G
Guest1y4212
Guest
Ok so there's a lot to my story and want to give some background. Right now I am 21 years old based in Austin, Texas. I grew up in New York, went to college but then dropped out my 3rd year in after starting my ecom biz. The Millionaire Fastlane was one of those pivital books for me venturing down my journey, having read it over and over, then combing back through specific chapters. @MJ DeMarco, thank you for all of this, it had a huge effect of the trajectory of my life.
In late 2018 while in college I was exploring different business models of making money. One thing lead to the next, and I came across e-commerce, more specifically drop shipping. I was a speed and execution junkie. Testing tons of different products and marketing them on Facebook. Ended up scaling my first ecommerce biz to a little north of around $100k in revenue my first few months in the summer of 2019. The product was a mosquito lamp. Found a niche in the RV & Camping community for this product. I bootstrapped with absolutely no money by using friends and family Facebook accounts to join RV Facebook groups, and shamelessly promoted the product from their point of view, sending traffic to my website and getting thousands of dollars worth of free sales, then fulfilling this product on Aliexpress. After the end of this fiasco, not paying attention to profitability and scaling so quick, the whole thing blew up, and profit margins were close to $0.
During this whole time, I wanted to justify dropping out of college. And to me that number was $100k profit, in the bank. That was my centralized goal. Once I got there, I'd be able to drop out, move to Austin (where I am now), and my life as an entrepreneur would "begin"
Onto my next "working" venture in the end of 2019. I found a viral tweet online that got very political and carried in hog hunting to the topic of assault weapons with a whole debate alongside it.
Along with having seen a VICE youtube video of people going "helicopter hog hunting" in Texas, I knew this was a working idea I could capitalize on. With this I tested out another Aliexpress product, which was a night vision scope which I specifically marketed towards hog hunters, using marketing copy as such "What do you do if 30-50 feral hogs swarm your property? Hunt them at night... Get This Night Vision Scope blah blah blah". This amounted to me scaling up this product to around $350k in revenue very quickly, but then soon after it blowing up in my face, being banned off running Facebook ads, having my business manager and personal Facebook profile all going down. The logistics was also a complete mess with tons of faulty products, leading to chargebacks. Then again, I was left with pretty much $0 in profit. Ended up "selling" this website for $2,000 after the whole fact in the middle of 2020. Which shows how desperate I was at the time.
After this, I was back off to college for my 3rd year in 2020, having reading tons of books during this time, and having a firm belief that this is not what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was fed up. I was testing dozens of products. From garden supplies, to fitness equipment, to plant prorogation kits. I was a madman to come across "success" so I could finally justify leaving school.
I was desperate, had absolutely zero capital, and came across a person in a Facebook group which I won't add their name in here. After a few months of back and forth, and me being at one of my lowest lows, I decided that going about this with him as a 50/50 partner would be my best bet. His background was in cryptocurrency, and Amazon FBA, and he had absolutely no knowledge of direct to consumer e-commerce, BUT he had capital. Over the next few months, partnering up with him will allow me the capital to freely continue this madman process of testing tons of products and dropshipping them using Facebook ads (still questionable how viable this approach is).
After months and months (with me doing most of the heavy lifting, and planning on ending this partnership) in August of 2020 we came across a new product we tested in the home decor lighting space. With me leading the growth and marketing, we scaled up the business to the following revenue numbers. These numbers we were able to do because we had very favorable supplier terms, and also were dropshipping these products... so no upfront inventory costs. August $30k~ in revenue. September $250k~ in revenue. October $600k~ in revenue. November $2MM in revenue. December $2.1MM in revenue. We ended the year with nearly $950k in pure profit under the business. Woah.
Then after this, we started down the process going into 2021 which will be one of the biggest years of learning in my whole life.
2020: We netted $950k~ in profit
2021: We LOST $601,920
2022: We closed the business
Holy s**t I was thinking looking back at this. How could I be so stupid? I thought I was on top of the world, until now. During the process so many racing thoughts going through my mind as this "success" was getting slowly and slowly torn away from me. Losing money nearly every single month of the year. "We'll bounce back" I told myself and my partner.
We were spending aggressively and acquiring customers at a loss. Trying to make paid ads work like they did so well for us in 2020. Clinging onto the past as if that would continue to happen. Thinking the same strategies and tactics that got us to X would get us to Y. It was such a foolish mistake.
Also during the year of 2021, I optimized for our overhead to sustain a $2MM/month business, but refused to cut back because I was fearful of change. I became content as the whole business I built was turning to shreds.. At one point we had our overhead around $80k per month. For what? We made terrible hiring decisions, were not innovating and pivoting, did not focus enough on customer experience, didn't diversify traffic channels, and did not have a real mission or vision for the business. It was an absolute mess.
I would literally go to bed everyday after losing a few thousand in revenue, with such a blindly optimistic view of the future of the business.
My business partner was also slowly and slowly checking out of all decision making activities during this year in 2021. Failing to step up and take ownership for some of the poor decisions, and help with new decisions that needed to be made. This left me feeling like I had a pound of bricks on my back. I made all of the tough decisions. I was upset at the time, but looking back now, I am happy that I did have to make those decisions, as there was so much growth in all of that.
With this $600k net loss on the business, and then accumulating near $280k in debt on the business from vendors, credit cards, working capital loans... I made the executive decisions to cease everything we were doing and close the business. I had to face the reality of the situation and move on. This was so difficult because I had such a large vision for this company as a whole. We wanted to enter new markets, spin up new brands, and leverage economies of scale that the growth allowed for us to do. But it needed to be done.
Looking back, this was needed. I was naive. I was working in a partnership where I was doing near 90% of all the work. And the business was bleeding.
All of this, I was going through at the ripe age of 19 to 20 years old. Being now 21 years old now, I know I'll probably look back at this and be so grateful for the lessons I learned. But the reality is, that I am still navigating a lot of this mess and wanted to share this with you guys.
So onto this next chapter of my entrepreneurship journey, I am trying to find my next steps, the next opportunities for myself. Having now incorporated and building up my new business entity, I am trying to figure out what to do. It feels like I was on top of a mountain with a smile on my face, then suddenly getting tossed off the cliff, head banged up and body heavily bruised and falling down slowly and painfully... now here, standing at the base of the mountain again, wondering how do I get back up there? Will those same strategies work that I used to get up there for that brief amount of time? And a whole slew of other questions coming to my mind in regards to my next journey to conquer.
What I am looking for specifically in this thread and post is to ask the community, and other (more seasoned) successful entrepreneurs, what they would recommend for me to do next.
Maybe this is more of a mindset thing that I need to solve from it's root, but over the past 3 months I have felt as if I was dropped in the ocean, with no clear direction on where to swim. I am in a spot where I currently don't have a business I am working on day to day. Sort of lost with where to move next. My circle of competence is in just mainly e-commerce.
With all of these data privacy laws and regulations, and Facebook being such an expensive platform, it makes me question if my skills are even still applicable in the realm of e-commerce. Am I just being naive again or should I question pivoting industries?
I also question whether my mad man approach to testing products like I did before is even feasible in todays landscape of e-commerce, with strict feedback scores in place for Facebook and the bans. And ad platforms being increasingly expensive.
I feel as if there was a gold rush in e-commerce which I was in at the time, but now it has passed. And I don't know whether it's smart to keep hammering the same nail, or if I am overanalyzing "getting back in the game".
As much as I have learned so much, and done so much from these opportunities I have created, it also feels like I am so behind of where I should be... And so behind from my goals.
So here are my questions to you guys if you have ever had a similar scenario:
1. Was there any point in your career, where you were at an in between stage and felt a little lost. If so, how did you deal with it?
2. If you were to test out a new e-commerce brand / product in today's climate, how would you go about validating and testing it? And should I even be focusing on this?
3. When you find yourself lost and not knowing what to do, how do you keep yourself on track?
4. Any resources anyone would recommend for this?
Thank you for reading this. This is my first post. I have been learning so much from these threads. It also helped me make my decision on my move down here and the cost benefit analysis of staying in NY vs living down here. I could say that was one of the best decisions I have made in my life thus far.
In late 2018 while in college I was exploring different business models of making money. One thing lead to the next, and I came across e-commerce, more specifically drop shipping. I was a speed and execution junkie. Testing tons of different products and marketing them on Facebook. Ended up scaling my first ecommerce biz to a little north of around $100k in revenue my first few months in the summer of 2019. The product was a mosquito lamp. Found a niche in the RV & Camping community for this product. I bootstrapped with absolutely no money by using friends and family Facebook accounts to join RV Facebook groups, and shamelessly promoted the product from their point of view, sending traffic to my website and getting thousands of dollars worth of free sales, then fulfilling this product on Aliexpress. After the end of this fiasco, not paying attention to profitability and scaling so quick, the whole thing blew up, and profit margins were close to $0.
During this whole time, I wanted to justify dropping out of college. And to me that number was $100k profit, in the bank. That was my centralized goal. Once I got there, I'd be able to drop out, move to Austin (where I am now), and my life as an entrepreneur would "begin"
Onto my next "working" venture in the end of 2019. I found a viral tweet online that got very political and carried in hog hunting to the topic of assault weapons with a whole debate alongside it.
Along with having seen a VICE youtube video of people going "helicopter hog hunting" in Texas, I knew this was a working idea I could capitalize on. With this I tested out another Aliexpress product, which was a night vision scope which I specifically marketed towards hog hunters, using marketing copy as such "What do you do if 30-50 feral hogs swarm your property? Hunt them at night... Get This Night Vision Scope blah blah blah". This amounted to me scaling up this product to around $350k in revenue very quickly, but then soon after it blowing up in my face, being banned off running Facebook ads, having my business manager and personal Facebook profile all going down. The logistics was also a complete mess with tons of faulty products, leading to chargebacks. Then again, I was left with pretty much $0 in profit. Ended up "selling" this website for $2,000 after the whole fact in the middle of 2020. Which shows how desperate I was at the time.
After this, I was back off to college for my 3rd year in 2020, having reading tons of books during this time, and having a firm belief that this is not what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was fed up. I was testing dozens of products. From garden supplies, to fitness equipment, to plant prorogation kits. I was a madman to come across "success" so I could finally justify leaving school.
I was desperate, had absolutely zero capital, and came across a person in a Facebook group which I won't add their name in here. After a few months of back and forth, and me being at one of my lowest lows, I decided that going about this with him as a 50/50 partner would be my best bet. His background was in cryptocurrency, and Amazon FBA, and he had absolutely no knowledge of direct to consumer e-commerce, BUT he had capital. Over the next few months, partnering up with him will allow me the capital to freely continue this madman process of testing tons of products and dropshipping them using Facebook ads (still questionable how viable this approach is).
After months and months (with me doing most of the heavy lifting, and planning on ending this partnership) in August of 2020 we came across a new product we tested in the home decor lighting space. With me leading the growth and marketing, we scaled up the business to the following revenue numbers. These numbers we were able to do because we had very favorable supplier terms, and also were dropshipping these products... so no upfront inventory costs. August $30k~ in revenue. September $250k~ in revenue. October $600k~ in revenue. November $2MM in revenue. December $2.1MM in revenue. We ended the year with nearly $950k in pure profit under the business. Woah.
Then after this, we started down the process going into 2021 which will be one of the biggest years of learning in my whole life.
2020: We netted $950k~ in profit
2021: We LOST $601,920
2022: We closed the business
Holy s**t I was thinking looking back at this. How could I be so stupid? I thought I was on top of the world, until now. During the process so many racing thoughts going through my mind as this "success" was getting slowly and slowly torn away from me. Losing money nearly every single month of the year. "We'll bounce back" I told myself and my partner.
We were spending aggressively and acquiring customers at a loss. Trying to make paid ads work like they did so well for us in 2020. Clinging onto the past as if that would continue to happen. Thinking the same strategies and tactics that got us to X would get us to Y. It was such a foolish mistake.
Also during the year of 2021, I optimized for our overhead to sustain a $2MM/month business, but refused to cut back because I was fearful of change. I became content as the whole business I built was turning to shreds.. At one point we had our overhead around $80k per month. For what? We made terrible hiring decisions, were not innovating and pivoting, did not focus enough on customer experience, didn't diversify traffic channels, and did not have a real mission or vision for the business. It was an absolute mess.
I would literally go to bed everyday after losing a few thousand in revenue, with such a blindly optimistic view of the future of the business.
My business partner was also slowly and slowly checking out of all decision making activities during this year in 2021. Failing to step up and take ownership for some of the poor decisions, and help with new decisions that needed to be made. This left me feeling like I had a pound of bricks on my back. I made all of the tough decisions. I was upset at the time, but looking back now, I am happy that I did have to make those decisions, as there was so much growth in all of that.
With this $600k net loss on the business, and then accumulating near $280k in debt on the business from vendors, credit cards, working capital loans... I made the executive decisions to cease everything we were doing and close the business. I had to face the reality of the situation and move on. This was so difficult because I had such a large vision for this company as a whole. We wanted to enter new markets, spin up new brands, and leverage economies of scale that the growth allowed for us to do. But it needed to be done.
Looking back, this was needed. I was naive. I was working in a partnership where I was doing near 90% of all the work. And the business was bleeding.
All of this, I was going through at the ripe age of 19 to 20 years old. Being now 21 years old now, I know I'll probably look back at this and be so grateful for the lessons I learned. But the reality is, that I am still navigating a lot of this mess and wanted to share this with you guys.
So onto this next chapter of my entrepreneurship journey, I am trying to find my next steps, the next opportunities for myself. Having now incorporated and building up my new business entity, I am trying to figure out what to do. It feels like I was on top of a mountain with a smile on my face, then suddenly getting tossed off the cliff, head banged up and body heavily bruised and falling down slowly and painfully... now here, standing at the base of the mountain again, wondering how do I get back up there? Will those same strategies work that I used to get up there for that brief amount of time? And a whole slew of other questions coming to my mind in regards to my next journey to conquer.
What I am looking for specifically in this thread and post is to ask the community, and other (more seasoned) successful entrepreneurs, what they would recommend for me to do next.
Maybe this is more of a mindset thing that I need to solve from it's root, but over the past 3 months I have felt as if I was dropped in the ocean, with no clear direction on where to swim. I am in a spot where I currently don't have a business I am working on day to day. Sort of lost with where to move next. My circle of competence is in just mainly e-commerce.
With all of these data privacy laws and regulations, and Facebook being such an expensive platform, it makes me question if my skills are even still applicable in the realm of e-commerce. Am I just being naive again or should I question pivoting industries?
I also question whether my mad man approach to testing products like I did before is even feasible in todays landscape of e-commerce, with strict feedback scores in place for Facebook and the bans. And ad platforms being increasingly expensive.
I feel as if there was a gold rush in e-commerce which I was in at the time, but now it has passed. And I don't know whether it's smart to keep hammering the same nail, or if I am overanalyzing "getting back in the game".
As much as I have learned so much, and done so much from these opportunities I have created, it also feels like I am so behind of where I should be... And so behind from my goals.
So here are my questions to you guys if you have ever had a similar scenario:
1. Was there any point in your career, where you were at an in between stage and felt a little lost. If so, how did you deal with it?
2. If you were to test out a new e-commerce brand / product in today's climate, how would you go about validating and testing it? And should I even be focusing on this?
3. When you find yourself lost and not knowing what to do, how do you keep yourself on track?
4. Any resources anyone would recommend for this?
Thank you for reading this. This is my first post. I have been learning so much from these threads. It also helped me make my decision on my move down here and the cost benefit analysis of staying in NY vs living down here. I could say that was one of the best decisions I have made in my life thus far.
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