their skills in a specific field and some may be interested to adopt the knowledge by joining the Solver Tribe and earn money for ideas. Besides that you'll find useful "market needs" at the websites too - which could lead to own business ideas, solutions and products - even if you don't want to compete with hundreds of other solvers.

Here are 2 of the bigger players in the intermediary market of OI with direct links to their challenge subsites:

InnoCentive - Challenge Center

www.innocentive.com

Crowdsourcing Contests | HYVE Crowd

Find the most exciting ongoing crowdsourcing challenges on the HYVE Crowd and interact with our community by contributing your own innovative ideas.

www.hyvecrowd.com

Here is a list of other OI platforms:

Guide to Open Innovation Platforms – Innovator's Guide Switzerland

innovators-guide.ch

Have fun

 

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[OnTheWrox]

Business Systems Analyst in IT / supply chains.

Worked at a Fortune 100 semiconductor company and took a voluntary sep package. Went to a small company that imports millwork from China. Essentially the same job (overseas manufacturing and supply chain management).

I wear 100 hats... mostly, my job is to design software to streamline/automate processes in the supply chain. I sometimes design small-ish apps in Excel/VBA, I am very proficient at SQL, I have a background in usability/human factors design, I've worked in inside sales, factory planning, samples, rebates, fulfillment, and some logistics... basically the entire supply chain except materials/sourcing.

I KNOW I'm sitting on a gold mine with my skills and knowledge, but I'm shit at selling myself, and I'm shit at seeing the gold in front of my face.

After I left the Fortune 100 company, I tried to find clients on Upwork and Guru, and I found a couple small clients, but not enough to pay the bills, so I found my current job.


I can do that stuff in my sleep. I love helping companies like that! And I could train junior developers and/or hire it out to my standards and get it CENTS-compatible.

I just... have *no idea* how to find clients... and I have no idea what gold may be beating me over the head. Someone once told me, "Chimichangatime, for such a smart guy, you're pretty stupid."

Couldn't you break down the types of roles you're able to train and create online courses ?

You'd mind map it all out that in of itself would be super valuable and then create the online course in whichever format is applicable to the content. There are so many people out in the world that want to do what you've mastered such as the hats you listed up above. Creating one course that's the basics of one role but then going on to create a course that is of the same role except higher level for those wanting to move up in management. There's little tips and tricks which I'm sure you're aware of that you could increase the value helping people move along in their careers. Just a thought that came to mind when reading your comment.

 

[quicksort]

Have been a software engineer at a a couple FANG companies. Have always made nothing but internal tools that were specific to the companies I worked at. The stuff I've built and maintained has done things like help tech support folks tweak some settings on people's computers, help people tweak settings on their own computers or request help from a tech, decide who is allowed to log in to what computer, track which computers are assigned to which people, track what small, internal services are running on them (e.g., you want to run some build system for your team), decide who and which sets of people have access to which resources, monitor for events that may require hardware maintenance or replacement, securely store small pieces of information that must only be shared with a few people, ensure software is installed remotely or forbid certain software is installed, and some other stuff that is so specific I am not sure I would be allowed to describe it at all.

Maybe I could do some sort of enterprise software tools? I never really considered doing anything that would be useful to a business, but I guess that's what I've accidentally become good at.

I was previously thinking, maybe I could make a list of the top couple thousand items on Amazon across different categories and just go down the list trying to think if I could see an obvious way to make something more useful, but maybe trying to think of tools that businesses would pay for is a better approach.

 

[chimichangatime]

Couldn't you break down the types of roles you're able to train and create online courses ?

You'd mind map it all out that in of itself would be super valuable and then create the online course in whichever format is applicable to the content. There are so many people out in the world that want to do what you've mastered such as the hats you listed up above. Creating one course that's the basics of one role but then going on to create a course that is of the same role except higher level for those wanting to move up in management. There's little tips and tricks which I'm sure you're aware of that you could increase the value helping people move along in their careers. Just a thought that came to mind when reading your comment.

Yup! After much brainstorming with a friend who's killing it in his sales job by focusing on the basics (adding value, seeking to help first, all the MFL stuff but he's never read the book, he just lives it), I decided that several courses in "How to X, Step by Step" would be super valuable.

I've been researching various platforms (I know, I should make my own, but e-learning isn't my core strength... and I also know that I should host myself, but STARTING is better than excuses, no?) and there simply isn't something out there that rolls stuff up in a real-world way.

I think the closest is "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python," that's sort of a conceptual template I could creatively steal.

Combine this with a YouTube series where I give a high-level overview that a professional developer/BA could use, but you've got to pay for the course to get the details that I've figured out if you're not at that level. A freebie to show competence, then the course for the details.

For example, it's trivial to make the contents of one drop-down change based on another drop-down, but not in Excel when the data is from your SQL database. I spent HOURS fiddling with the code to get this to work. The examples online didn't work or were too old to work with Office 365.

Another example is providing the user with their own levers to control forecasting model output, and making the UI/back-end independent enough to have it in Excel and on the web. Hint: there's not really a middle layer in Excel for an MVC-type dev model.

And who hasn't needed a strategy to deal with legacy code and bad database design while you develop your web application in parallel to your legacy desktop application? "It has to work in both tools." And the subsequent switching off of the legacy app, and hopefully minimizing refactoring in the new tool?

AKA "changing the tires on the bus as it drives 55mph down the highway."

"Excel is the second best tool for everything." I don't know who said that, but TONS of businesses run on Excel, and you can pry Excel out of their cold, dead hands! I don't want to go around fixing those businesses, I'd rather show intrepid folks like myself how to do it. And charge handsomely for it.

 

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[iced_steez]

I made that same mistake when i was switching from business to business but not realising that i was already sitting on a gold mine. i had 2 rental properties and never thought to expand it.
I then went to start a detergent business and then a website which both failed.

my turn around was when i posted my thoughts on starting a website, A guy from this forum suggested that i focused on what ever that was aready bringing me income and guess what... it was the bestadvice anyone could have given and now im back on track, making progress on my rental real estate faster than ever. thanks to the forum!!!

This makes absolute sense. I have one property and am about to acquire another one, with plans to continue to grow my Real Estate portfolio. I enjoy rental real estate as I feel and try to provide as much value as possible to tenants by paying attention to small details within the properties and making improvements where necessary/desired. I disapprove of 'slum-lords' as it is quite disgraceful to the people occupying the property. Take some pride in what you own and are letting other people use to start off.

Where I struggle is the attachment to the current job because I need to finance the properties and need the income for down-payments, ongoing maintenance, etc.

How have you/others approached this issue on being tied to a job while acquiring properties?

 

[lunga ngcobo]

This makes absolute sense. I have one property and am about to acquire another one, with plans to continue to grow my Real Estate portfolio. I enjoy rental real estate as I feel and try to provide as much value as possible to tenants by paying attention to small details within the properties and making improvements where necessary/desired. I disapprove of 'slum-lords' as it is quite disgraceful to the people occupying the property. Take some pride in what you own and are letting other people use to start off.

Where I struggle is the attachment to the current job because I need to finance the properties and need the income for down-payments, ongoing maintenance, etc.

How have you/others approached this issue on being tied to a job while acquiring properties?

I would recommend sticking to your job until your properties make enough money to cover you personal expenses and you are able to have extra cash to reinvest in your properties. Financing your next project is a great idea but its even better when you can put down a chunk of your own money to minimize the loan repayments.

What I do is not buy any property that i cannot modify or that does not have enough yard to expand. Adding a few units to an existing property is the cheapest way to getting a bigger income compared to buying a new property. Dividing a house into smaller units is a lot profitable than renting a full home to a single person and it minimizes the risk of unpaid rent.

The above strategy has helped me make unbelievable profits in single properties and that's why my portfolio is growing rapidly without needing any finance.

Be flexible. Property doesn't have to only be rented out as residential. adding other businesses to it is also highly profitable. a property may have 8 units rentals and you can add a shop or a salon up front. these can be rented out or you can operate them on your own and make lots of daily profits.

A few of my properties close by have either a local tuck shop or food take away which can be managed by one or two people. I collect the income twice a week while i supply them driving around with my mini truck. I know its a bit of work but an upfront shop makes enough money to double the properties profits. When I reach my property targets then I will also rent out the shops to some other people and retire!

Hope this makes sense also...

 

[Deleted74396]

I've only ever managed my own Facebook pages/groups and marketed my own businesses utilising my social media skills, and despite having success, I can't find where I'd fit in providing a service for clients. My main method is organic and I'm not great at paid ads which seems to be what 99% (well everyone I talk to, I say 99 as I'm sure it's not 100%!) of people are after. I'm not sure what type of clients to go after, what services to offer, etc.

 

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[pumpking]

Any thoughts on the topic of non-compete agreements with your current employer? I signed one without thinking much about it when I started with my current slow lane position. It contains some legalese that might prevent me from becoming a consultant in my career profession (sitting on ~15 experience), in that my clients would very likely be my current company’s competitors.

Potentially I would need to wait one year before doing that, I.e. quitting and then doing something else for a year.

Anyone in a similar situation?

 

[iced_steez]

I would recommend sticking to your job until your properties make enough money to cover you personal expenses and you are able to have extra cash to reinvest in your properties. Financing your next project is a great idea but its even better when you can put down a chunk of your own money to minimize the loan repayments.

What I do is not buy any property that i cannot modify or that does not have enough yard to expand. Adding a few units to an existing property is the cheapest way to getting a bigger income compared to buying a new property. Dividing a house into smaller units is a lot profitable than renting a full home to a single person and it minimizes the risk of unpaid rent.

The above strategy has helped me make unbelievable profits in single properties and that's why my portfolio is growing rapidly without needing any finance.

Be flexible. Property doesn't have to only be rented out as residential. adding other businesses to it is also highly profitable. a property may have 8 units rentals and you can add a shop or a salon up front. these can be rented out or you can operate them on your own and make lots of daily profits.

A few of my properties close by have either a local tuck shop or food take away which can be managed by one or two people. I collect the income twice a week while i supply them driving around with my mini truck. I know its a bit of work but an upfront shop makes enough money to double the properties profits. When I reach my property targets then I will also rent out the shops to some other people and retire!

Hope this makes sense also...

This does make sense! You're expanding/improving on what you already own vs. leveraging further to achieve the same objective.

Some follow-up questions:

1. If you purchased a 4 bdrm/2bth, you would 'cut' it into a duplex, which makes sense. How do you work with local jurisdiction in order to achieve this? I've never worked with municipalities, so I am unsure how willing they are to allow this to happen.
2. If you have an open lot on an existing property, would you construct on the land to put up what you wanted?
3. What type of properties do you look for when renting out to businesses vs. residential? I've seen some on the market that, for example, are one apartment on the top with a storefront on the bottom. Commercial rentals is an objective of mine.

Thank you; I really appreciate your insight/advice.

 

[lunga ngcobo]

This does make sense! You're expanding/improving on what you already own vs. leveraging further to achieve the same objective.

Some follow-up questions:

1. If you purchased a 4 bdrm/2bth, you would 'cut' it into a duplex, which makes sense. How do you work with local jurisdiction in order to achieve this? I've never worked with municipalities, so I am unsure how willing they are to allow this to happen.
2. If you have an open lot on an existing property, would you construct on the land to put up what you wanted?
3. What type of properties do you look for when renting out to businesses vs. residential? I've seen some on the market that, for example, are one apartment on the top with a storefront on the bottom. Commercial rentals is an objective of mine.

Thank you; I really appreciate your insight/advice.

All municipalities have their own rules and the more developed the neighborhood the more they ask you to follow them.

1. In my case, So far I've been buying existing houses and partitioning them (which anyone can do in South Africa without consulting the municipality)

2. Cities and prestige suburbs will never allow anyone to build unless your plan is approved by the municipality. I think you should consult with the municipality before adding units or ask people who have done it in the place you wish to develop.

3. Adding a store is similar to building additional units. Consult with the municipality and see what they have to say. Just know that money is power!
As you can see above. Ive maxed out this property with 26 studio units , using any space available and more than tripled the profits of what any typical developer would make. At the moment I run the shops below and collect money. And above are studio units, some with en-suits and some share communal toilets rooms.

The plan is to make the most profits out a single property so it speeds up business and puts less pressure on loan repayments. The trick is to always have money on of your own for adding more units. Keep in mind that I did not build these units all at once, instead I used the boost trapping method. I built One section section and let in tenants, took profits and combined them with the cash I had to keep on building other units. It speeds up business even more!


On the left of this picture is the original house that i bought with the property. It was a single story 2 bedroom house

There are a lot of tricks in this business that can help you stay above the rest. I would advice you not to take any typical outdated advice from consultants who are not in the business. Just think logically and make moves that make sense to you.

Keep in mind that Maxing out you existing property is much safer than rushing to buy new property with a loan. I've seen a lot of idiots buy houses this way and end up making $100 profits for the next 15years

FOLLOW THIS LINK AND MEET OTHER DEVELOPERS LIKE ME

 

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