[INTRO] Is going fastlane while having a job feasible?

[Faskill]

Hello everyone,

I’m Raphael, 30 years old, and I work in the Navy of a NATO country.

I read the TMF book about a week ago and I was really inspired by it.
About a year ago, I had a revelation that I couldn’t live the life I wanted by staying on (what I now know is called) the slowlane.

My goal is to retire in less than 10 years (I’m 30) and to have a 10 meter yacht in which I could travel with my family.

Me and my wife first tried reaching this goal by investing in real estate which has been going well but has reached its limits. We own 3 appartment buildings with 14 units combined and hopefully will be able to close on a house (for ourselves) in the next 3 months.
We bought all properties with 0% money down and even though the 3 appartment buildings cash flow (700$ combined) our debt to income ratio is too high for a bank to allow us an additional loan.

My big issue is that I cannot leave my job in the military. I have signed a contract that lasts until 2027 and it would be illegal for me to breach it. I could ASK for my contract to be over in 2 years but this has a 20% likelihood of success and would mean that I could get posted anywhere in the meantime by my HR department, which is not an acceptable risk for my family.

We are currently working an an ecommerce site in the boardgame industry but we are having trouble finding the time to execute. We’ve been working on the idea on and off for 10 months but we haven’t launched yet (although we will hopefully launch this month).
I’m also doubting that this is a fastlane business because we are filling a niche and I’m not confident there’s enough people NEEDING our products.

A second idea is to venture in FOREX trading. I know after searching this forum that this isn’t a well regarded topic and not considered a fastlane business but I think this could be an option for me because I’m very analytical and good with numbers.
I’m aware this will not allow me to reach an exponential growth but I have about 100k$ so I’m toying with the idea of trying to approach my goal of about 5m with forex.
If we look at it through the CENTS scope :
Control : 80%, you are not in control of the market but everything else is under the trader’s control, when to get in and out, the technique used, risk management,…
Entry : 50% It’s super easy getting in for sure but to be a successful trader you need to LEARN for a long period of time which means there’s a high barrier for being successful
Need : 0% You don’t produce anything useful
Time : 60%, not completely passive but far from being full time either.
Scale : 100%.

Anyway nice to meet you all and looking forward to hearing any advice you could have for me!

 

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[Strm]

Hi, Raphael!

Just giving you my opinion as I am nowhere near owning a big successful company, but working on it. I'm also 30 and have owned a couple of e-commerce stores. CENTS business should be the end goal - your first task should be making your first sales in e-commerce and then learning about business and growing possibilities. Once your store is live, you are hopefully getting some feedback. Which usually leads to new ideas and opportunities. If it's not working out, figure out what went wrong, why there aren't enough sales and adjust. Change the product or something else.

About people NEEDING your product - people usually buy with emotions. Most of the products out there fulfill WANTS. People just want something and then they buy it.

In my opinion e-commerce as a business model is one of the best ways to start while having a job. It can quickly start to make CENTS. Good luck!

And! If you want to talk about your progress or need some help with something, feel free to send me a message!

 

[Alin Farah]

Hi, Raphael!

Just giving you my opinion as I am nowhere near owning a big successful company, but working on it. I'm also 30 and have owned a couple of e-commerce stores. CENTS business should be the end goal - your first task should be making your first sales in e-commerce and then learning about business and growing possibilities. Once your store is live, you are hopefully getting some feedback. Which usually leads to new ideas and opportunities. If it's not working out, figure out what went wrong, why there aren't enough sales and adjust. Change the product or something else.

About people NEEDING your product - people usually buy with emotions. Most of the products out there fulfill WANTS. People just want something and then they buy it.

In my opinion e-commerce as a business model is one of the best ways to start while having a job. It can quickly start to make CENTS. Good luck!

And! If you want to talk about your progress or need some help with something, feel free to send me a message!

Hello, I hope you are having a great week, I highly appreciate this reply and I was searching for an answer like this.
My question is that,If you are familiar with the use of word press, will the combination of woocommerce and elementor be sufficient for peer-to-peer selling platform such etc Depop. The reason I ask this is because I noticed that many people use word press to sell products from themselves.
I am currently undergoing various research and YouTube tutorials, but I noticed that some features are restricted so does this mean I have to get a pro version for elementor or woocommerce. I also use a theme that i would like to edit from called astra, does the path I am taking involve me in using money to build this website or is there a way to do this without any money going into it . As I am trying to publish a prototype as soon as possible to attain customer feedback.
Kind regards
Alin

 

[Faskill]

Hi, Raphael!

Just giving you my opinion as I am nowhere near owning a big successful company, but working on it. I'm also 30 and have owned a couple of e-commerce stores. CENTS business should be the end goal - your first task should be making your first sales in e-commerce and then learning about business and growing possibilities. Once your store is live, you are hopefully getting some feedback. Which usually leads to new ideas and opportunities. If it's not working out, figure out what went wrong, why there aren't enough sales and adjust. Change the product or something else.

About people NEEDING your product - people usually buy with emotions. Most of the products out there fulfill WANTS. People just want something and then they buy it.

In my opinion e-commerce as a business model is one of the best ways to start while having a job. It can quickly start to make CENTS. Good luck!

And! If you want to talk about your progress or need some help with something, feel free to send me a message!

Thanks for your reply. I agree e-commerce is one of the best fastlane business model.

I think ultimately we should have launched several months ago to try to see if we were able to gather enough customers but we always wanted to improve the site’s design. And my son was born 7 weeks ago which didn’t help!

Thanks for your advice offer I will certainly take you up on it once I launch my website, hopefully next week

 

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[Mathuin]

Hello everyone,

I’m Raphael, 30 years old, and I work in the Navy of a NATO country.

I read the TMF book about a week ago and I was really inspired by it.
About a year ago, I had a revelation that I couldn’t live the life I wanted by staying on (what I now know is called) the slowlane.

My goal is to retire in less than 10 years (I’m 30) and to have a 10 meter yacht in which I could travel with my family.

Me and my wife first tried reaching this goal by investing in real estate which has been going well but has reached its limits. We own 3 appartment buildings with 14 units combined and hopefully will be able to close on a house (for ourselves) in the next 3 months.
We bought all properties with 0% money down and even though the 3 appartment buildings cash flow (700$ combined) our debt to income ratio is too high for a bank to allow us an additional loan.

My big issue is that I cannot leave my job in the military. I have signed a contract that lasts until 2027 and it would be illegal for me to breach it. I could ASK for my contract to be over in 2 years but this has a 20% likelihood of success and would mean that I could get posted anywhere in the meantime by my HR department, which is not an acceptable risk for my family.

We are currently working an an ecommerce site in the boardgame industry but we are having trouble finding the time to execute. We’ve been working on the idea on and off for 10 months but we haven’t launched yet (although we will hopefully launch this month).
I’m also doubting that this is a fastlane business because we are filling a niche and I’m not confident there’s enough people NEEDING our products.

A second idea is to venture in FOREX trading. I know after searching this forum that this isn’t a well regarded topic and not considered a fastlane business but I think this could be an option for me because I’m very analytical and good with numbers.
I’m aware this will not allow me to reach an exponential growth but I have about 100k$ so I’m toying with the idea of trying to approach my goal of about 5m with forex.
If we look at it through the CENTS scope :
Control : 80%, you are not in control of the market but everything else is under the trader’s control, when to get in and out, the technique used, risk management,…
Entry : 50% It’s super easy getting in for sure but to be a successful trader you need to LEARN for a long period of time which means there’s a high barrier for being successful
Need : 0% You don’t produce anything useful
Time : 60%, not completely passive but far from being full time either.
Scale : 100%.

Anyway nice to meet you all and looking forward to hearing any advice you could have for me!

Is there not a buy out option for your contract in the military? It’s something we have in the UK.

Personally wouldn’t recommend FX, but I may be biased as I lost money doing it lol. Get a trial account, load it up with the value you would be using on a real account and give it a go

 

[tomzestatlu]

I am following this thread.

I can´t give you the answers you are looking for, but I am at the same age, currently in military of smaller NATO country.
My contract ends when I will be 39 old. There´s option to end it sooner, but at this moment (and after a lot of struggle), I am in very interesting area that I love working at.
That means that I am not searching for ways how to dump my military career ASAP, but at the same time I believe that there´s something more in me than just being taken care of by the government until the retirement (as the most of the guys around plan to do). And I have decided, that I will be "enough rich", which no employment can provide me. Sometimes this job is very time consuming, but on the other hand, sometimes there are long periods of leisure, that I would like to use for advance in my future. At this moment, I am searching for some side income/business, that would help me earn more capital and experience. I can imagine retiring at 39 (or sooner, if things go well) and jumping full time into allready-running bussines.

I think that your situation is more than perfect. Owning multiple appartment buildings is great achievement. I am looking forward to hearing about your ecommerce project. No matter how big the demand will be, it will teach you "how" and give you the experince to run whatever ecommerce business.

While you see being tied to military for another 5 years as the biggest issue, try to look at it as advantage. For another 5 years you have steady income guaranteed and you can fail, because the loss will always be covered.

Forex might be good try during those 5 years. I guess it´s not that difficult to learn technical and fundamental analysis, the biggest demand is on the person´s psyche. It seems clever to me to learn it with extra cash from employment than having it as the only source of income, which puts you into big pressure (as there´s big factor of markets that you can´t influence).

 

[Faskill]

Is there not a buy out option for your contract in the military? It’s something we have in the UK.

Personally wouldn’t recommend FX, but I may be biased as I lost money doing it lol. Get a trial account, load it up with the value you would be using on a real account and give it a go

Sadly it’s not possible in my country. I guess desertion would be the nuclear option but I don’t want to have to get a lawyer and risk going to jail.

 

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