The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

[happiness] Read the TMF at 23 now 29 and self employed app developer.

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

papeto

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
483%
May 10, 2020
6
29
dallas
tldr: Had my first internship at 22 and was miserable about corporate america/government jobs, read TMF at 23, learned to code iphone apps at 25 and now I have an app that makes me a living.

I created a new account to protect my idea and sorry English is my second language:)

App store analytics

32844

I never thought i would be self employed, growing up I hated that my parents were always working M-S on their brick and mortar businesses for peanuts. Plus we lived in Mexico and having a business is always very dangerous and risky. When we moved to the U.S. during the 2008 recession, my parents already old were struggling to start new businesses here in the US, they started Mexican restaurant, a ball room and they both failed. We almost lost our home, parents marriage and me being in HighSchool I quickly salivated at the thought of making 70k as an engineer, i would say 'WOW thats a lot of money', but after taxes/living it isn't.

Since my parents kept struggling with the american way of life, I had to get serious so I went for electrical engineering since I was good with technology. With the help of financial aid and living with my parents i was able to finish my degree, but everything changed when I had my first 7 month engineering - internship as a sophomore in a nuclear weapons facility in Amarillo, Texas.
When I got it I was very excited, I thought I was Tony Stark and was going to build weapons for the U.S.
For 7 months I worked full time at this Old bunker type of facility that was used during the cold war to assemble and maintain nuclear weapons.
The first couple months were amazing as you would imagine. Then the lust wore off I worked with old scientists, engineers and no one seemed happy. If you think corporate america is bad, add the military and government to the mix. A slow depressing facility in the middle of nowhere with old people a prison literally, I couldn't imagine that to be my future.

My introduction to self help
I started to fall asleep at my internship doing pointless excel work and i couldn't figure it out why. I would drink black coffee, had a good night sleep, or keep my mind engaged and i was still falling asleep. It was the worst feeling ever to pretend to work, then I googled 'why i i'm falling asleep at work?' and some article from tinybudda.com appeared and started consuming everything I could about self help(audiobooks).
It felt like cheat codes to live a better life, but something didn't felt right. All these self help books told me to save my money and mitigate risk.
After my miserable internship experience ended I went into more 'deep' self help and finally found TMF in 2013 and resonated with me 100% and I joined the forum.
I graduated with 24k in debt, 12k student debt and 12k for my car. I said to myself that i would start working on my fastlane when i finished college and I did.
I worked a couple more corporate jobs, got myself out of debt, saved some money.

My first startup job
At 24 I read a post 'learning to program is stupid' here in the forums so i followed the copyright/gary halbert hype, it got me no where. then at 25 I started to learn the new programming language from apple(swift) and that was my escape from corporate america and jumped into the startup world.
In 2017 I jumped from corporate to work for a couple starrtups, I learned a lot.

My working app
After working for years on my side apps and failing.My third app got a couple sales each month and I worked at it every day.

I learned about
-Low level graphics
-networking
-video and audio encoding
-signal processing
-marketing an app
-apple frameworks

In 2019 i quit my job to go full time and its going to be almost one year since I haven't had an alarm clock or had to work for someone.

I feel free and happy
Thanks to @MJ DeMarco for writing TMF and Unscripted books. It gave me the weapon for my freedom
also thanks to legendary posters @Vigilante @JasonR and many others that wrote their progress threads. They kept me inspired.

note: my app is a video maker app, by subscription
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

KeepGoin

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
143%
Mar 17, 2016
89
127
36
This is awesome. How did you test if there was a niche for your app to get sales? I'm used to organic SEO with google but it'd be interesting to hear how you validated this product and seeing if you could squeeze by competition.
 

needle

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
100%
May 10, 2020
1
1
seattle
Thanks for sharing this. And congrats on quitting! Your post was very relatable as someone just starting out in dead corporate America.

What are some things you wish you could tell your 23 yo self first starting out?
( for example, I imagine you'd want to skip on the copywriting, unless that helped you in the end )

What do you think of cross-mobile frameworks, like React Native or Flutter? Do you feel you're missing out on larger marketshare by not including the Android community?
 

papeto

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
483%
May 10, 2020
6
29
dallas
This is awesome. How did you test if there was a niche for your app to get sales? I'm used to organic SEO with google but it'd be interesting to hear how you validated this product and seeing if you could squeeze by competition.
At the time I was building a feature for my second failing app and I was like 'I can turn this feature into a complete app' there was nothing in the appstore like it. I built a MVP in 3 weeks and used instagram to market it got a around $200 a month in sales consisintent.

Thanks for sharing this. And congrats on quitting! Your post was very relatable as someone just starting out in dead corporate America.

What are some things you wish you could tell your 23 yo self first starting out?
( for example, I imagine you'd want to skip on the copywriting, unless that helped you in the end )

What do you think of cross-mobile frameworks, like React Native or Flutter? Do you feel you're missing out on larger marketshare by not including the Android community?

I wish I skipped college and just started building apps at 20, but I had to experience other things to know what i don't want. Also install crashlytics into your apps from day 1.

I paid some indian agency to build the android version in java, so they still have to show me something.
I think crossplatform is good for simple apps, but for something where you need power and uniqueness. native all the way
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

AFMKelvin

Some Profound Quote Goes Here
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
199%
Jan 26, 2016
733
1,456
31
Rice, Texas
tldr: Had my first internship at 22 and was miserable about corporate america/government jobs, read TMF at 23, learned to code iphone apps at 25 and now I have an app that makes me a living.

I created a new account to protect my idea and sorry English is my second language:)

App store analytics

View attachment 32844

I never thought i would be self employed, growing up I hated that my parents were always working M-S on their brick and mortar businesses for peanuts. Plus we lived in Mexico and having a business is always very dangerous and risky. When we moved to the U.S. during the 2008 recession, my parents already old were struggling to start new businesses here in the US, they started Mexican restaurant, a ball room and they both failed. We almost lost our home, parents marriage and me being in HighSchool I quickly salivated at the thought of making 70k as an engineer, i would say 'WOW thats a lot of money', but after taxes/living it isn't.

Since my parents kept struggling with the american way of life, I had to get serious so I went for electrical engineering since I was good with technology. With the help of financial aid and living with my parents i was able to finish my degree, but everything changed when I had my first 7 month engineering - internship as a sophomore in a nuclear weapons facility in Amarillo, Texas.
When I got it I was very excited, I thought I was Tony Stark and was going to build weapons for the U.S.
For 7 months I worked full time at this Old bunker type of facility that was used during the cold war to assemble and maintain nuclear weapons.
The first couple months were amazing as you would imagine. Then the lust wore off I worked with old scientists, engineers and no one seemed happy. If you think corporate america is bad, add the military and government to the mix. A slow depressing facility in the middle of nowhere with old people a prison literally, I couldn't imagine that to be my future.

My introduction to self help
I started to fall asleep at my internship doing pointless excel work and i couldn't figure it out why. I would drink black coffee, had a good night sleep, or keep my mind engaged and i was still falling asleep. It was the worst feeling ever to pretend to work, then I googled 'why i i'm falling asleep at work?' and some article from tinybudda.com appeared and started consuming everything I could about self help(audiobooks).
It felt like cheat codes to live a better life, but something didn't felt right. All these self help books told me to save my money and mitigate risk.
After my miserable internship experience ended I went into more 'deep' self help and finally found TMF in 2013 and resonated with me 100% and I joined the forum.
I graduated with 24k in debt, 12k student debt and 12k for my car. I said to myself that i would start working on my fastlane when i finished college and I did.
I worked a couple more corporate jobs, got myself out of debt, saved some money.

My first startup job
At 24 I read a post 'learning to program is stupid' here in the forums so i followed the copyright/gary halbert hype, it got me no where. then at 25 I started to learn the new programming language from apple(swift) and that was my escape from corporate america and jumped into the startup world.
In 2017 I jumped from corporate to work for a couple starrtups, I learned a lot.

My working app
After working for years on my side apps and failing.My third app got a couple sales each month and I worked at it every day.

I learned about
-Low level graphics
-networking
-video and audio encoding
-signal processing
-marketing an app
-apple frameworks

In 2019 i quit my job to go full time and its going to be almost one year since I haven't had an alarm clock or had to work for someone.

I feel free and happy
Thanks to @MJ DeMarco for writing TMF and Unscripted books. It gave me the weapon for my freedom
also thanks to legendary posters @Vigilante @JasonR and many others that wrote their progress threads. They kept me inspired.

note: my app is a video maker app, by subscription

Awesome story. How long did it take you to learn swift and what was your level of programming knowledge before you started learning?
 

papeto

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
483%
May 10, 2020
6
29
dallas
Awesome story. How long did it take you to learn swift and what was your level of programming knowledge before you started learning?
In college I had like 2-3 intro programming courses, but honestly I felt I had to learn everything myself.
I also wish I went for Computer science instead.
Took me two years to feel i can build something valuable, at 27 felt confident.
I purchased a course in udacity for $400 'beginning to ios' and they refunded 50% if you finish it
 

Martin.G

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
107%
Jan 31, 2019
175
187
Argentina
I paid some indian agency to build the android version in java, so they still have to show me something.
I think crossplatform is good for simple apps, but for something where you need power and uniqueness. native all the way

Did you try flutter? Because the compilations is made in Xcode, so you have almost the same app that if you made it in Swift.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Charly

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
50%
May 6, 2020
8
4
US
Great story! Congrats on quitting. It's a big step and takes courage. Good luck further on! :)
 

TheProcess

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
81%
Nov 14, 2018
180
146
tldr: Had my first internship at 22 and was miserable about corporate america/government jobs, read TMF at 23, learned to code iphone apps at 25 and now I have an app that makes me a living.

I created a new account to protect my idea and sorry English is my second language:)

App store analytics

View attachment 32844

I never thought i would be self employed, growing up I hated that my parents were always working M-S on their brick and mortar businesses for peanuts. Plus we lived in Mexico and having a business is always very dangerous and risky. When we moved to the U.S. during the 2008 recession, my parents already old were struggling to start new businesses here in the US, they started Mexican restaurant, a ball room and they both failed. We almost lost our home, parents marriage and me being in HighSchool I quickly salivated at the thought of making 70k as an engineer, i would say 'WOW thats a lot of money', but after taxes/living it isn't.

Since my parents kept struggling with the american way of life, I had to get serious so I went for electrical engineering since I was good with technology. With the help of financial aid and living with my parents i was able to finish my degree, but everything changed when I had my first 7 month engineering - internship as a sophomore in a nuclear weapons facility in Amarillo, Texas.
When I got it I was very excited, I thought I was Tony Stark and was going to build weapons for the U.S.
For 7 months I worked full time at this Old bunker type of facility that was used during the cold war to assemble and maintain nuclear weapons.
The first couple months were amazing as you would imagine. Then the lust wore off I worked with old scientists, engineers and no one seemed happy. If you think corporate america is bad, add the military and government to the mix. A slow depressing facility in the middle of nowhere with old people a prison literally, I couldn't imagine that to be my future.

My introduction to self help
I started to fall asleep at my internship doing pointless excel work and i couldn't figure it out why. I would drink black coffee, had a good night sleep, or keep my mind engaged and i was still falling asleep. It was the worst feeling ever to pretend to work, then I googled 'why i i'm falling asleep at work?' and some article from tinybudda.com appeared and started consuming everything I could about self help(audiobooks).
It felt like cheat codes to live a better life, but something didn't felt right. All these self help books told me to save my money and mitigate risk.
After my miserable internship experience ended I went into more 'deep' self help and finally found TMF in 2013 and resonated with me 100% and I joined the forum.
I graduated with 24k in debt, 12k student debt and 12k for my car. I said to myself that i would start working on my fastlane when i finished college and I did.
I worked a couple more corporate jobs, got myself out of debt, saved some money.

My first startup job
At 24 I read a post 'learning to program is stupid' here in the forums so i followed the copyright/gary halbert hype, it got me no where. then at 25 I started to learn the new programming language from apple(swift) and that was my escape from corporate america and jumped into the startup world.
In 2017 I jumped from corporate to work for a couple starrtups, I learned a lot.

My working app
After working for years on my side apps and failing.My third app got a couple sales each month and I worked at it every day.

I learned about
-Low level graphics
-networking
-video and audio encoding
-signal processing
-marketing an app
-apple frameworks

In 2019 i quit my job to go full time and its going to be almost one year since I haven't had an alarm clock or had to work for someone.

I feel free and happy
Thanks to @MJ DeMarco for writing TMF and Unscripted books. It gave me the weapon for my freedom
also thanks to legendary posters @Vigilante @JasonR and many others that wrote their progress threads. They kept me inspired.

note: my app is a video maker app, by subscription
Wow congrats. This post is really inspiring. I'm a 20 year old college student. I know nothing about coding, web development and app development. I have a few questions:

1) How long would it take someone like me to learn how to code properly, to the point where I could be a CTO cofounder of a startup?

2) Do you believe there's equal/more/less value on being in the business side rather than on the tech side of a business? Why did you choose to learn how to code instead of being the business cofounder rather than the tech one?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

papeto

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
483%
May 10, 2020
6
29
dallas
Wow congrats. This post is really inspiring. I'm a 20 year old college student. I know nothing about coding, web development and app development. I have a few questions:

1) How long would it take someone like me to learn how to code properly, to the point where I could be a CTO cofounder of a startup?

2) Do you believe there's equal/more/less value on being in the business side rather than on the tech side of a business? Why did you choose to learn how to code instead of being the business cofounder rather than the tech one?

1) 4 years? the best way is to work for a startup so you can see how business is handled. I wish i skipped corporate and went straight to work for a startup,but after college you don't have any skills. college sucked at teaching skills only useless formulas/theory.

2) Depends what kind of person you're. I can be in the PC for 12+ hours a day coding im an introvert, i know CEOs that can't stand still for a couple minutes.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top