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How to waste time and money playing entrepreneur

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Totally found myself going through this, like, right now.

I formed my corp, bank account, EIN, all that jazz, and realized the only thing actually built out are my mockups.

No customers, no revenues except some time-for-money Slowlane contract work.

Back to work...
 

Journey2Million$

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My philosophy is that you can't buy success. Success will come based on how good you are at your business and how much good work you get done, not based on how much money you spent on stuff. I've spent very little money on my internet business and I've earned many times what I spent. In the beginning, I think it's good to keep your expenses small, while you gain experience. Sometimes you do have to spend a lot of money for certain types of businesses though. But just buying stuff isn't going to make you successful at all. For example, you're not going to be a great guitar player just because you bought an expensive guitar. Harv Eker says that a lot of people think that business doesn't take skill, but in actuality your business success depends hugely on how good you are at the business. Again there are a few exceptions to this rule too.
 

Journey2Million$

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I think the main thing you need in business is the ability to sell, market, get customers. That's the biggest key. You can make more money with good sales ability and a mediocre or poor quality product than you can with a great product and poor sales ability. In the beginning I was totally clueless. I had no idea what makes a t-shirt design good, I didn't understand the customers, and I didn't know how to sell t-shirts. But I just had faith. I never gave up and I kept going until I learned all these things. Failure was not an option. When I finally started getting steady, reliable sales, I quit my job and it was one of the happiest days of my life. I was finally free from having to work in a job. It was always one of my dreams to simply not have to work for other people anymore, because I really hate that.
 

db7903915

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So true. This happens a lot to people that come to me wanting to start their business. Best advice, actually find a need and test it on a dummy site. Do your own market research & proof of concepts. Literally, you can make $10,000 by spending a couple hundred dollars in Adwords, and a week of your time.

Great post, hope it motivates others to think like a real business and not pretend to act like one!
Finding this advice pretty late, but this just gave me a kick in the a**. Thank you :)
 

Andrew C

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I did the same exact shit a few years ago. I thought I was hot shit, I had a business, a business bank account, a business debit card, a LinkedIn profile that said I ran a business...

...no paying customers, and when I tried to sell what I had, nobody wanted it. No market need.

Waste of time, waste of a couple grand. But it was a good lesson to learn for only a couple grand.

Hopefully other people won't have to learn this the hard way.

Some of the most VALUABLE business experience one can EVER have.
 
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Cynthia Nataline

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This is great because it's so easy to just be busy with all of the technical stuff, take care of the preparation, keep learning and then prepare again, worry about all the small stuff as if it matters the most, and so on. All of those stuff delay the real work, which is needed the most.
 

FeaRxUnLeAsHeD

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I wasn't the only one that made this fatal mistake?

*PHEW*

I've added a lot more steps prior to spending tons of cash in my business development process... Lot of useful info here. Bootstrapping, testing shit for free, making an ebay auction and see if people bid / what they will pay, make a free newsletter website and throw up some facebook ads, spend minimal, get a list, see who would pay, etc.

Another good thing i've learned is to keep your costs variable, that way if the business fails you dont spend assloads of money on a bunch of fixed assets that go to waste. Find unique ways to keep shit variable and reduce your fixed cost from the start. Maybe have a friend develop your site and offer profit sharing? Don't pay for a year of web hosting up front when you can pay monthly, and if the business flops in 3 months you didn't waste a shitton of money..

People think 'economies of scale' which is true.. the more you buy the cheaper your costs.

The only problem with that is you have to actually sell all of your shit in order for economies of scale to be effective / useful.

Fixed Cost < Variable Cost
 
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goodguude

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Two days into this forum and I find this thread, wow.

Just incorporated my first business - a LLC - equivalent in my country. - costs: about $300
logo - $20
business cards - $25
webhosting for a year - $40

Sums up to around $385.

I kind of feel like an idiot now. But I'll make the best out of it, no matter what.
Thanks for opening my eyes. I need to become a lot more efficient.

Good night.
 

oldkevx

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This is a fun thread to look back at.

Almost two years ago I had my FTE. I opened a marketing consultancy because it was the quickest way to take back part of my life.

We flailed as generalists for the first year. We listened to the market. We assessed how we could create value for the market and developed two products that have transformed us from an agency into something I can't put a label on.

For those who don't know, I co-founded a global franchise brand. In the haste to make money with the company I started, I didn't think about how valuable and unique my journey had been in the corporate world.

With my company we have filled the gap between the franchise consultants who come in, spout off advice, then leave. We know what needs to be done and we do it for the 2-3 companies we partner with each year.

For the companies we partner with we structure our agreements so that we have a 7-10 year royalty from the new entity they form to franchise or license.

We've helped a financial services company expand from one location to 36 and a health company go from one location to eight.

This weekend I couldn't help but smile at the residual income hitting my Stripe account and email from these efforts.

We are creating our own dividend paying mutual fund of royalty streams by solving an expensive problem for our customers. They are happy to pay us because the systems we built them take their lives and businesses to another level. No one else is offering our methodology and the tech we have built to make the process fun and lucrative for our customers.

The other product we launched this month is unlike anything we have seen in the market as well. 12 companies flocked to it in our first 30 days. I'll share more on it in a year after our hypothesis is fully proven.

I'm wrapping up "Unscripted " tonight and wanted to bounce in and share my gratitude for this forum.

I don't come by often because it has been heads down execution.

Sorry for the brevity, doing this on my phone is suboptimal.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Leo Hendrix

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Yeah I'm waiting til I have PAYING customers then I will use that capital to register etc.

Not sure how or if it will affect my credibility (unregistered, trading as an individual) but the aim is to let the results speak for itself.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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This weekend I couldn't help but smile at the residual income hitting my Stripe account and email from these efforts.

Very exciting. Congratulations. :)
 

LuckyPup

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Here I am, two years in "playing" entrepreneur and frankly failing. I want to share exactly how to waste money/time so you can avoid the pitfalls that I succumbed to:

Here's what you should do to guarantee wasting two years and money. I've quantified both elements for you

  • Form an Llc before you have paying customers $500 + 4 hours
  • Hire someone on elance to conduct industry research: $450 + 2 hours
  • Build a killer website: $2,000 + 2 weeks of tuning
  • Design and order business cards: $50 + 2 hours
  • Order checks $100 + 1 hour
  • Order envelopes $75 + 1 hour
  • Buy (and laboriously research) tax accounting app $200 + 8 hours
  • Open a bank account $0 + 2 hours
  • Get an EIN $25 + 1 hour
  • Hire an accountant to do taxes $250 + 4 hours
  • Get a merchant account $0 + 1 hour
  • Get a really cool stamp for depositing checks
  • Buy some BS courses $500 + 2 weeks
  • Download tons of free content and consume it in the car, at night and any other downtime $0 + 6 months
Total time wasted: Over 6 months
Total money wasted: $4,150


What if I would have invested all of this time and money in doing just one simple thing that actually moved the needle vs. made me feel like I was running a business?

Game over...I just killed the inner wanna be. Time to take action. I hope I saved someone else some time and/or money.

K

I'm your doppleganger x 10.
 
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oldkevx

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You can change that.

I did.

Don't give up. It's worth it. Life is too short to do anything else.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quick update:

This thread is three years old.

I've grown a lot since starting it. Here's a quick breakdown of wins and losses:

Wins
1) My company is a little over two years old and it is now starting to create residual income from multiple sources.

These sources were some of the most laborious to build and were far from passive.

The best one generated $4200 last month and required a few hours of nurturing. I've applied my experience in franchising to structure 7-10 year royalty deals with a few businesses.

2) The company is still lean in terms of headcount (3 FTE including myself and two dedicated contractors). We've somewhat smoothed out the lumpy revenues while keeping fixed costs manageable.

3) I've personally grown a lot. If I were to average out my hourly pay over the past two years it would be disappointing. The fact is, I don't care. Building a system requires delayed gratification.

Losses

1) Our son starts kindergarten on Wednesday and when I started this journey I envisioned my wife being able to quit her job (if she wanted to) by his first day of school. That's not happening and I feel a sense of failure and guilt.

I'm a blessed guy whose wife is supportive and also knows that building something remarkable takes time.

I'm now process driven vs. goal driven. That mindset shift has helped me get our of my own way and keep moving the chains.

Without this forum I'd probably still be a prisoner at my job. Now I'm utterly unemployable and have burned the ships.
 

Ivan2BAlive

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Quick update:

This thread is three years old.

I've grown a lot since starting it. Here's a quick breakdown of wins and losses:

Wins
1) My company is a little over two years old and it is now starting to create residual income from multiple sources.

These sources were some of the most laborious to build and were far from passive.

The best one generated $4200 last month and required a few hours of nurturing. I've applied my experience in franchising to structure 7-10 year royalty deals with a few businesses.

2) The company is still lean in terms of headcount (3 FTE including myself and two dedicated contractors). We've somewhat smoothed out the lumpy revenues while keeping fixed costs manageable.

3) I've personally grown a lot. If I were to average out my hourly pay over the past two years it would be disappointing. The fact is, I don't care. Building a system requires delayed gratification.

Losses

1) Our son starts kindergarten on Wednesday and when I started this journey I envisioned my wife being able to quit her job (if she wanted to) by his first day of school. That's not happening and I feel a sense of failure and guilt.

I'm a blessed guy whose wife is supportive and also knows that building something remarkable takes time.

I'm now process driven vs. goal driven. That mindset shift has helped me get our of my own way and keep moving the chains.

Without this forum I'd probably still be a prisoner at my job. Now I'm utterly unemployable and have burned the ships.

Congratulations on the transformation.
 
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STswiss

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Quick update:

This thread is three years old.

I've grown a lot since starting it. Here's a quick breakdown of wins and losses:

Wins
1) My company is a little over two years old and it is now starting to create residual income from multiple sources.

These sources were some of the most laborious to build and were far from passive.

The best one generated $4200 last month and required a few hours of nurturing. I've applied my experience in franchising to structure 7-10 year royalty deals with a few businesses.

2) The company is still lean in terms of headcount (3 FTE including myself and two dedicated contractors). We've somewhat smoothed out the lumpy revenues while keeping fixed costs manageable.

3) I've personally grown a lot. If I were to average out my hourly pay over the past two years it would be disappointing. The fact is, I don't care. Building a system requires delayed gratification.

Losses

1) Our son starts kindergarten on Wednesday and when I started this journey I envisioned my wife being able to quit her job (if she wanted to) by his first day of school. That's not happening and I feel a sense of failure and guilt.

I'm a blessed guy whose wife is supportive and also knows that building something remarkable takes time.

I'm now process driven vs. goal driven. That mindset shift has helped me get our of my own way and keep moving the chains.

Without this forum I'd probably still be a prisoner at my job. Now I'm utterly unemployable and have burned the ships.

thank you for the post and update. It remembers me of myself few years ago. My new Business model is all about killing the Wantrapreneur within People.
Rep+
 

oldkevx

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Update:

My business partner and I just acquired a franchise system with eight profitable units in our metro area. The system can be a 500-700 unit system and we can add on two direct/immediate sources of revenue via e-commerce and supplements. It is a fantastic platform business.

My marketing company is getting closer to just serving brands we have control over.

As I look back at this thread and then look around the new office we moved into two months ago, I can't believe how much hard work is starting to pay off.

We are still lean (4.5 employees) and our overhead is low.

If you are still sitting on the sidelines, take action and play the long game.

While I personally have a long path ahead, I'm starting to see the rewards of the 40+ months of effort.
 
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James Klymus

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This forum has thrown me for a loop and seeing the opportunities out there as online business was starting to feel slimy for me, but with stuff @biophase , @Ecom man @JasonR and others are posting, it doesn't have to be that way and it's legit and lucrative at the same time.

YES. I got started in the internet marketing scene (Alex Becker actually recommended me millionaire fastlane ) and it was just beginning to feel slimy to me after having some experience with business and growing in general as a person.

This forum proved to me that business shouldnt feel slimy.
 

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