Hello everybody! My name is Matt and I am a student at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. I found this site through one PhxMJ's post on lambopower.com. First I would like to thank MJ, he has sparked another fire for me, I'm just hoping I can keep this one burning.
Let me start by saying I'm not a millionaire...hell, I'm not even a thousandaire right now. I am a 25 year old student working on a second degree and trying to overcome a big loss from a previous business venture where I suffered a $25,000 loss right before getting laid off from my job.
Let's rewind to 2004. I just graduated with an Associates Degree in Motorsports Management and start looking for jobs. I start off with a fabrication shop that makes the oil pans for most of the NASCAR teams as well as other sanctioning bodies. I hated my Nazi manager so I moved to a Honda drag team as your average Joe Blow mechanic, the money wasn't well enough so I settled as a mechanic for Freightliner at one of their truck manufactering plants as an alignment specialist. The money was good for me at the time and the benefits were solid so I was happy, for a while.
I started to notice how depressing it was coming into a blue collar job every day doing the same thing working with the same people in the same work area....EVERY DAY. I thought it was SAD how some guys have been doing this for 10, 15, even 20 years and they were happy with that. They were stoked to be topped out at $26/hr with the option to work plenty of overtime hours. Guys bragged about making $100K the previous years, but I had to remind them they worked 12-14 hour days 6 or 7 days a week. Sure I was 23 years old making $40K/year...more than most my friends, but I was upset with myself that I settled for a blue collar job.
around the beginning of 2006 I realized I wanted to do it big, I wanted to make money for myself, not for anyone else. I was interested in stock market investments and real estate, but an opportunity came along for me to invest in a new night club for $21K(although I had to pull up another $4K to pay some bills that weren't getting paid). I was more ambitious than I was business smart and I ended up going in a partnership with three other guys that would eventually fail. I started to smell the money coming, yet while one guy was embezzling the club's income, another throwing after-hour private parties, and another telling ALE the wrong stuff...we lost our liquor license and we shut down, but that is another long story in itself. Lesson learned, I should have done more research about the partners and the club's finance situation before getting involved, but some of the best lessons learned are the hard way. Soon after I was laid off from my job.
I was down about my goals as a entrepreneur. My first attempt was an embarassing failure. Although I have decided that I will REFUSE to settle for blue collar/production work again. So off to school I go for a second degree, this time a Bachelor's degree. I'm ready to settle for a good paying job where I can be happy with what I'm doing. But after reading MJ's post on lambopower.com, another fire has been lit and that drive to be more than what most people settle for is starting up. I now am waking up everyday with a goal, to think of that next idea that is going to make people's lives easier. Right now I have a few ideas, some I know will work, but take more start-up costs than I can afford right now, and others that have a slight potential to do well off a small start-up. And of course, there is always that fear of failure again, but nobody ever did it big without taking a risk right? So hopefully, after a few questions on this board, a little bit of market research and some smart funding, I'll have another fast lane to millions story for you.
:thankyousign:
Let me start by saying I'm not a millionaire...hell, I'm not even a thousandaire right now. I am a 25 year old student working on a second degree and trying to overcome a big loss from a previous business venture where I suffered a $25,000 loss right before getting laid off from my job.
Let's rewind to 2004. I just graduated with an Associates Degree in Motorsports Management and start looking for jobs. I start off with a fabrication shop that makes the oil pans for most of the NASCAR teams as well as other sanctioning bodies. I hated my Nazi manager so I moved to a Honda drag team as your average Joe Blow mechanic, the money wasn't well enough so I settled as a mechanic for Freightliner at one of their truck manufactering plants as an alignment specialist. The money was good for me at the time and the benefits were solid so I was happy, for a while.
I started to notice how depressing it was coming into a blue collar job every day doing the same thing working with the same people in the same work area....EVERY DAY. I thought it was SAD how some guys have been doing this for 10, 15, even 20 years and they were happy with that. They were stoked to be topped out at $26/hr with the option to work plenty of overtime hours. Guys bragged about making $100K the previous years, but I had to remind them they worked 12-14 hour days 6 or 7 days a week. Sure I was 23 years old making $40K/year...more than most my friends, but I was upset with myself that I settled for a blue collar job.
around the beginning of 2006 I realized I wanted to do it big, I wanted to make money for myself, not for anyone else. I was interested in stock market investments and real estate, but an opportunity came along for me to invest in a new night club for $21K(although I had to pull up another $4K to pay some bills that weren't getting paid). I was more ambitious than I was business smart and I ended up going in a partnership with three other guys that would eventually fail. I started to smell the money coming, yet while one guy was embezzling the club's income, another throwing after-hour private parties, and another telling ALE the wrong stuff...we lost our liquor license and we shut down, but that is another long story in itself. Lesson learned, I should have done more research about the partners and the club's finance situation before getting involved, but some of the best lessons learned are the hard way. Soon after I was laid off from my job.
I was down about my goals as a entrepreneur. My first attempt was an embarassing failure. Although I have decided that I will REFUSE to settle for blue collar/production work again. So off to school I go for a second degree, this time a Bachelor's degree. I'm ready to settle for a good paying job where I can be happy with what I'm doing. But after reading MJ's post on lambopower.com, another fire has been lit and that drive to be more than what most people settle for is starting up. I now am waking up everyday with a goal, to think of that next idea that is going to make people's lives easier. Right now I have a few ideas, some I know will work, but take more start-up costs than I can afford right now, and others that have a slight potential to do well off a small start-up. And of course, there is always that fear of failure again, but nobody ever did it big without taking a risk right? So hopefully, after a few questions on this board, a little bit of market research and some smart funding, I'll have another fast lane to millions story for you.
:thankyousign:
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