I think after 5 years I quit but what's next?

[RazorCut]

Maybe you need to get out of the dropshipping space and find something that will create some purpose rather than a means of just bringing in money.

Sometimes it takes time to find something that creates a fire in your belly. But it's an uphill struggle if you don't have something that excites you enough to make you want to get out of bed in the mornings. Time for some serious reflection I think.

 

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[eliquid]

I’m interested in what @eliquid and @Lex DeVille would say. @Almantas too.

Thanks

I'll try not to bitch and moan on this thread but it's been about 5 years since I've started this journey I'm not even 1% to getting where I want to be. My most recent effort includes running a dropshipping store for a year learning some really great stuff about marketing and business probably the best experience I've had so far where I've generated over 150 sales (not much and at a massive loss) and I recently started another store where same thing except I was almost profitable among my facebook ad sets I've tested lots of products but nothing that has gotten me to a profitable stage.

Recently I had a product that had over 50 add to carts but no purchases (over $800 in profit lost) and I think it may be the product that is the problem but I'm not sure. But either way I've lost all energy to go forward. I thought a break is what I needed but I noticed no matter how many breaks I took, I would be back to square one.

I got a bunch of value providing ideas written down, but I get the feeling the same cycle would continue of no motivation, energy, etc. I don't know what to do next just looking for some advice if possible. While I don't feel like working on any projects at the same time when I don't it's affecting my quality of life much more where I'm bringing my personal problems to my workplace and it's affecting my mood and day. Starting to think have I just been on the wrong road the entire time?

Sound like it could be a few things.

1. Do you have realistic expectations? If it's to be richer than Warren Buffet, than maybe that's why your 1% is an unhappy movement.

2. How bad do you really want it?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSC2vx7zFQ


I know I would for sure be in the water, holding my breath and passing out. How about you? How bad do you really want it?

You ready to pass out from work over this? You want this more than air?

I have some pretty big goals. Things don't always work out for me like I planned. Because of this I was up from 7am until 4am ( the next day ) working. I got 3 hours of sleep last night. I have a migraine and no time to be running my son some money while he is stuck in Poland today, but I did it and came back and doubled up the work I missed out on.

I didn't take a day off like my brother-in-law would have. I didn't tell my son I couldn't find the time to send him money or tell my clients/business partner I needed time off to run to the bank. I didn't lay in bed or get distracted from the pain behind my eyes.

I didn't look for another business idea because I couldn't make the one I am on not work. You just do WTF you gotta do.

No one is coming to your rescue, so you just do it.

I haven't eaten in 2 days. Not because I can't or because I didn't have the time.. I was working and forgot. FORGOT. You ever want something so bad you FORGOT to eat? I have and I do it all the time. It's how I started intermittent fasting. I didn't do it for my health, it's just what happens.

Is this bad for my health? Maybe. My goals are more important though. Kinda like the video on how bad do you want it. What are you ready to give up ( if anything ) to get that goal.

If it's only mild comfort like you're willing to give up a Saturday afternoon of drinking, you ain't going to get anywhere. If you're ready to give up everything you have ever known and ever will know to play the game, you might get somewhere with it.

Past that, I think you may be chasing goals instead of actually making them. Real goals that fit you. You need to read this about 30 times in the next week and find out what actually fits you and what you want and can do:

GOLD! - MINDSET - Not Fulfilled? Depressed? Maybe You Need An Alignment

I'm sticking my neck out here because I know that SOME people will consider this topic along the same lines of "action-faking", "passion following", and other guru life coaching BS. Yes this will be a massive post, covering several posts actually. It gets deep and gets into tapping emotions...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

And Facebook Ads? Losing $800 is nothing.

Facebook needs about 50 events in less than a week to start optimizing things for you. If you want conversions you need 50 conversions for FB to start to kick in. Seems like you got 50 ATC's which is nothing.

You need to keep losing money before you really know what you have.

I've spent $500k of my own money on FB ads recently ( out of my own pocket ) and close to $10m in client's money for FB ads in the past 12 months. If you got a decent product, good copy, and a process to collect money after the sale ( funnels ), you can make most things work.

Find a way to get those 50 conversions, but do all the other stuff I said above too

.

 

[Timmy C]

I'll try not to bitch and moan on this thread but it's been about 5 years since I've started this journey I'm not even 1% to getting where I want to be. My most recent effort includes running a dropshipping store for a year learning some really great stuff about marketing and business probably the best experience I've had so far where I've generated over 150 sales (not much and at a massive loss) and I recently started another store where same thing except I was almost profitable among my facebook ad sets I've tested lots of products but nothing that has gotten me to a profitable stage.

Recently I had a product that had over 50 add to carts but no purchases (over $800 in profit lost) and I think it may be the product that is the problem but I'm not sure. But either way I've lost all energy to go forward. I thought a break is what I needed but I noticed no matter how many breaks I took, I would be back to square one.

I got a bunch of value providing ideas written down, but I get the feeling the same cycle would continue of no motivation, energy, etc. I don't know what to do next just looking for some advice if possible. While I don't feel like working on any projects at the same time when I don't it's affecting my quality of life much more where I'm bringing my personal problems to my workplace and it's affecting my mood and day. Starting to think have I just been on the wrong road the entire time?

Up to you man.

I've felt like this before at one stage.

Take a month off and enjoy life for a bit without worrying about all this stuff.

The itch will come back, you probably just need to lick your wounds, think about what you've done, where you f*cked up and come back for another round.

 

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[Burton]

Hey man, I'm pretty sure I understand what you feel and I want to show you part of my journey with some insights so you should understand that it is what it is if you picked this lonely, narrow road.

Let's start with that I was still working shitty jobs two years ago like pizza delivery man, warehouse worker, and so on. I dropped twice from college, I knew it's not a good place for me but my family pushed me to play with that anyway. I didn't even think entrepreneurship might be for me as I was told life is about getting a degree and working in a corporation. Everything has changed since I read TMF for the first time and joined this forum in mid-2018.

This is what I have tried during the previous two years:

Consultancy (success) - I started with this one after leaving my warehouse job. I learned to program myself and after a few months found a company that I could work for. It's still a thing I do on a daily basis but as a one-man-army. I'm self-employed and I help startups from across Europe with their apps developments. In addition, I'm having a good results with providing my services and making really decent money as for my country's standards. What shocked me this year the most was that one venture-backed startup from the marine industry replaced their CTO who had ~12 years experience with my services.

I heard a few times from my old friends something like "You got lucky with this". Well, I think the same but I created that luck for me by failing a lot and trying, and trying, and trying... I knew nothing about programming when I started out and I struggled a lot to learn it on my own. I was having a hard time hearing I'm not born to be a programmer when I was trying to find my first job. I felt bad when I tried to expand my consultancy to a bigger business and I failed.

What can be strange for you is that I don't like doing it. I had to start somewhere so I picked what was interesting for me and what might lead to another thing (it did). I'm definitely not a good fit for freelancing or building a consultancy business because it doesn't fulfill me. But now it gives me the flexibility and more money than I need to cover my monthly expenses so I'm in a perfect spot to try something else. That's why I treat it as a success.

Flipping cars from the US (failure) - even that it made me the most money it's still a failure for me, let's find out why. Briefly, I was already sitting on some cash from my programming hustles, and I wanted to multiply that somehow. I had a possibility to learn this and that from my dad about flipping cars (he was doing the same but with cars from Europe). I got into partnership with a transport company from New Jersey and the second one from Bremerhaven (later Rotterdam). They do all the work that needs to be done to transport a car from auction place to my home in Poland. As for repair damages it wasn't a big deal because I was using my dad's connections to fix them, in addition, I always targeted cars with small damages. I knew that the more expensive a car is the bigger profits are so what I did? Yeah, I took a 120k PLN loan and wipe out all of my savings to buy the first car which was almost brand new BMW M3 with "undercarriage damages". There was info on the auction site that the engine starts but there were no images of the damage itself so I thought "well, it is probably something with suspension". And it was but that's not all. It was true that the engine starts but it occurred to be broken. I think that car might be running without oil because there were just a few screws and a piece of plastic from the oil pan. In addition, the gearbox was broken as well. To sum up, I lost about 60k PLN on that deal and had some problems later on because I didn't tell the guy who bought it that the engine and gearbox were replaced. It wasn't fair but I just wanted to make any money back.

Did I quit? No, I said let's try one more time but I found a guy who can check the car damages and documents in detail before the auction starts. I started importing a bit less expensive Audi cars firstly, then I jumped to more sports ones and I was able to sell most of them with really good profits even before I get them to Poland. I have way more money than I needed - and that was a problem.

My brain got really f*cked up. I started to live above my means including expensive trips, clothes, exhausting parties with drugs, cars, going to restaurants and paying for everyone with me, and so on. I thought entrepreneurship and making decent money is about that, well it's at least on Instagram. There was a moment where I was sitting on 4 sports cars at a time, I was so stupid that I came to an idea - let's buy a Rolex (every entrepreneur should have a Rolex on his hand right?) and I did it. But I bought an Omega watch as well because I got a discount by buying them together. And you know what's funny? I bought them from a guy who wanted to sell mostly everything he had because he went bankrupt with his company due to doing the same stupid shit I was doing.

What's the end of that? I started to hate that business and my lifestyle, I also jumped into to some troubles because at some point I imported too many cars and I couldn't sell them all, I started borrowing money from random people because banks didn't want to give me more credit. I was exhausted mentally and physically, I was depressed and I became anxious and nervous because I was thinking about what everyone else will think about me if I lose what I have and go back to where I was. Fortunately, I was able to sell mostly all of the imported cars including my ones, and pay off the credits and loans from other people. I still have mental problems from that time, I think mostly from drugs and the stressful end of that business. However, I got a good life experience from that and I have learned a lot. Maybe not about business but about what I truly want in life.

By the way, I'm not fully out of that business but I don't invest my own money in it, it's not for me. What I do is I help my friends to make money by doing that (I share my connections and experience) and I sometimes organize the whole process of importing a car to Poland for a small commission (just for my friends as well).

Luxury car rental company (in progress) - I got into this because of my previous hustle. Why? Firstly because I started to notice that quite a lot of people asked me if they can rent one of my own cars, secondly I saw a growing trend of car rentals in Poland. I was still fixing my life at that time so I got into partnership with a lot older friend who is running a quite big transport company in Europe. We started by renting out my own cars and one of his cars. And it was the first failure, never rent a car that you paid in cash for when you are just starting a rental company, especially with luxury or exotic cars. It makes no sense because you will pay more for insurance, your warranty may not include some of the stuff and you will need cash to grow it. That's why I started to sell my cars one by one and I sold the last one about a month ago. During that time I ordered brand new Mercedes A45S and Mercedes CLA45S which I wanted to lease and there is the second failure. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, my business partner had problems with his company, basically with payments for company cars. I wasn't aware of it as he didn't tell me about that. It led to a situation where I can't get a lease for ordered cars because of his shares in our rental company and his problems. To sum up, I'm waiting for him to fix all the issues in order to get back to business.

As you see there are always some problems but what is great about that venture is that I uncovered a need for something else.

Travel mobile app (failure) - I started it with a guy I met on this forum. He had an idea I had the skills to build it up. Unfortunately, we started from the end, I mean from coding instead of researching, reaching out to potential customers and so on. After a while I had some doubts, he had as well and we together came to the conclusion that we did it wrong and finally we quit the project.

It seems there are no outcomes from that short hustle but they are, and they are big for me. As you read above I don't enjoy freelancing or consulting types of business in the IT world. However, I realized I enjoy building my own software solutions and I already can code almost everything I want so why not try in that field?

What is my focus now?

As I mentioned I uncovered a need during my luxury car rental hustle which is a software product. In addition, I found out that I really enjoy building my own software solutions while I was failing to build a business around a travel mobile app idea. These two hard experiences led to what I'm doing right now and I eventually know what makes me fulfilled and around what I want to build my Fastlane business.

Now, do you see the relationship between my hustles?

- I was a simple guy working shitty jobs,
- Somehow I came across MJ DeMarco books and I joined this forum,
- Motivation from MJ books led me to start a programming job and become a highly paid consultant later on,
- Money from my programming jobs led to flipping cars hustle,
- Despite my hard times because of my stupidity when flipping cars, I was able to uncover another need in the car rental industry and I still work on it,
- I met a guy because of this forum which gave me an idea for an app business that we failed but I eventually found something I enjoy doing and I know I want to build my Fastlane business around that,
- Thanks to the car rental hustle I uncovered a need in that industry that I can solve with software. I already know that I like creating my own software solutions so I'm going to pick that idea and work on that.

What I want to really show you is that without my failures and struggles I won't be where I'm today. I will probably still struggle about what I want to do and around what I want to build my "lifetime" business. I will not know what I like to do and where I can provide value. It all takes time and effort, it will not be easy at all.

There are a few advises for you:

Do not chase money - it doesn't work at all, trust me. In addition, what's the point of chasing money when money will not make you happy. In my case, it made me exhausted and sad because of my stupidity. If you are driven by the money I'm sure you will not get it. Find one thing where you think you can provide the most value to others and stick to that no matter what.

Act small - showing off won't help you in finding happiness and you will not be remembered by doing it. Despite my failures, I still sit on some good money, I sold almost everything I bought during previous years and I feel a lot happier than I was. Mostly because I don't have to care about shitty things and I can focus fully on building my Fastlane business and how can I provide value to others.

Remove all social media from your life - unless you use it for your business. I mean really, you don't need that bunch of bullshit and fake entrepreneurs and it will make it harder for you to achieve it. Try to avoid as many distractions as you can.

Find a mentor - or somebody you can talk to about entrepreneurship stuff. It really helped me and big thanks to @Longinus . Man, I will not be there today if not your insights, lessons, and advice. Including some good time driving my cars together lol.

Take care of your mental and physical health - take it to your heart, you can achieve everything if you have good health. My struggles led me to mental problems and you really want to avoid that. I'm sure you don't want to have intense brain fogs for a few weeks while all your doctors say they don't know what's going on because all of the blood tests and neurological checks are good.

To sum up, keep it up. Fail and try again, there is no other way. And like I always say:

Money without knowledge makes you stupid,
but knowledge without money will make you rich eventually.

Good luck!

 

[OneLife]

I'm in no position to tell you what to do next, but if you want you can PM me your store and I'll tell you what I think. I had miserably failed with 4 stores but I kinda changed my mindset in terms of eCommerce and finally things are starting to click ($6k last month with 20% profit. Not really a big achievement but after losing thousands of $$, it's something)

 

[Nectarofthegods]

Entrepreneurship isn’t always fun but it shouldn’t be ruining your quality of life. Maybe consider that entrepreneurship isn’t your path (it isn’t for most people) and try to find as much enjoyment from your work and life as possible. This self improvement, make money and hustle culture has gotten very toxic and ignores the fact that most people have no business starting their own company. Just something to consider

 

[TheGreek]

I am not in the dropshipping business but I have felt like that before in my projects. I wanted to quit or change businesses many times in the last years. But I don't believe there is a wrong road. We learn from everything and move forward.

You have probably learned some skills that you could use even if you don't want to continue with your stores. There are mindset lessons on any journey as well.

The negativity and the lack of energy or motivation are signs that you don't expect results from your efforts or don't like the activities. You may push yourself too hard as well. It's important to do things that will allow you to become optimistic about the future again and enjoy your work.

I try not to think of the short term results. When I think short-term, I get stressed. I don't expect any big changes in the next days, weeks, or months. But I want to build something big in the long term. I just try to take one step forward today in the right direction. Find one more client, write one more blog post, do a few more reps on the gym, etc. In 5-10 years, I will have something big.

Nothing significant happens in the short-term. So, it's fine to take some days off and just have fun or think about what you want to build. There is no need to rush.

 

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[Andy Black]

I'll try not to bitch and moan on this thread but it's been about 5 years since I've started this journey I'm not even 1% to getting where I want to be. My most recent effort includes running a dropshipping store for a year learning some really great stuff about marketing and business probably the best experience I've had so far where I've generated over 150 sales (not much and at a massive loss) and I recently started another store where same thing except I was almost profitable among my facebook ad sets I've tested lots of products but nothing that has gotten me to a profitable stage.

Recently I had a product that had over 50 add to carts but no purchases (over $800 in profit lost) and I think it may be the product that is the problem but I'm not sure. But either way I've lost all energy to go forward. I thought a break is what I needed but I noticed no matter how many breaks I took, I would be back to square one.

I got a bunch of value providing ideas written down, but I get the feeling the same cycle would continue of no motivation, energy, etc. I don't know what to do next just looking for some advice if possible. While I don't feel like working on any projects at the same time when I don't it's affecting my quality of life much more where I'm bringing my personal problems to my workplace and it's affecting my mood and day. Starting to think have I just been on the wrong road the entire time?

I’m interested in what @eliquid and @Lex DeVille would say. @Almantas too.

Does getting market feedback motivate you? Like a heartfelt thank-you note from someone you’ve helped? I get those occasionally and they are super motivating and inspiring.

As for attention/self-motivation. I seem to go in cycles. I immerse myself in something for a week, come up for air, then immerse myself in something different for another week. Like full-on tinkering till the wee hours or consuming YouTube videos and podcasts - without realising time is flying by.

I then naturally get bored/tired of it (I liken this to coming up for air).

I then dive into one of my other 3-4 projects that I’m simultaneously working on and immerse myself in that for a week.

Each month I move each of those projects forward and it’s not the complete shiny object syndrome it seems. All the projects are related, and I try to get something achieved that can be left on autopilot till I come back to review the results.

Sure, it might look like I’m going round in circles, but I’m laying bricks each week and building my moat higher each month.

So this is how I naturally keep motivated and working each week. (Although I don’t think working till the wee hours is a badge of honour... I was just illustrating how I lean into what fascinates me.)


Oh, and I have a dozen or so clients which brings a lot of variety.

And I participate in the forum and a few Facebook groups as my “break” from work.

And I message a lot of people in my network which helps keep me going as well as sane.

Do you regularly communicate with people? Do you have a handful of comrades in arms that you’re chatting to daily?


What’s on your list of “things to figure out”? I’ve a big list still, and a lot of them are progress threads in the forum that I round-robin between rather than keep on plugging away at just one.

 

[sparechange]

Nobody cares what you want, the market cares what it wants

 

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[NT2]

Maybe you need to get out of the dropshipping space and find something that will create some purpose rather than a means of just bringing in money.

Sometimes it take time to find something that creates a fire in your belly. But it's an uphill struggle if you don't have something that excites you enough to make you want to get out of bed in the mornings. Time for some serious refection I think.

I like this advice. It's really important to look within and not let people push you into something that's really not right for you. I know I'm an entrepreneur, specifically an artist. But I can't just do a business to make money. It has to align with my spirit. Not too many business gurus talk like this so you have to rely on your own intuition. For me, I'd rather do a day job plus my art than do some kind of dropshipping selling random products. Everyone has to find their own path.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Recently I had a product that had over 50 add to carts but no purchases (over $800 in profit lost) and I think it may be the product that is the problem but I'm not sure.

PM me your website. A good metric or rule of thumb I look for is at least 50% of your add to carts move on to checkout. 50% of checkouts initiated actually purchase. So you should have had about 12 people of the 50 add to carts actually purchasing. Let me take a look.

 

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[Bearcorp]

Give yourself some credit, your ventures may not have been successful but you've had some experience out of this so far, more than anyone in the world thats never attempted anything, you've made sales, had paying customers... I agree with @Timmy C, take a break, relax and have some time out, refresh and get ready to go again. You already know you've been chasing money rather than trying to create value, so you're not quite on the money yet (no pun intended) but you aren't far away.

I thought MJ used to have a video on his You Tube of the analogy of a baseballer stepping up to the plate, maybe he still does I couldn't find it though. You have to keep swinging, its ok to rest your body and your mind, but then you have to get back on the plate. Could be the very next swing that gets you a home run, but you won't know if you're in the bleachers eating hotdogs and drinking beers.

 

[Kid]

I did exactly what you feel want to do right now.

I gave up took money out of what i was doing and spent them on few things that supposed to make me happy.

Two things happen.
1. Those things made me happy for about few hours.
2. Month after that, what i was previously doing went x10 ( x14 to be exact ) - and pal that i discussed business with had good laugh for some time.

I don't regret it much, because from that event i got lesson - always follow what you think/believe.

So what you can do, now?
You can keep trying achieve your goals. Try different paths but keep the goal intact.
or
Give up, see for yourself that giving up is not an answer and come back to entrepreneurship.

Whatever you choose, i'm wishing you good luck!

 

[OneLife]

Can you tell us more about your mindset shift?

What most people do when they try dropshipping is they "chase winning products" that they see on some spy software/fb feed/guru's video about "SELL THOSE 30 PRODUCTS NOW"..

Now although you can obviously succeed with some of these products if you're doing a good job with the other aspects (your offer, store, your marketing) - it feels like trying to run outside with a blindfold.

Instead of chasing winning products, create winning products. Start with your target audience first, (pick your niche) then learn about them - what their pains are, what keeps them up at night, how do they talk, what they are already buying etc.

Then once you have a basic understanding of your target audience, you find solutions for them - products that can not only solve their problems, but also that fill the criteria for successful 'potential' products. (Good quality, has some kind of a 'wow' factor, good margins etc etc)

That's in a nutshell.

 

[Vito]

My message certainly won't be as motivational as the ones that some of the fine folk on here have for you and it might not even be what you want to hear but your current struggle or your current mental state is not unique to you and although it can feel lonely, most people on this path have been or are currently in the same position as you are now. Constantly striving is what will get you where you want to be and some people through skill or pure luck just manage to get there much quicker.

I live a very happy life overall but the truth is I first read MJ's MF book close to 10 years ago (I still have the order email from Sun, 10 Apr 2011, 22:38), and yet here I am all this time later on a Friday night slogging away still trying to 'make it' when I know others are chilling out, relaxing, and having a few beers.

This year has been my first hint of success. I launched something in January which is the first thing that has ever clicked for me – within a few months, I'd received around 600+ orders with a fairly limited ad budget and a good profit margin, around 10% of my customers left reviews most of which are glowing, heart-warming 5-star reviews saying they love the product...I thought I'd finally cracked it. Alas, Covid came along and I had an initial dip which was expected but manageable until, out of the blue, FB disabled my ad account around April, and still to this day I cannot understand why. It has really screwed me over (obviously a huge lesson to be learned from that alone).

Since then I tried a separate ad account which, again, was disabled. After that, I completely rebranded, changed domain, changed ad account, BM account etc. and launched very similar ads with very similar targeting, and guess what? Crickets. I just can't seem to sell this product that people love and people have bought in numbers before.

My point is that it's very easy to feel sorry for yourself and down, sometimes it's warranted and truth be told I'm currently swaying in and out of that myself for the last couple of months, but at the end of the day if you want it enough you just gotta keep chipping away. Unfortunately, I don't have much marketing experience or connections with loads of mentors to guide me through the problems I've had/am having and I don't have the answers, but I'm desperate to give myself and my family the best possible life so I'll just keep working and tweaking and testing until it all finally clicks.

Take some time away if you need it but you've got this. Even if takes another 5 years I'm looking forward to posting my own success-story thread on here and likewise, I'm looking forward to reading yours.

 

[LiveEntrepreneur]

I'll try not to bitch and moan on this thread but it's been about 5 years since I've started this journey I'm not even 1% to getting where I want to be. My most recent effort includes running a dropshipping store for a year learning some really great stuff about marketing and business probably the best experience I've had so far where I've generated over 150 sales (not much and at a massive loss) and I recently started another store where same thing except I was almost profitable among my facebook ad sets I've tested lots of products but nothing that has gotten me to a profitable stage.

Recently I had a product that had over 50 add to carts but no purchases (over $800 in profit lost) and I think it may be the product that is the problem but I'm not sure. But either way I've lost all energy to go forward. I thought a break is what I needed but I noticed no matter how many breaks I took, I would be back to square one.

I got a bunch of value providing ideas written down, but I get the feeling the same cycle would continue of no motivation, energy, etc. I don't know what to do next just looking for some advice if possible. While I don't feel like working on any projects at the same time when I don't it's affecting my quality of life much more where I'm bringing my personal problems to my workplace and it's affecting my mood and day. Starting to think have I just been on the wrong road the entire time?

 

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[Simon Angel]

PM me your website. A good metric or rule of thumb I look for is at least 50% of your add to carts move on to checkout. 50% of checkouts initiated actually purchase. So you should have had about 12 people of the 50 add to carts actually purchasing. Let me take a look.

He's dropshipping though.. what you're saying holds up mostly (even exclusively) for the US market.

Unless his payment methods were broken or his traffic was coming from India or Africa, I doubt he could go with 50 ATC and no sales when running ads in the US (or any English speaking country).

@LiveEntrepreneur I gave you a ton of advice on running a dropshipping store in one of your threads + scaling methods, it has obviously not worked for you.

Send us your store now and the product page with 50 ATCs so we can brainstorm what's going on, there's no point in letting all that time and money invested go to waste.

 

[OneLife]

Nothing significant happens in the short-term. So, it's fine to take some days off and just have fun or think about what you want to build. There is no need to rush.

I'm trying to implement this advice into my life, but the problem is every time I'm letting myself "go off the gas pedal" I instantly feel guilt and go back to thinking what else I can do to improve myself/my business. Would love to hear some opinions on how to let go sometimes lol

 

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[OneLife]

To continue the posts above,
Why did you start dropshipping? Why do you want to become an Entrepreneur?

Do you have a purpose, a reason you're doing this for, or is it just because being an entrepreneur and hustling is the trend now?

 

[Wouter]

I'll try not to bitch and moan on this thread but it's been about 5 years since I've started this journey I'm not even 1% to getting where I want to be.

Where do you want to be?

I think it may be the product that is the problem but I'm not sure

What makes you think the product is the problem?

I got a bunch of value providing ideas written down, but I get the feeling the same cycle would continue of no motivation, energy, etc.

Sometimes it takes a while to hear the market echo. But if you're 100% convinced you're building something valuable, you can run on that energy while results might be visible months/years later. Especially if you're convinced this will bring you to your personal goals. If you're money chasing, trying to sell products that nobody wants to buy just to make a short term profit, you'll run out of energy very quick.

Where do you want to be in 1 - 5 - 10 years? What is your big hairy audacious goal? Why is it worth it for you? What steps would you have to take to get there? What steps can you take today to get you to where you want to be 1 - 5 - 10 years from now? What service/product could you offer that would create massive value for you customers? What problems can you solve, what needs can you fill?

 

[sparechange]

Quit and get a job at Mcdonalds and keep dumping money into facebook ads and a dropshipping store with alixpress products, maybe sanj modha can help you out with that

Or start a real business that operates under CENTS and a productacracy? Some dude in Arizona wrote a couple books on it, forget his name..........

Stop chasing money?

 

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[Timmy C]

Take some time OP.

I honestly think you need some self-reflection.

Think about your journey, relax, list what you have done, what hasn't worked, what you believe would have been a more effective strategy.

You most likely have all the answers if you ask yourself the tough questions, and take some time to mull it over.

You are at a point where I think procrastinating over what you have done will be beneficial.

 

[JByers210]

I'm not sure how the local, mostly offline business opportunities are in Australia (if you actually live there)... but check out how @Johnny boy and @GravyBoat are running offline service businesses and killing it.

I ran an ecom biz for a few years... I totally committed to my offline hustle this year and I've had more success and growth than ever before... it's not even close.

Something to think about.

 

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[sparechange]

Give yourself some credit, your ventures may not have been successful but you've some experience out of this so far, more than anyone in the world thats never attempted anything, you've made sales, had paying customers... I agree with @Timmy C, take a break, relax and have some time out, refresh and get ready to go again. You already know you've been chasing money rather than trying to create value, so you're not quite on the money yet (no pun intended) but you aren't far away.

I thought MJ used to have a video on his You Tube of the analogy of a baseballer stepping up to the plate, maybe he still does I couldn't find it though. You have to keep swinging, its ok to rest your body and your mind, but then you have to get back on the plate. Could be the very next swing that gets you a home run, but you won't know if you're in the bleachers eating hotdogs and drinking beers.

One of my favorite ones, I was playing some basketball with it playing on my iphone laughing so hard at his voice impressions It's this one

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDniLwHktXY

Baseball is an amazing comparison to entrepreneurship. You could fail and fail (bat .300) and hit ONE homerun that makes you millions of dollars

 

[Bearcorp]

One of my favorite ones, I was playing some basketball with it playing on my iphone laughing so hard at his voice impressions It's this one

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDniLwHktXY

Baseball is an amazing comparison to entrepreneurship. You could fail and fail (bat .300) and hit ONE homerun that makes you millions of dollars

Thats the one! I didn't look hard enough

 

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[GravyBoat]

but I get the feeling the same cycle would continue of no motivation, energy, etc. I don't know what to do next just looking for some advice if possible. While I don't feel like working on any projects at the same time when I don't it's affecting my quality of life much more where I'm bringing my personal problems to my workplace and it's affecting my mood and day. Starting to think have I just been on the wrong road the entire time?

I was caught in this for years.

Guess why?

It's because I was chasing "quick money" and not providing value.

It's because I was building inauthentic business that did not align with my values.

It's because I didn't know WHAT I wanted, or WHY I wanted it.

You need to stop what you're doing and take some time for yourself to figure out the world's biggest question:

What do I want in life?

It seems very simple, but from here is where it all stems.

Go buy yourself a whiteboard. Ask yourself the question: what do I want?

Ask it 1000 times if you have to. DIG DEEP. Realize WHY you want "money." Why do you want xyz material item? WHY do you want "freedom" or to "not have a job" etc.

Once you understand WHY, THEN, you can choose a business that you ENJOY working on, that is AUTHENTIC to your personality, and something you can be PROUD of building, through the rough months/years where it's probably losing you money.

Stop drop shipping other people's products in hopes of making a quick buck. I've done the exact same thing you've done, multiple times. Losing money is losing money period, it means what you're doing is NOT working, in some way shape or form.

Instead of looking for the next FB ads "Hack," I would give some serious consideration to your values and life's mission in general.

Take personality tests. Find what you're good at. Sell something related to your skills, interests, and things you know.

If you want to make money fast, just start a home service business. You can literally be profitable day 1.

If you want to build something big, that you enjoy waking up each morning to work on (your goal), you need to take it back to the drawing board.

 

[Timmy C]

Where do you live in Australia man?

We will grab a coffee sometime if your in Melbourne.

 

[juresesko]

You can do many things.

You could go on with dropshipping

You could start to look what people need and make something yourself

You could stop building a business from scratch, start making money and then buy an existing one

You could try to get an internship where you will learn about business maybe

You could learn a skill in demand and try to make something out of it (copywriting, web design...)

You could look at this from a different angle you said you reached only 1% in 5 years and the only thing you mentioned was dropshipping what else did you try?

You could stop trying for some time if you feel like burning out maybe after some time an idea will generate.

You said you don't have any motivation/energy look into your passions maybe there you will find something you want to work on.

You could try to connect with god, faith is one of the strongest powers

I think something is wrong with you and the way you look at things than with entrepreneurship

I think that the answer to your question is hidden in you and not in the forum.
If you want to talk send me a PM we can have a chat about that.

 

[Timmy C]

I'm trying to implement this advice into my life, but the problem is every time I'm letting myself "go off the gas pedal" I instantly feel guilt and go back to thinking what else I can do to improve myself/my business. Would love to hear some opinions on how to let go sometimes lol

Some days I let go. I just automate things for the day to keep my group engaged. I'll still work but not really, it's a 10% day.

If you can't automate anything yet just take a day off, it will actually increase your productivity and you will be reenergised.

 

[Timmy C]

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

– Winston Churchill