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Just Booked a One Way Ticket to the Fastlane

Chapas

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Well, sort of.

I have been lurking around this amazing forum for many years, and even once made a post where I was looking for an internship during my Bachelor degree in Entrepreneurship & Innovation - though I cannot seem to find the post anymore. Well, that is not important anyways, I just wanted to thank everyone in here who helped me with advice and contacts for finding an internship! And of course a big thanks to @MJ DeMarco for this forum and a great book! (only read Fastlane Millionaire so far, will get to Unscripted soon!).

One week ago, I booked two one-way tickets for my wife and me to a small beautiful country by the Adriatic coast - Montenegro. With low living expenses, beautiful surroundings, cozy weather and absolutely nothing going on outside of the tourist season, this seems like the perfect place for me to start my journey to freedom.

I was born in Russia, but grew up in Denmark, and have also lived in the US, Spain and Hungary. Growing up in Denmark is a priviliged life. With free welfare, free education and social benefits that are higher than the average salaries in probably 95 % of the countries around the world. However, this also has a downside - the comfort zone. Most people enjoy it, and I have done that aswell. When going to the university is absolutely free and the government even pays you the equivalent of 800 dollars every month - you get lazy. When you lose your job and get paid almost 2000 dollars a month in social benefits - you get even more lazy. So I got really lazy and really comfortable.

I am not here to speak badly about the country that gave me everything, however, I believe that if I had grown up in Russia where I was born, I would be more disciplined, hard-working and taking more action, as I would not have the same safety net to fall back on.

At 29 I have failed several different businesses - mostly failing due to lack of focus and action. Two years ago I was completely lost. Ready to start my slowlane life after finishing my Bachelor degree. Fortunately, I was offered a Masters degree in Moscow, Russia and now two years later I have returned with a different mindset, a Masters degree and an amazing wife that supports me in my decision to take this step into the fastlane life.

It took me a long time to grow up. Almost 29 years. However, I feel that I am ready now to take the first step. I will dedicate the next 3 months of my life in Montenegro to start my own digital agency - thank you @Sean Marshall for the great inspiration, which was the last spark I needed to take this journey. If I will not succeed within these 3 months, I will have to go back to Denmark and get a job - however, this is only worst case scenario, and even if I will go back I know that in these 3 months I would still have built some sort of foundation that I can continue to working on and scaling from Denmark, while I work on my slowlane job.

Basically, this is not really how I wanted my introduction to look like. Sometimes I just get carried away and write to much random stuff haha. Please bear with me guys. I will create an execution thread one of these days, and I will try to contribute as much as possible to this amazing forum!

Also, if you guys have any questions about business or general living in Denmark, Russia, Hungary or Montenegro, feel free to ask me anything.
 
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GuestA415

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Congrats on your decision! However, I'm a bit unclear as to why you decided to move to Montenegro to build your business. Are you planning to do it online only or offer offline services as well?
Are you going there well-prepared, with a clear plan and actionable steps in mind? I hope you budgeted enough for you living expenses outside of your comfort zone in Denmark and can execute the plan within 3 months.
I'm not trying to be a party pooper, rather I'm cautioning you to make sure that you go in there fully prepared and ready. My BF and I have also built a business (still building actually) and initially we thought and estimated that it would take about 3-4 months to fully build our product and business around it. We are now finishing year 2 of building and I wish I had known how much time it would take.
I wish you all the best in your en devour! Hope to see your success story here soon! Удачи!
 

Chapas

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Congrats on your decision! However, I'm a bit unclear as to why you decided to move to Montenegro to build your business. Are you planning to do it online only or offer offline services as well?
Are you going there well-prepared, with a clear plan and actionable steps in mind? I hope you budgeted enough for you living expenses outside of your comfort zone in Denmark and can execute the plan within 3 months.
I'm not trying to be a party pooper, rather I'm cautioning you to make sure that you go in there fully prepared and ready. My BF and I have also built a business (still building actually) and initially we thought and estimated that it would take about 3-4 months to fully build our product and business around it. We are now finishing year 2 of building and I wish I had known how much time it would take.
I wish you all the best in your en devour! Hope to see your success story here soon! Удачи!

Thank you very much! It is always great with advice and hearing someone elses opinion and experiences.

I will only offer online services. Actually here in the beginning I am very niched down on one particular service to one particular industry. I already do have some contacts in this industry, so I believe that it would help me land my first couple of clients. The service will be recurring every month, so I have to stay on top and keep providing value for my clients month by month. So it is not only a one-time service like e.g. webdesign (which I have done before aswell).

Our living expenses for the next 3 months are covered (it is very cheap here compared to Denmark!). And with the quiet season going on here, and the lack of activities to do, I have the full focus on getting a good work-load in. I would say that I probably could be more well-planned, however, I have learned from the past that I often plan to much and execute to little. So this time it is a little different. I do have a clear plan though for every month and the steps I need to take to make this happen, and will now work on building my daily routine so I will have clear steps I will have to take every single day.

You are not being a party pooper at all! It is always interesting to hear about people being in the same situation. It is much better to have someone tell you how difficult it can be, than everyone telling you that everything will be fine. I know it will not be easy, but I believe it is possible for me to gain 5-6 retaining clients within 3 months. If I manage that, it would equal the salary I would earn working a 9-5 job in Denmark.

How is your guys business going after these two years? And what kind of business are you building? Is it a physical product?

Spasibo bolshoje for the kind words and the advice. I do not have my Russian keyboard installed on my computer at this moment :) I wish you guys all of the best aswell. Keep working hard like you do and I am sure you will enjoy the life you want very very soon!
 

MJ DeMarco

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Chapas

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Welcome my friend, appreciate the intro. Glad TMF worked for you, hope Unscripted does the same.



What took so long!!?!?! Shame! ;)

Thank you @MJ DeMarco ! I have been laying in the hammock for to long as you can see on my picture. Ready to take action now and contribute to the forum that gave me so much in the recent years!
 

Longinus

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Damn, been to Montenegro 2 times already and your posts are really sparking me to go back. I would love to show your around some places, it's an amazing country, especially in Summer. Although it sucks if you don't have your own transport.
 

Chapas

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Damn, been to Montenegro 2 times already and your posts are really sparking me to go back. I would love to show your around some places, it's an amazing country, especially in Summer. Although it sucks if you don't have your own transport.

Cool you have been here as well! I guess you must be from an European country since you have been here two times Where have you been in Montenegro?

If you are ever around it would be great to meet up! Really hope to stay here a long time. Even if we don't manage that within the 3 months, this is certainly a place I will strive to return to one day and live for sometime.

A car is definitely a good idea here. However, we do not have a car and that is perfect for our situation. We live halfway up a little mountain, so it is some nice walks, especially after I have gained around 10 unnecessary extra kilos the last couple of years. So the walking and running up these hills are just what I need at this moment haha.

Also we are lucky that the family we are renting the apartment from, have a spare car in our driveway we can rent for 10 euros a day. Very cheap! So if we need to get away for the weekend to another city we can just take that
 

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Longinus

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Stuff you gotta check out:
  • Kotor bay: Kotor, Herceg-Novi, Perast, Tivat. Check also Lovcen while you're there. There are citadels all over that bay, built by the Austrians. You can do nice walks there with amazing views. But if you do it in the Summer, do it early in the morning.
  • Budva is a typical old city on the Adriatic. Very similar to Split, Trogir, Zadar, etc. Very little streets and old buildings. Nice beaches too.
  • If you go the other way to Albania, you will see Ulcinj. The atmosphere is different, but very cheap and huge beaches.
  • If you can get a car (last one I got one here: M Rent-a-Car Montenegro) for multiple days, go to Zabljak and hike in NP Durmitor. I've climbed the Prutaš which was very nice and not so hard if you work out now and then.
  • Check out the Tara river near Podgorica, it's 1300m deep, and should be the deepest canyon in the Europe.
  • Apart from Durmitor, Biogradska Gora is also a nice national park.
Avoid:
  • Don't take a taxi that has no "T" on his license plate, it's a scam with very fast counter.
  • When going out, try to pay the wanted amount. It's a tradition to "forget change" there, very annoying.
  • Always follow your GPS, don't think you will shortcut something just by looking on the map. There are no highways and the smaller roads can be very bad and dangerous.
 

Chapas

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Stuff you gotta check out:
  • Kotor bay: Kotor, Herceg-Novi, Perast, Tivat. Check also Lovcen while you're there. There are citadels all over that bay, built by the Austrians. You can do nice walks there with amazing views. But if you do it in the Summer, do it early in the morning.
  • Budva is a typical old city on the Adriatic. Very similar to Split, Trogir, Zadar, etc. Very little streets and old buildings. Nice beaches too.
  • If you go the other way to Albania, you will see Ulcinj. The atmosphere is different, but very cheap and huge beaches.
  • If you can get a car (last one I got one here: M Rent-a-Car Montenegro) for multiple days, go to Zabljak and hike in NP Durmitor. I've climbed the Prutaš which was very nice and not so hard if you work out now and then.
  • Check out the Tara river near Podgorica, it's 1300m deep, and should be the deepest canyon in the Europe.
  • Apart from Durmitor, Biogradska Gora is also a nice national park.
Avoid:
  • Don't take a taxi that has no "T" on his license plate, it's a scam with very fast counter.
  • When going out, try to pay the wanted amount. It's a tradition to "forget change" there, very annoying.
  • Always follow your GPS, don't think you will shortcut something just by looking on the map. There are no highways and the smaller roads can be very bad and dangerous.


Thanks buddy! Really great advice. We will definately look into that. Kotor, Herceg-Novi, Perast and Tivat has all been on our go-to-list. Will check out Lovcen aswell. Budva is only an hour from us, so that is also a must-go-place. Spent 2 weeks in Split 3 years ago. Absolutely fell in love with Croatia after that trip! My wife is Russian, which means she can only stay for 30 days in Montenegro without a visa. Therefore, we will make some visa runs to Bosnia and Albania most certainly. Our initial plan was actually to go to Ulcinj, but then we found this nice place with these amazing people in Bar, so we somehow ended up here. Fortunately we can rent a good car for just 10 euros a day from the family we rent the place from - so I REALLY hope we will get around to see all the amazing places you suggested us.

Thanks for the tips! So far they have always brought the change haha. But I will keep that in mind for the future! No shortcuts is a rule I live by. Had to many bad experiences with trusting my gut instead of the GPS in the past when I lived in Southern Spain - so now we will solely follow the GPS.

First though, 2 weeks of hard grind and action-taking! And then I will award ourselves with a well-deserved relaxed weekend somewhere in beautiful Montenegro!
 
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