[Daily Update] Watch me go from Freelancer To Entrepreneur

[MaxKhalus]

Here's the most recent update.

If it looks like I'm slacking, it's because I'm doing three different things at once. Glad to see things moving at least : )

I should be about to order that FBA inventory

 

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[MaxKhalus]

You really have to charge more. That's way too cheap for so much content. Try pitching higher when you get new leads. You already have "stable" clients. Try to get a better client now.

Good luck. I'm following your thread. Just to let you know

The last time I tried I got a 5.5cent/word, but he asked for at least 4 revisions per article. I guess I just had bad luck and should keep pitching others.

Once the inventory ships, I'll have plenty of time to pitch.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Basically, what you see here is me doing other stuff since day 224. I also did 70% of the research beforehand. Today, I jammed 3750 words in less than 10 hours (spent my time correcting the losses from the last few days), including other activities. My discipline is quite strengthened at this point. It feels like a relaxing journey.

*Note: If I don't reach $1750 by Sunday, I'll need to change my priorities and be more serious.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Alright, we're approaching Friday. Here's what's going on with FBA so far.

I spent time talking with other suppliers to source an accessory to my main supplier. After much trouble with sizes, I've just found the right accessory today. By the tomorrow, I will buy a sample to this address, so the main supplier tests if the accessory fits or not. Next week, or as soon as it arrives, I'll be ready to buy 300 units of each accessory (there's two of them) and send it to the supplier.

I'll also be ready to pay the main one, so they can save time on production while the rest ships to them. Then, I give them the other 50% and they send it to Amazon. It should arrive on September, where I'll need a few reviews to get started.

I've done nothing with the listing yet. It just exists.

It also feels like I'm maintaining on the current income level pretty well, but it feels like I'll fall behind the $1750 goal. Let's hope for the best.

 

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[MaxKhalus]

Nope, not reaching the $1700 mark by tomorrow. I guess my priorities are somewhere else.

Changing topics, I just figured out how to source my accessories from supplier B to supplier A, but I have a big dilemma. Perhaps you Fastlane guys can help me make up my mind:

For the accessory I want, I can only afford at most $0.90 per unit, but the lead time should not be over 45 days. The first one or two orders could be an exception to this last rule. The lead time is 30 days of shipping plus whatever number these suppliers give me. I got three quotes:
a. $0.62 per unit (30-35d production time)
b. $0.80 per unit (25d production time)
c. $0.91 per unit (Already produced. Can ship right away.)

Knowing the first order won't be profitable even with option a, which one would you choose?

 

[MaxKhalus]

How many units will you buy?
Whoops! I just read your earlier post & it says 300.
So $90 to get it soonest.
Can you afford that?
Any advantage to get it sooner?
What's the cost if you get the cheaper option, there's a delay in production & they arrive late?

There's only opportunity cost.

Later, if I wanted to keep up with 30+ production times, that would add up to the other 30 for shipping. So with 60 days, it can cause long-term problems with inventory timing and cashflow (unless you sell thousands).

The mentor suggested me taking 0.91.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Plot twist!

The product actually sucks (costs twice as much as expected) so I gave up the deal this week.
All my writing clients also went on vacation and just got back yesterday, hence the 12h of work to compensate.

To add more irony to the situation, I must have earned far more money trading crypto so far than with Amazon. Those alts are really hot right before Septembers 1st.

Also, I've updated my plan and divided my schedule in one task per quarter (like long time ago):
- All the morning: Write and finish with workout (at least 750 words). If there's no work, send 3 Upwork proposals and daily posts on alternative sites.
- From noon to lunch: Research for Amazon products. (according to my mentor, there are far better products and should waste time with this one. I'm already on the green, so it's okay to lose the Christmas sales rush.)
- From lunch to 6pm: Code my productivity app
- From 6pm to 9pm: Practice day-trading and have dinner.

Night routine: Research next day's articles and write the outlines. Also, write all todo lists and update metrics.

P.S. I day trade and code just because it's fun. I wish I could spend over 4-5h just writing or researching, but I need tight deadlines to keep the intensity. If I wrote 12hrs a day, efficiency would lower and my boredom would increase.

So far, I love the routine. Ready to start the new quarter.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Numbers in red? Is that why you don't post?

Nah, here's what I've been doing this whole time:
Remember the four-block routine? Writing, business, coding, trading? It's awesome. I could work all day long and feel happy about life. The problem is, you can only progress 25% at a time, if not less.

It doesn't take much research to find why all entrepreneurs recommend doing one thing at a time. I believe that, although you should do one thing at a time, you can learn as broadly as you want, hence the coding and trading stuff.

But even with that routine, one part was failing: the business. Weeks ago, I went from being about to close a deal to give up on the product (for the second time) because it broke down on negotiation. Just like happened last October.

In case you don't know, I started FBA in late 2018, bought 300 moon lamps in October, and was expecting to make 5K per month at early 2019. Here we are guys, almost 2021!!!

With this obvious expectation gap, I had to decide. I want to do these four things, but I can only do one thing at a time:
1. Find awesome product.
2. Fund awesome product.
3. Find more awesome products.
4. Repeat until you're 300k/month profit
5. Start software company (and code)

So these red numbers are good news, because it means I've spent most of my days on product research. For what my mentor has said, I've got far better at research in the last week (six products, and most of them are viable). Now, we've validating product improvement and seasonality. As I wait for his feedback, I assume the product research part completed, 80% chance.

That means we can finally go to step 2. Grow the numbers.

I'll admit I've been postponing Upwork for no good reason (except that I have nowhere to keep my money online). So whenever I ran out of work, It will be searching for clients.

Now, this research part has been much harder because of the focus part. I could hardly do one thing at once, and if I did, I got no enjoyment out of it. That's why I think the 16h hustle workday model doesn't work (unless you alternate among projects which are closely related). I felt most of the times at risk of falling back to bad habits (like gaming), which didn't happen with the 4-block routine. It's been a risky experiment.

With research almost complete, I'm starting to raise these numbers tomorrow (writing this in the evening).

But I still want to focus on a single thing for now. And I can't do it if I need to cover my daily minimum of $15. That's why I'll plan to do the whole week's work in one day, then do whatever I need to focus on.

And yes, daily postings are back.

 

[MaxKhalus]

PayPal froze the account with half of the money. The other half is still a +$1000 pending payment from my client. After rent, I'm left with $165. Yep, my progress for the whole year.

(It's not that I lost it. But I can't verify my identity without an ID. I'd better accept the loss than spend months on resolution centers.)
But wait, there's more:
- I paid $281 without buyer protection for an order about my previous product, which I gave up on later. Lost.
- Even before, I earned $400 in some writing platform. Due to verification, the amount got lost too.

What's the point of making money when you can't save or use it? I don't remember ever spending a dollar in myself.

So, it's two-three years now I'm in the same spot.

Either I beat the odds or I'll stay here forever. Excuse me while I stop the writing and try to get control of this matter first.

Learning the commandment of control the hard way.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Gladly, rent can wait until the account unblocks, which makes my remaining balance technically usable. Let's undo that 1200 for now.
I'll use someone else's verified account to keep the funds in the mean time.

As for the growth, the days I was on red numbers were spent on perfecting a system.

Because my perfect amazon product has these numbers:

That's more than $100 a day. There's no way I can achieve that unless I change myself, which is what I've been doing these days.

See it here :

I invite you to do something similar, you'll see amazing results. Here's what I did:
- I went back to every single source of information I considered useful in the past: Youtube channels, books, articles, and personal thoughts. I wrote down all of them.
- I combined some of them and removed the unnecessary ones.
- I grouped them on categories, each of them with subcategories for every purpose.
- The most important step. I added triggers to use this information in practice: checklists and reminders.

It took lots of work. You know how it feels like after an in-depth cleaning of your house? This was the same, but with brain's thoughts. I feel much more clear and calmer now.

Am I now ready for the $100+/per day? Let's see it in the next episode.

 

[MaxKhalus]

This exercise has changed everything. You may haven't read this point I added (there's so much content)...:

From now on, I'm posting three times a day here on the forum. The day counter will no longer show the real day, but three days for every actual day (time goes on 3x faster).

 

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[MaxKhalus]

Today isn't my day, but I'm glad to see things keep moving.
Day three is mostly about maintenance tasks, but will focus on getting more writing done before bed.

 

[Pero123]

View attachment 34992
Things turned out to go better than expected. Ready to sleep and restart the morning routine, expecting massive action after I go through it.

What's with the hours? You only worked 4 hours i 3 'days'

 

[MaxKhalus]

You're right. The goal is to have at least 4hours per day, or over 10 in total.
Day 1 is 7-8 hours (until lunch)
Day 2 is 6 hours (until 8pm)
Day 3 is 2-3 hours (until bed time)

Short story: I spent some time these days doing paperwork to update the IDs. Hopefully, Paypal will enable the account now.

 

[MaxKhalus]

k, I kinda like where this is going. Feeling confused as well!?
The longest day corresponds to the lowest profit (day 1, aka 275)
The shortest day (from 8 to 10pm) made me $24.
It's not much. But it's ironical how the my productivity spiked when having less time available.

Getting ready for tomorrow. Closing day 3.

 

[MaxKhalus]

closed day 1 negative without giving it a proper work session. After getting rid of everything else for the day, I'm now ready for content with more potential.

 

[MaxKhalus]

The day is doing well now, or two hours of work.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Yesterday, I decided to take the day off today (I only worked to cover the daily expense).

Main reason? I spent almost all my morning doing paperwork to update my documents. I alsosent everything to Paypal to see if they unfreeze those $1300.

By the way, my savings might reduce since the dollar is growing lately. I keep all in euros.
We're ready to hit hard tomorrow morning. The hourly validation strategy works!

 

[MaxKhalus]

2000 quality words in one hour?

Duh, coffee is so overpowered when taken only twice a week. It may also be the sense of urgency: me wanting to get as much shit done as possible before the effects run out. It really feels like a placebo.

 

[MaxKhalus]

what happend?

Hey guys, I've been doing a ton of work behind the scenes!

I'm following a very demanding daily goal right now. But I want to get back to daily updates as soon as I get some room to breath.

Expect it 1-3 days to start. The summary is, I doubled my networth only from writing, achieving in 1-2 months what took me 8.

Let's start the operation: Crush 2020!

 

[Raja]

Earning $135 per day (6 consecutive days now)

writing copy?

Sleeping solid 8.5hrs

Exercise? I guess you are sitting too long, try to include it.

glad to hear from you, Initially I thought things went soo bad that you left the forum.

 

[nordine]

you should add a solid day off at least once in a while where you do absolutely nothing. Do a bowling, sport, anything with your friends. 24 straight hours where you don't think or talk about becoming rich or how to be rich, or whatever. If you stay in a bubble you will slowly consume yourself until you explode. you're young, trust me, you will benefit from getting out of the bubble once in a while. I don't know you so maybe you already do it, but it seems from what you write here that you forget about this part.

 

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[MaxKhalus]

Update 1/3 , Day 12 of 28 (Tuesday)

It's 12:20 PM and got 1500 of 5600 words written (financial advisory content).

Instead of calculating how much that is, let's just do the numbers by the end of the day.

Today's Goals Are:
- Writing another 500 on another financial topic
- Write a sales page for a $50 content pack (not mine)

That should make $133 (or $135. It makes no difference towards the final goal).

Hopefully all ready before 5PM. The rest of time time will be for:
- Researching hard topics (~1h)
- Extra writing
- 1h for walking outside
- A high-intensity workout

 

[MaxKhalus]

Based on my reflection, I rushed through work yesterday because I wasted too much time on "social media." So here's what I'm gonna do:
- No Youtube
- Only go to Email and Whatsapp when I'm expecting an important message, or when I need to write someone
- Spend less than 15 minutes on this Forum. And publish once a day (At night) instead

 

[MaxKhalus]

What I've earned is enough to pay for everything required (loans, Amazon). Past this point, it doesn't make much sense to keep earning at this level. Daily updates stop here.

What's next is completing a few tasks from the todo list and start planning 2021.

Good bye!

 

[MaxKhalus]

That's that for this year's update.

 

[MaxKhalus]

Quick update here, both for eCom and the writer agency.

Looks like Amazon FBA is falling out for now. After spending $5K on producing and shipping products, I'm now spending nearly $1,000 every few months for stupid stuff. Such as reinstating listing, fighting fake IP claims, and overpriced 3PLs. It hasn't touched the warehouse since I shipped it in March 2021. Not frustrated, as I'm way too used to this scenario.

This year, Amazon FBA goes FU so I can focus on what works. Then, the plan is to come back with all this xp to get it right once and for all. Didn't spend 5 years on this for nothing.

And what works is the agency. As for this January, there's a consistent load of content tasks that the writers are taking care of. Every day this week, I'm sending 10-12 proposals a day to pitch better clients. So far, the agency's been best decision and already makes 2022 an early win.

Will see how this evolves!

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Great move. SaaS is a good model.

 

[Gepi]

Following as well - freelancing as well, interested on how you are gonna go forward.

 

[Kid]

Good day MaxKhalus,
I was just wondering - you said you make 2-3k on average/month?
How does this work with the numbers now given?
Hate to be that girl, but somehow this doesn't compute...

I think he is doing this to build his portfolio and good ratings from customers.
Then he will be able to get higher paying gigs.