In the Middle of the Desert, How Can I create a fastlane?

[RyanFerrer]

Hi,
What if you are in the middle of the desert, and the only tool you have is the internet (and have no money), how do you:

- find fastlane business idea (that caters to all Fastlane business commandments) or find a market
- validate (how to get some money)
- build (for free or under $40)


...fastlaners, do not hesitate to share!

 

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[HenkHolland]

Ryan, you deserve a compliment for your creativity in formulating your question to other forum members to come up with business ideas for you.
Use that same creativity to find a need and think of ways to fill that need without having money.

 

[Vigilante]

eBay

 

[Runum]

Find someone that needs sand.

 

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[Bigguns50]

Find someone that needs sand.

Yep...people sell sand on Ebay.

 

[AndrewNC]

Hi,
What if you are in the middle of the desert, and the only tool you have is the internet (and have no money), how do you:

- find fastlane business idea (that caters to all Fastlane business commandments) or find a market
- validate (how to get some money)
- build (for free or under $40)


...fastlaners, do not hesitate to share!

Ahhh, another member from Phoenix, AZ.... Welcome to the forum. Sell water filters... I refuse to drink the tap water in the desert.

 

[RyanFerrer]

On the contrary, Andrew..i'm at the Middle East thank you for the replies though.

 

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[RealEcon]

Sell stuff for people and take a profit. My retired parents had like 3 storage units of stuff they had collected over the years. They always said they needed to sell the stuff, but were too lazy and didnt know how to use craigslist. They ran out of money to pay for the units and had to donate a lot of cool stuff worth $$$$ to whatever organization came to pick it up.

If you are anywhere near baby boomers out in the desert, help people sell their crap before they die!

It will help them feel freer and more happy. And it will put money in your pocket, without having to invest any money.

...although to get started you do have to have a decent personality and go to where retires hangout and give them your flyer, business card, and just mingle with them like a good human being.

Edit:

I see you are in the middle east. Learn a programing language like php, ruby, js etc. And then create wordpress plugins for people, or scripts.

YT and blogs have so many tutorials now for learning programing languages.

 

[H. Palmer]

If I was living in a desert, I would move to an urban area.

Fastlane companies come into existence in urban areas, not in deserted ones.

No matter what your concept, you will always need people and infrastructure (networks, transportation, logistics) around you.

 

[MHolland]

Hi,
What if you are in the middle of the desert, and the only tool you have is the internet (and have no money), how do you:

- find fastlane business idea (that caters to all Fastlane business commandments) or find a market
- validate (how to get some money)
- build (for free or under $40)


...fastlaners, do not hesitate to share!

I know ALL about this desert you refer to. I was born there many moons ago. The Empty Quarter, ahh brings back memories!

You have a massive advantage. They have little to NO manufacturing over there. Almost everything they consume there is imported. Find the latest trends over in Europe or here in North America and introduce them over there. It doesn't get any faster lane than this. You will have hoards of people lining up to hand you their money! I have seen this many times before.

The whole "wealth from crude oil" thing is just a facade. Only the gov't profits from that. The average business person becomes wealthy over there by importing and outsourcing the distribution of socks and underwear, shoes, jeans, and cereal or by setting up pool and snooker halls, importing the latest cell phones, etc.

- Find Fastlane biz idea: observe latest trends in the west, introduce them over there. I use the term "latest" loosely. The latest fad over in that region is typically a few years behind the rest of the world.
- Validate: look around you. If it's already being done, copy and paste.
- Build (for free or under $40): Nothing is for free in life. Period. But you could try asking for some free samples from suppliers, (by pretending to be a really large multinational potentially considering becoming a distributor of their product country-wide), and if they fall for it and send you the samples...bingo.

 

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[smarty]

Find a distributor and import water

 

[MHolland]

Find a distributor and import water

Yes! It's actually being done! Bottled water is the way forward. Slap on your own label and off to the camel races you go!

 

[Blueskies4me]

Haha Fastlane is finding that thing that nobody else thought of...not just another business idea. Start a call center for dispatching tow trucks for the 4,000 business owners who get stuck distributing 100 gallons of water a week in the desert. I know that sounds silly but sometimes it really is that silly of a solution.

 

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[theag]

Lol, just realized after reading the responses, that you meant this literally. I thought you were referring to the "desert of desertion" that MJ coined in the book.

Just move somewhere else. Or find some oil.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Ahhh, another member from Phoenix, AZ.... Welcome to the forum. Sell water filters... I refuse to drink the tap water in the desert.

i've been drinking the water from the tap since moving here. what's the problem?

 

[McCoyH]

Find a distributor and import water

Damnit, beat me to it!

 

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[Blueskies4me]

Sounds like you should collect and recycle / resale all the empty water bottles.

 

[Genester]

With minimal start up cash and access to the internet you can start a blog of some sort and hope to monetize it. You will need to get creative and find a need or interesting topic to base your blog around .

You can also start an eCommerce dropshipping website selling various products. All you would need is a domain and a self hosted shopping platform like Shopify, BigCommerce or Volusion. You would then need to contact suppliers or manufacturers of the products you want to sell, list them on your site with a markup and drive traffic to the site. Once you get the first site up and running and it's making money, replicate the system with a new niche and set up another site and so on.

You said you were in the Middle East I believe, I know for a fact there are some very wealthy people living in that part of the world just like there are in America, Europe and Asia. Think of ways to get in contact with these people and present them with a business opportunity of some sort, of course be sure to present value to them as well.

These are just some ideas I came up with not really knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are or what you are into since you didn't provide that info. Hope it still helps.

Good luck!

 

[RyanFerrer]

Thanks for all the replies!

The whole point is how can we produce a fastlane business if the only access we have is the internet, which MJ said in the book paved way for the "average guys" to become millionaires. MHolland gave one of the best ideas but unfortunately you cannot build a business like that without the help of a local (which is risky-lots of horror stories than successful ones) and wads of cash.

 

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[100k]

Sex.... it sells everywhere.

Booz sells well too.

 

[Genester]

Sex.... it sells everywhere.

Booz sells well too.

Not in the Middle East it doesn't...

 

[100k]

Not in the Middle East it doesn't...

You think there are no prostitutes in Arab countries or alcohol? Okay. Its not in the open, but its there.

 

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[Genester]

I'm sure there is, but is it a Fastlane business? I doubt it.

 

[H. Palmer]

You can also start an eCommerce dropshipping website selling various products. All you would need is a domain and a self hosted shopping platform like Shopify, BigCommerce or Volusion. You would then need to contact suppliers or manufacturers of the products you want to sell, list them on your site with a markup and drive traffic to the site. Once you get the first site up and running and it's making money, replicate the system with a new niche and set up another site and so on.

I was thinking of dropshipping too, but the bottleneck with international dropshipping is product returns.

Returning a product internationally can be very expensive.

But even more important, if he's in the desert there is no transportation for the products to even reach him. So no go.

IMO, the only options he has that can evolve into a fastlane are digital information products or digital entertainment products.

Keep it 100 % digital, because digital is the only thing he has access to.

 

[Genester]

I was thinking of dropshipping too, but the bottleneck with international dropshipping is product returns.

Returning a product internationally can be very expensive.

But even more important, if he's in the desert there is no transportation for the products to even reach him. So no go.

IMO, the only options he has that can evolve into a fastlane are digital information products or digital entertainment products.

Keep it 100 % digital, because digital is the only thing he has access to.

Why would he need transportation for the product to reach him if he is dropshipping it?

 

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[H. Palmer]

Why would he need transportation for the product to reach him if he is dropshipping it?

Read my post again.

 

[Genester]

I have and I still don't understand why he would need transportation of any sort to reach him if he is dropshipping?

 

[MHolland]

Thanks for all the replies!

The whole point is how can we produce a fastlane business if the only access we have is the internet, which MJ said in the book paved way for the "average guys" to become millionaires. MHolland gave one of the best ideas but unfortunately you cannot build a business like that without the help of a local (which is risky-lots of horror stories than successful ones) and wads of cash.

Yes, there are tons of horror stories re: locals aka "sponsors". But there are also many honest people out there. The best thing to do IMO is just get out there and start talking to people.

I do agree with @Amschel - going down the digital products avenue might be the most suitable option for your particular situation. No shipping, handling, returns, duties, headaches, etc.

Apps - this could be a potential Fastlane. Might cost a heck of a lot more than $40 but could be well worth it. Local restaurants might benefit from having their very own apps with their menus (or some other functionality) in an app in Arabic. You'd need to demand the bulk of the payment up front, and have the entire thing outsourced to freelancers on odesk.com, elance.com, guru.com, freelancer.ca, etc. for a fraction of the cost unless if you know how to create an app yourself. If you find that there is enough interest in this, you could eventually automate (almost) the whole process from start to finish.

 

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[Lathan]

This brings a whole new meaning to "desert of desertion".

 

[biophase]

Read my post again.

He's in the middle of the desert, his customers are not.