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Feeling lost after my army service

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Gil Kag

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Mar 19, 2019
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Hey guys, I’m sorry if this is going to be a bit long, but I would be really grateful if anyone could help.

Background: I’m 21 years old, In last November I got discharged from the army. Iv’e been working a day job ever since, which at the beginning was interesting; I was learning marketing and seeing how things work from the side, but now most of the things I do are boring and not fulfilling to me.
Anyways, for the last 2 years, while serving in the army and after, I’ve been reading tons of books (read about 50 books for the last 2 year), mainly about business, entrepreneurship, and self help. Obviously I also read unscripted and TMF , but for the last 2 years I’ve failed to execute or do anything with the knowledge I acquired.

I would be really glad if you could point me in the right direction, since I’m feeling pretty lost:

1. My parents always pushed me to go to college. And since I always wanted to be an entrepreneur I was against that.
So my father talked to me, he pretty much said that he would understand not going to college if I had this crazy business idea or any skills that I could use right now in my entrepreneurial journey, but since I got neither I should go to college. My family can also afford to help me with paying for college so I wont have any debt.

So, I got accepted to this college, I’m starting in October. they have this really cool marketing degree, which covers all kinds of things like branding, PR, digital marketing, consumer behavior, marketing strategy, etc. So this degree should actually be pretty helpful in my entrepreneurial journey, but still I feel like wasting 3 years of time. What do you think?
_______________________________________

2. I dont have any major skills that I can offer as a freelancer, other than building pretty basic websites on wix and wordpress - which is very saturated where I live so starting a web design agency I think would be pretty hard.

Another thing I recently started working on is amazon FBA - a family member of mine offered me to get into it together, he as the investor and me as the working brain. The final goal is to actually build a brand on amazon and then scale and sell it. The only worries I’m having is that FBA is pretty much dead right now and finding a product or a niche is extremely hard. What do you guys think about amazon FBA? Is it worth the time?

3. So basically this is a general list of the ideas I have
- A marketing + website building agency (maybe I should focus only on one area instead of both?)

- Building a brand on amazon (FBA)

- A course website in my country, like Udemy, there is only one competitor and he’s doing a pretty bad job. The only problem is that there are not a lot of residents in my country (under 10 million) so you cant sell the courses for that cheap, because I wont have the sales volume I could have in the US for example, and that people that I would contact wont really know how to make quality digital courses, so I would have to also take part in creating the courses.

- A website in the gift niche, where basically you enter details of your loved one and the it uses an algorithm that recommends you unique gifts and experiences they would love.

- I have tons of book summaries in a mind map format, thought about creating a special website with those summaries in a mind map format which is really special & helpful for a lot of people.

- A platform that allows anyone to contact a psychologist online
without paying tons of money. The only problem is this idea is complex and I’m not sure how to do it.

What would you advise me to do? How can I Start tomorrow?
How can I take advantage of the college degree I’m going to take?


Thanks so much for your time! (And sorry for my English :)
 
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Bekit

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Hey Gil, welcome to the forum!

So this degree should actually be pretty helpful in my entrepreneurial journey, but still I feel like wasting 3 years of time. What do you think?

for the last 2 years I’ve failed to execute or do anything with the knowledge I acquired.
If you've wasted time when you were NOT in college, you might as well get into a program that will push you, expand your horizons, and give you a degree at the end. At minimum, you will hopefully develop your thinking, discover more sophisticated approaches to solving problems, and encounter a more diverse set of needs.

Right now, it sounds like your main marketable skill is marketing and web design. Yeah, you could grow that into an agency without going to college. But will you want to move on to better things later? And even if you stick with it, will you feel insecure if the people you hire have college degrees and skills that you don't?

only worries I’m having is that FBA is pretty much dead right now and finding a product or a niche is extremely hard. What do you guys think about amazon FBA? Is it worth the time?
Yeah I would hesitate to throw much time and money into this. You're violating the commandment of control. They can change the rules and pull the rug out from under you at any time.

A website in the gift niche, where basically you enter details of your loved one and the it uses an algorithm that recommends you unique gifts and experiences they would love.
I've had this same idea and thought about it off and on. I'd love to see someone execute on it. You could possibly monetize it by having affiliate commissions set up for the products that you send the users to buy, so that you get a small cut off each purchase. The main thing I think would be hard to do is build an algorithm that actually works to suggest good gifts.

- I have tons of book summaries in a mind map format, thought about creating a special website with those summaries in a mind map format which is really special & helpful for a lot of people.
You could also record a video of each mind map, where you zoom in to different parts of the mind map and talk through it. That would be a fun youtube channel. There are other book summary channels out there, but one that goes through a mind map format (and offers the downloadable mind map at the end) would be something different. Offering the mind map download in exchange for the email address would also help you to build a list from your youtube channel or website.

The youtube channel, "Productivity Game" an example of someone I think is doing it well.

A platform that allows anyone to contact a psychologist online
without paying tons of money. The only problem is this idea is complex and I’m not sure how to do it.
Something like this already exists at betterhelp.com - might be worth checking it out to see if you can do something similar.

You asked, "How can I start tomorrow?"

All of the ideas you listed are things that you can do simultaneously while you are in college. So get busy executing on making money with your existing skills. Pick a problem and solve it.

Side note:

During your military service, did you ever notice any needs? Did you ever run into any moments where you said to yourself, "I wish someone would make a better version of ___"? Were there any problems that people were constantly complaining about?

If you could manage to solve a problem that the military has, that could be an excellent fastlane.
 

Gil Kag

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
25%
Mar 19, 2019
16
4
.Hey Gil, welcome to the forum!
If you've wasted time when you were NOT in college, you might as well get into a program that will push you, expand your horizons, and give you a degree at the end. At minimum, you will hopefully develop your thinking, discover more sophisticated approaches to solving problems, and encounter a more diverse set of needs.

Right now, it sounds like your main marketable skill is marketing and web design. Yeah, you could grow that into an agency without going to college. But will you want to move on to better things later? And even if you stick with it, will you feel insecure if the people you hire have college degrees and skills that you don't?


Yeah I would hesitate to throw much time and money into this. You're violating the commandment of control. They can change the rules and pull the rug out from under you at any time.


I've had this same idea and thought about it off and on. I'd love to see someone execute on it. You could possibly monetize it by having affiliate commissions set up for the products that you send the users to buy, so that you get a small cut off each purchase. The main thing I think would be hard to do is build an algorithm that actually works to suggest good gifts.


You could also record a video of each mind map, where you zoom in to different parts of the mind map and talk through it. That would be a fun youtube channel. There are other book summary channels out there, but one that goes through a mind map format (and offers the downloadable mind map at the end) would be something different. Offering the mind map download in exchange for the email address would also help you to build a list from your youtube channel or website.

The youtube channel, "Productivity Game" an example of someone I think is doing it well.


Something like this already exists at betterhelp.com - might be worth checking it out to see if you can do something similar.

You asked, "How can I start tomorrow?"

All of the ideas you listed are things that you can do simultaneously while you are in college. So get busy executing on making money with your existing skills. Pick a problem and solve it.

Side note:

During your military service, did you ever notice any needs? Did you ever run into any moments where you said to yourself, "I wish someone would make a better version of ___"? Were there any problems that people were constantly complaining about?

If you could manage to solve a problem that the military has, that could be an excellent fastlane.

Thanks so much for your time!

The thing is, I struggle with finding a problem related to marketing which is not yet being solved well. All of the services are already being offered by hundreds of agencies. And I don’t have skills to offer that these agencies can’t x100 times better, especially not until I finish that degree.

But, I want to start tomorrow:)
 
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