YoungMoneyGlobal
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- Dec 28, 2013
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Hey everyone, this is my first post
I'd like some advice on a big decision..
After some soulcrushing work at a bank during and immediately after university, I decided to make a big change. So for the past 3 years (I'm 27 now), my current slowlane day job has been as an English teacher in Asia. It's actually a fantastic lifestyle, great job, fulfilling, adequate salary, and lots of opportunity to travel. I also have lots of free time between classes and am off work at 4:15 on the dot, so I've had the time to teach myself a lot of different skills over the past few years such as the native language, video-editing, web-design, and now I've been learning how to code for the past several months. However, a few months ago, I came across and read The Millionaire Fastlane . I've read it a few times now and I constantly re-listen to the audio book while I drive. It's totally changed my entire life perspective, but I'm still trying to figure out my next step. It recently became even more difficult to decide what to do..
In my quest to transition out of this English teaching job, I started a freelance web-design business (while still working my day job) and have been doing it for about a year. Well, one thing led to another, which led to the current opportunity I am facing..
One of my clients is the director of an import/export/trading firm who is leaving his company and taking with him a dozen key execs to start a competing company (essentially leaving the old company a shell of its former self). He already has the contacts, infrastructure and very soon, the funding in place to rapidly grow the new company. Originally he hired me on as a freelancer to redesign the previous company's website, but now that he is starting his own firm, he wants me to not only work on the website, but offered me a fulltime position at the China branch (Shanghai, Beijing, or one of the other main cities) that he plans to launch this year. This wouldn't be a desk trading job, but would involve a lot of face to face meetings with clients, suppliers, buyers, on-site visits developing the business, etc. I figure I would make a ton of contacts and learn a tremendous amount about business in China, especially as the director has taken to personally mentoring me. The position would be a very comfortable salary with a perfomance based comission structure. Still slow-lane, but I anticipate making well over 6 figures within the next couple years from salary and comissions.
..This would have sounded fantastic to me a year ago, but now after having read TMF , I realize that at the end of the day, its still a slow-lane JOB.
My original plan before this opportunity arised was to stay in this country, continue my slow-lane day job to pay the bills and grow my freelance web-design business and/or launch another internet business as my coding skills develop. My gut is telling me to give the other job a shot, even for just the adventure of living in China. I tell myself I could always leave the job and/or figure out my own business once I'm in China. Frankly, I'm terrified and excited at the same time. However, I also think that there might be an angle within this opportunity that I can leverage into a fast-lane business.
What would you do if you were me?
1. Stay in this country, continue to work my (fun) day job and freelance while learning how to code and eventually start an internet business (have been looking into an e-commerce business utilizing drop-shipping, a niche dating website, and a couple other ideas).
2. Take this opportunity in China which will most likely consume almost all my free time as I run around chasing business deals. Would be a fantastic learning experience, I might make valuable contacts, and if I make large comissions, I would have capital to launch a fast-lane internet business - ie. hire some developers to create the sites I was going to build myself. I might also find an unsolved business need within this industry and be able to start a Fastlane business that solves this need. Again, my comissions could potentially finance such an endeavour.
Please keep in mind the following:
1) My current knowledge of coding is very very limited. I have a bit of experience with iOS development, and just HTML, CSS, PHP, though I plan on learning Ruby/Python/etc. or whatever else I need to later on.
2) My current webdesign business is decently profitable but still a trade of my time for money. Also, I don't actually code the sites from the ground up but utilize CMS's like Wordpress and professionally designed Wordpress templates.
3) Though I graduated with a business degree 5 years ago, I have no experience with the industry of this new opportunity. I would be learning as I go, faking it until I made it, and grinding hard everyday to make it work.
So I feel like I have a dilemma here. I don't like the idea of working another slow-lane job, but I feel like it would open a lot of doors, give me a wealth of life experience and possibly start-up capital if I save my comissions. On the other hand, I could continue my comfortable life here, devote my time to learning to code, and try to bootstrap a fastlane business by myself.
Please give me some advice! I would truly appreciate it. Thanks in advance for reading and commenting on this thread. I tend to lurk on forums most of the time instead of contributing, but I've been doing enough reading around on this forum to be able to tell that this is a great group of people interested in boosting each other up. Thus I hope to contribute a lot more. Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give me.
I'd like some advice on a big decision..
After some soulcrushing work at a bank during and immediately after university, I decided to make a big change. So for the past 3 years (I'm 27 now), my current slowlane day job has been as an English teacher in Asia. It's actually a fantastic lifestyle, great job, fulfilling, adequate salary, and lots of opportunity to travel. I also have lots of free time between classes and am off work at 4:15 on the dot, so I've had the time to teach myself a lot of different skills over the past few years such as the native language, video-editing, web-design, and now I've been learning how to code for the past several months. However, a few months ago, I came across and read The Millionaire Fastlane . I've read it a few times now and I constantly re-listen to the audio book while I drive. It's totally changed my entire life perspective, but I'm still trying to figure out my next step. It recently became even more difficult to decide what to do..
In my quest to transition out of this English teaching job, I started a freelance web-design business (while still working my day job) and have been doing it for about a year. Well, one thing led to another, which led to the current opportunity I am facing..
One of my clients is the director of an import/export/trading firm who is leaving his company and taking with him a dozen key execs to start a competing company (essentially leaving the old company a shell of its former self). He already has the contacts, infrastructure and very soon, the funding in place to rapidly grow the new company. Originally he hired me on as a freelancer to redesign the previous company's website, but now that he is starting his own firm, he wants me to not only work on the website, but offered me a fulltime position at the China branch (Shanghai, Beijing, or one of the other main cities) that he plans to launch this year. This wouldn't be a desk trading job, but would involve a lot of face to face meetings with clients, suppliers, buyers, on-site visits developing the business, etc. I figure I would make a ton of contacts and learn a tremendous amount about business in China, especially as the director has taken to personally mentoring me. The position would be a very comfortable salary with a perfomance based comission structure. Still slow-lane, but I anticipate making well over 6 figures within the next couple years from salary and comissions.
..This would have sounded fantastic to me a year ago, but now after having read TMF , I realize that at the end of the day, its still a slow-lane JOB.
My original plan before this opportunity arised was to stay in this country, continue my slow-lane day job to pay the bills and grow my freelance web-design business and/or launch another internet business as my coding skills develop. My gut is telling me to give the other job a shot, even for just the adventure of living in China. I tell myself I could always leave the job and/or figure out my own business once I'm in China. Frankly, I'm terrified and excited at the same time. However, I also think that there might be an angle within this opportunity that I can leverage into a fast-lane business.
What would you do if you were me?
1. Stay in this country, continue to work my (fun) day job and freelance while learning how to code and eventually start an internet business (have been looking into an e-commerce business utilizing drop-shipping, a niche dating website, and a couple other ideas).
2. Take this opportunity in China which will most likely consume almost all my free time as I run around chasing business deals. Would be a fantastic learning experience, I might make valuable contacts, and if I make large comissions, I would have capital to launch a fast-lane internet business - ie. hire some developers to create the sites I was going to build myself. I might also find an unsolved business need within this industry and be able to start a Fastlane business that solves this need. Again, my comissions could potentially finance such an endeavour.
Please keep in mind the following:
1) My current knowledge of coding is very very limited. I have a bit of experience with iOS development, and just HTML, CSS, PHP, though I plan on learning Ruby/Python/etc. or whatever else I need to later on.
2) My current webdesign business is decently profitable but still a trade of my time for money. Also, I don't actually code the sites from the ground up but utilize CMS's like Wordpress and professionally designed Wordpress templates.
3) Though I graduated with a business degree 5 years ago, I have no experience with the industry of this new opportunity. I would be learning as I go, faking it until I made it, and grinding hard everyday to make it work.
So I feel like I have a dilemma here. I don't like the idea of working another slow-lane job, but I feel like it would open a lot of doors, give me a wealth of life experience and possibly start-up capital if I save my comissions. On the other hand, I could continue my comfortable life here, devote my time to learning to code, and try to bootstrap a fastlane business by myself.
Please give me some advice! I would truly appreciate it. Thanks in advance for reading and commenting on this thread. I tend to lurk on forums most of the time instead of contributing, but I've been doing enough reading around on this forum to be able to tell that this is a great group of people interested in boosting each other up. Thus I hope to contribute a lot more. Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give me.
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