Hello Fastlaners! Great to be here.
INTRO
I'm Dan, 35/M, UK. I hard rejected the Slowlane in my youth, but had no idea the Fastlane was an option. Mum's a Sidewalker but doesn't know it; Dad's a Slowlaner and very proud about it.
Other adults in my life were totally clueless. Money has always been the weak link for me because I had no reasonable framework for acquiring it.
So, I did the only thing that made sense to me: I decided to 'live for the now', first with drums (had a semi-successful performance career, peaking with some British dance music legends), then going deep into mindfulness in a very fruitful relationship with a former monk.
So I've got the happiness bit sorted, I'm in good shape, and I'm married to my ideal partner. Day job is teaching drums at £32 per hour. I'm just about meeting cost of living, and living modestly. Wife is working as a healthcare assistant at £21k per year.
I started educating myself around a year ago with material by Napoleon Hill, Russell Brunson, Gary Vaynerchuk & a few others. Just read The Millionaire Fastlane and now I'm ready—I'm done with the rental trap; done with yoyo-ing between drums & mindfulness; done with selling time for money. I just need to figure out my on-ramp to the Fastlane.
MY CURRENT BEST FASTLANE OPTION (IMHO)
PRACTICE PROMPTS—a product I launched on Amazon UK a few years back. Now selling ~1000 units per year. Highly-rated, ranking well in search, but in what appears to be a small market. (It's a deck of cards for musicians who struggle to decide what to practice. They shuffle the deck, draw a card, and it gives them something to do.)
C - I'm now the sole controller. Had a partner up to now but he's exiting.
E - My musical knowledge is in the mix, but not huge to this product. We spent £3000 to get the product on the shelves. Our rank in the niche on Amazon would be impossible for a new competitor to beat.
N - Every music teacher & parent's complaint about their youngsters is that they don't practice enough. The product is typically given as a gift from parents/grandparents to youngsters who need inspiration for practice.
T - Current time investment is 100 hours per year for £15k turnover. Possibilities for reducing time spend outlined below.
S - Biggest way to scale, I suspect, would be to turn the product into an app. But, with physical product, can figure out logistics to enter foreign markets. Can also create more decks for different instruments to widen market. Can even go into sports, dance, anything that requires practice.
The product sells for £15, with a profit of £7.50 per unit. I've run some cost-effective Amazon ads, yet to explore Google & Facebook.
OTHER OPTIONS
The more I think about what I'm going to write in this section, the less important it all looks, but I'll put some scraps down anyway.
- What I want to be doing is teaching mindfulness—I've saved people's lives with this knowledge, but it's just not saleable (my teaching lineage doesn't charge fees). Interestingly, it does appear to pass the 5 commandments. I would simply share the knowledge freely on YouTube, in a newsletter... but where it falls down is that I'd just be crossing my fingers and hoping people felt inspired to donate.
So, I strongly suspect that, realistically, this is a post-money thing for after I've blazed the Fastlane and earned my worldly freedom.
- some kind of fusion of mindfulness/drumming content. The mindfulness bit is a differentiatior (thousands of drummers out there already with courses on how to play). This could eliminate the need for recording drums (HUGE timesink), as I could just do talk pieces on mindset etc.
- I can write, but I'm not sure there's any way of starting from the beginning with this that doesn't violate Entry. Also, I think it's always going to be time-for-money.
CONCLUSION
There's more to all this, of course, but I've tried to balance detail with brevity. I'm very much up for any and all conversations with Fastlaners and aspiring Fastlaners, and I'm open to all suggestions. If anyone wants to do knowledge-swap for drums or mindfulness, we can schedule something right up.
Cheers!
INTRO
I'm Dan, 35/M, UK. I hard rejected the Slowlane in my youth, but had no idea the Fastlane was an option. Mum's a Sidewalker but doesn't know it; Dad's a Slowlaner and very proud about it.
Other adults in my life were totally clueless. Money has always been the weak link for me because I had no reasonable framework for acquiring it.
So, I did the only thing that made sense to me: I decided to 'live for the now', first with drums (had a semi-successful performance career, peaking with some British dance music legends), then going deep into mindfulness in a very fruitful relationship with a former monk.
So I've got the happiness bit sorted, I'm in good shape, and I'm married to my ideal partner. Day job is teaching drums at £32 per hour. I'm just about meeting cost of living, and living modestly. Wife is working as a healthcare assistant at £21k per year.
I started educating myself around a year ago with material by Napoleon Hill, Russell Brunson, Gary Vaynerchuk & a few others. Just read The Millionaire Fastlane and now I'm ready—I'm done with the rental trap; done with yoyo-ing between drums & mindfulness; done with selling time for money. I just need to figure out my on-ramp to the Fastlane.
MY CURRENT BEST FASTLANE OPTION (IMHO)
PRACTICE PROMPTS—a product I launched on Amazon UK a few years back. Now selling ~1000 units per year. Highly-rated, ranking well in search, but in what appears to be a small market. (It's a deck of cards for musicians who struggle to decide what to practice. They shuffle the deck, draw a card, and it gives them something to do.)
C - I'm now the sole controller. Had a partner up to now but he's exiting.
E - My musical knowledge is in the mix, but not huge to this product. We spent £3000 to get the product on the shelves. Our rank in the niche on Amazon would be impossible for a new competitor to beat.
N - Every music teacher & parent's complaint about their youngsters is that they don't practice enough. The product is typically given as a gift from parents/grandparents to youngsters who need inspiration for practice.
T - Current time investment is 100 hours per year for £15k turnover. Possibilities for reducing time spend outlined below.
S - Biggest way to scale, I suspect, would be to turn the product into an app. But, with physical product, can figure out logistics to enter foreign markets. Can also create more decks for different instruments to widen market. Can even go into sports, dance, anything that requires practice.
The product sells for £15, with a profit of £7.50 per unit. I've run some cost-effective Amazon ads, yet to explore Google & Facebook.
OTHER OPTIONS
The more I think about what I'm going to write in this section, the less important it all looks, but I'll put some scraps down anyway.
- What I want to be doing is teaching mindfulness—I've saved people's lives with this knowledge, but it's just not saleable (my teaching lineage doesn't charge fees). Interestingly, it does appear to pass the 5 commandments. I would simply share the knowledge freely on YouTube, in a newsletter... but where it falls down is that I'd just be crossing my fingers and hoping people felt inspired to donate.
So, I strongly suspect that, realistically, this is a post-money thing for after I've blazed the Fastlane and earned my worldly freedom.
- some kind of fusion of mindfulness/drumming content. The mindfulness bit is a differentiatior (thousands of drummers out there already with courses on how to play). This could eliminate the need for recording drums (HUGE timesink), as I could just do talk pieces on mindset etc.
- I can write, but I'm not sure there's any way of starting from the beginning with this that doesn't violate Entry. Also, I think it's always going to be time-for-money.
CONCLUSION
There's more to all this, of course, but I've tried to balance detail with brevity. I'm very much up for any and all conversations with Fastlaners and aspiring Fastlaners, and I'm open to all suggestions. If anyone wants to do knowledge-swap for drums or mindfulness, we can schedule something right up.
Cheers!
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