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I quote "It is at the Redline where the man are separated from the boys" This is my story

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Arthur Redline

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Hi guys,

I am not an active member, I did have an account but when you are too busy failing to succeed you do not have the time to be on a forum a lot. The reason I am writing this is to help others if I can, and to show @MJ DeMarco that another life has been saved because of him and his books. While I just read the second book Unscripted , for me it is the first book that still boils my blood even today after all 6 years. And I mean that in the most positive way. And while I had both books digitally, I ordered both in paper just because I loved them so much.

So my story. The start of the story you can read in the introduction part. The second part is this:
After I read the book The Millionaire Fastlane at an age of 25 I started to execute. And with execute I mean I was so childish that I immidiatly starten companies without second toughts or even knowing anything about the business I was getting into. When I look back at what I created in my first 3 attemps I always have to laugh. I can not believe it was me on such a low level of understeanding anything actually. But that is what process does with you. No matter how low you start, process makes you a different man at a completly different level.

So what about me than? Well At the moment I have bicycle company in a niche where I do not have competitors (yet). I excpect some attempts soon which will fail. Why? I build a brand that knows no other. Except from the apple stores (when a new Iphone comes out) I do not know a nother store that has waiting lines in front of the store like mine. So what did I do?

At age 28 I just failed an internet business that was promising big things. But at the end it failed. But I was so close I could smell it. After that I broke down, got depressed. My girlfriend left me. I was a 28 year old loser with a long list of failures and 0 succes. Still I was not planning to get a job. My father was fixing old bikes from scrap and selling them to students from his backyard. He was making 2000 euros a month and it was enough for him. Because I did not want a job I went to work with him a little bit just to get by and to buy some time for my next fastlane project. What I did not know was that there was a hidden opportunity right before my eyes. It took me 6 months to see this opportunity, but with a long list of failures I knew this one could make money even if it would be small amounts. After 8 months I started talking to the few costumers my dad had. I started getting good at fixing bikes. And after a few more months I started to get happy costumers. And by that time I knew there was a market for what we were doing. I also realized something else. I was not good online (like MJ) and god knows I tried!!! But I was really good Offline.

The city I live in has 12.000 new exchange students every year. And they all needed an affordable bike. So what did I do? I took the lessons from my fathers backyard an after 6 months of thinking, planning and constructing the brand I started a second hand bicycle store designed for this group of people. From where I was coming (an income just enough to pay the bills) a normal salary of 2000 euro a month would be a great succes in my book. But I was wrong. You see, this time I was wrong the other way. My succes would be legendary! I worked my a$$ off 10hours a day for 6 days a week hoping I could pay the bills the first month. And I did, I made a 1000euro profit that first month. I was so happy with the profit, for me it was a big amount of money. The second month I had exactly 2000 euro profit. I could not believe my luck. Such money was huge for me. And then in the third month....the word got around and whitout any advertisement, my costumers were extremely happy with the concept, product and the service I provided. You will not believe this but the third month my company exloded! I made a profit of 30k and because it was the start of a new schoolyear everybody needed a second hand bike. I was sold out for months, I had a waitinglist of 30 days and I worked my a$$ off to keep up. The company became something beautiful, I had created a brand where people only wanted my product and not someone elses. Till this day my store gets good profits and it wants to grow. So I went from 900euro a month to an average of 20.000 euro a month in a years time. And while this company is slowlane I am not. My next plans are to franchie the shit out of this and make it a national brand and therefore fastlane. I know at least 15 cities in the netherlands where this would work 100%. After that I probably sell everything or just keep going. But the work I do now is pure passion. I do not have a boss or an alarm clock. I take 3 weeks off if I want to (just did actually) and It does not hurt at all.

What I wanted to share is that the process is the longest part of the road. And it is not easy. It will rule out EVERYONE that is trying and will be left with the ones who are goint to succeed or die trying. Once you are on a point that you can brake the tides that bind (MJ's quote) things go fast. And while you might have tought 10k is a lot of money before, it becomes small change after that. I make in a month as much money as an average household in the Netherlands in a year (including the one friend that gave me the TMF book).

And all of the sudded people take me seriously. They believe my fastlane preaches and want to be in business with me. Ow btw. The internet business that failed when I was 28? It is now in hands of a few online millionaires who are going to make it really big this upcoming year. And while I am not waiting on that, it will probably make me twice as rich with passive income since I only have a 25% stake in it and am not going to work on it anymore.

This is my story in short. What you do not read is the sleapless nights I had, the stress and the hunger that comes with it. The people that give up on you. My parents started thinking I am a crack junky because I was not getting a job but was working on projects to make a real difference. The challanges that make you think you are a 1000 years away from succes. But with hard work, failures and learning from them, you can go a long way. My failures cracked a door open to new opportunities, and they brought me in line with a seed that needed planting. I excpect to be a millionaire in a few short years.

If I can help anyone I will. It is the least I can do after what MJ and this forum has given me.

Regards,

Arthur Redline
 
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NewManRising

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Great story. Your story actually gave me some ideas. I live right next to a university. I had thought about a product that could cater to college students before. But now I am giving it more thought. And no, it is not bikes. But something else. Thanks
 

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hey Arthur love your story man! congrats !

its very funny a friend of mine asked me today if it would be a good side hustle to Buy and Sell Racing bicycles?
Are you selling racers as well?
 

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These stories pump me up so much.
Congratulations brother. All the success to you!
#process

@MJ DeMarco mark this as Notable/Gold?
 
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Paul Schuyler

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What a great story. Congratulations! I'm really interested in your 'online' and 'offline' transition. I seem to over and over to get wrapped up in big, speculative projects with lots of technical unknowns, heavy capital investment, or long lead times. That is, projects which are a long distance from that vital market feedback (i.e. I think of these as "build it and they will come" projects). It sounds like with your new business it was the exact opposite. You started tiny on the ground with your hands (literally grease on your hands!), and worked a small niche. Bit by bit you improved it until you saw the bigger picture of a real opportunity from which your brand emerged.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Arthur Redline

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Thank you guys for the positive responses! Appreciatie them!

@Vanderbilt
Are you selling racers as well?

Hi,
Yes I sell racing bikes aside normal bikes. The thing is you have to at least have some nollage to improve the (second hand) bike before you sell it again. Otherwise I do not think you can ad enough value to it to make a decent profit. If only one thing is broken you can already bargen the price and once you fixed that one thing (whick can be a fix of 5 minutes) and than you have added value an will make a better profit.

And if I may add, and this is my opinion. I do not think that you can do this aside other things. It will destract you from your other ideas. Make sure you are working on 1 thing and do it well! Not on 5 things because the competitors will beat you because you do not have the focus for it.

@Roulf : thank you man, I hope it pumps you up enough to not rest until you get what you want ;)

@Paul Schuyler
Yes the transition was an eye opener and it took me 4 years to notice that. That is actually knowing yourself and knowing your strengts. We read TMF and thing alright I have to start big and change the world. And that is what I did with my internet company. But I do not think that is what MJ means. Because he also says: first make 50bucks, and then 100 andso on. Which means start small and learn as you go.

Now that I have had a succesfull company I understeand how the process works. It works exactly as you discribe. You have to learn everything about the market you are going in to. From the smallest thing to the biggest. And it is all the small things together that makes a big different as your process goes on. You have to be the best at what you are doing in your company. If your employee is better than you then that is the beginning of the end for you. Because he is going to make his own company or outsmart you. I have learned that outsourcing things does not work. It just costs a lot of money and people will never!!! deliver the quality for you, only you can do that! The commandment of control is just too important!
So in summary. Start by doing the smallest steps and do not skip steps. You want to build a internet company? Only you can build it in a way that works for you. But do recognize, that if online is not your thing you can be great offline. There are many ways to make a company fastlane. And you do not need a website to achieve that. A normal store (if really succesful) you can exstend by opening more stores or opening a franchinse like I am planning to.

So to give my example. I know everything about the bikes I sell. I fix them from frame up. There is no one that can screw me with prices no matter how good their story is. I know the technique of the bike. But also, I know my costumers and their needs. I know which bikes I can sell for more because of a big demand while other bikes never sell for a high price. And there are a 100 other things to know. Making profit is not hard because I know exactly what works and what has value.

Start simpel my friend. Insignificant small even. Make your hands dirty like I did and like MJ did. And pay attention as you do! Because the seeds are everywhere but you have to see them!
 

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Wow, this is an incredible story of perseverance. Truly motivational to read. Thanks for sharing. I hope you plan to stick around the forums more often now.

I find that I often shut my eyes to opportunities that are offline, which is obviously a big mistake. There is lots of opportunity offline especially since the new generation of entrepreneurs are so focussed on online.
 
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BrooklynHustle

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Hi guys,

I am not an active member, I did have an account but when you are too busy failing to succeed you do not have the time to be on a forum a lot. The reason I am writing this is to help others if I can, and to show @MJ DeMarco that another life has been saved because of him and his books. While I just read the second book Unscripted , for me it is the first book that still boils my blood even today after all 6 years. And I mean that in the most positive way. And while I had both books digitally, I ordered both in paper just because I loved them so much.

So my story. The start of the story you can read in the introduction part. The second part is this:
After I read the book The Millionaire Fastlane at an age of 25 I started to execute. And with execute I mean I was so childish that I immidiatly starten companies without second toughts or even knowing anything about the business I was getting into. When I look back at what I created in my first 3 attemps I always have to laugh. I can not believe it was me on such a low level of understeanding anything actually. But that is what process does with you. No matter how low you start, process makes you a different man at a completly different level.

So what about me than? Well At the moment I have bicycle company in a niche where I do not have competitors (yet). I excpect some attempts soon which will fail. Why? I build a brand that knows no other. Except from the apple stores (when a new Iphone comes out) I do not know a nother store that has waiting lines in front of the store like mine. So what did I do?

At age 28 I just failed an internet business that was promising big things. But at the end it failed. But I was so close I could smell it. After that I broke down, got depressed. My girlfriend left me. I was a 28 year old loser with a long list of failures and 0 succes. Still I was not planning to get a job. My father was fixing old bikes from scrap and selling them to students from his backyard. He was making 2000 euros a month and it was enough for him. Because I did not want a job I went to work with him a little bit just to get by and to buy some time for my next fastlane project. What I did not know was that there was a hidden opportunity right before my eyes. It took me 6 months to see this opportunity, but with a long list of failures I knew this one could make money even if it would be small amounts. After 8 months I started talking to the few costumers my dad had. I started getting good at fixing bikes. And after a few more months I started to get happy costumers. And by that time I knew there was a market for what we were doing. I also realized something else. I was not good online (like MJ) and god knows I tried!!! But I was really good Offline.

The city I live in has 12.000 new exchange students every year. And they all needed an affordable bike. So what did I do? I took the lessons from my fathers backyard an after 6 months of thinking, planning and constructing the brand I started a second hand bicycle store designed for this group of people. From where I was coming (an income just enough to pay the bills) a normal salary of 2000 euro a month would be a great succes in my book. But I was wrong. You see, this time I was wrong the other way. My succes would be legendary! I worked my a$$ off 10hours a day for 6 days a week hoping I could pay the bills the first month. And I did, I made a 1000euro profit that first month. I was so happy with the profit, for me it was a big amount of money. The second month I had exactly 2000 euro profit. I could not believe my luck. Such money was huge for me. And then in the third month....the word got around and whitout any advertisement, my costumers were extremely happy with the concept, product and the service I provided. You will not believe this but the third month my company exloded! I made a profit of 30k and because it was the start of a new schoolyear everybody needed a second hand bike. I was sold out for months, I had a waitinglist of 30 days and I worked my a$$ off to keep up. The company became something beautiful, I had created a brand where people only wanted my product and not someone elses. Till this day my store gets good profits and it wants to grow. So I went from 900euro a month to an average of 20.000 euro a month in a years time. And while this company is slowlane I am not. My next plans are to franchie the shit out of this and make it a national brand and therefore fastlane. I know at least 15 cities in the netherlands where this would work 100%. After that I probably sell everything or just keep going. But the work I do now is pure passion. I do not have a boss or an alarm clock. I take 3 weeks off if I want to (just did actually) and It does not hurt at all.

What I wanted to share is that the process is the longest part of the road. And it is not easy. It will rule out EVERYONE that is trying and will be left with the ones who are goint to succeed or die trying. Once you are on a point that you can brake the tides that bind (MJ's quote) things go fast. And while you might have tought 10k is a lot of money before, it becomes small change after that. I make in a month as much money as an average household in the Netherlands in a year (including the one friend that gave me the TMF book).

And all of the sudded people take me seriously. They believe my fastlane preaches and want to be in business with me. Ow btw. The internet business that failed when I was 28? It is now in hands of a few online millionaires who are going to make it really big this upcoming year. And while I am not waiting on that, it will probably make me twice as rich with passive income since I only have a 25% stake in it and am not going to work on it anymore.

This is my story in short. What you do not read is the sleapless nights I had, the stress and the hunger that comes with it. The people that give up on you. My parents started thinking I am a crack junky because I was not getting a job but was working on projects to make a real difference. The challanges that make you think you are a 1000 years away from succes. But with hard work, failures and learning from them, you can go a long way. My failures cracked a door open to new opportunities, and they brought me in line with a seed that needed planting. I excpect to be a millionaire in a few short years.

If I can help anyone I will. It is the least I can do after what MJ and this forum has given me.

Regards,

Arthur Redline
Congratulations & keep going!
 

NewManRising

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I find that I often shut my eyes to opportunities that are offline, which is obviously a big mistake. There is lots of opportunity offline especially since the new generation of entrepreneurs are so focussed on online.

Same here. I think we just think the scaleability is harder or non-existent and don't bother.
 

Arthur Redline

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Wow, this is an incredible story of perseverance. Truly motivational to read. Thanks for sharing. I hope you plan to stick around the forums more often now.

I find that I often shut my eyes to opportunities that are offline, which is obviously a big mistake. There is lots of opportunity offline especially since the new generation of entrepreneurs are so focussed on online.

Yes also I noticed how crowded the online world is these days. And because of it, it might be smart to look where others arent. Remember? When everyone is digging for gold, sell shovels ;)

We have a lot of bicycle companys in my city. And they are surviving by lowering their prices. Also they do not know a lot about bikes since I have to fix their bikes because they cant. Instead I offered better service, quicker repairs, whitout lowering my price. I skewd the possibilities and you do notice that.
 
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Love your story and will for sure keep this thread saved on my chrome fav'.
A great reminder for myself that if the online word don't want me, i can make something great offline.

And while I am not waiting on that, it will probably make me twice as rich with passive income since I only have a 25% stake in it and am not going to work on it anymore.

That is very smart !
 

Arthur Redline

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Sure thing. Offline is full of opportunity and control. My best friend is in the clothing business and makes 30k a month with his 3 stores. A nother friend is making also a nice change with buying and selling caravans. Just saying. There are many others making a lot more money whitout seeking it online where it seems everybody is doing things. If everybody is doing it, I do not want to anymore. And again, offline you have so much control. You look in the eyes of your costumers. Tells a lot more them some paid facebook of adwords ads.
 

ALC

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Sure thing. Offline is full of opportunity and control. My best friend is in the clothing business and makes 30k a month with his 3 stores. A nother friend is making also a nice change with buying and selling caravans. Just saying. There are many others making a lot more money whitout seeking it online where it seems everybody is doing things. If everybody is doing it, I do not want to anymore. And again, offline you have so much control. You look in the eyes of your costumers. Tells a lot more them some paid facebook of adwords ads.
I agree, but the online word bring one important commandments, which is TIME.

I'm in the Coffee industry, planning to open a new concept of coffee shop, made 3 threads about it here, but nothing has changed since because the market don't want me for the moment, it's christmas, not even one commercial space is free where i want to open the shop because people are spending their money like crazy, i'm keeping my eyes wide open for opportunities and making follow up to the owners.

Also, managing and working in a coffee shop is some serious hours too.
> The point here, building an online business save you TIME, maybe you have less CONTROL for many reasons, but you also have the opportunity for exponential growth, because there's no limit for your sales, and that for itself is big.
You also can open a business where/when the f*ck you want, and not waiting as i'm doing, which is so annoying.
 
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EricFromCanada

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Amazing story. You are definitely headed in the right direction, and I look forward to hearing more as your business progresses! :)
 

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" The process is the longest part of the road and it is not easy. It will rule out EVERYONE that is trying and will be left with the ones who are goin to succeed or die trying. "

Thanks for the share!
 
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Arthur Redline

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I agree, but the online word bring one important commandments, which is TIME.

I'm in the Coffee industry, planning to open a new concept of coffee shop, made 3 threads about it here, but nothing has changed since because the market don't want me for the moment, it's christmas, not even one commercial space is free where i want to open the shop because people are spending their money like crazy, i'm keeping my eyes wide open for opportunities and making follow up to the owners.

Also, managing and working in a coffee shop is some serious hours too.
> The point here, building an online business save you TIME, maybe you have less CONTROL for many reasons, but you also have the opportunity for exponential growth, because there's no limit for your sales, and that for itself is big.
You also can open a business where/when the f*ck you want, and not waiting as i'm doing, which is so annoying.

I agree with you partly. I think long hours are gonna be there for the first few years online or offline. But it does not make a difference if there is not a true need for what you are selling. If you get the need right, you will always have succes! Even when you product/service is not fully developt or perfect yet. I read once, that if you want to know if the need is there, a crappy version of what you are selling should still sell. And as you perfect it, it will only grow.

I am not saying that online is impossible. But I think a common man has more chance offline because we are not all gifted with magic hands for programming. Besides, online is also overrated because back in the day, like 20 years ago, you could get some true results with SEO and a good concept. Around 2000 a lot of people became millionaires because they were the pioniers at online businesses. These days because of facebook and google traffic is not free at all!! It costs a real chunk of change just to get some costumers. And if you want a good SEO you either have to have enormous budgets or spend 4 years on perfect SEO to get some free visitors. This I tried with my online business and it took me 2 years to get to 30.000 visitors a month free. But if I compare that to my real life store, because I have a good location, I only open the front door and people walk in (FOR FREE). Well I pay the rent, but if you spend my rent on adwords you would have traffic ONE DAY and would be left empty the rest of the month.

So in my opinion because everybody is doint it, the prices online have gone up MUCH more than in real life. Which makes opportuities arise in the OFFLINE world.

My offline experiance has been 10x faster and cheaper and more profitable.
 

Arthur Redline

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And I also want to note. Please do not get blinded about the scalability of online businesses. That is potentiel speed but like I meantioned above, there are a lot of problems getting that potential scale. So it might seem easier. But once you get in it, you will see that the potential speed does not come easy or cheap. And while there is nothing wrong with that, I think that for the same gamble people should not be blind for offline oportunities. Always start small, so you know exactly why and how you company grew. Otherwise you will not be able to control it anyhow, even if you get a massive amount of visitors. if you and your company is not ready in the back end you are not going to be able to control the situation and are going to bleed off real quick.
 

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Great story. Thanks for sharing.

I know a multi-millionaire who rents out bikes to tourists on day trips.
 
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PROCESS over EVENTS!

Great hustle Redline!

I feel the same way about TMF ! It's an amazing book!

Here is the thing:

Though, I do think UNSCRIPTED is a better book and more dialed in than TMF , there is just something about TMF.

Both great books btw. Best books I have read in my life.

Why I love TMF:

Though, many people on here view fast lane in terms of CENTS, the law of effection resonates more with me as a tool to build a fast lane business.

And it was in TMF I came across this.

(Unit sold x unit profit) + Asset Value.

Impact millions.

I dismissed a lot of ideas because of CENTS and it held me back for sometime (though like MJ said, any action is better than looking for an idea that meets all the CENTS commandments.)

Things didn't start to positively change for me till I said 'you know what, use the law of effection as your base formula and support it with CENTS.'

So I started a barbing saloon.

It failed ENTRY because this was a business with little to no barrier to entry where I live.

Anyone could literally get one up and running in a month with little investment. And there was a lot of saloons around town. On average, 2 on a street.

For NEEDS I wrote down more than 20 value attributes around the market and began these skewing value attributes massively.

Others used standing fans, so I went with air conditioning. (A lot of saloons are steaming hot in my area).

The average saloon had 4 barbing stations, I had 20. (This cut down massively on waiting time).

Sterilized equipments 24/7

Cable TV while you wait.

Free wifi.

Sold drinks/coffee at cost

You get the idea.

But the real plan was to open 10 chains a year in different locations in my state to meet the law of effection.

We started with doing 30 cuts a day and after 18 months we are doing 400+.

I reinvests most of the profit (50%).

Now, I can open a store every 2 months from allocated profits for reinvestment.

My long term goal is to open a 100 stores through careful iteration over the next five-ten years.

All the stores are standardized. They look alike, feel alike, have same value arrays and people are starting to recognize us as a brand.

Thank you MJ for that single formula!

It's changed a lot for me.

Sorry OP if it seems like I hijacked your thread but your story inspired me to tell my story too and validate the true essence of impacting MILLIONS.

For me, my advice to new fastlaners would be lean more towards using the law of effection, enter big established markets so you take care of N in cents, then skew value massively think 10x. Dial in on Control and TIME. Start always with the law of effection in mind. Chain, franchise etc.

Somewhat controversially forget E at the beginning. This held me back a lot because Entry made me start looking for brand new, difficult ideas. And when I did find one, it required a lot of capital and skill sets that were not easily attainable for me.

The trick is to use your value skews to obey entry down the line.

Keep skewing value at every turn. Every week I look for two value attributes in my market and skew them as far as I can!

This compounded over time and started creating a massive moat for my barbing shops. I left my competitors in the dust before the realized what was going on.

Once again, congrats OP.

Please keep us updated.



Hi guys,

I am not an active member, I did have an account but when you are too busy failing to succeed you do not have the time to be on a forum a lot. The reason I am writing this is to help others if I can, and to show @MJ DeMarco that another life has been saved because of him and his books. While I just read the second book Unscripted , for me it is the first book that still boils my blood even today after all 6 years. And I mean that in the most positive way. And while I had both books digitally, I ordered both in paper just because I loved them so much.

So my story. The start of the story you can read in the introduction part. The second part is this:
After I read the book The Millionaire Fastlane at an age of 25 I started to execute. And with execute I mean I was so childish that I immidiatly starten companies without second toughts or even knowing anything about the business I was getting into. When I look back at what I created in my first 3 attemps I always have to laugh. I can not believe it was me on such a low level of understeanding anything actually. But that is what process does with you. No matter how low you start, process makes you a different man at a completly different level.

So what about me than? Well At the moment I have bicycle company in a niche where I do not have competitors (yet). I excpect some attempts soon which will fail. Why? I build a brand that knows no other. Except from the apple stores (when a new Iphone comes out) I do not know a nother store that has waiting lines in front of the store like mine. So what did I do?

At age 28 I just failed an internet business that was promising big things. But at the end it failed. But I was so close I could smell it. After that I broke down, got depressed. My girlfriend left me. I was a 28 year old loser with a long list of failures and 0 succes. Still I was not planning to get a job. My father was fixing old bikes from scrap and selling them to students from his backyard. He was making 2000 euros a month and it was enough for him. Because I did not want a job I went to work with him a little bit just to get by and to buy some time for my next fastlane project. What I did not know was that there was a hidden opportunity right before my eyes. It took me 6 months to see this opportunity, but with a long list of failures I knew this one could make money even if it would be small amounts. After 8 months I started talking to the few costumers my dad had. I started getting good at fixing bikes. And after a few more months I started to get happy costumers. And by that time I knew there was a market for what we were doing. I also realized something else. I was not good online (like MJ) and god knows I tried!!! But I was really good Offline.

The city I live in has 12.000 new exchange students every year. And they all needed an affordable bike. So what did I do? I took the lessons from my fathers backyard an after 6 months of thinking, planning and constructing the brand I started a second hand bicycle store designed for this group of people. From where I was coming (an income just enough to pay the bills) a normal salary of 2000 euro a month would be a great succes in my book. But I was wrong. You see, this time I was wrong the other way. My succes would be legendary! I worked my a$$ off 10hours a day for 6 days a week hoping I could pay the bills the first month. And I did, I made a 1000euro profit that first month. I was so happy with the profit, for me it was a big amount of money. The second month I had exactly 2000 euro profit. I could not believe my luck. Such money was huge for me. And then in the third month....the word got around and whitout any advertisement, my costumers were extremely happy with the concept, product and the service I provided. You will not believe this but the third month my company exloded! I made a profit of 30k and because it was the start of a new schoolyear everybody needed a second hand bike. I was sold out for months, I had a waitinglist of 30 days and I worked my a$$ off to keep up. The company became something beautiful, I had created a brand where people only wanted my product and not someone elses. Till this day my store gets good profits and it wants to grow. So I went from 900euro a month to an average of 20.000 euro a month in a years time. And while this company is slowlane I am not. My next plans are to franchie the shit out of this and make it a national brand and therefore fastlane. I know at least 15 cities in the netherlands where this would work 100%. After that I probably sell everything or just keep going. But the work I do now is pure passion. I do not have a boss or an alarm clock. I take 3 weeks off if I want to (just did actually) and It does not hurt at all.

What I wanted to share is that the process is the longest part of the road. And it is not easy. It will rule out EVERYONE that is trying and will be left with the ones who are goint to succeed or die trying. Once you are on a point that you can brake the tides that bind (MJ's quote) things go fast. And while you might have tought 10k is a lot of money before, it becomes small change after that. I make in a month as much money as an average household in the Netherlands in a year (including the one friend that gave me the TMF book).

And all of the sudded people take me seriously. They believe my fastlane preaches and want to be in business with me. Ow btw. The internet business that failed when I was 28? It is now in hands of a few online millionaires who are going to make it really big this upcoming year. And while I am not waiting on that, it will probably make me twice as rich with passive income since I only have a 25% stake in it and am not going to work on it anymore.

This is my story in short. What you do not read is the sleapless nights I had, the stress and the hunger that comes with it. The people that give up on you. My parents started thinking I am a crack junky because I was not getting a job but was working on projects to make a real difference. The challanges that make you think you are a 1000 years away from succes. But with hard work, failures and learning from them, you can go a long way. My failures cracked a door open to new opportunities, and they brought me in line with a seed that needed planting. I excpect to be a millionaire in a few short years.

If I can help anyone I will. It is the least I can do after what MJ and this forum has given me.

Regards,

Arthur Redline
 

Arthur Redline

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PROCESS over EVENTS!

Great hustle Redline!

I feel the same way about TMF! It's an amazing book!

Here is the thing:

Though, I do think UNSCRIPTED is a better book and more dialed in than TMF, there is just something about TMF.

Both great books btw. Best books I have read in my life.

Why I love TMF:

Though, many people on here view fast lane in terms of CENTS, the law of effection resonates more with me as a tool to build a fast lane business.

And it was in TMF I came across this.

(Unit sold x unit profit) + Asset Value.

Impact millions.

I dismissed a lot of ideas because of CENTS and it held me back for sometime (though like MJ said, any action is better than looking for an idea that meets all the CENTS commandments.)

Things didn't start to positively change for me till I said 'you know what, use the law of effection as your base formula and support it with CENTS.'

So I started a barbing saloon.

It failed ENTRY because this was a business with little to no barrier to entry where I live.

Anyone could literally get one up and running in a month with little investment. And there was a lot of saloons around town. On average, 2 on a street.

For NEEDS I wrote down more than 20 value attributes around the market and began these skewing value attributes massively.

Others used standing fans, so I went with air conditioning. (A lot of saloons are steaming hot in my area).

The average saloon had 4 barbing stations, I had 20. (This cut down massively on waiting time).

Sterilized equipments 24/7

Cable TV while you wait.

Free wifi.

Sold drinks/coffee at cost

You get the idea.

But the real plan was to open 10 chains a year in different locations in my state to meet the law of effection.

We started with doing 30 cuts a day and after 18 months we are doing 400+.

I reinvests most of the profit (50%).

Now, I can open a store every 2 months from allocated profits for reinvestment.

My long term goal is to open a 100 stores through careful iteration over the next five-ten years.

All the stores are standardized. They look alike, feel alike, have same value arrays and people are starting to recognize us as a brand.

Thank you MJ for that single formula!

It's changed a lot for me.

Sorry OP if it seems like I hijacked your thread but your story inspired me to tell my story too and validate the true essence of impacting MILLIONS.

For me, my advice to new fastlaners would be lean more towards using the law of effection, enter big established markets so you take care of N in cents, then skew value massively think 10x. Dial in on Control and TIME. Start always with the law of effection in mind. Chain, franchise etc.

Somewhat controversially forget E at the beginning. This held me back a lot because Entry made me start looking for brand new, difficult ideas. And when I did find one, it required a lot of capital and skill sets that were not easily attainable for me.

The trick is to use your value skews to obey entry down the line.

Keep skewing value at every turn. Every week I look for two value attributes in my market and skew them as far as I can!

This compounded over time and started creating a massive moat for my barbing shops. I left my competitors in the dust before the realized what was going on.

Once again, congrats OP.

Please keep us updated.

Really cool story and it sounds like you are good on your way. How many stores are you at now? But as we can see, for all of us their is a different road to succes. Which is also a reason I was not on the forum all of that time but used my time to execute and learn. In the end, no one can know what your road is. You have to find it yourself. Also this MJ said before. But still a lot of people are looking for a preordend road while there is not one that works for everyone. We have to combine OUR personal talents with the knowledge that MJ teaches us. I think that if you do not see that you have not really understeand the book right?

I love the first book most because you can feel MJ's passion in his words. And for me that is more motivation than just kwonledge. Both books are really good the second one is more detailed, and for that rease a thikker book :D

You know what I also learned. I started this store to escape a job and to buy time for a fastlane project. And while this was never ment to be as big as it is, it even has the option to be fastlane. So how come? I did not think scale at all when starting it. Well I think that almost everything can be scaled and duplicated once you have one that works. Because all of the sudden because my formula works, I can franchise it, or open more stores around the country. So could anyone explain why a store can not be fastlane? I think the problem is always the person owning the business. My father does not know fastlane and he will never think that his store can be bigger. But because I do, there are a lot of possibilities to expand. I really do not see the problem with offline business. Just because a website has potential to go global does not mean it is going to!! These days you need to be a billionaire to go global with your site, or invent internet all over again. Otherwise no one is going to care. People are used to awesome because the market is saturated and the competition is huge. It will take people a few more years to realize that.
 

banjoa

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I'm at 11 stores now Redline.

I think you are already thinking of scale at the beginning.

By beginning I don't mean before you launch. I just mean the early stages.

When I opened my first store, I kept scale on a back burner. I made the first store my Petri dish.

Once I figured out the unit economics of the business I went for the impact millions model.

So obviously, magnitude isn't really on my side because unit profit is small for this market so I'm fastlaning through scale by chaining.

Re online business, I had similar experiences as yours. I failed in about 30 online ventures and I agree with you when you say the space is just saturated.

Many are making it work though but it's just very difficult. It's hard to stand out.

I also discovered it way harder to make people give you money online than offline.

And the competition offline is very laughable. A lot of your competitors will stuck; doing things like it's the 70s.

Offline businesses also has process almost automatically imbedded in it. You have no choice than to hustle and grind it out.

Online, you can easily get stuck action faking all year long.

Oh let's throw up a landing page.

Oh let's buy some ppc ads.

Oh let's revamp our website.

Let's outsource our logo creation.

Oh let me just write this ebook and throw up some training courses and see what happens.

So you are right.

But nothing wrong with online, I just think it's over represented in the entrepreneurial circle.

Thank you once again for sharing your story.




Really cool story and it sounds like you are good on your way. How many stores are you at now? But as we can see, for all of us their is a different road to succes. Which is also a reason I was not on the forum all of that time but used my time to execute and learn. In the end, no one can know what your road is. You have to find it yourself. Also this MJ said before. But still a lot of people are looking for a preordend road while there is not one that works for everyone. We have to combine OUR personal talents with the knowledge that MJ teaches us. I think that if you do not see that you have not really understeand the book right?

I love the first book most because you can feel MJ's passion in his words. And for me that is more motivation than just kwonledge. Both books are really good the second one is more detailed, and for that rease a thikker book :D

You know what I also learned. I started this store to escape a job and to buy time for a fastlane project. And while this was never ment to be as big as it is, it even has the option to be fastlane. So how come? I did not think scale at all when starting it. Well I think that almost everything can be scaled and duplicated once you have one that works. Because all of the sudden because my formula works, I can franchise it, or open more stores around the country. So could anyone explain why a store can not be fastlane? I think the problem is always the person owning the business. My father does not know fastlane and he will never think that his store can be bigger. But because I do, there are a lot of possibilities to expand. I really do not see the problem with offline business. Just because a website has potential to go global does not mean it is going to!! These days you need to be a billionaire to go global with your site, or invent internet all over again. Otherwise no one is going to care. People are used to awesome because the market is saturated and the competition is huge. It will take people a few more years to realize that.
 
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Last edited:

Arthur Redline

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I'm at 11 stores now Redline.

I think you are already thinking of scale at the beginning.

By beginning I don't mean before you launch. I just mean the early stages.

When I opened my first store, I kept scale on a back burner. I made the first store my Petri dish.

Once I figured out the unit economics of the business I went for the impact millions model.

So obviously, magnitude isn't really on my side because unit profit is small for this market so I'm fastlaning through scale by chaining.

Re online business, I had similar experiences as yours. I failed in about 30 online ventures and I agree with you when you say the space is just saturated.

Many are making it work though but it's just very difficult. It's hard to stand out.

I also discovered it way harder to make people give you money online than offline.

And the competition offline is very laughable. A lot of your competitors will stuck; doing things like it's the 70s.

Offline businesses also has process almost automatically imbedded in it. You have no choice than to hustle and grind it out.

Online, you can easily get stuck action faking all year long.

Oh let's throw up a landing page.

Oh let's buy some ppc ads.

Oh let's revamp our website.

Let's outsource our logo creation.

Oh let me just write this ebook and throw up some training courses and see what happens.

So you are right.

But nothing wrong with online, I just think it's over represented in the entrepreneurial circle.

Thank you once again for sharing your story.

I agree with you completely!
Ow man 11 stores. That is a lot my man, good job!
So it is not a franchise is it? How do you cope with employees? My friend had a lot of problems with employees that just don't work good enough. They call in sick often, if he is not there they do not work as hard etc. etc.

That is also the reason I want a franchise. I know nobody will work as hard as me for my business. But they will for themselves. And I can still profit from their business.
 

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Congrats on moving forward Arthur. What made your business different from any other alike?

Sent from my T1-701u using Tapatalk
 

dgr

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Very inspiring process Redline!

The thing with the offline businesses is that the Entry barrier is usually higher than online. Just because the costs and the time needed is a bit higher. Except for people who know absolutly nothing about online, but probably that people also know nothing about CENTS.

Online, you can easily get stuck action faking all year long.

This is f*cking true. Online is way easier faking action.
 
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Arthur Redline

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Congrats on moving forward Arthur. What made your business different from any other alike?

Hi mosaster. Actually everything about my store is different from other stores. And I think that is because I did not look at the market and the competitors and decided to copy them. I just looked at what the costumer wanted and adoptet all the business rules to that of the costumer. From opening times to price points to service quality.

Also the work I do is very different. All the other stores just buy and sell new bikes. They never get dirty hands. In my store it is the oppisite. We only get the old and broken bikes. So think about this. If it is just a matter of buying and selling a product for a profit, you are not really adding value to a product. The bigget margins come frome work that you do to make something better than it was and therefore more desirable. For example. All the other stores in the city have the same bikes with almost identical prices. So why on earth would you buy a bike from a store that is not solely the closest to you? There is not one reason to travel a bit further and to buy your product in any of the other stores. That is because they are all in the ame market. To be a competitor in that market, all you have to do is have enough money to start a store like them. But you won't make any money doing it, because everybody is already doing it.
 

Arthur Redline

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Very inspiring process Redline!

The thing with the offline businesses is that the Entry barrier is usually higher than online. Just because the costs and the time needed is a bit higher. Except for people who know absolutly nothing about online, but probably that people also know nothing about CENTS.

So if the entry barrier is bigger offline and it is cheaper and faster online, which one should you choose?
You offcourse take the most difficult road because the competition is less. MJ said this many times. If you violate the commandment of entry, in no time everybody will do it and you will be out of luck.
 

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