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Breaking news: Colorado man pursues web design

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

tigerbalm

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This just in: Colorado man succumbs to the web design pandemic that appears to be gripping the community. When asked about the origin of this act of rational optimism, the man responded "Daddy gotta stack that cheddar yo". Powerful words indeed.

Hi. This is my web design execution thread. I'm starting it mostly for accountability, but also in my infinite kindness, I wanted to give those who wished that they had documented their process earlier an opportunity to live vicariously through me. I got you dawgs.

Just kidding it's for me. And hopefully others may be able to extract value.

Aaaanyways, I'm 28, from Boulder, CO. I'm not a trust fund kid, a weed enthusiast, or a hippie. Though I do enjoy the scent of lavender and sage smoke amidst the occasional drum circle at my local commune. Note: the preceding is possibly too niche for anyone not familiar with Colorado (the gist is that Boulder’s a massive hippie town). My bad.

But I digress, on to the meat of this post. Oh actually that reminds me, I don't eat meat. You know what, maybe I am a hippie.

Alas, I am in the initial stages of starting my web design company after getting some incredible inspiration. @Fox @GuitarManDan @GoodluckChuck , love the content, you guys are awesome, keep up the great work. Very excited to see where things go for you.

Where I'm at currently? I am working on some portfolio pieces, a site that I'm doing for free for a friend's cleaning business, after which I'll move on to a paid version of another friend's business. Price TBD, I’m thinking somewhere between $0.50 and $374,619.

Where'd I start? A couple years ago I went to a bootcamp to learn code, and have been working as a front end developer ever since. This skillset has me thinking forward to potential web applications. Why web design then? I have a strong desire to learn the necessary skills to be successful as an entrepreneur - copywriting, SEO, sales, and the likes. I think that web design is a great avenue for this, and that the venture can later be pivoted to potential software solutions - Saas or whatever. Before all of this I worked in Marketing doing a lot of video and multimedia stuff, so those skills should prove to be useful in this endeavor.

Peep these goals brobeans:

6 months
  • Sell a website for $5k
  • $500 monthly recurring revenue
  • Start an entrepreneurship meetup
  • Sell 10 websites for at least $1000
1 year
  • Sell a website for $10k
  • $1500 monthly recurring revenue
  • Make 1 marketing video
  • $50k total revenue
  • Location independence
  • Obtain 10 cold clients
  • Get 5 clients outside of my locale
The last two may seem a bit strange, but these are conducive to my desire to learn sales and go location independent (need to get clients from abroad). The goal is to move to Guatemala in 2021.

My main motivation for this business is to expand that coveted freedom section of my wealth trinity. Currently pretty happy with the family and fitness sections.

Some positive habits to be implemented (many of these I do already):
  • 2hrs in the morning to work on the business
  • 4 hours on Sat / Sun to work on the business
  • Force myself to take Sat or Sun off if I feel I’m getting burnt out
  • 1hr in the morning for meditation / progressive relaxation
  • 30 min in the evening for positive visualization
  • 45 min aerobic endurance run at lunch (Holla at my distance runners out there!)
  • 1.5hr weight lifting in the evening
  • 5am wakeup on weekdays, 6am on weekends
  • Spend more time with mom and dad (dawwww how precious!)
  • Nofap (hesitant to include this one as many people don’t need / want to know about my “personal” habits. But I genuinely do feel that this has been a massive benefit to me over the years, and my hope is that others may see it and give it a go, and hopefully attain a similar level of benefits that I have)
  • Twice-yearly heroic dose of psilocybin for creativity, neuroplasticity, mental health, happiness.
Avoiding some destructive habits as well - alcohol, unfavorable drugs (the REALLY bad ones like caffeine and sugar - that stuff destroys lives yo), unsavory people, etc.

I’ll be doing all of this whilst maintaining my day job as a web application developer. Makes me more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but I’m excited for what’s to come.

If you've thus far endured my tone and tenuous grasp of the written language, I tip my hat to you, sir / madame / preferred pronoun. Wishing everyone the best of luck in their respective endeavors, and can’t wait to hear more about the community’s various successes.
 
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PizzaOnTheRoof

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Good luck man! Looking forward to the progress...

I almost welcomed you to the forum but I see you joined a year ago lol
 

Xavier X

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Yeah cool, but was this man a local man?

Seriously though, I'm curious about the Guatemala part. Any specific reason for that choice?
 

MJ DeMarco

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Welcome and congrats on making a decision.

Twice-yearly heroic dose of psilocybin for creativity, neuroplasticity, mental health, happiness.

Oooh care to share your experience ?
 
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Bekit

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If you've thus far endured my tone and tenuous grasp of the written language,
Your writing style is absolutely hilarious! Super entertaining.

Start an entrepreneurship meetup
Might be good to browse the Colorado Meetup threads on the forum and initiate something. I'm guessing a few people from the forum would probably show up if somebody initiated something.

Here's one to get you started...
 

tigerbalm

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@PizzaOnTheRoof Thank you

@Xavier X Haha a local man indeed. Regarding Guatemala - it is stunning, cheap, has great Spanish schools, and I know people living there. The biggest motivating factor would be to attend Spanish school for a couple months - you can get 1 on 1 tutoring for 5 days a week, 5 hours a day, along with a homestay (probably rather get a place, but the homestay would work wonders in effectively becoming proficient in Spanish) for pretty cheap.

@MJ DeMarco Thank you, I'm excited to start. Happy to share. Psychedelics have helped me to realize things that I wouldn't have realized otherwise, and personally, have led to increased happiness, reduced anxiety, and have spurred massive acts of self improvement. One such example is getting out of a toxic relationship that I may have delayed for much longer, another is catalyzing my decision to quit unhealthy habits like binge drinking and weed (not inherently unhealthy, but was for me). A third is making the decision to leave crappy jobs to pursue marketable skills. In a fascinating way, it seems like you are able to view your situation without the noise of your entrenched and biased / emotional thought patterns, in a highly logical way, almost as if you were an extremely impartial, unbiased, and reasonable entity, witnessing your own life in the third person.

The very compelling (because science yo! That stuff's dope) use for psychedelics is for creativity and problem solving. A great book that discusses this is The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide by James Fadiman. The book discusses a study done (by the author) with highly skilled workers - architects, engineers, and such, that bring a problem to the study that they had been working on but hadn't been able to solve for several weeks. They were administered LSD and over 90% of them were able to come up with their various solutions, formulae, whatever, that allowed them to solve their problem. Massive potential there, and I could absolutely see it being applicable to business, though I have not yet used it in that capacity.

At the risk of sounding like a deranged drug obsessed nutcase - I'll leave it there, but anyone's welcome to shoot me a DM for further discussion. Certainly not pleading my aforementioned case of not being a hippie very well.

@Bekit Thank you - I hadn't discovered that part of the forums yet, seems like a perfect place to start for the entrepreneurship meetup. Looking forward to seeing more of your progress as well.

As for some updates: I'm making great progress on the cleaning service site's design in my AM deep work blocks. The frient (friend / client) is really happy with the design, but thus far, all the work has been on design. I think that once that's finished next steps are to learn some copywriting and fix the site's copy, it is pretty lengthy and irrelevant in parts. As for the solid walls of text - I'm planning to go straight Gorbachev all over those. Hoping to do that without negatively affecting the SEO as her site ranks pretty good locally on google. The SEO knowledge acquisition will come after the copywriting. I didn't sell her on SEO or anything, so it'll mostly be preventative maintenance - get my 301 redirect on and such.

Sooo for the forseeable future, the focus will be first on copywriting (reading Ca$hvertising, heard amazing things about this @Lex DeVille character, very excited to check him out), followed by SEO (doing this course: The Complete SEO Guide to Ranking Local Business Websites), and finally hop on some sales action (Spin Selling and @Fox Legends). If anyone has additional recommendations for learning these skillsets, other comments, or wants to get in an internet fight (seems to be all the rage these days), please feel free to reach out.

Laterr
 

Davidla

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This just in: Colorado man succumbs to the web design pandemic that appears to be gripping the community. When asked about the origin of this act of rational optimism, the man responded "Daddy gotta stack that cheddar yo". Powerful words indeed.

Hi. This is my web design execution thread. I'm starting it mostly for accountability, but also in my infinite kindness, I wanted to give those who wished that they had documented their process earlier an opportunity to live vicariously through me. I got you dawgs.

Goodluck @tigerbalm!

The goals you set are very attainable from my personal experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if you would choose to modify them as you progress : )
 
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tigerbalm

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Goodluck @tigerbalm!

The goals you set are very attainable from my personal experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if you would choose to modify them as you progress : )

Thanks very much David! Very inspiring to see that you and others have seen such fantastic results. Hope all is well with your endeavors
 

Xavier X

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@tigerbalm Okay, sounds good. I haven't been to Guatemala and haven't heard many people say they're heading there. Knowing people there is a plus.

I learned the basics of Spanish on Duolingo, before immersing myself in Spanish speaking countries for 4 months in 2017 and 2 months in 2018. This year, I've spent the last 2.5 months in Mexico and currently in Mexico City. My Spanish isn't nearly where I want it to be, but it's better than when I started.

I haven't gone the tutor route, or any formal learning. Just duolingo and everyday interactions.
I'm sure your 25-hour weekly sessions will go a long way.
 

tigerbalm

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So I'm really disappointed in myself. I had been clean for almost a year, but recently made a hasty decision to pay my dealer a visit. I don't know what came over me, I just needed that fix. What followed was a binge of relapses the likes of which you've never seen. I was dejected, I had lost the fight, and I sat there thinking "I've already relapsed several times, what will ONE more do?" as relapse after relapse ensued. At the end, I was all out of the junk, and I thought "That's it I'm DONE! No more!". 25 minutes later I found myself driving back to my dealer. As I got out of the car and walked up, nerves acting up, hating me for what I was about to do, I looked the dealer in the eyes, money in hand, dedicated to the unspeakable act that I was about to commit. The last thing I remember hearing before the shame ultimately sunk in: "Hello sir, would you like to buy some girl scout cookies?!".

(Disclaimer: the above is purely fictional and in no way reflects the views of myself, the author. Girl Scout cookies are obviously the best and should be treated as such and consumed in abundance).

Enough absurdities, and on to some updates! Probably should be updating this more, but alas, it had slipped my mind these past 6ish weeks. January was a tough week for me, I had health issues (nothing serious, just immensely ill) for 2 weeks that kind of threw me off my game, so I have been somewhat in recovery from that. Honestly, that's just an excuse, as I've been well since the middle of January, but progress has been slow since then as well. Just need to hold myself more accountable.

As for my progress: I just finished my first portfolio site for a cleaning service company here in Boulder. This is the unpaid project I had mentioned in my first post. I'm hoping that this and the other portfolio project that I'll build lead the path to paid work in the (NEAR!! Please god near!) future.

What else I've been working on: I'm going through a SEO business course that has been massively beneficial. I think that adding SEO to my offered services will be massively beneficial to attaining my goals, primarily due to the recurring revenues.

I'll be wrapping up the cleaning service and starting up on the auto shop portfolio piece in the next week or so. I also plan to simultaneously build out my business website, and add case studies about what I've been able to accomplish for these first two portfolio sites.

From a prospecting perspective, it's been slow (insert asinine health excuse here). I've been reaching out to mostly warm leads in my personal network - which has been largely ineffective, so I'm going to look to begin doing some in person networking at various events / meetups, as well as try my hand at some cold outreach. Any INSIDERS tips or general advice on prospecting in the initial stages is quite welcome.

The plan moving forward is to prospect more, gain more SEO knowledge and implement it on my business and my portfolio sites, and try to make my process (SEO, website building, etc) more efficient.

Hope everyone's off to a fantastic start to the new year, and killing it in their various endeavors.
 
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CoderSales

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Cool thread, and like the writing style. Dare I say you'd be good at churning out YouTube vids?? Freelance is a hell of a ride, you're going to have to learn how to sell and influence, though especially if you are going to work with companies outside of CO. Learn how to cold call and target a niche; target narrow, spread wide! Happy hunting!
 

tigerbalm

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Holding accountable. Don't see much progress here btw

Thank you. I totally agree, progress is much slower than it needs to be. I will be addressing that moving forward. Always happy to get a reality check

Cool thread, and like the writing style. Dare I say you'd be good at churning out YouTube vids?? Freelance is a hell of a ride, you're going to have to learn how to sell and influence, though especially if you are going to work with companies outside of CO. Learn how to cold call and target a niche; target narrow, spread wide! Happy hunting!

Thank you. Interesting observation about the Youtube vids - I've toyed with the idea before, perhaps something to explore further or implement into this business. I think you're absolutely right, selling and influence is the name of this game, and likely where I'll spend a vast majority of my time in the beginning. The niche thing is very interesting to me, I see so many people recommending it for businesses of this nature, but I'm still trying to get over the mental obstacle of desiring breadth. I think ultimately you're correct on narrow targeting though, as I'm sure that countless successful people who have come before me know better than my (just starting out) self on the matter. Thanks again for the kind words and advice
 
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