"Fastlane" is an entrepreneur discussion forum based on The C.E.N.T.S Framework outlined in the two best-selling books by MJ DeMarco (The Millionaire Fastlane and UNSCRIPTED®). From multimillionaires to digital nomads to side hustlers who are grinding a job, the Fastlane Forum features real entrepreneurs creating real businesses with one goal in mind: Freedom— both financial and temporal.
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Thank you!
Thank you for share this.Hey everyone,
One of my favorite chapters of the TMF book, is Chapter 37, titled “Give Your Road a Destination”.
It really made me think about the amazing possibilities that can be accomplished once you have a rock-solid business (following the CENTS commandments of course). But one thing I see some people struggle with - is the mathematics of business viability. This is often obvious when you look at people pitching their product on tv shows like Shark Tank. They may have a great product - but they suck at their own business math!
I’ve always been a fan of doing numbers, and this really inspired me to try to visualize what MJ is talking about into a spreadsheet. MJ’s brilliant “two-flanked” attack strategy is a genius way to reach your lifestyle goal in only a matter of a few years.
While you are working away hard on growing out your business, this strategy simultaneously funds your Money System – while you are gradually getting closer to the lifestyle you want. Then when you can finally liquidate your Business System, you can “cash out” and enjoy your well-deserved retirement.
I have created a spreadsheet for you all to download, where you can enter in variables that suits you, your lifestyle goals, and business variables. Your destination and time frame is affected to varying degrees by the following most important factors:
- How soon you get started. Remember: the best time to start is…NOW
- The monthly growth you are able to achieve. (through marketing, product expansion, upsells, continuity, etc)
- Your lifestyle goals. Naturally, the more lavish you want to live – the harder you’re gonna have to work for that to happen. But that’s ok.
- Money System yield. It’s probably better to assume a lower-yield of around 5-6% to be safe but play around with higher numbers if you’re a risk-taker.
Below is a screenshot of what my spreadsheet looks like. It attempts to give you a rough idea of how long it will take you to reach your desired lifestyle, and what you must strive to create in order to get there. All the white boxes are fields where you can change the variables for the calculation.
You can download this spreadsheet by clicking here.
I also wanted to share a simple formula that will calculate your estimated profits at a given point in time after starting your business. This can be useful if you want to get an idea of how much money a business idea might make you after a certain amount of time – based on how much you make in your first month, and fast it is growing.
This is an ESTIMATE – and takes into account the following variables:
- 1stMonthProfit
- MonthlyGrowth (a percentage, but for calculation should be specified as 1.05 if the growth is 5%)
- MonthsInBusiness
Your estimated profits after a given number of months, is expressed by the formula:
So for instance, let’s say that you are considering going into a certain niche. After doing some research, you find that the business should be viable with some moderate effort.
You figure you should definitely be able to sell 6 units per day to begin with - and that the market is willing to pay a price that gives you $50 profit per unit sold.
Your 1st month in business should bring in approximately 30 days x $50 x 6 = $9000 in profits from units sold.
Now let’s assume you figure that your monthly expenses that take away from this are roughly $3000 (overhead, advertising, rent, whatever, etc.)
So your gross 1stMonthProfit = $6000
You also talked to a friend who is running a similar business, and find out that with the moderate marketing he is doing – you should also be able to grow at roughly the same rate he is doing (or better). It estimated that you too can increase the business with about 10% each month.
MonthlyGrowth = 1.10 (the same as 10%)
So - what kinds of profits will this business be making 6 months, 12 months, or even 24 months going into it?
Let's see...
I hope my explanations and everything here makes sense. But if you have any feedback or comments to this - or have suggestions to things I could add to the spreadsheet, I would love to hear them!
Eskil
Thank you
Hey everyone,
One of my favorite chapters of the TMF book, is Chapter 37, titled “Give Your Road a Destination”.
It really made me think about the amazing possibilities that can be accomplished once you have a rock-solid business (following the CENTS commandments of course). But one thing I see some people struggle with - is the mathematics of business viability. This is often obvious when you look at people pitching their product on tv shows like Shark Tank. They may have a great product - but they suck at their own business math!
I’ve always been a fan of doing numbers, and this really inspired me to try to visualize what MJ is talking about into a spreadsheet. MJ’s brilliant “two-flanked” attack strategy is a genius way to reach your lifestyle goal in only a matter of a few years.
While you are working away hard on growing out your business, this strategy simultaneously funds your Money System – while you are gradually getting closer to the lifestyle you want. Then when you can finally liquidate your Business System, you can “cash out” and enjoy your well-deserved retirement.
I have created a spreadsheet for you all to download, where you can enter in variables that suits you, your lifestyle goals, and business variables. Your destination and time frame is affected to varying degrees by the following most important factors:
- How soon you get started. Remember: the best time to start is…NOW
- The monthly growth you are able to achieve. (through marketing, product expansion, upsells, continuity, etc)
- Your lifestyle goals. Naturally, the more lavish you want to live – the harder you’re gonna have to work for that to happen. But that’s ok.
- Money System yield. It’s probably better to assume a lower-yield of around 5-6% to be safe but play around with higher numbers if you’re a risk-taker.
Below is a screenshot of what my spreadsheet looks like. It attempts to give you a rough idea of how long it will take you to reach your desired lifestyle, and what you must strive to create in order to get there. All the white boxes are fields where you can change the variables for the calculation.
You can download this spreadsheet by clicking here.
I also wanted to share a simple formula that will calculate your estimated profits at a given point in time after starting your business. This can be useful if you want to get an idea of how much money a business idea might make you after a certain amount of time – based on how much you make in your first month, and fast it is growing.
This is an ESTIMATE – and takes into account the following variables:
- 1stMonthProfit
- MonthlyGrowth (a percentage, but for calculation should be specified as 1.05 if the growth is 5%)
- MonthsInBusiness
Your estimated profits after a given number of months, is expressed by the formula:
So for instance, let’s say that you are considering going into a certain niche. After doing some research, you find that the business should be viable with some moderate effort.
You figure you should definitely be able to sell 6 units per day to begin with - and that the market is willing to pay a price that gives you $50 profit per unit sold.
Your 1st month in business should bring in approximately 30 days x $50 x 6 = $9000 in profits from units sold.
Now let’s assume you figure that your monthly expenses that take away from this are roughly $3000 (overhead, advertising, rent, whatever, etc.)
So your gross 1stMonthProfit = $6000
You also talked to a friend who is running a similar business, and find out that with the moderate marketing he is doing – you should also be able to grow at roughly the same rate he is doing (or better). It estimated that you too can increase the business with about 10% each month.
MonthlyGrowth = 1.10 (the same as 10%)
So - what kinds of profits will this business be making 6 months, 12 months, or even 24 months going into it?
Let's see...
I hope my explanations and everything here makes sense. But if you have any feedback or comments to this - or have suggestions to things I could add to the spreadsheet, I would love to hear them!
Eskil
in such a large world and limiting myself for now to my own city (Vancouver BC) I've got 2.4M potential customers. Keeping in mind, not everyone will support my biz and that's ok.
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