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Good Evening Folks,
I purchased "Unscripted " through Audible earlier this month and am already about half-way through my second listen. Excellent content and insights from MJ!
I have had an entrepreneurial mindset my entire life. When I was 6 I constructed a playground in my backyard and charged the neighbor kids $.10 to enter. At 10 I started an automobile detailing company, "The Suction Junction". My parents gave me business cards for Christmas and under my name was a tagline which read: "A Very Enterprising Young Man".
In my 20's I purchased some equipment and started a sign company. I used to letter a bunch of work trucks and race cars, as well as manufactured marketing signs for sub-divisions around my area. I loved it, but always made just enough money to barely scrape by, so I eventually got a sales position with a big sign company and did very well.
My most serious attempt at becoming a serious entrepreneur was through an online firearms business that I started in 2009. I had read Tim Ferris' book, The 4 Hour Work Week and was very inspired by the idea of having a company that I could operate from anywhere in the world with a laptop and an internet connection. After I decided on a market I jumped in with both feet. Started an LLC, got my resellers license, registered a domain, etc. MJ talks about "being in the desert" when a business means so much to you that time has no factor. This was me. For over a year before I achieved my first sale, I committed myself to spend every available minute developing my website, researching new distributors, and preparing for my initial launch. It was a ton of work, but I didn't care. My focus was entirely on the end goal of having my own business and trying to make it the very best that I could.
After the first year of development I was off to the races. In the first year I netted around $25K. The next year over $50K. I hit over $120K in my third year and exploded to over $400K in the fourth.
Then I had a major setback. It seems the sudden explosion in growth in my fourth year was triggered by the fear that Obama was going to ban firearms after the Sandy Hook school shooting. American's were purchasing anything they could get their hands on for fear that the products would soon be illegal. Seriously...if you had a 1700's musket in stock, someone would buy it, lol. Those that had inventory had the advantage, but it did not take long before EVERYONE'S inventory was depleted and there was nothing left to sell. So, the dealers had tons of cash in their accounts, but no way of purchasing more inventory to keep the sales coming in. It took about 6 months for the manufacturers to replenish their inventory levels, but by this time the gun ban fear had subsided and the market quickly returned to normal.
MJ speaks of product-ocracies in "Unscripted". After learning what this was, I realized that I did not have a product-ocracy in my online business. $400K in sales after the gun-ban scare were not generated because I had something different or superior to anyone else. They were coming to me because they were in a mad rush to make a purchase from anyone that had the products available. In other words, I was not selling anything special or unique, I was just a means to an end. What I also did not understand when I started this business was barriers to entry, which were low for this type of business. In other words, if a business is easy to get into, then you will have more competition which will ultimately decrease your profit margins. While I did have a lot of fun, and a good bit of frustrations, I eventually determined that my business was unsustainable and shifted my focus in other areas.
So, extremely long story short (sorry), my entrepreneurial desires are still burning, but I have just been in a mind block for the last several years. What I did find encouraging, in reading Unscripted, was the number of times that MJ mentioned he had tried businesses that failed. I must admit that "the fear of failure" has really hampered my willingness to jump back in, but I'm getting past this now.
If you'ver read to this point, then thanks. I'm glad to find a network of like-minded people that can help to encourage one another on our journeys. I truly hope that I can be a helpful resource and look forward to learning from one another.
Best of luck,
Aaron
I purchased "Unscripted " through Audible earlier this month and am already about half-way through my second listen. Excellent content and insights from MJ!
I have had an entrepreneurial mindset my entire life. When I was 6 I constructed a playground in my backyard and charged the neighbor kids $.10 to enter. At 10 I started an automobile detailing company, "The Suction Junction". My parents gave me business cards for Christmas and under my name was a tagline which read: "A Very Enterprising Young Man".
In my 20's I purchased some equipment and started a sign company. I used to letter a bunch of work trucks and race cars, as well as manufactured marketing signs for sub-divisions around my area. I loved it, but always made just enough money to barely scrape by, so I eventually got a sales position with a big sign company and did very well.
My most serious attempt at becoming a serious entrepreneur was through an online firearms business that I started in 2009. I had read Tim Ferris' book, The 4 Hour Work Week and was very inspired by the idea of having a company that I could operate from anywhere in the world with a laptop and an internet connection. After I decided on a market I jumped in with both feet. Started an LLC, got my resellers license, registered a domain, etc. MJ talks about "being in the desert" when a business means so much to you that time has no factor. This was me. For over a year before I achieved my first sale, I committed myself to spend every available minute developing my website, researching new distributors, and preparing for my initial launch. It was a ton of work, but I didn't care. My focus was entirely on the end goal of having my own business and trying to make it the very best that I could.
After the first year of development I was off to the races. In the first year I netted around $25K. The next year over $50K. I hit over $120K in my third year and exploded to over $400K in the fourth.
Then I had a major setback. It seems the sudden explosion in growth in my fourth year was triggered by the fear that Obama was going to ban firearms after the Sandy Hook school shooting. American's were purchasing anything they could get their hands on for fear that the products would soon be illegal. Seriously...if you had a 1700's musket in stock, someone would buy it, lol. Those that had inventory had the advantage, but it did not take long before EVERYONE'S inventory was depleted and there was nothing left to sell. So, the dealers had tons of cash in their accounts, but no way of purchasing more inventory to keep the sales coming in. It took about 6 months for the manufacturers to replenish their inventory levels, but by this time the gun ban fear had subsided and the market quickly returned to normal.
MJ speaks of product-ocracies in "Unscripted". After learning what this was, I realized that I did not have a product-ocracy in my online business. $400K in sales after the gun-ban scare were not generated because I had something different or superior to anyone else. They were coming to me because they were in a mad rush to make a purchase from anyone that had the products available. In other words, I was not selling anything special or unique, I was just a means to an end. What I also did not understand when I started this business was barriers to entry, which were low for this type of business. In other words, if a business is easy to get into, then you will have more competition which will ultimately decrease your profit margins. While I did have a lot of fun, and a good bit of frustrations, I eventually determined that my business was unsustainable and shifted my focus in other areas.
So, extremely long story short (sorry), my entrepreneurial desires are still burning, but I have just been in a mind block for the last several years. What I did find encouraging, in reading Unscripted, was the number of times that MJ mentioned he had tried businesses that failed. I must admit that "the fear of failure" has really hampered my willingness to jump back in, but I'm getting past this now.
If you'ver read to this point, then thanks. I'm glad to find a network of like-minded people that can help to encourage one another on our journeys. I truly hope that I can be a helpful resource and look forward to learning from one another.
Best of luck,
Aaron
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