Mr. Trash's journey to personal & financial freedom.

[tpuffer]

One of my best friends just started using salesforce a few months ago. If you need anyone to test anything or give feedback I'm more than happy to reach out to him!

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Huh. I take a hiatus from the forum and a sneaky nocturnal dumpster diver shows up and launches an interesting thread with audacious goals. Sweet!

Wait, so I've binged the content, now I have to wait for new episodes? Crap. This is like the new season of the boys all over again.

Hahah new episodes coming each week! Stay tuned and thank you for the kind remarks

 

[Guest1413tpa]

This is so cool to hear! Transportation, travel and infrastructure are such interesting industries. Especially aviation (I was very close to having my private pilots license). The website deal you are working on sounds super exciting! Best of luck.

As of now, I can only imagine how good it feels to have another bigger business get blown away by how amazing your own work is. Congratulations, that is so awesome!

I think the old saying is "invest in what you know", and those are the industries I know well.

Oooo nice to hear you went for your PPL! I cannot go for that right now due to medical, but I am aiming to add ultralights, gliders, Sport Pilot and weight shift to my tool belt, along with the drone cert this month.

And to be honest its quite surprising how natural it feels to work in the business acquisition & private equity space. I have no idea why though lol.

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Ok, I get it better now.

But I'd still rather be flying a plane I think. I'm new to all this, so I might change my mind tomorrow.

Yeah I keep learning more about the weird aspects of aviation, and loving it more and more.

I would rather have someone else fy the private jet I hope to get in the future though

 

[Guest1413tpa]

It's great that you are honest with yourself and have a good idea of what you need to do in order to continue to pursue your fastlane goals. Even when it means taking a slowlane job. Bonus points for it being a good fit.

Also, I feel like I should say congrats on firing a client! I'll bet it's not an easy decision to make, but it seems like it was what needed to be done. Not worth the effort, or the headache.

It is wonderful to see you are still pursuing your goals and continuously building your business(es). Keep up the great work!

This means alot, seriously. Its been a bit tedious with AeroDrawings because of the amount of work needed to take it to the next level, it is a good base but needs alot of small and not easily made tweaks (SEO, variants, product cleanout, operational efficiency). Its also losing money (due to the payment), but its a small amount. Just frustrated with it overall but every time I get into it, I am extremely happy and satisfied to see the changes, and also see verification that they work with customers buying the product.

I'm lucky that my largest client currently will most likely be the one that I join full time, and they have a Salesforce instance that is aviation focused. Keeps me challenged and interested and makes it much easier to work in the slow lane. Seriously. My mental health has been at all time highs doing everything I am doing, even though I have those very low moments where doubt creeps in.

Now that I am also looking at other income strategies, it makes it even easier to get to the fastlane. Hopefully.

 

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

[Guest1413tpa]

December 19th (2020) to January 10th (2021)

Happy New Year! Its been wicked busy, so I know this post is late. I'll be posting bi-monthly on random days now.

I wrote a newsletter post about 2021 goals, fessing up to some mistakes I made last year, and also showcasing where I want to go this year. Check it out here.

Trash Panda Capital
With the holidays over, my focus with AeroDrawings is to dial up social media, email and forum engagement, along with regular promotions and adding more products. January and February are traditionally slow for retail also, so I need to be prepared for that hit. Due to a massive tax refund this year, I am also looking at paying the seller off early to get some positive cashflow with the business. My goal for January is to get everything on autopilot (mostly), so I can begin to focus on other endeavors.

I sent my first scout deal off to a potential buyer, fingers crossed it closes. Kick back would be 10-20% of his fee (which is a good amount to start). I am actively looking to grow my scout network of buyers and sellers to get some more pipeline going. Feeling extremely confident with this (and everything else).

On the real estate side, most of my time has been researching the investor and Urban Planning side, to get up to speed with what I need to look at and learn. I am also looking at getting my realtors license later in the year and joining the team my GF is on. Eventually, once she gets her broker's license, I'll hang up mine with her. I'm also working on rekindling the creativity I had in urban planning school, working on home and community designs with big goals.


Project X
My partner and I are actively working on this one, just struggling with a name. Looks like it will be VC focused with an advisor side. We are two squirrels so it makes it hard to work sometimes. Maybe that should be our name, Squirrel Capital Partners.

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Unsalted Capital Partners... I suspect this is a nod to the Great Lakes? I just gotta say, I love it!

HAHA the name is actually Unsalted Coast Partners, so yes lol.

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Ha whoops, forgot about this thread.

Its been a busy past few months to say the least.

After my last post, a surprise trip to Maui dropped into my lap (for free), with the catch of transporting 4 cats by air.

This trip turned out to be a turning point. It was the first time I have ever had a taste of the Fastlane life, where I had nobody to answer to, and the ability to do what ever the hell I wanted. Hawaii really is paradise.

It's made me want to quit all social media except for TikTok and Reddit, and really rethink my life and what I want. I want less material things now, overall the reason I am doing what I do is to have time to travel and experience places off of the beaten path.

The trip also made me realize how off course I have gotten, trying to chase so many things instead of focusing on two main things (Trash Panda Capital & Trash Panda Adventure Club), and some smaller side projects. Going forward, my hope is to re-align and not stress myself out.

Needless to say, it got me thinking, and I also spent a few weeks in a pissed off and depressed state because I had to come back here.

Here are some updates since last time:

• Consulting: I'm in a year contract (with extensions expected) with a company as a full time Salesforce Admin, which is quite honestly keeping me afloat with Trash Panda Capital. Hope is to expand into Deal Flow as a Service (DFaaS, more below). The weeks are a roller coaster but I like it for now, and it allows me to stockpile cash for my endeavors, and helps me keep taxes low.
• AeroDrawings: We are having a blockbuster year. After the tweaks I made, and the social media campaigns I started, we are currently +32% YOY with Sales, and -40% with traffic YOY. This is a sign that the store was not SEO optimized when I got it and missing its target audience, a good sign overall that there is viability and life in the store. Store is currently cashflow negative due to the repayment, but once that is taken care of in December of this year, we will profit $600-750+ a month. Lots of lessons learned with this one., I'm excited to see where we end up for the year. Hoping in 7k+ in sales, with more products being launched (apparel).
• Future Port-Cos: My sole goal this year is acquire another company (at least). This time around, I am learning my lesson from the first one and either purchasing with all cash, or leveraging the financing so I am not underwater. I have a few prospects right now via brokers, but I am working on building a tool to help with off market and on market listings (more about that below). I've refocused my investment criteria into three industries: travel, transportation and real estate.
• DFaaS (Scouting): Major change here. I have decided to scrap doing anything with scouting in the traditional sense. Path forward right now is to create an ultimate on/off-market deal aggregator (as I need this for myself, as I spend too much time combing through listings to find things that aren't true garbage), and eventually sell a monthly subscription to it. There is another similar tool, but frankly its hot garbage and limited to 3 brokers. With this, I also plan on adding in a 1 on 1 package to help find people deals. Thinking about $500 + 2% as a charge for this. We shall see. The reason behind me going this route and not the traditional scouting was due to a few things: A) I honestly hate cold calling and emailing people B) The market needs this. C) I was already planning on building this tool myself. This is one my highest priorities right now.
• Trash Panda Adventure Club (formerly Unsalted Coast Partners): So this is a fun project. We decided to make a name change after getting drunk off of Sake at Morimoto's in Maui. Trash Panda Adventure Club has been a code word for all of our trips as a couple and a friends group, and we thought it would be fun to make this the name of our vacation focused project. We originally started out looking at multi-family property & house hacking, but have fallen in love with the vacation rental market. Further discussions have expanded this beyond real estate - right now I am looking at acquiring a Sprinter van for us to rent out, house boats, building & buying cabins, etc. We want to give unique experiences, not just rent condos out to people. Really excited about this one.
• VC Project w/ Friend: My friend has been wicked busy interviewing for tech startups, so not much on this right now. Its a lower priority overall
• Potential Salesforce project: I've been talking with with a former colleague from the consulting firm I got fired from about starting our own thing. Reason behind this is that the consulting firm has gone down hill, and they want out. Focused on Passive income (courses and such). Will see where this goes (if anywhere).
  
  

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Some updates:

Finally launched my new business today, Curators.

Its focused on buy-side research for acquisitions, which is a growing market.

Take a look here: www.withcurators.com

 

[Odysseus M Jones]

I believe that marketing under your current name will hold you back.

Not a Simpsons fan then

"Sitnking Fish Realty
With a name this bad we have to be good"

Trash Panda Capital
Upcycling your Wealth

 

[Guest1413tpa]

So you're like Redhat of Salesforce (but on smaller scale). Cool! Keep us posted.

Thats a good way to put it. Will do!

 

[Guest1413tpa]

6/14/2020

So, I have decided to make this thread more like a daily journey, tracking how I am feeling with the project, little bits of progress, and next steps/thoughts. This will help me be accountable for daily action in manageable chunks, so I do not get burnt out.

Feeling
I am exhausted as f***! I spent yesterday house hunting around Traverse City, as camping didn’t work out. On top of that, either my allergies or a sickness are coming on, I can feel it. Not good for productivity, and it may lead to burn out.

To add onto that, I took a peek at Udemy’s resources for course building, and oh man, I am overwhelmed. But that’s ok, one step at a time.

Accomplished today

• Broke out the course outline for my first Course (Reports/Dashboards/List Views for users), in the following ways:
  • Six Distinct Sections for Udemy (4 of those sections will translate into one Skillshare course a piece)
  • Added in details for a script, what medium
  • Added placeholder sections for the Resources that will be provided.
• That got me thinking about self-hosting/hosting elsewhere other than Udemy. I have decided to make the courses platform agnostic, meaning I can host them on Udemy/Skillshare, and eventually as a piece of a larger course on my website.
  • The way I broke the sections down is interesting, I expect them to be 30-60 minutes (Including a project for each), which seems to be the right sweet spot for Udemy and Skillshare. I’ll experiment with Skillshare once I get approved/launched on Udemy.
  • On top of that, my courses Qualify for Udemy for Business, along with other business specific offerings (as I am teaching a product used across businesses)
• Applied for Pluralsight Authorship. This is unique because apparantly they have a specific side just for Salesforce.
  I took a deeper look into the existing Salesforce courses across a variety of platforms to see what people do right/wrong, and the results were surprising:
  • A lot of people are still teaching Salesforce Classic only, and thus have not updated their courses in years, even all the way back to 2014! Its 2020 and Salesforce Lightning Is the future, so I am deciding to focus on that UI only. It seems the reviews on these courses agree with my findings.O
  • All of the courses except for a handful that I previewed were hot garbage. They had monotone presenters (even from Mike Wheeler, the flagship course creator), taught something old, were outdated, or just did a crappy job of presenting information and applying it to real life. That’s the hardest part, but something I plan on making central to my courses.
  • The video and audio quality of courses is shocking to say the least. Looks like that is easy to improve on...
• Did some research into Udemy/Skillshare requirements. Looks like I need to wait for my equipment to come in order to record a test video to get feedback.
• I’ve tabled the Admin specific course for now. Focusing on two courses is enough to be honest, as I need to prevent burn out. This applies to my other ideas outside of this -> I did a mass tabling of ideas/projects, to focus on three primary ones
  • TameTheForce (This one)
  • A book Or two
  • My existing ADHD newsletter

For tomorrow

• Outline more in my first courses (specific talking points, expected time for each section)
• Start creating some resources
• Potentially look at outlining my second course
• More research into Udemy/Skillshare requirements

 

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

[Guest1413tpa]

6/15/2020

Short update today...

Daily Feeling
In the pit. Burned out. Exhausted. Figured Out it was because of sleep... getting some tonight.

Completed today

• PluralSight got in touch! Vetting program is long, but will allow me to have another marketing funnel potentially, and another piece of content.
• Got organized finally With the Course layout, instead of scattering it across my desk.
• Continued laying out my first course.

Tomorrow

• Equipment arrives! I’ll test my setup tomorrow.
• Continue laying out the scripts/first course.

I wanted to record this weekend as I was going out of town and to a house with space to get away from my dogs, but now the goal is Monday.

I want to get everything edited and approved for Udemy by the 4th or the week after, launching after the fourth.

 

[Guest1413tpa]

6/16/2020
Feeling
Finally got some rest, which has helped tremendously with my focus and productivity

Done

• Laid out sections, estimated times, content needed. Started workin on Scripts
• Explorers using markdown as the basis for self hosted courses
• Heard from Pluralsight in regards to authorship. Working with them on this.
• Test equipment

Tomorrow

• Continue laying on scripts and resources
• Test equipment

 

[Guest1413tpa]

6/17/2020

Feeling
Exhausted today. Felt a bit burned out because I am bored at my job. But I really should Be using that time more

Done

• Finished the Intro and Conclusion Section scripts, including a nice discussion video about things going forward.
• Exploring using markdown/no code platform as the basis for self hosted courses still! I really am excited about this one potentially.
• Scheduled meeting with Pluralsight Next week
• Tested equipment and then realized I have no space for it! It will have to sit in the box until we move. Thankfully, the background behind me isn’t the issue, its lights. So I can use the lights, just not the background.
• Once I was able to get a recording of my self, I sent it off to Udemy to get some feedback on everything, because I seriously have no idea what I am doing. I am just doing it.

Tomorrow

• Begin work on the list view, report, dashboard and data sections
• Hopefully complete at least two of those.

One more thing -> July 15th is my drop dead date. Giving myself enough time to iron out kinks, but also need to speed it up a bit.

 

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

[Guest1413tpa]

6/18/2020

Feeling
Well, better. Had to travel out of state for the first time, so not much was done today.

Completed

Started work on writing the reporting/data/list view/dashboard sections. Its slow because I am walking through things in Salesforce and jotting notes down at the same time.

Tomorrow
Continue work on sections above.

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Ha whoops, forgot to post this yesterday....

6/19 & 20/2020 Update

Feeling

Because of the change in scenery, relaxed. Sitting by the pool in the heat with a White Claw in hand makes it easy to lay out a full course in 2-3 hours (except for resources)

Completed

I laid out the whole course. When I started writing, I was laying scripts and points out word for word.

What a stupid idea. It takes too long. In top of that, I write with bullet points when I am laying something out.

So I swapped to bullet points to keep me on track and avoid being too complicated/rambling.

This allowed me to lay out the lectures, projects. So exciting.

One thing I realized when I was laying courses out, the platform I use for the organization can serve a dual purpose-> I can publish the courses via it and use it for planning. So, I gotta simplify the way I do work. A lot.

Now, recording, editing, creating resources and publishing is left for now.

Tomorrow

Ill begin work on resources. Should be quick, just some brief writing and creation of pages.

Next week, recording will begin!

 

[Guest1413tpa]

6/21/2020
Back at home after a few days of rest and work on this project. Feelin' good.

I just got done finishing all of the resources for each section. I cut a ton out too.. along with plans for videos. The more I go down the road with building this course, the more time I spend simplifying things.

I've taken a look at the time so far to come up with the idea and begin laying it out in preparation for recording. Guessing three hours so far, with another 3-4 for recording and edits.

I know that none of this is a race, but the ADHD/Driven side of me loves to work as efficiently and accurately as possible. Because this is a cool idea I am interested in building and growing, this makes it easier to work on.

Just a ramble I guess about that. Just happy I am executing for once.

For this week/tomorrow, here is what is up next:

• Begin Recording all videos
• Edit Videos as time permits
• Get Resources into PDF form for Udemy, last minute tweaks
• Prepare for approval uploading next week.
• Plan out the simple launch (basically distribution to friends and family to drive reviews/feedback that will lead to paid customers).

 

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

[Guest1413tpa]

6/23/2020.

What a F***king joke today was.

My internet has been cut all day, because some idiot took a backhoe to the fiber optics. On top of that, cell service has been spotty.

So no recording has been done today. However, I did spend some time preparing the scripts for tomorrow. I also spent some time in a PE book/course as I prepare that side of my wealth plan.

Tomorrow, pending any technical issues outside of my control,I'll record the section on list views and reports.

I really hate writing a post like this, I feel like I am action faking, but sometimes s**t is outside of your control.

 

[Guest1413tpa]

6/24/2020.

This will be the last daily update for a bit. Decided on a couple things:
- I’m getting burnt out. Its not this project, its my fulltime job. I won’t bore on details, but when you work in terrible Salesforce orgs for 8+ hours a day, you get burnt out easily. It really sucks.The ADHD does not help with this at all.
- Im moving work on this to the weekends. These are my most productive days for my projects.
- I’m using the time during the week on focusing on building another project I have in mind.

Updates will be on Monday going forward.

 

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

[Ronak]

Great, when are you committing to finish the first one?

 

[Kid]

Was reading some random article and thought about your topic. They mentioned Learn Scrivener Fast . Its a course teaching how to use software that i've never heard about ( its about writing books or movie scripts ).

Basically story is a bit aged (circa 2016) but the guy made more money (6 figures) selling the course on how to use the app than the app earned itself.
Pretty neat!

 

[Guest1413tpa]

One of my best friends just started using salesforce a few months ago. If you need anyone to test anything or give feedback I'm more than happy to reach out to him!

Sweet! If/When I get TameTheForce up I'll reach out to you!

 

[Jasper S]

October 9th to October 22nd.

Yeah, I forgot to write a post last week. My bad.

This week's word(s) are Confidence & Fear. You can read more about that here.

I've spent the past two weeks in interviews and preparing proposals for potential full time and contractor positions. I gotta use my Slowlane skills to get some money in the mean time. What a time suck the proposal was, I had to do a full Salesforce and process audit to calm their nerves and show that I was serious. I hate doing work for free, unless it to help sell myself. I hope to never do this again.

On top of that, I have been working hard to master the intricacies of the FAA sUAS Certification and Regulations in order to pass my Part 107 exam later this month. This is a good primer for getting trained to fly Gliders, Ultralights, Weight Shift aircraft and eventually to get my Sport Pilot Certification. It's also a good thing to have when I hopefully acquire a drone related company in the future (see below).

Trash Panda Capital
I'm been struggling, or rather procrasting on due diligence for a Aviation website I REALLY want, that I can afford a downpayment on, and is highly profitable. It really needs some Marketing and streamlining to double sales if not more.

I finally was able to force myself to do this, and it took a matter of hours to figure out this is a good deal. Now all that remains is to question the seller on price. I found it listed somewhere else for €20k ($23k USD) vs the $45k its listed at right now. Will use this as leverage. If I acquire this website (or rather when at this point), I am shifting my niche into the following areas:

• Transportation
• Travel
• Infrastructure

These niches are areas that I know very well and have a large passion for. So, I feel like its a natural fit, and it helps me buy things that are more manageable.

Scouting, Oh Scouting. I sent over a filled out Scouting Test to a larger Private Equity firm, and blew them away. They literally had nothing to critique me on, and wondered if the business was actually for sale! Sadly it isn't right now, but its a huge confidence booster, as again, I was fearful of sending that over and procrastinated. Now to build the network of Sellers (or sources of them) and buyers.

This is going to sound a bit crazy, but I've been taking a look at Corporate Chapter 7/11 notices and obituaries. Not trying to be morbid, but with the Great Wealth Transfer that is coming, there is a massive opportunity to grow my own firm and the scouting business by helping those who are inheriting businesses (but don't want them) to exit easily. On the flip side, distressed assets are always appealing for business growth (I'm not in the market to do turn around right now). I'm full of devious ideas, like a Trash Panda (raccoon). I love it.

I've also been thinking about branching into business management, but right now that is just an idea. I need to remain focused.

Other Products
Not much progress here. These are so low in the totem pole its not even funny.

This is so cool to hear! Transportation, travel and infrastructure are such interesting industries. Especially aviation (I was very close to having my private pilots license). The website deal you are working on sounds super exciting! Best of luck.

As of now, I can only imagine how good it feels to have another bigger business get blown away by how amazing your own work is. Congratulations, that is so awesome!

 

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

[Jasper S]

It's great that you are honest with yourself and have a good idea of what you need to do in order to continue to pursue your fastlane goals. Even when it means taking a slowlane job. Bonus points for it being a good fit.

Also, I feel like I should say congrats on firing a client! I'll bet it's not an easy decision to make, but it seems like it was what needed to be done. Not worth the effort, or the headache.

It is wonderful to see you are still pursuing your goals and continuously building your business(es). Keep up the great work!

 

[Jasper S]

Unsalted Capital Partners... I suspect this is a nod to the Great Lakes? I just gotta say, I love it!

 

[Ronak]

Man, I want to say...

You've got so much going on: PE fund, deal scouting, real estate, aviation, Salesforce consulting, ecomm site, God know what else!

I want to say--stop! focus! too much!

I want to say, "pick 1 and do that! you're too scattered to be able to move the needle on any one thing."

I want to say all these things.

But I can't.

Because, I'm exactly the same. Too many interests, too many projects, and I want to do them all.

Even if it means I make less money. It just seems so much more fun


The curse of being an idea guy/gal!

Prove the critics wrong so I can get my justification for doing the same!

 

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

[BizyDad]

Some updates:

Finally launched my new business today, Curators.

Its focused on buy-side research for acquisitions, which is a growing market.

Take a look here: www.withcurators.com

Can I specify a region or is it literally "world wide"?

 

[Guest1413tpa]

Can I specify a region or is it literally "world wide"?

As United Airlines used to say on their planes: Worldwide service. You can specify a region you want us to look in though.

 

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

[Antifragile]

My nickname is Mr. Trash in the Salesforce community, because I have a knack for diving into the thick of it and figuring it out. Especially with tech debt.

Also, it sounded like a fun name. Micro-PE and VC firms are starting to get more and more creative with their names, example of this is Banana Capital.

You’ve probably invested too much into it to pivot. And you aren’t asking for advice either… so my unsolicited comment that follows is just that, an unsolicited comment.

I believe that marketing under your current name will hold you back. Unless you are infamous as “Mr Trash” and the community is jumping up in excitement to work with you because of that nickname… consider asking questions.

- what is a good way to name a company?
- what would you do if you had to start over again?
- knowing what you now know, would you do it again?

 

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