My friend and I started the business renting wedding lighting equipment.
It was his idea and me being me gladly invested around 6000$.
That being said I borrowed around 4000$ from my parents.(20 at the time that was a lot of money + we don't live in the US).
Not an easy decision, but I was willing and determined to succeed. We bought equipment and the guy who was selling (my friends friend) promised us some of his customers because he was already deeply involved in the same thing, exhausted and wasn't being able to scale the business.
"Everything is perfect, we are going to make some money" I thought.
Well.. not so perfect.
The first customer was already interested and we were only one weak in the business.
Excitement started to built up.
I was also the technical guy, programming lights, operating, promoting, getting to know a lot of people plus eating and drinking every time while working. Can't complain.
Little by little we found more and more customers. Most of the time we could easily find another customer already on a wedding.
After little success we decided to take 2000$ earnings and order some LED stripes (they were very popular at the time) from China.
I was thinking "Great, more work more money we are rich$$$"
After that the ship started to sink.
One day he comes by and I saw a new car.
Me: Is that your car?
He: Yea.
Me: Awesome where did you get the money?
He: Uhm.. you know my brother and dad borrowed me.
Yea, right.
Few days after he declared that we don't have more customers and can't work anymore.
It was not a big surprise to me but F*ck it we have LED business still going on, right?
"Uhm.. you know there was a big problem at customs and they have taken all our commodity because we ordered too much".
What the hell are you kidding me?
Long story short I was left with nothing, in a debt, used by my long time "friend". I also had another so called friend that stole 3500$ savings from my house. 16 so called friends are now gone. Lesson learned.
Be aware there are some bad people in business. Cheaters, scammers, liars, sociopaths ever psychopaths who are pretty intelligent by the way. MJ mentioned in his book doing business with religious woman who was just stealing from him, took him a while to figure out. When greed for money and power starts to kick in people tend to change the face, morals and ethics.
Choose wisely who you trust.
Red flags?
My were:
Not paying attention what is my "friend" doing with money.
I was already familiar with cases of him stealing from other people - ignoring.
Someone lied to me.
Small story of me being stupid. Maybe it can help someone to distinguish real friends/partners from fake ones.
What are your bad experiences doing business?
I hope you are doing well.
PS. I am non-native English speaker.
It was his idea and me being me gladly invested around 6000$.
That being said I borrowed around 4000$ from my parents.(20 at the time that was a lot of money + we don't live in the US).
Not an easy decision, but I was willing and determined to succeed. We bought equipment and the guy who was selling (my friends friend) promised us some of his customers because he was already deeply involved in the same thing, exhausted and wasn't being able to scale the business.
"Everything is perfect, we are going to make some money" I thought.
Well.. not so perfect.
The first customer was already interested and we were only one weak in the business.
Excitement started to built up.
I was also the technical guy, programming lights, operating, promoting, getting to know a lot of people plus eating and drinking every time while working. Can't complain.
Little by little we found more and more customers. Most of the time we could easily find another customer already on a wedding.
After little success we decided to take 2000$ earnings and order some LED stripes (they were very popular at the time) from China.
I was thinking "Great, more work more money we are rich$$$"
After that the ship started to sink.
One day he comes by and I saw a new car.
Me: Is that your car?
He: Yea.
Me: Awesome where did you get the money?
He: Uhm.. you know my brother and dad borrowed me.
Yea, right.
Few days after he declared that we don't have more customers and can't work anymore.
It was not a big surprise to me but F*ck it we have LED business still going on, right?
"Uhm.. you know there was a big problem at customs and they have taken all our commodity because we ordered too much".
What the hell are you kidding me?
Long story short I was left with nothing, in a debt, used by my long time "friend". I also had another so called friend that stole 3500$ savings from my house. 16 so called friends are now gone. Lesson learned.
Be aware there are some bad people in business. Cheaters, scammers, liars, sociopaths ever psychopaths who are pretty intelligent by the way. MJ mentioned in his book doing business with religious woman who was just stealing from him, took him a while to figure out. When greed for money and power starts to kick in people tend to change the face, morals and ethics.
Choose wisely who you trust.
Red flags?
My were:
Not paying attention what is my "friend" doing with money.
I was already familiar with cases of him stealing from other people - ignoring.
Someone lied to me.
Small story of me being stupid. Maybe it can help someone to distinguish real friends/partners from fake ones.
What are your bad experiences doing business?
I hope you are doing well.
PS. I am non-native English speaker.
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