I'd just like to mention that this post does not sponsor/sell any courses or get you to subscribe to blah blah blah. I've been around this forum for a few years and have yet to create a thread introducing myself so I thought I'd do it today and tell you all a short and to-the-point story of how I went from being an almost average 20 year old to making 6 figures, which I assume is definitely not a 20 year old's average accomplishment.
Quick background
I'm a 20 year old student, born and raised in the UK. I've made small mistakes, big mistakes and every sort of sized mistake you can think of and instead of whining about it, I just kept going and it got me to places I never thought I'd get to, at least not at this age. For the most part, I'm your average 20 year old. I study at university. I love computers, technology and coding and I've made a few bucks here and there selling software or software subscriptions to local businesses and clients across the globe. I also design websites, although I'm more comfortable with the backend.
So how did I make 6 figures before my 21st birthday?
Did my father give me the money? Nope. Did I get a lucky VC to believe in me? Nope. Did I make an endless amount of mistakes before hitting gold? You bet.
During the summer of 2016, I ordered a RPi. For those that haven't come across it, it's a little circuit board with computing components, in essence it's a palm-sized computer. At the time, I wanted to see what sort of gadget I could make out of it. Maybe a security camera or an AI robot, I mean whatever, it only cost like £30 anyway. After about 3 hardcore weeks of making random gadgets and getting bored, I sat there exhausted with the RPi sitting on the desk and I just thought for a moment. It's a £30 computer. It's a f*cking £30 piece of powerful equipment. Why don't I create a genuine product from it? Something that brings value to people? It was around 3 in the morning and it hit me that this moment of epiphany may be because I was high as a kite because I had no sleep so I decided to sleep on it and if I felt the same way in the morning, I'd definitely work on it.
Safe to say, that same morning, I felt the exact same way. I believed I could turn a £30 computer into something that makes me money. At the time, I was thinking a standalone product priced at around £100 which would pocket me possibly £50 or a bit less. I ended up, however, doing something a little different.
The idea that made me 6 figures by 20
Ever walked in to a public building and seen a TV with a presentation that changes slides every 5 seconds?
The formal name for that sort of stuff is digital signage. It's a form of displaying information or advertisements using TV screens, monitors, projectors etc. My idea was to use a RPi to turn any TV, monitor or projector into an advertisement displaying piece of tech. In essence, every business I approached was potentially free ad space for me. In return, I'd give them a percentage of any profits made.
So, before I approached my first client, I wanted it to look all formal, professional and the 'real deal'. I got a designer to design me an electronics-safe case for the RPi and I bought slap-on heat stickers for the brand/logo. By the end of it, I was down about £60, but I had a product which I could show clients.
I cold-called about 25 businesses on a Monday. 18 said no, 7 were interested. Out of those 7, I closed the deal with 4. One thing I noticed was these guys either were completely unaware of the benefits of technology for their business or they didn't have a TV screen/monitor, I blame the failure of those on myself. I should've done better research. Lesson learnt.
I installed and set up the product for all 4 clients, but what about ads? I mean digital signage is cool but I had nothing to show. So, during the first few days after installation, I ran non-stop 'advertise here' videos and was hopeful about someone approaching. It took about 4 hours for a local plumbing company to get in contact then another 2 hours for another local business and before 2 days had passed, all 4 screens were making money. For those wondering, I was making about £10 per client per week. Nothing life changing, but definitely a start for someone who always wanted to earn money away from a 9 to 5.
I kept repeating the process throughout the summer, winter and so on. After about 2 years, I had several hundred RPis connected to TVs and monitors all around the county and almost every single one was making £50 at the minimum, meaning the moment I set it up, I had made my money back for that product in the first week. It's worth mentioning I had to constantly reject certain businesses due to there physical location not raking in enough traffic. In other words, nobody wanted to advertise in a place where there were not many passers by.
So there's that story of how an average 20 year old made 6 figures from an idea.
I will keep updating this post as and when I can, I'm fully aware there are details omitted from this post which I'm sure would be insightful, but for the time being I'd just like to see the response I get from this post.
Of course, as always, questions are welcome. I'd also like to apologise if there are any grammatical errors or if my style of writing isn't favourable, it's my first post and I don't have much experience writing on public forums.
Quick background
I'm a 20 year old student, born and raised in the UK. I've made small mistakes, big mistakes and every sort of sized mistake you can think of and instead of whining about it, I just kept going and it got me to places I never thought I'd get to, at least not at this age. For the most part, I'm your average 20 year old. I study at university. I love computers, technology and coding and I've made a few bucks here and there selling software or software subscriptions to local businesses and clients across the globe. I also design websites, although I'm more comfortable with the backend.
So how did I make 6 figures before my 21st birthday?
Did my father give me the money? Nope. Did I get a lucky VC to believe in me? Nope. Did I make an endless amount of mistakes before hitting gold? You bet.
During the summer of 2016, I ordered a RPi. For those that haven't come across it, it's a little circuit board with computing components, in essence it's a palm-sized computer. At the time, I wanted to see what sort of gadget I could make out of it. Maybe a security camera or an AI robot, I mean whatever, it only cost like £30 anyway. After about 3 hardcore weeks of making random gadgets and getting bored, I sat there exhausted with the RPi sitting on the desk and I just thought for a moment. It's a £30 computer. It's a f*cking £30 piece of powerful equipment. Why don't I create a genuine product from it? Something that brings value to people? It was around 3 in the morning and it hit me that this moment of epiphany may be because I was high as a kite because I had no sleep so I decided to sleep on it and if I felt the same way in the morning, I'd definitely work on it.
Safe to say, that same morning, I felt the exact same way. I believed I could turn a £30 computer into something that makes me money. At the time, I was thinking a standalone product priced at around £100 which would pocket me possibly £50 or a bit less. I ended up, however, doing something a little different.
The idea that made me 6 figures by 20
Ever walked in to a public building and seen a TV with a presentation that changes slides every 5 seconds?
The formal name for that sort of stuff is digital signage. It's a form of displaying information or advertisements using TV screens, monitors, projectors etc. My idea was to use a RPi to turn any TV, monitor or projector into an advertisement displaying piece of tech. In essence, every business I approached was potentially free ad space for me. In return, I'd give them a percentage of any profits made.
So, before I approached my first client, I wanted it to look all formal, professional and the 'real deal'. I got a designer to design me an electronics-safe case for the RPi and I bought slap-on heat stickers for the brand/logo. By the end of it, I was down about £60, but I had a product which I could show clients.
I cold-called about 25 businesses on a Monday. 18 said no, 7 were interested. Out of those 7, I closed the deal with 4. One thing I noticed was these guys either were completely unaware of the benefits of technology for their business or they didn't have a TV screen/monitor, I blame the failure of those on myself. I should've done better research. Lesson learnt.
I installed and set up the product for all 4 clients, but what about ads? I mean digital signage is cool but I had nothing to show. So, during the first few days after installation, I ran non-stop 'advertise here' videos and was hopeful about someone approaching. It took about 4 hours for a local plumbing company to get in contact then another 2 hours for another local business and before 2 days had passed, all 4 screens were making money. For those wondering, I was making about £10 per client per week. Nothing life changing, but definitely a start for someone who always wanted to earn money away from a 9 to 5.
I kept repeating the process throughout the summer, winter and so on. After about 2 years, I had several hundred RPis connected to TVs and monitors all around the county and almost every single one was making £50 at the minimum, meaning the moment I set it up, I had made my money back for that product in the first week. It's worth mentioning I had to constantly reject certain businesses due to there physical location not raking in enough traffic. In other words, nobody wanted to advertise in a place where there were not many passers by.
So there's that story of how an average 20 year old made 6 figures from an idea.
I will keep updating this post as and when I can, I'm fully aware there are details omitted from this post which I'm sure would be insightful, but for the time being I'd just like to see the response I get from this post.
Of course, as always, questions are welcome. I'd also like to apologise if there are any grammatical errors or if my style of writing isn't favourable, it's my first post and I don't have much experience writing on public forums.
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I have so many skills I should be using to stop making the CEO of this place rich.
