How to invest and save money while my company grows ?

[Anthares]

Hello,

I know that this question has been asked a billion times and I read many threads on the forum and found good advice.
But I still need to click things together, in order to avoid misstakes.

I am growing my company and asked advice on how to further do it on another thread. On this thread I wanted to have a saving/investing strategy, on what to do with the money, that I save on the way, given my personal situation.


I am 32 and live in France.
I started my private maths teaching company 3 years ago, and it makes 100K/year. My biggest priority is to grow it, but I reached a plateau. (If I grow more the company in France, I need to change my business structure and my taxes will double, and be more than 50%).
So I will need to at least double my revenues to make it worth it.

I teach online one-to-one lessons. My hourly rate is close to maxed out. Now I'm working on giving group lessons, and also will learn how to create videos and build a platform to scale my business. It will take some time, and during these next 1 or 2 years, my revenues will probably not dramatically grow.

I am able to save every month thousands of euros, and try to learn the basics about saving and investing.
I think it takes time and practice (and small misstakes), but it's an important skill that I have little knowledge about. I watched lots of videos but don't know where to start.

I have emergency savings, bought gold and some farming land. I don't want to spend too much time focusing on that, and just want to know that I can stockpile without thinking too much about it, and develop further my company.

I wanted to know what else I could do ?
I don't trust cryptos at the moment, and feel like the ship has already sailed for easy money. Maybe there will be more opportunities, but also big risks of losing if I get into it unsufficiently prepared.

-My first idea was thinking about saving more, for example in order to buy a flat in Prague where I want to live in a couple years. But I would get only 1,5% intesrest rates, and flats in center Prague are already super expensive and I would need to put all my savings + some debt into it. I think I can't afford it yet, so I think that I will rent first, and just increase my revenues, while having confortable savings.

-My second idea is to invest some of my savings in the stock market, but I have no experience yet (just watched videos). The current context seems risky to me, with the unstable geopolitical context. I was thinking of starting to invest a little, just to learn how it works (even if I lose part of that money).

-My last idea is just to stockpile in saving accounts and some gold, and to have money to reinvest in the business. But so far, my company doesn't need a lot of money. It will need more if I take the "scaling" route. I use my money to increase my visibility on various platforms, to produce better material and ressources, to get professional fiscal advice, training etc when it's needed.

So I wanted to ask what would you do ?



(My mid-term goal is to live in central Prague, having my company generating "passive" income with online content, while I still teach a little (less than 15 hours per week). I don't need to be super wealthy. I would like to make 300K/year at least. And from there, have the option to grow if I really want it. And I would like to preserve my wealth without doing big investing misstakes)

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kevin88660]

Hello,

I know that this question has been asked a billion times and I read many threads on the forum and found good advice.
But I still need to click things together, in order to avoid misstakes.

I am growing my company and asked advice on how to further do it on another thread. On this thread I wanted to have a saving/investing strategy, on what to do with the money, that I save on the way, given my personal situation.


I am 32 and live in France.
I started my private maths teaching company 3 years ago, and it makes 100K/year. My biggest priority is to grow it, but I reached a plateau. (If I grow more the company in France, I need to change my business structure and my taxes will double, and be more than 50%).
So I will need to at least double my revenues to make it worth it.

I teach online one-to-one lessons. My hourly rate is close to maxed out. Now I'm working on giving group lessons, and also will learn how to create videos and build a platform to scale my business. It will take some time, and during these next 1 or 2 years, my revenues will probably not dramatically grow.

I am able to save every month thousands of euros, and try to learn the basics about saving and investing.
I think it takes time and practice (and small misstakes), but it's an important skill that I have little knowledge about. I watched lots of videos but don't know where to start.

I have emergency savings, bought gold and some farming land. I don't want to spend too much time focusing on that, and just want to know that I can stockpile without thinking too much about it, and develop further my company.

I wanted to know what else I could do ?
I don't trust cryptos at the moment, and feel like the ship has already sailed for easy money. Maybe there will be more opportunities, but also big risks of losing if I get into it unsufficiently prepared.

-My first idea was thinking about saving more, for example in order to buy a flat in Prague where I want to live in a couple years. But I would get only 1,5% intesrest rates, and flats in center Prague are already super expensive and I would need to put all my savings + some debt into it. I think I can't afford it yet, so I think that I will rent first, and just increase my revenues, while having confortable savings.

-My second idea is to invest some of my savings in the stock market, but I have no experience yet (just watched videos). The current context seems risky to me, with the unstable geopolitical context. I was thinking of starting to invest a little, just to learn how it works (even if I lose part of that money).

-My last idea is just to stockpile in saving accounts and some gold, and to have money to reinvest in the business. But so far, my company doesn't need a lot of money. It will need more if I take the "scaling" route. I use my money to increase my visibility on various platforms, to produce better material and ressources, to get professional fiscal advice, training etc when it's needed.

So I wanted to ask what would you do ?



(My mid-term goal is to live in central Prague, having my company generating "passive" income with online content, while I still teach a little (less than 15 hours per week). I don't need to be super wealthy. I would like to make 300K/year at least. And from there, have the option to grow if I really want it. And I would like to preserve my wealth without doing big investing misstakes)

If you have some "secret recipe" in teaching you can train staff and expand globally. You come up with a standardized way of teaching, hiring college kids who are good in math to be your tutor and replicate it.

After school tuition industry is a billion-dollar enterprise here in Singapore. There is hardly any kid here who does not have some form of after school tuition.

Just need staffs familiar with IB or GCE curriculums.

Here corporate tax is flat rate 17%.

You can get a partner who has experience teaching English.

English and Math are the biggest markets for tuition globally.

Personally I am bullish on Chinese ETF for year 2023, as their locked down was just over.

 

[N.S.]

Hello,

I know that this question has been asked a billion times and I read many threads on the forum and found good advice.
But I still need to click things together, in order to avoid misstakes.

I am growing my company and asked advice on how to further do it on another thread. On this thread I wanted to have a saving/investing strategy, on what to do with the money, that I save on the way, given my personal situation.


I am 32 and live in France.
I started my private maths teaching company 3 years ago, and it makes 100K/year. My biggest priority is to grow it, but I reached a plateau. (If I grow more the company in France, I need to change my business structure and my taxes will double, and be more than 50%).
So I will need to at least double my revenues to make it worth it.

I teach online one-to-one lessons. My hourly rate is close to maxed out. Now I'm working on giving group lessons, and also will learn how to create videos and build a platform to scale my business. It will take some time, and during these next 1 or 2 years, my revenues will probably not dramatically grow.

I am able to save every month thousands of euros, and try to learn the basics about saving and investing.
I think it takes time and practice (and small misstakes), but it's an important skill that I have little knowledge about. I watched lots of videos but don't know where to start.

I have emergency savings, bought gold and some farming land. I don't want to spend too much time focusing on that, and just want to know that I can stockpile without thinking too much about it, and develop further my company.

I wanted to know what else I could do ?
I don't trust cryptos at the moment, and feel like the ship has already sailed for easy money. Maybe there will be more opportunities, but also big risks of losing if I get into it unsufficiently prepared.

-My first idea was thinking about saving more, for example in order to buy a flat in Prague where I want to live in a couple years. But I would get only 1,5% intesrest rates, and flats in center Prague are already super expensive and I would need to put all my savings + some debt into it. I think I can't afford it yet, so I think that I will rent first, and just increase my revenues, while having confortable savings.

-My second idea is to invest some of my savings in the stock market, but I have no experience yet (just watched videos). The current context seems risky to me, with the unstable geopolitical context. I was thinking of starting to invest a little, just to learn how it works (even if I lose part of that money).

-My last idea is just to stockpile in saving accounts and some gold, and to have money to reinvest in the business. But so far, my company doesn't need a lot of money. It will need more if I take the "scaling" route. I use my money to increase my visibility on various platforms, to produce better material and ressources, to get professional fiscal advice, training etc when it's needed.

So I wanted to ask what would you do ?



(My mid-term goal is to live in central Prague, having my company generating "passive" income with online content, while I still teach a little (less than 15 hours per week). I don't need to be super wealthy. I would like to make 300K/year at least. And from there, have the option to grow if I really want it. And I would like to preserve my wealth without doing big investing misstakes)

Sounds like a good read for you would be "How to Own The World" by Andrew Craig.

It's UK centric in terms of some specifics, but the principles apply globally and more importantly - in 20+ years of mostly successful investing in a few different asset classes (equities, real estate, angel, crypto) - it's possibly the single best investing book I've ever read.

Definitely worth a few hours of your time to answer some of the investment questions you raise above.

 

[TheGreatAli]

Hello,

I know that this question has been asked a billion times and I read many threads on the forum and found good advice.
But I still need to click things together, in order to avoid misstakes.

I am growing my company and asked advice on how to further do it on another thread. On this thread I wanted to have a saving/investing strategy, on what to do with the money, that I save on the way, given my personal situation.


I am 32 and live in France.
I started my private maths teaching company 3 years ago, and it makes 100K/year. My biggest priority is to grow it, but I reached a plateau. (If I grow more the company in France, I need to change my business structure and my taxes will double, and be more than 50%).
So I will need to at least double my revenues to make it worth it.

I teach online one-to-one lessons. My hourly rate is close to maxed out. Now I'm working on giving group lessons, and also will learn how to create videos and build a platform to scale my business. It will take some time, and during these next 1 or 2 years, my revenues will probably not dramatically grow.

I am able to save every month thousands of euros, and try to learn the basics about saving and investing.
I think it takes time and practice (and small misstakes), but it's an important skill that I have little knowledge about. I watched lots of videos but don't know where to start.

I have emergency savings, bought gold and some farming land. I don't want to spend too much time focusing on that, and just want to know that I can stockpile without thinking too much about it, and develop further my company.

I wanted to know what else I could do ?
I don't trust cryptos at the moment, and feel like the ship has already sailed for easy money. Maybe there will be more opportunities, but also big risks of losing if I get into it unsufficiently prepared.

-My first idea was thinking about saving more, for example in order to buy a flat in Prague where I want to live in a couple years. But I would get only 1,5% intesrest rates, and flats in center Prague are already super expensive and I would need to put all my savings + some debt into it. I think I can't afford it yet, so I think that I will rent first, and just increase my revenues, while having confortable savings.

-My second idea is to invest some of my savings in the stock market, but I have no experience yet (just watched videos). The current context seems risky to me, with the unstable geopolitical context. I was thinking of starting to invest a little, just to learn how it works (even if I lose part of that money).

-My last idea is just to stockpile in saving accounts and some gold, and to have money to reinvest in the business. But so far, my company doesn't need a lot of money. It will need more if I take the "scaling" route. I use my money to increase my visibility on various platforms, to produce better material and ressources, to get professional fiscal advice, training etc when it's needed.

So I wanted to ask what would you do ?



(My mid-term goal is to live in central Prague, having my company generating "passive" income with online content, while I still teach a little (less than 15 hours per week). I don't need to be super wealthy. I would like to make 300K/year at least. And from there, have the option to grow if I really want it. And I would like to preserve my wealth without doing big investing misstakes)

Here's what my physics teacher back in high school did to get his financial freedom.

He taught GCSE and A level physics and he was so good at it that everybody who had any doubts about physics went after him and wanted tuition. He started off charging $70/hour and did groups of 4-10 at a time just like a normal classroom. People would still attend because he knew the shortcuts and best ways to explain the topics and how to best prep you for the exam.

After that he went on and wrote a book on GCSE physics and taught it in such a simplified way that his become a best seller. It's called Cambridge IGCSE Physics Explained by Kaleem Akbar. He sold this locally at first and now most of the people that study GCSE's in my country have this book because of how good it is.

He leveraged content seedlings and provided true value and it allowed him to impact hundreds and thousands of people in my country.

My advice for you:

1. If you have some better/more simplified way of teaching a subject or topic, maybe write a book about. You could create online lectures on a certain topic and sell it as a bundle to the students. This would allow you to leverage content to buy your time back.
2. Group tutoring could work in the short term for you to increase your revenue. Don't worry about the taxes you will need to earn more to reach your dreams anyway so might as well start.
3. If you can't buy a house in cash, don't buy it because you can't afford it.
4. Don't invest in the stock market for wealth, invest in it for income. Remember the stock market's upside is a maximum of 15% while you and your business have infinite upside.
5. If you are going to invest in anything, invest in yourself and your business. Maybe start offering face to face tutoring and hire university students and train them to teach instead of you. Make sure you have a unique selling point though.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Anthares]

Here's what my physics teacher back in high school did to get his financial freedom.

He taught GCSE and A level physics and he was so good at it that everybody who had any doubts about physics went after him and wanted tuition. He started off charging $70/hour and did groups of 4-10 at a time just like a normal classroom. People would still attend because he knew the shortcuts and best ways to explain the topics and how to best prep you for the exam.

After that he went on and wrote a book on GCSE physics and taught it in such a simplified way that his become a best seller. It's called Cambridge IGCSE Physics Explained by Kaleem Akbar. He sold this locally at first and now most of the people that study GCSE's in my country have this book because of how good it is.

He leveraged content seedlings and provided true value and it allowed him to impact hundreds and thousands of people in my country.

My advice for you:

1. If you have some better/more simplified way of teaching a subject or topic, maybe write a book about. You could create online lectures on a certain topic and sell it as a bundle to the students. This would allow you to leverage content to buy your time back.
2. Group tutoring could work in the short term for you to increase your revenue. Don't worry about the taxes you will need to earn more to reach your dreams anyway so might as well start.
3. If you can't buy a house in cash, don't buy it because you can't afford it.
4. Don't invest in the stock market for wealth, invest in it for income. Remember the stock market's upside is a maximum of 15% while you and your business have infinite upside.
5. If you are going to invest in anything, invest in yourself and your business. Maybe start offering face to face tutoring and hire university students and train them to teach instead of you. Make sure you have a unique selling point though.

Thank you for sharing this story. I guess it's pretty similar to what I intend to do. So it's inspirational.

I plan on having my own simplified method. I would say I do better than most of my customers. But I'm at a phase, where I still learn a lot and continue building my teaching ressources. I want to polish everything, and I think in 2 years approximately, the quality will be there to create a book.

I agree with your points 1, 3 and 5.
I never recruited anyone so far. It's expensive and a headache to have employees in France. But one of my colleagues works with other freelance teachers. He has a platform that other teachers can use, and also get customers from it. And he gets a percentage of the lessons that these teachers give, without having to recruit them. But apparently he doesn't make a ton of money yet (but his system can be grown).

For point4) I agree, I just don't see how it can be done. Are there good ways to start generating some income, without taking too big risks ?

For point 2) It's the hardest point for me, the law is very strange in France regarding private lessons. If I give the lessons at my students homes, then my students get fiscal benefit and pay only half (teaching online to geographically close students is tolerated since covid). But because I benefit from this clause, I don't have right to teach to group classes at my home and in a rented classroom (or I would have to renounce this benefit). I also don't have the right to teach online to other countries and regions in France.

Also I would like to move abroad quite soon, and have everything done online. I wouldn't like to start everything from scratch twice, which is why I refrain from expanding right now.
It would double my taxes AND halve my hourly rate. So I would need 4x more students just to maintain my current income.
It would also probably mean having someone do my accounting because it will be more complicated.

I'm at a brainstorming /collecting phase to see how I can grow my company, given the various possible directions. I could get to some income fast because France is okay for small businesses, even more with the fiscal benefit.
But this fiscal benefit also gives an incentive not to grow, and hinders the development of the company, because you have to push through that phase, where if you grow, you will earn less, while having a more complicated structure.

One of the leaders in my field benefits from this fiscal system, while being able to teach online internationnally. He also has other teachers, and rents a classroom to give revision courses to group classes.
I don't know how he does it. And several other of my competitors do the same.
But they usually don't like sharing info, because they are afraid of competition

I find it quite a struggle to grow, given all the possible directions, and the fact that I still miss some skills, which take some time to learn. I'm sure things can be done relatively easily, if I do them in the right order.

What would you do to get the feedback that I need ?
I try to contact other leading teachers in my field, but they are few of them who are really thriving, and they don't share info easily. I'm sure it's a big key to avoid reinventing the wheel

Sorry for moving out of topic.
If anyone has any recommendations on how to invest, to generate income with some of the cash made while growing the business, I'm interested

 

[Anthares]

Sounds like a good read for you would be "How to Own The World" by Andrew Craig.

It's UK centric in terms of some specifics, but the principles apply globally and more importantly - in 20+ years of mostly successful investing in a few different asset classes (equities, real estate, angel, crypto) - it's possibly the single best investing book I've ever read.

Definitely worth a few hours of your time to answer some of the investment questions you raise above.

Just bought the book. And I will start to read it this morning. Thank you

 

[Anthares]

If you have some "secret recipe" in teaching you can train staff and expand globally. You come up with a standardized way of teaching, hiring college kids who are good in math to be your tutor and replicate it.

After school tuition industry is a billion-dollar enterprise here in Singapore. There is hardly any kid here who does not have some form of after school tuition.

Just need staffs familiar with IB or GCE curriculums.

Here corporate tax is flat rate 17%.

You can get a partner who has experience teaching English.

English and Math are the biggest markets for tuition globally.

Personally I am bullish on Chinese ETF for year 2023, as their locked down was just over.

My girlfriend is actually an English teacher ^^
Yes I agree, I need to create the recipe and standardize it. I am working on improving my lessons and my resources all the time, with the idea of transforming it into a method.

One last point, is where to locate the company.
I work on getting other citizenships, but feel home mostly in Central Europe. I will need to really think about how to optimize some of the fiscal aspects, which is not easy.
I am reading from the Nomad Capitalist, and find it hard to find a balance between where I want to live and where the biggest fiscal benefits are.
Also concerning private teaching, it's a pretty huge market in France, but seems less so in other Western countries. There are probably good niches, but in France, people are really obsessed with studies and diploma. Being a great teacher is really valued. I am afraid that in other European countries it is less so, and maybe I should target more Asia at some point, in which the tuition market is already huge.


>Concerning Chinese ETF, how can it be bought in a smart way ? I can in France, but the benefits will be taxed 30%

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kevin88660]

My girlfriend is actually an English teacher ^^
Yes I agree, I need to create the recipe and standardize it. I am working on improving my lessons and my resources all the time, with the idea of transforming it into a method.

One last point, is where to locate the company.
I work on getting other citizenships, but feel home mostly in Central Europe. I will need to really think about how to optimize some of the fiscal aspects, which is not easy.
I am reading from the Nomad Capitalist, and find it hard to find a balance between where I want to live and where the biggest fiscal benefits are.
Also concerning private teaching, it's a pretty huge market in France, but seems less so in other Western countries. There are probably good niches, but in France, people are really obsessed with studies and diploma. Being a great teacher is really valued. I am afraid that in other European countries it is less so, and maybe I should target more Asia at some point, in which the tuition market is already huge.


>Concerning Chinese ETF, how can it be bought in a smart way ? I can in France, but the benefits will be taxed 30%

30 percent capital gain tax? I am afraid there is no way you can get around it until you move your residency and money to another country. For example in Singapore it is zero.

In Singapore yes, there is a fanatical and almost insane obsession with private tuition after school.

What is the Private Tuition Market Size in Asia?

How much do parents in these countries spend on private tuition per year in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, India and Sri Lanka in local currency? Parents in Singapore spend the most on

blog.cudy.co

 

[Jeix]

Apologies if I sound blunt but if you can't disassociate your time from your business, you don't own a business.
You are currently a freelancer.
There's nothing wrong with that, mind you. If you want to sit on it and save money, you can, but you won't reach a level of wealth that will allow you to retire soon.

Higher taxes are an issue in Italy too, any freelancer that earns more than €85k a year gets taxes 48%, insane.
However, if you want to make a lot of money, you will inevitably have to pay taxes.

The first order of business is to choose what you want. Do you want to scale what you are doing or do you want to keep at it and save? Judging from the title of the thread, it's the latter, so you probably don't need this advice and you can continue doing what you are doing, there's no secret investment I can recommend that will beat everything else (except your own business).

If, however, you're interested in scaling, here's some tips that I hope can help:
- Set up a company. You'll be able to deduct costs like other tutors, rent for classrooms etc. Companies usually have a much lower tax rate than freelancers (23% in Italy on profits only, not everything you make, without brackets or limits. More investments always mean less taxes.)
- Invest in your own company. It's the only investment that can 100x or even 1000x in a few years. Think of how much you were making before you were doing this. In a way, you went from 0 to 100k. How much more will you be able to scale if you can hire someone for 30k a year and have them produce 100k worth of services (same as you)?
- Scale. You have savings to invest. Can you think of a way you can spend them to make more money? How about a second tutor to do more lessons in a shorter period of time? Marketing to get more students to sign up? Renting a classroom to do in-person tutoring and have a local presence? A unique brand to gain market shares?

As a business owner, these are things that I'm trying my best to do every day to get closer and closer to freedom.
At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what you want. It's okay to just want to sit back on your job and save, that's what most people do. Just remember that it won't bring you millions to stay in your comfort zone enjoying a tax break on your above-average middle-class income.

 

[Anthares]

Apologies if I sound blunt but if you can't disassociate your time from your business, you don't own a business.
You are currently a freelancer.
There's nothing wrong with that, mind you. If you want to sit on it and save money, you can, but you won't reach a level of wealth that will allow you to retire soon.

Higher taxes are an issue in Italy too, any freelancer that earns more than €85k a year gets taxes 48%, insane.
However, if you want to make a lot of money, you will inevitably have to pay taxes.

The first order of business is to choose what you want. Do you want to scale what you are doing or do you want to keep at it and save? Judging from the title of the thread, it's the latter, so you probably don't need this advice and you can continue doing what you are doing, there's no secret investment I can recommend that will beat everything else (except your own business).

If, however, you're interested in scaling, here's some tips that I hope can help:
- Set up a company. You'll be able to deduct costs like other tutors, rent for classrooms etc. Companies usually have a much lower tax rate than freelancers (23% in Italy on profits only, not everything you make, without brackets or limits. More investments always mean less taxes.)
- Invest in your own company. It's the only investment that can 100x or even 1000x in a few years. Think of how much you were making before you were doing this. In a way, you went from 0 to 100k. How much more will you be able to scale if you can hire someone for 30k a year and have them produce 100k worth of services (same as you)?
- Scale. You have savings to invest. Can you think of a way you can spend them to make more money? How about a second tutor to do more lessons in a shorter period of time? Marketing to get more students to sign up? Renting a classroom to do in-person tutoring and have a local presence? A unique brand to gain market shares?

As a business owner, these are things that I'm trying my best to do every day to get closer and closer to freedom.
At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what you want. It's okay to just want to sit back on your job and save, that's what most people do. Just remember that it won't bring you millions to stay in your comfort zone enjoying a tax break on your above-average middle-class income.

I speak about it being my company, because I started as a freelancer, and I try to master the process of it.
But I keep in mind the growth aspect.

I feel like I could get bored and tired of staying a freelancer only, and would like to have a vehicle that has unlimited growth potential, and not being forced to trade my time for money forever.

So I want to move out from the freelancing and move to a real company / system.

So both your advice are accurate.
I still like teaching, but I want to give less hours, and not rely solely on it

I am afraid of starting a bigger company in France because of all the administrative and fiscal headaches, and wanted to do it abroad. I will contact the most succesful people in my field, to see how they make it work in France. They seem to either have big youtube channels and online visibility or teachers giving group classes or online lessons to wealthy students. Some of them also employ other teachers in various models.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.