Better late than never - Here it is - The intro of ddzc

[ddzc]

Greetings all,

I think I’m a little overdue with the intro, something I’ve wanted to compile for quite some time now and thanks to MJ for his reminder, here she goes. I will probably leave some things out b/c my store can turn in to a book lol.

A little about me, born and raised in Toronto. I grew up with nothing given to me and everything I ever wanted had to be worked for, which I love. I started working when I was 8 years old delivering newspapers to buy the things and toys I ever wanted.

Non-Business Career Discussion:

I have worked the following jobs from 15-21 – newspapers, dishwasher, bingo hall cart pusher, grocery store clerk, masonry/brick layer, landscaping, sprinkler installations, mattress factory worker and delivery guy, aluminum warehouse laborer, dairy warehouse laborer, car detailer, plastic plant assembly line worker, pool tiling, home tiling, painter, railing installer, bodyshop tech, auto mechanic.

From 22 – present – I started working full-time in I.T upon graduation. I started out at IBM as a Technical Support Analyst, after a year was team leader and then quit. I worked at a mid-size company as a Network Administrator. I was there for 1 year and then started working in telecommunications. I worked there for 4 years as a Network Engineering Specialist. I then got out of that, opened a business/corporation and started consulting F/T. I currently still work as a consultant/contractor doing Network Security.

Business Ventures:

I started a business at a very young age – 13. I guess I didn’t even think of it as a business at that time, who does at that age? When I visited some homes of friends of my parents, they had tons of birds and breeded them for a living. I then got in close contact with an owner of a pet shop and I started visiting and going to every bird show. I was probably the youngest kid there. I bought books, read about it, read some more about breeding, learnt from the pet store owner. I had a friends that was also in to it and we decided to buy birds, breed them and sell for profit. At one point I had over 25-30 birds in my basement while being screamed at by my parents for the smell and noise they caused lol. Anyway, I used to breed finches, canaries and budgies. I multiplied and multiplied, and starting putting ads out in the newspaper selling all of my birds. I then got cages made, I sometimes made them myself and would sell a little package, 1-2 birds with a cage, perches, etc. I did this for years.

I then got in to electric and gas R/C cars at about 14-15. I loved it as a hobby and used to visit every tradeshow. I used to race them semi-professionally at tracks and shows (no money there). I made money buying cheap chassis, putting them together and selling for a profit. I was well connected in this industry and basically knew everyone. I would charge labor costs to put chassis and electronics together for people.

In my mid to late teens, I started getting in to dirtbikes, gocars, cars and trucks. I had many go-carts and dirtbikes, buy for cheap (broken), fix them up and flip. I learnt autobody and mechanics self -teaching and also working for a bodyshop. I used to do paint, body and all mechanics from changing brake pads to swapping transmissions and motors. I used to race my imports at the track and was heavily involved in the industry. I would buy done up cars, strip the parts off and sell them on the side and then flip the car. I would buy some cars for dirt cheap, paint it up, do small mods, make them look impeccable and sell for profit. A ton of friends had no idea how to sell online or on the street so I did all of the sales for them for a commission.

In my early 20’s, I started a modchip business. I used to install modchips for xbox and ps2. I used to buy tons of consoles online, mod them and flip. I was doing a lot of installation and setup services in people’s homes. I went to college for Computer Networking from 20-22. I was still working at the bodyshop and a dairy warehouse at the same time part-time. The modchip business made enough to pay my college and cars throughout the years.

In my mid 20s – present: I started affiliate marketing online. I spent a year or so learning SEO. I bought tons of “turn key” websites and spent tons of time on them which led to nowhere. I owned and operated many online webstores affiliating for amazon, cj, linkshare, shareasale, etc..made little money. I started an online coupon business. I started tackling different niches and with my newfound seo knowledge, I was the leader in one of my niches for 3 years #1. I was making mid 4 figures monthly and was happy with that on top of my full time job. When I saw this income, I decided to try and create a mega coupon site to compete with the top dogs like retailmenot.com (valued at Billions right now). I was already smashing them in the niche where I was number 1, so I thought I could replicate this success with all niches and stores. I spent most of my money which I made in to developers, writers, designers, and a full blown SEO team. I spent a year on this venture until it all went south. The developer stiffed me and took off, the scripts stopped working and the SEO team permanently destroyed my name and banned me from Google. After 20k invested, the business/site was done. At the same time, I got in to real estate and flipping homes. I bought my first home at 23 and flipped it 2 years later netting a profit of 80k. I then bought another property and flipped it within a year for a profit of 40k. At that time, I ended a 9 year relationship. I stopped focusing on businesses and started partying every weekend due to “missed time”. I basically couldn’t afford the home flipping business any longer due to not having dual incomes and had no choice but to move in to a condo. Most if not all profit was lost due to this mishap and I had to start over. A little after this, the Penguin update came around and wiped all of my online businesses out the window. Both businesses went down the drain at around the same time. The venture which I invested 20k in to was done, the website which was dominating the niche was done and the real estate investing business was no more due to low capital and low income. I was still working full-time, so I can live and get by, pay cheque to pay cheque.

Recap

After the above, I swore to myself to never get in to affiliate marketing again or anything online for that matter, I was just pissed off at life. I started looking in to offline business and franchises, but realized I didn’t have the funds to get it going.

I joined this forum in 2012. I remember asking a few basic questions and I then left the forum. I didn’t read the book then. Mid- Late 2013 is when I came back on the forum and started really researching and investigating. I finally read MJs book which opened by eyes. I can pin point all of the mistakes I’ve made in previous business ventures and know exactly what I did wrong and how to avoid them in the future again. I definitely had no CONTROL at all with my online ventures.

What am I up to now?

Since the summer of last year, I’ve read a lot on here and educated myself immensely thanks to the contributors of this community. I want to have the knowledge before I dive in to the deep end in order to avoid drowning and losing time and $. What really interests me these days is importing and real-estate. I’ve spent the past few months speaking with factories, suppliers and doing TONS of investigating. I’ve sampled many products which ended up being turds. I’m still hammering away at the importing biz and I’m slowly gaining some traction, but I do have barriers which I need to act upon. In regards to real estate, I saved early last year and bought a pre-construction condo in Toronto. It’s ready December this year. I will either assign and flip or rent it out. I’m currently looking in to my next RE investment.

Other than working on the above, I still work F/T in my career which I hope to drop soon. I also spend a lot of time helping friends and family, something I can never say no to. I’ve helped friends with the design and development of websites and social media awareness. Recently, a friend of mine bought a B&M business with an absolute hideous website…just spent a week on it developing something from scratch and his revenue has already skyrocketed 30% in the first month. I love helping others, but going forward I still fit in a lot of time in to my own business.

Once I get something steamrolling…I will start a detailed progress thread to track my progress. I believe I’m still in the networking and brainstorming phase of my business. I’ve been in it for some time now, I haven’t had much luck with products I’ve tested and I want to ensure I bring in a kick a$$ product before going all in.

Conclusion

Last but not least, I've read and learnt a ton off of the following people so I would like to start off by saying thank you - @MJ DeMarco @biophase @healthstatus @IceCreamKid @JAJT @JackEdwards @Vigilante @zend***phin

I'm sure there's many more, sorry if you were left out

Thanks,
Daniel

 

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