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HardyBoy

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Joined
Oct 8, 2025
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Location
Archdale, NC
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It’s been a long time coming.

Who am I? I am an engineer by heart and by trade(currently). As a kid, there was nothing I enjoyed more than working on my bike and/ or damming up a local stream. I grew up outside of DC in West Virginia, and after I graduated college, I moved to NC and started a job as a design engineer for apartments.

After a couple of months in construction, I realized that this wasn’t a healthy environment. I started to look for a change of career, and that’s when I was introduced to Unscripted from an Instagram post in 2020. I picked it up and shortly after picked up TFM. I recommend the book to my soon-to-be wife, and she ate it up too.

Let’s say that the fire wasn’t hot, and we “tried” to make a social media company. This coming from a mechanical engineer and an industrial engineer. The idea was to make something more trustworthy than Twitter, but not hard-set like the media. We learned a bunch and got really far. Right as we were finishing the back side of the website, Trump launched Truth Social, which was going, and we deemed “rooms full to launch” and scrapped it.

Fast forward a little bit to our next attempt. We bought a 1967 that, let’s say, needed some love under the hood. It had more holes in the copper pipes than Swiss cheese, and many were waiting to show themselves. I developed a product that I used to plug the holes till I had time to fix it. I thought it was the bees’ knees and decided to figure out how to set it up on Amazon. After a long while and multiple Facebook ads, I did market research and figured out I was fishing in a stormwater drain. I pulled the product and decided to move on.

By this time, I had changed jobs and am now an engineer who designs food equipment. I tried another thing with a self-watering pot, but I couldn’t get traction on that. And I had pretty much come to mediocrity at this point. I had a comfortable salary and can find work easily in most markets. We had gotten married, and life was… good.

Then I had my FTE finding out we were going to have a daughter. Fires started to burn, and we went into high gear. Stuff got done. The house got ready, and projects were finished in days. I got to meet my daughter in August finally, and work has never been more dreadful.

Yes, I still work full time, but the job I am at allows for personal use of software that I have been using to design my item. It’s in the pet industry, which is a crowded industry, but it’s a blockbuster from what I can find. It will be copied if I’m not careful, but I want it to start gaining experience. And from the numbers I have run, it should be quite profitable, the worst case being about 5 times as much as we make now.

I joined this because I have questions, I have failed before, and haven’t asked for help. There are little things that I know I can do better, and big things I am sure I am missing. To be honest, I am reading a lot of what has already been posted to absorb what I can. I am also new to forums, so hopefully I can figure this out too.
 
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Open the Door.

You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.

  • Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
  • MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
  • Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
  • Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."
— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."
— User Richard Peck

"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?

Ximduni ecuesf, juqi xi dep liiq vji Getvmepi gosit juv.

Getvmepi ot puv e tqsopv, cav nesevjup.

IVE gus vji qiv qsufadv?

Ettanoph ov huit ximm, epzvjoph imti vjev dep gummux?

Ataemmz e juv qiv qsufadv xomm neli nupiz gus e gix ziest cigusi cioph sofodamuatmz duqoif, tu ov't emxezt podi vu jewi e taovi ug qsufadvt.
 
Ximduni ecuesf, juqi xi dep liiq vji Getvmepi gosit juv.

Getvmepi ot puv e tqsopv, cav nesevjup.

IVE gus vji qiv qsufadv?

Ettanoph ov huit ximm, epzvjoph imti vjev dep gummux?

Ataemmz e juv qiv qsufadv xomm neli nupiz gus e gix ziest cigusi cioph sofodamuatmz duqoif, tu ov't emxezt podi vu jewi e taovi ug qsufadvt.
O en tvomm fiwimuqoph vji qsufadvt. O jewi nefi e meshi wotoup vjev xuslt et e tvepfemupi, epf O’n xusloph vu neli ov tnemmis. O qsopv epf sifitohp cetif up xjev xuslt epf us geomt. Updi O hiv upi vjev xuslt epf ot woecmi vji qmep ot vu sap e tugv tvesv ef. Huem ot vji ipf ug vji nupvj.

Og ov xuslt, vji usohopem dep ci efeqvif vu e nusi “etdivodemmz qmietoph”. Us O dep tjogv cedl vu ep apgopotjif qsukidv vjev O jef tvesvif. Vji ovin O en xusloph up ot ep efeqvoup vu dunnup qsufadv op vji qiv opfatvsz vjev ep itvonevif 50% ug fuh uxpist jewi, tu iwip deqvasoph e tnemm qisdipvehi ug vjev xomm figopovimz gapf e piyv tviq.
 
Access Restricted: Unlock 1,000,000+ Posts

Stop Peeking Through the Keyhole.
Open the Door.

You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.

  • Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
  • MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
  • Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
  • Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."
— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."
— User Richard Peck

"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?

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