sneakygriff
New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
33%
- Jan 9, 2020
- 9
- 3
Hi everyone. First time user here after I have just finished Unscripted and TMFL. Both were amazing reads to me and a kick in the nuts to how I run my business and life. I was familiar with some of the concepts and intuited a portion of others, but I wasn't necessarily making a move in the right direction towards the fast lane.
So a bit of background info:
I'm a 31-year old male, without a formal high-level education, I have a bachelor's degree in law but never practiced it and don't intend to. I was an avid video gamer my whole life and literally spent years in games like World of Warcraft or others, throughout my teens and well into my early twenties. Theoretical learning wasn't attractive to me so I jumped on the job and slow lane bandwagon at 18 fresh out of high-school. I worked about 8 years as a QA professional in the video games industry and worked my up to a cushy middle management role which allowed savings over the last years on the job.No regrets there, the job came with a bunch of perks like learning a lot about managing a budget, people and risk management, maybe a bit of marketing. Skills that I figured would play in well in any business.
At 28 I decided to take a dive and make something of my savings and small bank credit (5-year loan, 20.000$). Instead of buying a car or putting down an advance payment on a 30-year credit for a house/apartment which most of the people my age here are doing, I decided to take a shot and build a small business in an emerging market, location-based entertainment, or more specifically LBE VR venues. I figured this would be my 2nd schooling and even if it didn't work out I would consider the money gone but I will have learned a lot of from hands-on business. Three years later, after quite some struggles and hard work, the business is finally turning a small profit and pulling in 150k in revenue. I know, not a lot of money but operating out of an eastern European 3rd world country where consumer purchase power is quite low for this sector. This last year we managed to expand to a bigger location (the first one wasn't exactly profitable for the first 2 years, but we pulled it off with diversified revenue sources and B2B work). We list first on Google, are one of the top 10 attractions on TripAdvisor (lots of tourist traffic), avoided the kids playground perceived offering and get a lot of business from adults & companies, team buildings and such.
The business wasn't a stable revenue source for me as we continuously invested to grow it and I decided this year is make or break for me. Since scaling with new locations is hard to do with from-profit investing and we don't have additional funds, I'm thinking of kicking it in high gear and opening up to franchising or looking to sell by the end of the year. I might sell even if we franchise depending on how high it pushes the value.
I'm of a mind to switch to software development with the returns since I will have enough to prototype at least 1 or 2 products and pursue funding, confident on that as I have some experience from going through Founder's Institute program and already landing a 20k money grant last year, with no strings attached.
I should also mention that I don't have to spend a lot of time to keep the business running, it's fully staffed operationally and I just do crisis management, finance & marketing right now, which amounts to maybe 20 hours a month. I also earn enough to pay back the bank on the loan and a bit extra but I also went back to working corporate in 2019 since I landed a job in software management for about 3k a month(median salary here is about 5-600), which allows me to save for additional investments & live comfortably. However, I'm totally bummed out having to spend my time in an office again and want to take the first opportunity to go back to my business once I have saved enough for a year + debts covered.Just like in the books, after having been in control for 3 years, being a cogwheel is a no-go for me, even with the comfy paycheck.
Overall, I'm doing well but still am very much on the slow lane.
Looking forward to sharing the experience with people here and getting inspiration from those on the right path
So a bit of background info:
I'm a 31-year old male, without a formal high-level education, I have a bachelor's degree in law but never practiced it and don't intend to. I was an avid video gamer my whole life and literally spent years in games like World of Warcraft or others, throughout my teens and well into my early twenties. Theoretical learning wasn't attractive to me so I jumped on the job and slow lane bandwagon at 18 fresh out of high-school. I worked about 8 years as a QA professional in the video games industry and worked my up to a cushy middle management role which allowed savings over the last years on the job.No regrets there, the job came with a bunch of perks like learning a lot about managing a budget, people and risk management, maybe a bit of marketing. Skills that I figured would play in well in any business.
At 28 I decided to take a dive and make something of my savings and small bank credit (5-year loan, 20.000$). Instead of buying a car or putting down an advance payment on a 30-year credit for a house/apartment which most of the people my age here are doing, I decided to take a shot and build a small business in an emerging market, location-based entertainment, or more specifically LBE VR venues. I figured this would be my 2nd schooling and even if it didn't work out I would consider the money gone but I will have learned a lot of from hands-on business. Three years later, after quite some struggles and hard work, the business is finally turning a small profit and pulling in 150k in revenue. I know, not a lot of money but operating out of an eastern European 3rd world country where consumer purchase power is quite low for this sector. This last year we managed to expand to a bigger location (the first one wasn't exactly profitable for the first 2 years, but we pulled it off with diversified revenue sources and B2B work). We list first on Google, are one of the top 10 attractions on TripAdvisor (lots of tourist traffic), avoided the kids playground perceived offering and get a lot of business from adults & companies, team buildings and such.
The business wasn't a stable revenue source for me as we continuously invested to grow it and I decided this year is make or break for me. Since scaling with new locations is hard to do with from-profit investing and we don't have additional funds, I'm thinking of kicking it in high gear and opening up to franchising or looking to sell by the end of the year. I might sell even if we franchise depending on how high it pushes the value.
I'm of a mind to switch to software development with the returns since I will have enough to prototype at least 1 or 2 products and pursue funding, confident on that as I have some experience from going through Founder's Institute program and already landing a 20k money grant last year, with no strings attached.
I should also mention that I don't have to spend a lot of time to keep the business running, it's fully staffed operationally and I just do crisis management, finance & marketing right now, which amounts to maybe 20 hours a month. I also earn enough to pay back the bank on the loan and a bit extra but I also went back to working corporate in 2019 since I landed a job in software management for about 3k a month(median salary here is about 5-600), which allows me to save for additional investments & live comfortably. However, I'm totally bummed out having to spend my time in an office again and want to take the first opportunity to go back to my business once I have saved enough for a year + debts covered.Just like in the books, after having been in control for 3 years, being a cogwheel is a no-go for me, even with the comfy paycheck.
Overall, I'm doing well but still am very much on the slow lane.
Looking forward to sharing the experience with people here and getting inspiration from those on the right path
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
