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[Daily Update] Watch me go from Freelancer To Entrepreneur

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Kepler

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TOTAL REVENUE: $7.00
TOTAL PROFITS (-16%): $6.00
PROGRESS TODAY:
- Today's Profits: $6.00
- Work Time: 2h
- Average Rate: $0.25/h (24h in a day)

PROGRESS THIS WEEK:

- Weekly Profits: $6.00
- Work Time: 2h
- Average Rate: $0.03/h (168h in a week)
GROWTH:
Last Day's Profits: N/A
Last Week's Profits: N/A


-Compared By Day: N/A
-Compared By Week: N/A
RECORDS OF THE DAY
- Most Work Completed: 1400 words in 3 Orders , <December 27th 2019>
- Most Profit Made: $6.00 , <December 27th 2019>
- Most Time Working: 2h , <December 27th 2019>

RECORDS OF THE WEEK
- Most Work Completed: 1400 words in 3 Orders , <December, 4th Week 2019>
- Most Profit Made: $6.00 , <December, 4th Week 2019>
- Most Time Working: 2h , <December, 4th Week 2019>
NOTES:
*I wont use any data from previous work days. This counts as day one. There is nothing to compare yet.
**$6 For 1400 words!? Read my strategy. I am overdelivering to ensure promotions and trust in freelance websites.
*** It's time to increase work time. Production over productivity.
Data updated in 12/27/2019
You should check out thumbtack and see if they do lead generation for your field of expertise.

they charge per lead so competition is lower, especially with good copy, a few reviews from friends and family, and leveraging another persons portfolio as your own To get started.

make sure the reviews are done by people whose WiFi you haven’t connected to recently or they will be flagged as spam
 
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MaxKhalus

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Day 45&46 (Week9)
Worked 4h each day to build my portfolio website. So made 0$ mean while.

Once I'm done, I'll share it here. Iwant this website becuse I may get a lot of visibility after conpleting a few more articles.
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 47 (2nd of Week 9)

Making money today? Not yet! Worked 3h on the website, made zero buckaroos.
I have some big things going on...let me share what I'm looking to do:

Context: My main freelance writing website has five ranks and two writer leaderboards, one for quantity and another for quality. If I write about ten articles more, I may appear on the Top 10 Best rated writers. That involves massive visibility boost and personal requests. Remember, my current rank is already max.

When I got to the max rank, I thought I'd find a lot of demand for a higher price. Not even a single soul. But I believe they are on the platform, just not in the open order pool. They work with writers personally. If the leaderboard thing doesn't work out, I can still private message them. If nothing is going well, I'll jump to Upwork (I was going to do it anyway).

I'm building a portfolio website to boost my "conversion rate," or at least get more credibility. (dw, I'll share it here once I'm done) So it's three steps:
1.Build the website | Difficulty: High (Html mode)
2. Climb the leaderboards | Difficulty: Low (Write 10 articles + Unknown Challenges)
3. Get long-term clients | Difficulty: Medium (Unknown challenges, dunno what to expect)

Action steps:
1.Website: I'll create a separate "quest" in Trello where you will see the tasks I complete, from 0 to 100. I won't be designing, just rebranding an existing copywriter that looks really well. Will save time for the short term.
2.Leaderboards: As I write, I have six orders due in 6h. That's less than 5h of work, and about $40. I cannot let my favorite clients down, so I won't skip it even if I wanted to.
3.Long term clients: nothing to do until I get done steps one and two.

Will update trello before the next time. Talk tomorrow!
 

MaxKhalus

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Okay,
Day 48 (3rd of Week 9)

$5 in 2.5h. Wrote two articles.

Obviously I made some mistakes. I spent my morning away doing some physical work (out-of-routine event). By the time I went back, I felt drained.

I have lots of stuff to do. If I want to get things done, I need to re-arrange my routine. My dilemma today was this. "Obviously working for +10h sounds like a crazy idea. But if I'm not going to spend such hours at work, what am I supposed to do when not working? I came to a few solutions.

Excuse me while I put things in place...
 
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MaxKhalus

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Okay,
Day 49 (4th of Week 9)
Wrote four articles, made $10, worked for 3h.

Got back some momentum after doing almost zero work in the last days. I did three but had many difficulties to go further this line.

With this day, I've completed one project. A client has become long term and wants to raise the price for future orders. If I write for him like today again, it would be nearly $19 instead of $10.
Have an order to get done, and the whole website to start.
 

MaxKhalus

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Now Day 50 (End Of Week 9)
Nothing.
Put no time at work. $0. I know what's the problem and how to fix it, but I still don't know where it comes from. In a few words, I started doing a lot of stuff after I hit $30+ a day, got distracted, and didn't have energy left to push things through. I'll see what things I can sacrifice to stay focused more easily.
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 51 (1st of Week10)
0$, 6h put on Web design. Learned a bunch about Html&Css. Fixing the website, then doing the copy, and adding some images.
The reason everything goes slow is short-term gratification, the no.1 killer of beginner entrepreneurs. My life will never be amazing if I don't get rid of it immediately.
 
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MaxKhalus

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Day 52 (2nd of Week10)
0$, 6h put on web design coding. It's taking form and will be ready soon. I'm starting to feel proud of this!
 

Aussie Dan

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Day 52 (2nd of Week10)
0$, 6h put on web design coding. It's taking form and will be ready soon. I'm starting to feel proud of this!
While I've noticed that you have dropped off on your transparent reporting (comparing Day One to the last few days), I want to encourage you to get back on the horse with your reporting. It will keep you accountable and driven.

However, having said that, I think that daily reporting is a bit OTT. Maybe revert to weekly reporting where we (your fellow Fastlaners/budding Fastlaners) will give you more accountability.

Keep going man! :)
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 53 (3rd of Week10)
0$, 6h put on web design coding. Right now, there're a few things left before I share it:
- Copy editing
- Some images and theme color
- Portfolio
- Services

I have a 2K-word article due in twenty hours. So the Website will have to wait.

When I think of it, it's still crazy. I'm working from home as a freelancer, getting paid to write/learn stuff that's actually useful: business models, accounting, marketing. Others give me money to learn, even if it's not much yet. It blows my mind.
 
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MaxKhalus

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Day 54 (4th of Week 10)

Worked 5h, made $30 from 2K words, and worked on the website design. Never felt better.
Sorry for keeping things overly simple. Once I'm done with the site, I can focus fully on my clients. That's when you'll see the grid report I used before.

Also, I'll attach my Trello and a Google Sheet tracker. You'll see everything that was going on since Day 1 in one page. Why the hell didn't I do this before?
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 54 (End Of Week 10)

Worked 3.5h, earned 30$ in 2K words, working on the website now.
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 55, (1st of Week 11)
Made 0$, chosed to work on the website instead of making 30$.

I made stellar progress. All the images are ready. There's only left a few fixes for copy, theme, scripting, and some blunders. At least invested 5h today.
 
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MaxKhalus

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Day 56 (2nd of Week 11)
+30$. Worked 4hours on an HQ 2K Article, spent 1h working on the website design (and counting!)
I expect to show it to you guys once it's ready, probably within 48h (real, not business hours)
This is easy.
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 58 (3rd of Week 11)
I've worked 3.5h on the website. I didn't earn anything today but got 3x$30 requests and I'll start with them these next days. My priority is completing the website.
 

MaxKhalus

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Day 59 (4th of Week 11)
0$, 4h on Website. Stop.

So far, I can see clearly. I'm not a failure, but I've been inconsistent. As soon as I get over my marks, I forget about the importance of my actions and bounce back down.
TM Forum has helped me a lot in the last two months to keep consistent work. Prior to that, there were days where I would make $100 a day, then no money the next one.

You keep talking about ways to work smarter. But I need to work harder first. And to do that, I need to track everything. Because I'm forgetting my strategies the moment I succeed a little.

I have deadlines to meet, so I need to do the next changes within 48h.
1. Create a physical format for my vision>mission>principles so I don't forget and keep consistent.
2. A health tracking sheet to ensure constant energy flow
3. A Map-Calendar of what I'll do the next day>month>year
4. The business metrics that will measure progress.

Most of these will be on Google Docs. I'll attach pictures and links. Once I get it ready, I'll do the website and write the articles.


It's time to get extreme.
 
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MaxKhalus

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The systems are ready!

My To-Do lists on a yearly basis:

My 100UI Time tracking experiment:

My Energy Monitoring Sheet:

My Business Metrics... What I started sharing at day 1, and will do from now on:

+Full Overview on Trello (discontinuous):

Hello, Monday
 

MaxKhalus

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In day 61, (1st of Week 12) I moved to another place and had no wifi for 24h. Made zero work.
 
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Rabby

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I want to introduce this quickly. My name is Max and I'm a 19-year-old freelance writer. I want to create a Saas company around gamification, which is my passion. First, I want to do eCommerce to create a cash-flow business that scales up to 6-figures per month. I will work as a freelance to fund my first FBA product.

I'm coming into this a little late, and trying to catch up. So you want to get into retail eCommerce for your "cashflow" business. And to get there you are freelance writing. Is that right? When you say "cashflow" are you thinking passive income, cash on cash return, less time more money, or what? I feel like the word cashflow alone works for almost any business or profession. You have positive cashflow as a writer if your expenditures are less than your income.

$5 in 2.5h. Wrote two articles.

Is someone directly paying you $2 for an article that takes you 1.25 hours to write? I just want to understand if I am reading this correctly, to undestand where you are in this. Also, what's the cost of living in your area? Is this sustainable right now?

Wrote four articles, made $10, worked for 3h.

Same question as above.

A few other things I want to clarify, if you don't mind having a follower nit picking details. Are you working to build a permanent asset? Is that what the web site you mentioned is? Something that is supposed to make you money while you're sleeping?

Second, about the FBA. I'm neutral on online retail businesses... I don't know enough about them to make a good judgement. But if you want to do FBA and online retail, have you considered just doing it? I mean, meeting all the business people, investors, ambitious people, retiured people, or whatever in your area, and just seeing if you can partner with someone? Where they invest the money and you put in the time and effort? I guess I'm just asking whether the writing part is the most logical step toward what you really want to do. It might be, I don't know.

Thanks... I hope things are going well. It's obvious you're willing to work toward your goals, and I respect that a lot.
 

MaxKhalus

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I'm coming into this a little late, and trying to catch up. So you want to get into retail eCommerce for your "cashflow" business. And to get there you are freelance writing. Is that right? When you say "cashflow" are you thinking passive income, cash on cash return, less time more money, or what? I feel like the word cashflow alone works for almost any business or profession. You have positive cashflow as a writer if your expenditures are less than your income.



Is someone directly paying you $2 for an article that takes you 1.25 hours to write? I just want to understand if I am reading this correctly, to undestand where you are in this. Also, what's the cost of living in your area? Is this sustainable right now?



Same question as above.

A few other things I want to clarify, if you don't mind having a follower nit picking details. Are you working to build a permanent asset? Is that what the web site you mentioned is? Something that is supposed to make you money while you're sleeping?

Second, about the FBA. I'm neutral on online retail businesses... I don't know enough about them to make a good judgement. But if you want to do FBA and online retail, have you considered just doing it? I mean, meeting all the business people, investors, ambitious people, retiured people, or whatever in your area, and just seeing if you can partner with someone? Where they invest the money and you put in the time and effort? I guess I'm just asking whether the writing part is the most logical step toward what you really want to do. It might be, I don't know.

Thanks... I hope things are going well. It's obvious you're willing to work toward your goals, and I respect that a lot.
Thx, your feedback is priceless for me. Let me explain whats going on.

I want to build a Saas company around my passion. To be all in, I want a passive income stream of 50k-300k/mo (Amazon Fba). I have all the info, I know how to make the homerun. I just havent gathered the funds yet.

Why am I doing <10$/h jobs? To get a foot in the door. Im building reputatiom as a new writer.

My monthly cost of living in South Europe is around 300$.

Freelance writers love my skills, which is why I tought of the website.
1. Its a portfolio to increase conversions
2. It makes me more money if I accept orders on my website, not a freelance site. I wont pay over 30% in fees.

Then, why do I write? Apart from making millions, I want to train my work ethics. Thats why I want to reach 2K dollars before even thinking of Amazon.

I have a weird personality. I spend more time trying to improve something than actually executing it, hence this hard work challenge.

I believe I can start working more hours once the website is live. I'm capable of reaching 100$ a day. The problem, again, is probably work ethics.

After I hit 2K, then I'll figure out how to leverage. I can also borrow money from Paypal for FBA to add up.
 
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MaxKhalus

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30779Mind that last week's numbers aren't the real ones.
 

MaxKhalus

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Since I didnt make any money (and work time) today, I should add a note of things that happened today.



- Have one pending article, worth $23 for 2-3h. I moved it for tomorrow.
- My website is almost ready, but needs time to enable the domain. Waiting gets on my nerves. Expect 24-72h at most.
- One client messages me for a big project (affiliate reviews website). I've put him on hold until I finish the last two tasks.
- I'm tracking my time every 30h for a week. By Sunday-monday, I could give you an overview.

See everyone tomorrow.
 

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MaxKhalus

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MaxKhalus

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Today spent my time completing the website. Fixed all the technical problems and completed the design for 8 of 10 pages. Didn't pay attention to writing/making money at all.
 

MaxKhalus

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Just an idea based on this...



You could easily look into web design.

Combine your writing skills with some basic web skills and you got a way more valuable offer (imo). It is hard to get over 1k for writing but with a website that is a lower price.

It isn't hard to learn how to build a website in a week or two and you can at least start to offer it as an upsell. You seem to be working hard and I think a small tweak like this could get you much better results.

At least half of making a website is writing based - the copy, the client emails, the selling process.
The coding part is only a small section and is getting easier to learn all the time.

Also, it lines up well with your end goal of Saas.
Hey Fox, does this have to do with what you were saying? If so, all that's left is finding those clients. Who knows how (I will anyway). Share with me what you think / I may do next.
 

MaxKhalus

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Fox

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Hey Fox, does this have to do with what you were saying? If so, all that's left is finding those clients. Who knows how (I will anyway). Share with me what you think / I may do next.

It is good that you worked on your own website but to be honest it isn't really needed at this stage.

Get out there right away and help a real business with a real problem. Get a family member, a friend, a network connection, a local store or business - whoever but make sure it is a real business with a real problem.

And then build them a website that solves or greatly helps with that problem.

Then go find more people with the same or similar problem and start increasing your prices.
 

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