Just stick with it, don't quit. It's a hard journey - $30k in a single month... finally.

[luniac]

Obstacles:

• Building a good team with vested equity instead of capital.
• Maxing out my credit cards on this business which forced me to get a job.
• Making our technology faster/easier/better than our competitors.
• Gaining traction when our first product was only "ok".
• Having to balance family life, a job, and the business for years non-stop.
• Overcoming potential customers skepticism about how much better our tool was. Now that we have a live demo out, it's not an issue to convince them, but during our initial marketing push, it was super hard to convince them without a product in hand.
• Loneliness when trying to build something. Not having any friends I can relate to in person is painful.

Mistakes:

• Bringing the wrong people onboard messed up a lot.
• Not having an operating agreement from the start messed up a lot.
• Paying legalzoom for things was a waste of money.
• Starting with the wrong product. We had one product, it did alright and put us on the map, but it was mostly a flop as it didn't provide enough value by itself. We should have started with our current product first. However, a the time we didn't even have the skills or the team to do it, so I don't blame myself.
• Choosing the wrong licensing/payments platform at the start. Down the road we had to cancel all of our subscribers subscriptions when migrating and most never came back.
• Not having personal finances and business finances separate for the first two years.

whoa what happened with legalzoom?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Xeon]

It was painful. I cried at times due to how hard it was to make our products and get our business off the ground.

Wow, I'm surprised to read this. I always thought for many of the more capable and successful fastlaners here, they know exactly what to do, where things are going, and have fixes to most of their problems, like how a very experienced top pilot handles an airplane.

Btw, is your software suitable for individual consumers also, or is it for big production houses like Double Negative etc? I remember reading previously that it's a Vfx / Special fx software that simplifies a lot of things and can do special effects a lot easier.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

one of my friends used legalzoom for an LLC but he's mostly 1 man team i think, i heard no complaints.
maybe in your case it makes a lot more sense for a real lawyer, cause ur doing next level shit! lol

I used Legalzoom and it was a nightmare.

 

[Solid Snake]

I used Legalzoom and it was a nightmare.

how so?

 

[FabryB]

Obstacles:

• Building a good team with vested equity instead of capital.
• Maxing out my credit cards on this business which forced me to get a job.
• Making our technology faster/easier/better than our competitors.
• Gaining traction when our first product was only "ok".
• Having to balance family life, a job, and the business for years non-stop.
• Overcoming potential customers skepticism about how much better our tool was. Now that we have a live demo out, it's not an issue to convince them, but during our initial marketing push, it was super hard to convince them without a product in hand.
• Loneliness when trying to build something. Not having any friends I can relate to in person is painful.

Mistakes:

• Bringing the wrong people onboard messed up a lot.
• Not having an operating agreement from the start messed up a lot.
• Paying legalzoom for things was a waste of money.
• Starting with the wrong product. We had one product, it did alright and put us on the map, but it was mostly a flop as it didn't provide enough value by itself. We should have started with our current product first. However, a the time we didn't even have the skills or the team to do it, so I don't blame myself.
• Choosing the wrong licensing/payments platform at the start. Down the road we had to cancel all of our subscribers subscriptions when migrating and most never came back.
• Not having personal finances and business finances separate for the first two years.

This is gold. I'm not in the softwares field but most of your points above fits every start-ups.
Thank you for sharing

 

[Pat D. Rick]

At times like this I'm so glad that I'm an Fastlane INSIDERS and that I got to see your journey!

I had to work day jobs during the majority of my journey, and you have to do what you have to do. Don't be ashamed of that.

Just because of this you deserve all the likes.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[magnificent]

So I saw this post in an e-mail notification as this weeks best topics. It's been so long I have not logged in this forum in forever. Coming from someone who also started this journey in 2012, your thread kept me going. At most I was able to only make $1,000/month and that was GROSS profit.

Thank You and congrats!!

 

[James Orman]

Nick and visual FX? Have we talked on discord before? I think I know the company I wont say.

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

Nick and visual FX? Have we talked on discord before? I think I know the company I wont say.

That's me
Nice to see you here james.

 

[MrLynn]

Congratulations, it's all about hitting those goals. Good luck on your next goal!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ADayattheRoxbury]

If this thread stops one person from quitting, then it's done its job.

I've been on my "fastlane" journey since 2012 and as of the past month I finally hit my goal, which was to make $30k in a single month.. and we actually surpassed this. Our goal now is $60k per month, then $90k, and so on.

Just a few months ago, we were weren't making much at all. I started this company in 2016, and fought tooth and nail to build a team so that we could get everything going. It was painful. I cried at times due to how hard it was to make our products and get our business off the ground. Things just weren't going my way for the majority of my journey. When you come across these barriers of entry, don't let them stop you. Just keep going. It's at points like these when everyone else quits, and it's why you have to keep going.

If I had quit during my hardest times, I wouldn't be here talking about our successes now. Since I'm working on an enterprise instead of a lifestyle business, its taken me years to get to this stage. Now we're ready to scale this thing and become the next leader in our industry. I had to work day jobs during the majority of my journey, and you have to do what you have to do. Don't be ashamed of that.

Any way, I don't really have any other lessons here except to keep going. If you keep inserting quarters into the gumball machine, eventually a gold one will come out.


MODERATOR NOTE
For those wondering how Nick got to this point, his progress thread is on the INSIDE. He's provided pages and pages of material about his struggle, YEARS long, and quite detailed. So if Nick isn't being very forthcoming in this particular thread, it's not that he isn't willing. He's done so on his progress thread which is on the Inside and not indexable by Google.

Man. Congratulations!! So well deserved. Most people would have given up before the magic! I try to explain this to every entrepreneur I come across these days. Don't give up before the magic! As opposed to historically, where you had a brick and mortar location for people to come to, with a website, your website remains the same "address" no matter what, and can be accessed by anyone on the planet. The longer you're around, and churning out product/services, the easier it will be to be successful later on!

So proud of you!

 

[Martin.G]

What a coincidence, I am also trying to build my software company now. Well, the software first, and then I need to figure out how to take that and build a company around. I was thinking to become an INSIDERS, and now I have to.

 

[Vigilante]

Every once in a while, I get stagnant on visiting here. Then... THIS. Congratulations. Love this. Now don't stop. Higher and higher.

 

[Martin.G]

Just read the thread and it's awesome!

I'm a software guy myself. How did you validate / decide to actually go down this road? I find myself having a lot of ideas but being afraid that it won't sell etc and that it would be a waste of time. The regular.

You can create a prototype and validate your idea. With only an MVP (minimum viable product) you could check if people are interested. There a bunch of books about this method called lean, like Lean Startup or Sprint (A great book that I read recently and show how to test an idea in one week).

You are going to have cost to develop this MVP, but at least is considerably less than if you spend months with something that you don't know if it's going to work.

I wonder if @Ravens_Shadow uses something similar.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ronak]

I joined relevant forums and asked around for suggestions and got on calls with large companies asking what they would need from such a product. We were showing live demos of our pre-alpha to enterprise customers and they were extremely excited even at that stage.

Brilliant!
Too many are afraid to do this work, because of the rejection/intimidation factor. How did you approach the targets to get demos?

Also-- mods: @Vigilante @AllenCrawley -- upgrade to GOLD?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ravens_Shadow]

Sorry if this look rude, but do you have any evidence that support your claim of having a company that make 30K per month profit ?
such as company website ?

To clarify, it was 30k in revenue (which did have a fair amount of profit at the time).
Not going to link my company website on this thread. Check out the top link in my signature to see the business on the INSIDERS part of the forum, its some 500 posts of gritty tough shit and clawing my way up to the top. Even MJ himself can vouch for me here.

I'm about 9 months into a new business and I have definitely cried, glad i'm not the only one.

It's a common occurrence for me

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Congrats man. That's my goal right now!

 

[Lucky Lu]

Walking the walk man, congratulations!

 

[Solid Snake]

great to see this. hope you crush your next goal much sooner

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Merlox]

Congratulations my fellow coder!

 

[Deleted74396]

I'm so inspired! Congratulations

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Process]

What are the biggest obstacles and mistakes you’ve overcome? (Without giving away trade secrets)

 

[luniac]

You're better off paying an actual lawyer for operating agreements, LLC setup, etc to get your accounts going with them. Legalzoom is just upsell after upsell after upsell. Sure, you might get setup quick with them and real lawyers are more expensive, but the real lawyer will actually make changes that you need, and you can build a meaningful relationship with them.. which you will need on your journey. Atleast if you're going the enterprise route with a team.

one of my friends used legalzoom for an LLC but he's mostly 1 man team i think, i heard no complaints.
maybe in your case it makes a lot more sense for a real lawyer, cause ur doing next level shit! lol

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Process]

Obstacles:

• Building a good team with vested equity instead of capital.
• Maxing out my credit cards on this business which forced me to get a job.
• Making our technology faster/easier/better than our competitors.
• Gaining traction when our first product was only "ok".
• Having to balance family life, a job, and the business for years non-stop.
• Overcoming potential customers skepticism about how much better our tool was. Now that we have a live demo out, it's not an issue to convince them, but during our initial marketing push, it was super hard to convince them without a product in hand.
• Loneliness when trying to build something. Not having any friends I can relate to in person is painful.

Mistakes:

• Bringing the wrong people onboard messed up a lot.
• Not having an operating agreement from the start messed up a lot.
• Paying legalzoom for things was a waste of money.
• Starting with the wrong product. We had one product, it did alright and put us on the map, but it was mostly a flop as it didn't provide enough value by itself. We should have started with our current product first. However, a the time we didn't even have the skills or the team to do it, so I don't blame myself.
• Choosing the wrong licensing/payments platform at the start. Down the road we had to cancel all of our subscribers subscriptions when migrating and most never came back.
• Not having personal finances and business finances separate for the first two years.

Thank you for replying Congrats on overcoming so much.

 

[Champion]

Congrats!

Wow, this thread got me excited. Not that I was thinking of quitting, but I indeed have been going through a rough patch the last 2-3 weeks.

Especially your sentence about the hard times and "thats where the others quit" got me excited. I cant wait to cross the river...!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RadicalShift]

Obstacles:

• Choosing the wrong licensing/payments platform at the start. Down the road we had to cancel all of our subscribers subscriptions when migrating and most never came back.

This is a BIG one! If you don't mind sharing, which payment system caused you the big(est) problem(s)?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ravens_Shadow]

This is a BIG one! If you don't mind sharing, which payment system caused you the big(est) problem(s)?

We used a platform called Sendowl. It just had very inflexible options when offering subscriptions, and they didn't care to address our concerns, so we dropped them and went to Fastspring. Fastspring is definitely more of an enterprise solution (in my eyes), but we coughed up the bucks and went with them. It's been worth it.

 

[pat9000]

If this thread stops one person from quitting, then it's done its job.

I've been on my "fastlane" journey since 2012 and as of the past month I finally hit my goal, which was to make $30k in a single month.. and we actually surpassed this. Our goal now is $60k per month, then $90k, and so on.

Just a few months ago, we were weren't making much at all. I started this company in 2016, and fought tooth and nail to build a team so that we could get everything going. It was painful. I cried at times due to how hard it was to make our products and get our business off the ground. Things just weren't going my way for the majority of my journey. When you come across these barriers of entry, don't let them stop you. Just keep going. It's at points like these when everyone else quits, and it's why you have to keep going.

If I had quit during my hardest times, I wouldn't be here talking about our successes now. Since I'm working on an enterprise instead of a lifestyle business, its taken me years to get to this stage. Now we're ready to scale this thing and become the next leader in our industry. I had to work day jobs during the majority of my journey, and you have to do what you have to do. Don't be ashamed of that.

Any way, I don't really have any other lessons here except to keep going. If you keep inserting quarters into the gumball machine, eventually a gold one will come out.


MODERATOR NOTE
For those wondering how Nick got to this point, his progress thread is on the INSIDE. He's provided pages and pages of material about his struggle, YEARS long, and quite detailed. So if Nick isn't being very forthcoming in this particular thread, it's not that he isn't willing. He's done so on his progress thread which is on the Inside and not indexable by Google.

Very inspiring. I'm happy to hear you added value and made all those value vouchers.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Bell]

Congratulations! Love the advice on the lawyer and legalzoom was considering them myself but now leaning towards the lawyer...legalzoom is super tempting because of the convenience of managing and doing everything online.

 

[GonnaBe2020]

Fellow software guy here, it's very inspiring to hear someone succeeding in the same field, congratulations on such an achievement