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- Feb 11, 2011
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Hi guys,
Just thought I'd like to share a little update back here on The Fastlane Forum. This forum has accompanied me during the process of getting to where I am today, no matter how big an impact. Hell, when I was still struggling to find ways or ideas, the help I'm getting from this site seems to be of no relevance at all. But as I'm writing this today, I realized it - this forum has definitely played a part on my journey to success. I hope my sharing here will be of help to anyone out there who's still striving to create their Fast Lane.
4 months ago, I started a business with $5000 in hand. 4 months later, actually - today, the business has finally reached its first $100,000 sales a month point.
I'm 24 this year. But to whoever's out there who thinks that I'm 24 and so should be seen as one, they would need to re-think that twice. Entrepreneurship is a very cruel thing. It forces you to be much wiser and older than you are. I read a quote once that goes something like this: "Entrepreneurship is doing what others won't early on, so you can live like others can't later on."
It seems rather important for me to state this upfront, because I believe it is important for one to have the right way of thinking and psychology to succeed on the Fast Lane.
4 months ago, I was already $25,000 in debt at the age of 23 single-handedly because I entered an 'underground business' and instead of making something out of it, failed and created one of the darkest times of my life. Without really knowing what I was getting into, and only with the belief that I'll help people by being in the business and that a 'partner' of mine who was experienced in the industry is going to know all the contacts, ways of getting 'resources' and personally being in the business herself in the past - I jumped in with the entrepreneurial aspiration or spirit I have and gambled everything into it about half a year ago. To cut the long story short, I messed up. I was put into jail for 4 days for the first time in my life, and gotten even more debts because polices raided the premises. Initially, we thought it was all settled. They were well bribed, but then with any underground business stories, usually much of it just depends on time - time until one day something just F*cks up. Although yes, my goal to help people (I'll skip my motivation about this) did eventually work out because I did helped some re-think about the underground business and quit it forever, and now some are living healthier lives because of those periods of time, I still landed myself in a mess when it all collapsed - not on the veterans, but on me and my partner.
During that period of time, I've also gotten some friends to invest in the business promising shares and returns. But with the entire collapse, I was in greater debt and sold whatever stake I had in it. I couldn't repay anything. I could only live through each day and night hoping that somehow, I'll manage to hold through the minutes that passes by. Hold through those dark emotions and feelings. Hold through those impending fears.
I believe Entrepreneurship - if it's meant to be set on firm grounds towards success is a journey of experiencing series after series of failures.
I realized I was not like everyone else since high school. While others could enjoy being social and chat about almost anything, I was an intense person. Either it's about dreams, or about big actions. Big aspirations. Big stuff, big things, the world. It couldn't be helped I suppose, as I'm cut from the cloth of a couple - one who's been a primary school teacher all her life, and another, a pastor his entire life. I didn't grow up under wealthy circumstances. My father was always away on his pastorship - but nevertheless wasn't completely one who lived up to his teachings. Growing up, my mother has always been the bread-winner of the family. She worked two occupations, three even, and has a mindset that's almost impenetrable to hardships. I only hoped I could be as strong then. The only downside is being so impenetrable also means that there's very little emotional vulnerability that is shared in the family. Being brought up in a Christian family with a main figure of the family as a pastor also means that I'm a bit disconnected from the 'outside world'. I didn't know how to socialize. I didn't know what was normal to do, what is appropriate to say, what was inappropriate to show. I realized I had to pick up everything on my own. I'm made of pieces from the whole, but first I had to find the pieces and then 'glue them back' so to speak.
Fortunately, somewhere in high school I had the privilege to be sent into an English private school. I didn't know how, but my mother somehow put me through. Perhaps it's got too much to do with how I was beginning to behave extremely rebellious in the high school before that. And yes, that contributed a lot more to my confidence. I used to look at people who converse fluently in English and think they're on a higher social status than I am. Then here I am today, typing in English, when I couldn't even speak it well prior to being sent for English private schooling.
It's a constant strive. When everyone was privileged enough to enjoy life, I didn't. Somewhere deep down inside, I constantly strived to become better. Constantly strived to grow. Constantly strived to find out ways in which I can make things better. Slowly, everyone began to split apart. Most of my friends were sent to better Colleges and Universities. Heck, I was pretty confident everyone in that school has wealthy families after all. Almost everyone I knew went to Australia, UK or US to further studies. I stayed back. But I knew, by then, I had known a lot more than almost all my peers. During college years, I started to venture into Internet Marketing. Learnt copywriting. Learnt marketing. Learnt ecommerce stores. Learnt business. Read books. Read HUNDREDS of books. Continued learning. Never stopped banging into walls. Never stopped risking. Never stopped rushing straight towards failures. Succeed in some. Failed in most.
And yet, I kept doing the same thing over and over again. And failed. And failed. And failed.
Almost everything I described above was to drive down to this, relevant or irrelevant.
It's a journey of failures.
Strangely, if you ever succeed one day, if you really do, perhaps you'd wonder whether they are really failures. Or are they really the pieces that contribute to your ultimate entrepreneurial psychology.
Because looking back, I did realize I was just swinging in thin air without being REALLY confident about what I was doing. There is a really huge difference. I'm referring to made-up confidence and confidence deriving from experience. A made-up confidence can crumble and crash at any given moment when bad times fall into your life. But confidence deriving from experience - and experiences of FAILURES if I may further clarify it - eventually creates qualities of persistence, clear-thinking and sharp decision making in one that no other situations can provide.
I won't really bother to describe how many failures I've met with and what they are. If you thought that the story above about me being 'sucked' into the underground business was bad - IN REALITY, IN FIRST PERSON VIEW, AS IF YOU WERE ME FEELING EVERY DARK EMOTION POSSIBLE DURING THOSE TIMES (sorry, had to emphasize how bad it was), perhaps I could re-count 6-7 more with as dark a circumstance which I've went through throughout the past 7 years. I was seen as an outcast. I was seen in bad light in many work situations (I dropped out of University half a year in and started working 5-6 years ago eventually) because I promised more than I could do on employment. I was not with 'the people'. While others at least try to make it look as though they are working for the company, I couldn't hide the fact that I'm constantly pursuing after something to which I can call my own. While others go out together and socialize I was always away privately brewing my own success path and scheming my next plan of success. I couldn't bring myself to live as relaxingly as they could. There were a lot of alone times. But as Felix Dennis the billionaire who created FHM said, being at the top is lonely. I just stucked to everything I learned from the successful and executed everything they share the moment I got the chance. Eventually self-help, think positive books begin to fall on the wayside. Real accounts of people, of industries and accurate representations of the world eventually becomes even better teachers. They teach one very practically. I in fact prefer fiction that describes people's way of thinking and best ways to solve matters even more now than any other books I can pick up (e.g. Jeffrey Archer's books, or something similar to the recent bestseller English translation of the Swedish novel "Easy Money", and etc.). News about billionaires and what really goes on in their heads also make perfect references.
Sorry if this had turned into somewhat of a rant. What I aimed to eventually convey is that the journey of entrepreneurship really comes with cruel battles. And if one wants to aim to be successful, one should better prepare oneself to TAKE MASSIVE ACTIONS and face the shards of failures that's going to really hurt you as you storm yourself through it.
But at the end, it will be worth it.
Because once you've reached the other side, you'd have stormed through so much, that you'd have qualities of persistence, strong heart, wise/sharp decision-making like you'd never imagine you could have.
4 months ago, I was $25,000 in debt. That's excluding my maxed out credit card with $6,000 more, and other miscellaneous that I think others still think I owe them from my failed ventures.
Then my life started to turn around.
I believe luck is also crucial to business success. But mostly I'm referring to luck that arrives when one is already working and striving to the limits that one can be.
5 months ago, I spent time on The Fast Lane forum. I eventually decided to take an Ecommerce model. Unfortunately, I repeated what I had done years prior which is following what everyone is doing and competing in a market where others are offering more value than I do. I decided on creating a website based around a niche I was more passionate about and dropshipping products to customers.
The luck I'm referring to came in the form of my best friend. He told me I'm doing something stupid by intending to drop ship products to customers in the US when I'm from Asia. This is coming from a friend whose family is comprised of multi-billionaires and millionaires (9 figures). Initially, I decided to go ahead and do what I've set my sights upon. However, it's not much sooner that I realized it's an extremely steep uphill battle trying to source for products that I want and creating a website that can compete with the giants which already exists in that niche. In my mind, I didn't care how hard the SEO process would be, I just wanted to create the site. But without real knowledge about what I was selling, with the variety of products of what my competitors are offering being so huge, and with their sites being so well designed and developed - I realized it was going to take at least a year or two before some minor results would show.
And then the incident happened when that 'underground business' I was involved in came crashing down on me. I had to sell my stakes as soon as possible, and leave myself with practically nothing. At that time, I had three choice: One, to kill myself for having been a failure always, Two, to succumb to my fate and accept that I'll be a nobody forever, work as an employee and spend all of my life slowly paying off my debts for the next decade, or Three, create a business that allows me to solve all the problem that I have.
Without realizing it, as I haven't been disciplined in going to work on time, I didn't realize that at the end of that month I was going to be fired. Fortunately I chose option #3 before all went to hell.
I had received about $5,000 in commission on my payday that month. Immediately I decided to heed my friend's advice and started looking into an industry which is still rather new but was getting very interesting. I won't disclose what niche it is but will relate it to electronics and daily consumables. The key was Alibaba.com. This time, I've also decided that I won't compete with the big guys internationally. Under the advice of my friend, I decided that my market was going to be local.
And that changed everything.
I took action like there were no pauses. One after another. Talked to manufacturers. Negotiated like hell. Persisted like a mad man across multiple contact with even more manufacturers to determine which one was best to work with. Asked tons of questions. Slowly (though acting crazy fast) learning the prices of everything in my industry. I partnered up with my friend eventually, as he's experienced with products in that industry and agreed to a 20% profit share from sales generated. From my experience with the previous Ecommerce store, set up another Ecommerce website (Magento) with the right template from the start, spent the $5000, had my friend wrote the copy and photographed the pictures (his hobby, but I had to pay for them), SEO'd the site and started telling everybody about the business.
1st Month, the site got to 2nd page. I got some calls. The website had a design much better than every other competitor I know in the top rankings - I was learned about Internet Marketing, they aren't. Started offering cash on delivery services. Started mailing some orders. Very little variety, very little inventory, but somehow they started selling. Our competitors had massive inventory. But their websites are clearly not done by Internet marketers. Possible to beat. Continued everyday. Got fired from my job. Started submitting resumes. Sales is slow, lie in bed all day, struggled to meet evenings, struggled to go through the minutes of each day, played games, gotten interviews with certain companies and hated working in jobs that I really don't have interest for, rejected offers, submitted even more resumes again. Waited even longer. Did some sales in between. Gotten some calls from the business. Waited again. At about 3/4 of a month in, although things were moving slow and I feel like dying because nobody would care for me anymore except family and even they are giving up on me, I started to notice the numbers were rising to a point where I may be able to survive on the income. At least survive. I had no certainty as to what will become of the business. No certainty as to what would become of me. I still haven't fully got out of the situation of that 'underground business'. I had to avoid contact. I had to keep striving.
2nd Month, surprisingly, with the $5000, I got $8000 in sales with inventory left to spare. Immediately pumped that money back in. Still living as though time is moving very slow. Did some more SEO. Learnt every short cut I could to improve my site ranking. Did SMART SEO. Ranking started to rise. Made more money. Friend was born rich. Always wanted to do something of his own to succeed as well, so his wealth wouldn't be attributed to just inheritance and associated to being rich because of his father. We negotiated. If he invested half of of our cost, he gets 50% share. Suddenly had a capital to invest of about $11,000. Pumped that money into better inventory, better manufacturers. Friend pumped some more of his own money into higher end products as well on loan basis to the company. Had a structure. I did manufacturing/web management/SEO side, he did finance and copywriting/photography side. Sales started to increase so that each day had 1-3. Even for $15 I drove 15 mins away with the idea of growing customer base. Thought that minus the cost of my petrol and parking I'd still be left with $5, and that'd be my lunch. Kept checking Web Analytics. Notice what keywords I should particularly rank for. Kept selling. 3/4 of the month in, the products in my rented bedroom was piling up. Packing online orders in the afternoon to keep up to local delivery time is starting to be messy, since there's so little room and with the products being in boxes, and with different varieties, it's inefficient to find them. Packed orders in the morning, provided Cash on Delivery services at night. No life. Busy all day. Website got ranked on first page, 10th place. At the end of the month, about $30-40k in sales. The thought of no more resumes stuck at about the first 2 weeks in.
3rd month in, got an office space to make the packing of online orders more efficient. Had everything arranged out on the floor and on racks. One of the best choices ever. We were ranked #2. Inventory still belonged to small time-medium time player inventory but still, we were ranked #2. Decided no more cash on delivery services. We need a life. By now, we've gotten screwed by manufacturers a few times. Product defects, rushed deliveries causing low quality items - China, during its Chinese New Year stops production for about 3 weeks. That, please note if you will ever work with China manufacturers in the future - WILL cause one of the biggest mess in orders+arrival of products for businesses if you don't pre-stock your inventory for twice-3 times the amount you usually do in advance. We were buying products every 2 weeks by now. We need positive cash flow. Initially, we thought selling out is good. Then sales peaked to the level where we were always out of stock. Variety of products on website is starting to grow. More high end products are being stocked, which means customers' perception of us and trust improved even more. Got screwed by manufacturers' delay. Got headaches over manufacturers. F*cked manufacturers. Got even better manufacturers, branded manufacturers. Sold some more. Worked like slaves over packing orders. Ordered some more. Always out of stock. Frustrated over delays of products. Experienced customs problems. Drove to airport, find contacts/runnners. Set a deal. Experienced more customs problems. Bribed. Thereafter every shipment with sensitive customs - bribed. Products get released. $63k in sales. #1 on 1st page ranking.
4th month in, MORE varieties. The site's starting to look like a formidable player. Facebook page gotten hundreds of likes. Too busy. #1 ranking stayed, and continually being strengthened. Our products got reviewed in blogs, videos, forums. Everyday packing. Have money, spent money, decision always kept to be as sharp as possible. Got more inconsistencies from manufacturers. F*cked even more manufacturers. Made even more manufacturers treat us as priority customers. Made them pledge loyalty to us by screwing them over and over and higher and higher up the ladder to their bosses and then then treat them with utmost respect offering expressing that we hope they do the same. Customs problems again. Spent hours solving them. Got to know more people. Another day gone. Smoother communications with manufacturers, received better attention. Doubled certain inventories. Pre-ordered more to follow production time, no choice. Agreed to hire a staff after discussion with partner. Decided on a different financial background relative of his. Felt older. I'm seen as a boss for the first time in my life. Improved efficiency a hell lot more with the assistance of staff. Packed less, focused on more important work. Purchased even more high end products. The industry is fast growing. Competitors start to have more and more retail. Looked at what everyone is offering. Decided to offer even better, never sacrificing profit margin unless necessary. Received good response. 3/4 of the month in, broke the previous month's ceiling. Today, which is the end of the month, we broke $100,000 in sales for the month. With a lot of items out of stock during the month. Constantly re-investing almost all revenues (after decent salary) back into even better, and even more inventory. Had rather proud family. Much more grateful by the day. Knows there will be more challenges along the way, but still grateful nonetheless and continue to work as hard as possible.
That was the summary of what happened in the past 4 months.
I hope this sharing can provide at least some benefit to the people out there. I thought that after receiving value from this forum, I had to do my best to at least give something in return as well.
If you think you're still a nobody after striving real hard on your journey towards entreprenurship, just remember this: I understand the feeling of how everyday can pass by so plainly even though you've given it your blood, sweat, hours and heart. I understand how everyday can go by so disappointingly without results. I understand how dreadful it can be to just last through another day of being just like everybody else and hoping you can achieve greater success.
Just imagine this, I go through every day in my past 7 years thinking like this. Just hoping, hoping, that all that hard work will eventually produce results. No matter what, don't give up.
You may hit very painful failures, and countless of them along the way. You may feel like there's no hope. No luck. No opportunity.
But if you keep going, and you give your plans of success every sweat and blood and hold it out like that forever, despite all the bruises you're gonna get, I believe it'll be worth it at last. We don't know what will happen in the future. But if we work our hardest for it, we're gonna arrive somewhere. Even though we're poor, we're socially incapable, we're in deep shit, or we think that opportunities won't happen. If we give our lives to being successful, and give every ounce of our soul to it, it will happen some day. The results.
I hope this didn't go on for too long.
My best wishes to every aspiring entrepreneur and Fast Laners out there.
Keep feeling the beat of your heart, and may we all continue to offer greater value to the world and to the people every day.
Thanks for reading.
Just thought I'd like to share a little update back here on The Fastlane Forum. This forum has accompanied me during the process of getting to where I am today, no matter how big an impact. Hell, when I was still struggling to find ways or ideas, the help I'm getting from this site seems to be of no relevance at all. But as I'm writing this today, I realized it - this forum has definitely played a part on my journey to success. I hope my sharing here will be of help to anyone out there who's still striving to create their Fast Lane.
4 months ago, I started a business with $5000 in hand. 4 months later, actually - today, the business has finally reached its first $100,000 sales a month point.
I'm 24 this year. But to whoever's out there who thinks that I'm 24 and so should be seen as one, they would need to re-think that twice. Entrepreneurship is a very cruel thing. It forces you to be much wiser and older than you are. I read a quote once that goes something like this: "Entrepreneurship is doing what others won't early on, so you can live like others can't later on."
It seems rather important for me to state this upfront, because I believe it is important for one to have the right way of thinking and psychology to succeed on the Fast Lane.
4 months ago, I was already $25,000 in debt at the age of 23 single-handedly because I entered an 'underground business' and instead of making something out of it, failed and created one of the darkest times of my life. Without really knowing what I was getting into, and only with the belief that I'll help people by being in the business and that a 'partner' of mine who was experienced in the industry is going to know all the contacts, ways of getting 'resources' and personally being in the business herself in the past - I jumped in with the entrepreneurial aspiration or spirit I have and gambled everything into it about half a year ago. To cut the long story short, I messed up. I was put into jail for 4 days for the first time in my life, and gotten even more debts because polices raided the premises. Initially, we thought it was all settled. They were well bribed, but then with any underground business stories, usually much of it just depends on time - time until one day something just F*cks up. Although yes, my goal to help people (I'll skip my motivation about this) did eventually work out because I did helped some re-think about the underground business and quit it forever, and now some are living healthier lives because of those periods of time, I still landed myself in a mess when it all collapsed - not on the veterans, but on me and my partner.
During that period of time, I've also gotten some friends to invest in the business promising shares and returns. But with the entire collapse, I was in greater debt and sold whatever stake I had in it. I couldn't repay anything. I could only live through each day and night hoping that somehow, I'll manage to hold through the minutes that passes by. Hold through those dark emotions and feelings. Hold through those impending fears.
I believe Entrepreneurship - if it's meant to be set on firm grounds towards success is a journey of experiencing series after series of failures.
I realized I was not like everyone else since high school. While others could enjoy being social and chat about almost anything, I was an intense person. Either it's about dreams, or about big actions. Big aspirations. Big stuff, big things, the world. It couldn't be helped I suppose, as I'm cut from the cloth of a couple - one who's been a primary school teacher all her life, and another, a pastor his entire life. I didn't grow up under wealthy circumstances. My father was always away on his pastorship - but nevertheless wasn't completely one who lived up to his teachings. Growing up, my mother has always been the bread-winner of the family. She worked two occupations, three even, and has a mindset that's almost impenetrable to hardships. I only hoped I could be as strong then. The only downside is being so impenetrable also means that there's very little emotional vulnerability that is shared in the family. Being brought up in a Christian family with a main figure of the family as a pastor also means that I'm a bit disconnected from the 'outside world'. I didn't know how to socialize. I didn't know what was normal to do, what is appropriate to say, what was inappropriate to show. I realized I had to pick up everything on my own. I'm made of pieces from the whole, but first I had to find the pieces and then 'glue them back' so to speak.
Fortunately, somewhere in high school I had the privilege to be sent into an English private school. I didn't know how, but my mother somehow put me through. Perhaps it's got too much to do with how I was beginning to behave extremely rebellious in the high school before that. And yes, that contributed a lot more to my confidence. I used to look at people who converse fluently in English and think they're on a higher social status than I am. Then here I am today, typing in English, when I couldn't even speak it well prior to being sent for English private schooling.
It's a constant strive. When everyone was privileged enough to enjoy life, I didn't. Somewhere deep down inside, I constantly strived to become better. Constantly strived to grow. Constantly strived to find out ways in which I can make things better. Slowly, everyone began to split apart. Most of my friends were sent to better Colleges and Universities. Heck, I was pretty confident everyone in that school has wealthy families after all. Almost everyone I knew went to Australia, UK or US to further studies. I stayed back. But I knew, by then, I had known a lot more than almost all my peers. During college years, I started to venture into Internet Marketing. Learnt copywriting. Learnt marketing. Learnt ecommerce stores. Learnt business. Read books. Read HUNDREDS of books. Continued learning. Never stopped banging into walls. Never stopped risking. Never stopped rushing straight towards failures. Succeed in some. Failed in most.
And yet, I kept doing the same thing over and over again. And failed. And failed. And failed.
Almost everything I described above was to drive down to this, relevant or irrelevant.
It's a journey of failures.
Strangely, if you ever succeed one day, if you really do, perhaps you'd wonder whether they are really failures. Or are they really the pieces that contribute to your ultimate entrepreneurial psychology.
Because looking back, I did realize I was just swinging in thin air without being REALLY confident about what I was doing. There is a really huge difference. I'm referring to made-up confidence and confidence deriving from experience. A made-up confidence can crumble and crash at any given moment when bad times fall into your life. But confidence deriving from experience - and experiences of FAILURES if I may further clarify it - eventually creates qualities of persistence, clear-thinking and sharp decision making in one that no other situations can provide.
I won't really bother to describe how many failures I've met with and what they are. If you thought that the story above about me being 'sucked' into the underground business was bad - IN REALITY, IN FIRST PERSON VIEW, AS IF YOU WERE ME FEELING EVERY DARK EMOTION POSSIBLE DURING THOSE TIMES (sorry, had to emphasize how bad it was), perhaps I could re-count 6-7 more with as dark a circumstance which I've went through throughout the past 7 years. I was seen as an outcast. I was seen in bad light in many work situations (I dropped out of University half a year in and started working 5-6 years ago eventually) because I promised more than I could do on employment. I was not with 'the people'. While others at least try to make it look as though they are working for the company, I couldn't hide the fact that I'm constantly pursuing after something to which I can call my own. While others go out together and socialize I was always away privately brewing my own success path and scheming my next plan of success. I couldn't bring myself to live as relaxingly as they could. There were a lot of alone times. But as Felix Dennis the billionaire who created FHM said, being at the top is lonely. I just stucked to everything I learned from the successful and executed everything they share the moment I got the chance. Eventually self-help, think positive books begin to fall on the wayside. Real accounts of people, of industries and accurate representations of the world eventually becomes even better teachers. They teach one very practically. I in fact prefer fiction that describes people's way of thinking and best ways to solve matters even more now than any other books I can pick up (e.g. Jeffrey Archer's books, or something similar to the recent bestseller English translation of the Swedish novel "Easy Money", and etc.). News about billionaires and what really goes on in their heads also make perfect references.
Sorry if this had turned into somewhat of a rant. What I aimed to eventually convey is that the journey of entrepreneurship really comes with cruel battles. And if one wants to aim to be successful, one should better prepare oneself to TAKE MASSIVE ACTIONS and face the shards of failures that's going to really hurt you as you storm yourself through it.
But at the end, it will be worth it.
Because once you've reached the other side, you'd have stormed through so much, that you'd have qualities of persistence, strong heart, wise/sharp decision-making like you'd never imagine you could have.
4 months ago, I was $25,000 in debt. That's excluding my maxed out credit card with $6,000 more, and other miscellaneous that I think others still think I owe them from my failed ventures.
Then my life started to turn around.
I believe luck is also crucial to business success. But mostly I'm referring to luck that arrives when one is already working and striving to the limits that one can be.
5 months ago, I spent time on The Fast Lane forum. I eventually decided to take an Ecommerce model. Unfortunately, I repeated what I had done years prior which is following what everyone is doing and competing in a market where others are offering more value than I do. I decided on creating a website based around a niche I was more passionate about and dropshipping products to customers.
The luck I'm referring to came in the form of my best friend. He told me I'm doing something stupid by intending to drop ship products to customers in the US when I'm from Asia. This is coming from a friend whose family is comprised of multi-billionaires and millionaires (9 figures). Initially, I decided to go ahead and do what I've set my sights upon. However, it's not much sooner that I realized it's an extremely steep uphill battle trying to source for products that I want and creating a website that can compete with the giants which already exists in that niche. In my mind, I didn't care how hard the SEO process would be, I just wanted to create the site. But without real knowledge about what I was selling, with the variety of products of what my competitors are offering being so huge, and with their sites being so well designed and developed - I realized it was going to take at least a year or two before some minor results would show.
And then the incident happened when that 'underground business' I was involved in came crashing down on me. I had to sell my stakes as soon as possible, and leave myself with practically nothing. At that time, I had three choice: One, to kill myself for having been a failure always, Two, to succumb to my fate and accept that I'll be a nobody forever, work as an employee and spend all of my life slowly paying off my debts for the next decade, or Three, create a business that allows me to solve all the problem that I have.
Without realizing it, as I haven't been disciplined in going to work on time, I didn't realize that at the end of that month I was going to be fired. Fortunately I chose option #3 before all went to hell.
I had received about $5,000 in commission on my payday that month. Immediately I decided to heed my friend's advice and started looking into an industry which is still rather new but was getting very interesting. I won't disclose what niche it is but will relate it to electronics and daily consumables. The key was Alibaba.com. This time, I've also decided that I won't compete with the big guys internationally. Under the advice of my friend, I decided that my market was going to be local.
And that changed everything.
I took action like there were no pauses. One after another. Talked to manufacturers. Negotiated like hell. Persisted like a mad man across multiple contact with even more manufacturers to determine which one was best to work with. Asked tons of questions. Slowly (though acting crazy fast) learning the prices of everything in my industry. I partnered up with my friend eventually, as he's experienced with products in that industry and agreed to a 20% profit share from sales generated. From my experience with the previous Ecommerce store, set up another Ecommerce website (Magento) with the right template from the start, spent the $5000, had my friend wrote the copy and photographed the pictures (his hobby, but I had to pay for them), SEO'd the site and started telling everybody about the business.
1st Month, the site got to 2nd page. I got some calls. The website had a design much better than every other competitor I know in the top rankings - I was learned about Internet Marketing, they aren't. Started offering cash on delivery services. Started mailing some orders. Very little variety, very little inventory, but somehow they started selling. Our competitors had massive inventory. But their websites are clearly not done by Internet marketers. Possible to beat. Continued everyday. Got fired from my job. Started submitting resumes. Sales is slow, lie in bed all day, struggled to meet evenings, struggled to go through the minutes of each day, played games, gotten interviews with certain companies and hated working in jobs that I really don't have interest for, rejected offers, submitted even more resumes again. Waited even longer. Did some sales in between. Gotten some calls from the business. Waited again. At about 3/4 of a month in, although things were moving slow and I feel like dying because nobody would care for me anymore except family and even they are giving up on me, I started to notice the numbers were rising to a point where I may be able to survive on the income. At least survive. I had no certainty as to what will become of the business. No certainty as to what would become of me. I still haven't fully got out of the situation of that 'underground business'. I had to avoid contact. I had to keep striving.
2nd Month, surprisingly, with the $5000, I got $8000 in sales with inventory left to spare. Immediately pumped that money back in. Still living as though time is moving very slow. Did some more SEO. Learnt every short cut I could to improve my site ranking. Did SMART SEO. Ranking started to rise. Made more money. Friend was born rich. Always wanted to do something of his own to succeed as well, so his wealth wouldn't be attributed to just inheritance and associated to being rich because of his father. We negotiated. If he invested half of of our cost, he gets 50% share. Suddenly had a capital to invest of about $11,000. Pumped that money into better inventory, better manufacturers. Friend pumped some more of his own money into higher end products as well on loan basis to the company. Had a structure. I did manufacturing/web management/SEO side, he did finance and copywriting/photography side. Sales started to increase so that each day had 1-3. Even for $15 I drove 15 mins away with the idea of growing customer base. Thought that minus the cost of my petrol and parking I'd still be left with $5, and that'd be my lunch. Kept checking Web Analytics. Notice what keywords I should particularly rank for. Kept selling. 3/4 of the month in, the products in my rented bedroom was piling up. Packing online orders in the afternoon to keep up to local delivery time is starting to be messy, since there's so little room and with the products being in boxes, and with different varieties, it's inefficient to find them. Packed orders in the morning, provided Cash on Delivery services at night. No life. Busy all day. Website got ranked on first page, 10th place. At the end of the month, about $30-40k in sales. The thought of no more resumes stuck at about the first 2 weeks in.
3rd month in, got an office space to make the packing of online orders more efficient. Had everything arranged out on the floor and on racks. One of the best choices ever. We were ranked #2. Inventory still belonged to small time-medium time player inventory but still, we were ranked #2. Decided no more cash on delivery services. We need a life. By now, we've gotten screwed by manufacturers a few times. Product defects, rushed deliveries causing low quality items - China, during its Chinese New Year stops production for about 3 weeks. That, please note if you will ever work with China manufacturers in the future - WILL cause one of the biggest mess in orders+arrival of products for businesses if you don't pre-stock your inventory for twice-3 times the amount you usually do in advance. We were buying products every 2 weeks by now. We need positive cash flow. Initially, we thought selling out is good. Then sales peaked to the level where we were always out of stock. Variety of products on website is starting to grow. More high end products are being stocked, which means customers' perception of us and trust improved even more. Got screwed by manufacturers' delay. Got headaches over manufacturers. F*cked manufacturers. Got even better manufacturers, branded manufacturers. Sold some more. Worked like slaves over packing orders. Ordered some more. Always out of stock. Frustrated over delays of products. Experienced customs problems. Drove to airport, find contacts/runnners. Set a deal. Experienced more customs problems. Bribed. Thereafter every shipment with sensitive customs - bribed. Products get released. $63k in sales. #1 on 1st page ranking.
4th month in, MORE varieties. The site's starting to look like a formidable player. Facebook page gotten hundreds of likes. Too busy. #1 ranking stayed, and continually being strengthened. Our products got reviewed in blogs, videos, forums. Everyday packing. Have money, spent money, decision always kept to be as sharp as possible. Got more inconsistencies from manufacturers. F*cked even more manufacturers. Made even more manufacturers treat us as priority customers. Made them pledge loyalty to us by screwing them over and over and higher and higher up the ladder to their bosses and then then treat them with utmost respect offering expressing that we hope they do the same. Customs problems again. Spent hours solving them. Got to know more people. Another day gone. Smoother communications with manufacturers, received better attention. Doubled certain inventories. Pre-ordered more to follow production time, no choice. Agreed to hire a staff after discussion with partner. Decided on a different financial background relative of his. Felt older. I'm seen as a boss for the first time in my life. Improved efficiency a hell lot more with the assistance of staff. Packed less, focused on more important work. Purchased even more high end products. The industry is fast growing. Competitors start to have more and more retail. Looked at what everyone is offering. Decided to offer even better, never sacrificing profit margin unless necessary. Received good response. 3/4 of the month in, broke the previous month's ceiling. Today, which is the end of the month, we broke $100,000 in sales for the month. With a lot of items out of stock during the month. Constantly re-investing almost all revenues (after decent salary) back into even better, and even more inventory. Had rather proud family. Much more grateful by the day. Knows there will be more challenges along the way, but still grateful nonetheless and continue to work as hard as possible.
That was the summary of what happened in the past 4 months.
I hope this sharing can provide at least some benefit to the people out there. I thought that after receiving value from this forum, I had to do my best to at least give something in return as well.
If you think you're still a nobody after striving real hard on your journey towards entreprenurship, just remember this: I understand the feeling of how everyday can pass by so plainly even though you've given it your blood, sweat, hours and heart. I understand how everyday can go by so disappointingly without results. I understand how dreadful it can be to just last through another day of being just like everybody else and hoping you can achieve greater success.
Just imagine this, I go through every day in my past 7 years thinking like this. Just hoping, hoping, that all that hard work will eventually produce results. No matter what, don't give up.
You may hit very painful failures, and countless of them along the way. You may feel like there's no hope. No luck. No opportunity.
But if you keep going, and you give your plans of success every sweat and blood and hold it out like that forever, despite all the bruises you're gonna get, I believe it'll be worth it at last. We don't know what will happen in the future. But if we work our hardest for it, we're gonna arrive somewhere. Even though we're poor, we're socially incapable, we're in deep shit, or we think that opportunities won't happen. If we give our lives to being successful, and give every ounce of our soul to it, it will happen some day. The results.
I hope this didn't go on for too long.
My best wishes to every aspiring entrepreneur and Fast Laners out there.
Keep feeling the beat of your heart, and may we all continue to offer greater value to the world and to the people every day.
Thanks for reading.
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