My journey so far...

[Skroytz]

Hello,
After a lot of months, I write a post for the second time here in this forum. I do not want to delay you if you read this so I will go straight to the point.I started the wealth journey on December of 2020

1) I had an idea about an app. I am from Greece and I live in Greece. This app will resolve a major problem that i had and many of my friends. I have discussed with many people and all said to me that was a good idea. I did a CENTS and everything was good.
2) I started to have a different lifestyle. And i am doing this until now:

• I wake up at 5:50 am.
• I read my goals
• I do 10 minutes of meditation
• I to exercise for about 1,5 hour
• I start my 9-5 job but i steal them 2,5 hours. So basically is 5,5 hours job and not 8 hours.
• I read for 1 hour and 5 minutes a wealth book.
• I continue my regular job and i disrupt it if i find something for that i was working or if I have spare time to do more for my app.
• After I finish my job at 5:00 pm I start work the app until 10-10:30 pm
• Monday to Friday. At Saturday I wake up at 8:00 am and i do 1 hour exercise and then until 8:00 pm i study books, articles, videos, and coding. After that I meet my girlfriend.
• At Sunday i wake up and i have a more relax morning. I go for a walk and at the noon i study again. At 8:00 pm MAYBE i will see some friends.
• That's my week in the last 12 months.

This program is until now. After 12 months. And i do it every F*cking single day.
3) After 1,5 months i find some old friends and decide to cooperate with me to start the app. I created a poll that answered 200 people about various questions that i had mixed about an app or other topics. The results were very good and 60% wanted an app about the field i wanted to create.
4) We started to work. I did the frontend job. I am developer, so i started create the app with ionic/angular (so what the same code produce and android and ios code) and the other 2 colleagues the backend and an admin console. The things was great and for months we did every 2 weeks meetings for progress and problems.
5) The guys left the app and me in September because they did not have it as a priority and they bored the whole thing. So i continued to work it myself and i was in attach with programmers from Fiverr to continue the job.
6) THE FAILURE: After so many months and after i have participated in another community about crypto i have discussed the idea with a youtuber that i talk in that community. And then was the revelation. Before starting the app i have searched for many weeks if something similar existed. I found some sites but they were very old but not a good app. I found 3 apps but they were abandoned and the last update was before 3 years. So i did something different and with value. BUT BUT BUT The guy i mentioned before he told me that an app was already existed about that i have described to him.

I was in socked. I believed that i have found all the solutions but i was deadly wrong. He sent me the app. And then i started to have depression....
The app was perfect. Everything that i had in my mind even the smallest detail was in there. I could not find anything to differentiate. And not only that but the app has implemented many features that i was intended to implement after many months and IF the app was a little successful.

The thing that i dislike more was that i liked the app. And that was a big hit. It had almost the same colors as the app I tried to implement. The app existed since August 2020. The team was 9 people with some of them experienced developers ( i work only 3 years in the field). They had a fund from USA ( I found these pieces of information from Linkedln) and the company exist since August 2018. They had already 275 businesses to work with them in various places in Greece. And a 33k page on Instagram and Facebook. (These numbers are big for Greece)

So the thing that i liked the app so much it hurt me a lot. I tried to find something to do better but the solutions for the field were limited to what they have created. I stopped the implementation and i was in big depression for many days.

I was again in the beginning. I had nothing, and the goal i was worked for 12 months was nothing. I thought "Ok, so you can begin again". So i had the idea for another app. The app is now globally and not only in Greece. I found something good . I can use a lot of the code that i have already created from the previous app. Also, i found from freelancer.com a guy and i am waiting to have my wage in the bank and to borrow some money from friends to pay him to do a feature from me faster and better.

Also, I am at the beginningto start a Shopify store to start dropshipping to have a cash flow. My wage is too little and i live and i help my family now in the same house. So I am very restricted with the money.

I am trying to understand how angel investors and venture capital work and how i can find something like this in Greece to pitch my idea and have some money to start it faster. It's really difficult because no information is available and the world here works differently from USA.

I also i try to understand crypto. I am in a community where we help each other and i have invested some money there too.

Why I am writing this? I don't know yet. This is a confession about the last year for me. It was partially a failure. I don't know if I have learned something actually valuable except that:
a) Never cooperate with anyone if i do not test him enough. These guys were friends they abandoned the project because they were bored and they had better things to do.
b) I learned to code better after so many months.
c) Better research and create something that is not so limited to differentiate from others.

So I lost again. Basically, i have never earned anything in my life so far except for a Bachelor's Degree but for me, that was waste of time.
But i know that i have never stopped trying for the better for 28 years that i live. I was always down and i always try to stand up.

So here I am to start again. I will have this post as a guide for me and for the others if they are interested in my progress. I hope the next time the news to be better for me.

My goal when i started in December 2020 was until 27 May 2026 to be a multimillionaire. So the one year is wasted and gone. I have almost 5 years to do it better and i should do it faster. My short-term goal is until November 2022 to quit my 9-5 job and to have 3000 Euros per month at least ( 3000 Euros for Greece is middle-class money).

Sorry for my bad English. I started to learn again after 10 years with a teacher and i do every Saturday an 1-hour lesson

Have a nice day and i hope the summer to be in an Greek island happy and free

 

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[alexson]

Hello,
After a lot of months, I write a post for the second time here in this forum. I do not want to delay you if you read this so I will go straight to the point.I started the wealth journey on December of 2020

1) I had an idea about an app. I am from Greece and I live in Greece. This app will resolve a major problem that i had and many of my friends. I have discussed with many people and all said to me that was a good idea. I did a CENTS and everything was good.
2) I started to have a different lifestyle. And i am doing this until now:

• I wake up at 5:50 am.
• I read my goals
• I do 10 minutes of meditation
• I to exercise for about 1,5 hour
• I start my 9-6 job but i steal them 2,5 hours. So basically is 5,5 hours job and not 8 hours.
• I read for 1 hour and 5 minutes a wealth book.
• I continue my regular job and i disrupt it if i find something for that i was working or if have spare time to do more for my app.
• After y finish my job at 5 then i started work the app until 10-10:30 pm
• Monday to Friday. At Saturday I wake up at 8:00 am and i do 1 hour exercise and then until 8:00 pm i study books, articles, videos and coding. After that I meet my girlfriend .
• At Sunday i wake up and i have a more relax morning. I go for a walk and at the noon i study again. At 8:00 pm MAYBE i will see some frineds.
• That's my week in the last 12 months.

This program is until now. After 12 months. And i did it every f*cking single day.
3) After 1,5 months i find some old friends and decide to cooperate with me to start the app. I created a poll that answered 200 people about various questions that i had mixed about an app or other topics. The results were very good and 60% wanted an app about the field i wanted to create.
4) We started to work. I did the frontend job. I am developer, so i started create the app with ionic/angular (so what the same code produce and android and ios code) and the other 2 colleague the backend and an admin console. The things was great and for months we did every 2 weeks meetings for progress and problems.
5) The guys left the app and me in September because they did have it as a priority and they bored the whole thing. So i continued to work it myself and i was in attach with programmers from Fiverr to continue the job.
6) THE FAILURE: After so many months and after i have participated in another community about crypto i have discussed the idea with a youtuber that i talk in that community. And then was the revelation. Before starting the app i have searched for many weeks if something similar existed. I found some sites but they were very old but not a good app. I found 3 apps but they were abandoned and the last update was before 3 years. So i did something different and with value. BUT BUT BUT The guy i mentioned before he told me that an app was already existed about that i have described to him.

I was in socked. I believed that i have found all the solutions but i was deadly wrong. He sent me the app. And then i started to have depression....
The app was perfect. Everything that i had in my mind even the smallest detail was in there. I could not find anything to differentiate. And only that but the app has implemented many features that i was intended to implement after many months and IF the app was a little successful.

The thing that i dislike more was that i like the app. And that was a big hit. It had almost the same colours as the app I tried to implement. The app existed since August 2020. The team was 9 people with some of them experienced developers ( i work only 3 years in the field). They had a fund from USA ( I found these pieces of information from Linkedln) and the company exist since August 2018. They had already 275 businesses to work with them in various places in Greece. And a 33k page on Instagram and Facebook. (These numbers are big for Greece)

So the thing that i liked the app so much it hurt me a lot. I tried to find something to do better but the solutions for the field was limited to what they have created. I stopped the implementation and i was in big depression for many days.

I was again in the begging. I had nothing, and the goal i was worked for 12 months was nothing. I thought "Ok, so you can begin again". So i had the idea for another app. The app is now globally and not only in Greece. I found something good . I can use a lot of the code that i have already created from the previous app. Also, i found from freelancer.com a guy and i am waiting to have my wage in the bank and to borrow some money from friends to pay him to do a feature from me faster and better.

Also, I am at the begging to start a Shopify store to start dropshipping to have a cash flow. My wage is too little and i live and i help my family now in the same house. So I am very restricted with the money.

I am trying to understand how angel investors and venture capital work and how i can find something like this in Greece to pitch my idea and have some money to start it faster. It's really difficult because no information are available and the world here works differently from USA.

I also i try to understand crypto. I am in a community where we help each other and i have invested some money there too.

Why I am writing this? I don't know yet. This is a confession about the last year for me. It was partially a failure. I don't know if I have learned something actually valuable except that:
a) Never cooperate with anyone if i am not testing him enough. These guys were friends they abandoned the project because they were bored and they had better things to do.
b) I learned to code better after so many months.
c) Better research and create something that is not so limited to differentiate from others.

So I lost again. Basically, i have never earned anything in my life so far except for a Bachelor's Degree but for me, that was waste of time.
But i know that i have never stopped to try for the better for 28 years that i live. I was always down and i always try to stand up.

So here I am to start again. I will have this post as a guide for me and for the others if they are interested in my progress. I hope the next time the news to be better for me.

My goal when i started in December 2020 was until 27 May 2026 to be a multimillionaire. So the one year is wasted and gone. I have almost 5 years to do it better and i should do it faster. My short-term goal is until November 2022 to quit my 9-5 job and to have 3000 Euros per month at least ( 3000 Euros for Greece is middle-class money).

Sorry for my bad English. I started to learn again after 10 years with a teacher and i do every Saturday an 1 hour lesson

Have a nice day and i hope the summer to be in an Greek island happy and free

Hello Skroytz,

Your daily routine is excellent.

 

[rymf]

You will succeed.

 

[Skroytz]

Hello Skroytz,

Your daily routine is excellent.

Thank you. I connected all the good habits from the books i have read so far. I hope to have some value in the future

 

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[Skroytz]

You will succeed.

Thank you for your support rymf

 

[Skroytz]

Hello,
After a lot of months, I write a post for the second time here in this forum. I do not want to delay you if you read this so I will go straight to the point.I started the wealth journey on December of 2020

1) I had an idea about an app. I am from Greece and I live in Greece. This app will resolve a major problem that i had and many of my friends. I have discussed with many people and all said to me that was a good idea. I did a CENTS and everything was good.
2) I started to have a different lifestyle. And i am doing this until now:

• I wake up at 5:50 am.
• I read my goals
• I do 10 minutes of meditation
• I to exercise for about 1,5 hour
• I start my 9-5 job but i steal them 2,5 hours. So basically is 5,5 hours job and not 8 hours.
• I read for 1 hour and 5 minutes a wealth book.
• I continue my regular job and i disrupt it if i find something for that i was working or if I have spare time to do more for my app.
• After I finish my job at 5:00 pm I start work the app until 10-10:30 pm
• Monday to Friday. At Saturday I wake up at 8:00 am and i do 1 hour exercise and then until 8:00 pm i study books, articles, videos, and coding. After that I meet my girlfriend.
• At Sunday i wake up and i have a more relax morning. I go for a walk and at the noon i study again. At 8:00 pm MAYBE i will see some friends.
• That's my week in the last 12 months.

This program is until now. After 12 months. And i do it every f*cking single day.
3) After 1,5 months i find some old friends and decide to cooperate with me to start the app. I created a poll that answered 200 people about various questions that i had mixed about an app or other topics. The results were very good and 60% wanted an app about the field i wanted to create.
4) We started to work. I did the frontend job. I am developer, so i started create the app with ionic/angular (so what the same code produce and android and ios code) and the other 2 colleagues the backend and an admin console. The things was great and for months we did every 2 weeks meetings for progress and problems.
5) The guys left the app and me in September because they did not have it as a priority and they bored the whole thing. So i continued to work it myself and i was in attach with programmers from Fiverr to continue the job.
6) THE FAILURE: After so many months and after i have participated in another community about crypto i have discussed the idea with a youtuber that i talk in that community. And then was the revelation. Before starting the app i have searched for many weeks if something similar existed. I found some sites but they were very old but not a good app. I found 3 apps but they were abandoned and the last update was before 3 years. So i did something different and with value. BUT BUT BUT The guy i mentioned before he told me that an app was already existed about that i have described to him.

I was in socked. I believed that i have found all the solutions but i was deadly wrong. He sent me the app. And then i started to have depression....
The app was perfect. Everything that i had in my mind even the smallest detail was in there. I could not find anything to differentiate. And not only that but the app has implemented many features that i was intended to implement after many months and IF the app was a little successful.

The thing that i dislike more was that i liked the app. And that was a big hit. It had almost the same colors as the app I tried to implement. The app existed since August 2020. The team was 9 people with some of them experienced developers ( i work only 3 years in the field). They had a fund from USA ( I found these pieces of information from Linkedln) and the company exist since August 2018. They had already 275 businesses to work with them in various places in Greece. And a 33k page on Instagram and Facebook. (These numbers are big for Greece)

So the thing that i liked the app so much it hurt me a lot. I tried to find something to do better but the solutions for the field were limited to what they have created. I stopped the implementation and i was in big depression for many days.

I was again in the beginning. I had nothing, and the goal i was worked for 12 months was nothing. I thought "Ok, so you can begin again". So i had the idea for another app. The app is now globally and not only in Greece. I found something good . I can use a lot of the code that i have already created from the previous app. Also, i found from freelancer.com a guy and i am waiting to have my wage in the bank and to borrow some money from friends to pay him to do a feature from me faster and better.

Also, I am at the beginningto start a Shopify store to start dropshipping to have a cash flow. My wage is too little and i live and i help my family now in the same house. So I am very restricted with the money.

I am trying to understand how angel investors and venture capital work and how i can find something like this in Greece to pitch my idea and have some money to start it faster. It's really difficult because no information is available and the world here works differently from USA.

I also i try to understand crypto. I am in a community where we help each other and i have invested some money there too.

Why I am writing this? I don't know yet. This is a confession about the last year for me. It was partially a failure. I don't know if I have learned something actually valuable except that:
a) Never cooperate with anyone if i do not test him enough. These guys were friends they abandoned the project because they were bored and they had better things to do.
b) I learned to code better after so many months.
c) Better research and create something that is not so limited to differentiate from others.

So I lost again. Basically, i have never earned anything in my life so far except for a Bachelor's Degree but for me, that was waste of time.
But i know that i have never stopped trying for the better for 28 years that i live. I was always down and i always try to stand up.

So here I am to start again. I will have this post as a guide for me and for the others if they are interested in my progress. I hope the next time the news to be better for me.

My goal when i started in December 2020 was until 27 May 2026 to be a multimillionaire. So the one year is wasted and gone. I have almost 5 years to do it better and i should do it faster. My short-term goal is until November 2022 to quit my 9-5 job and to have 3000 Euros per month at least ( 3000 Euros for Greece is middle-class money).

Sorry for my bad English. I started to learn again after 10 years with a teacher and i do every Saturday an 1-hour lesson

Have a nice day and i hope the summer to be in an Greek island happy and free

So almost 2 months have passed and I want to do an update on my journey.
After a lot of thought, and converstations with close ones and also the opinions that i have read in some books I reconsidered my decision about the app.

I have already invest a great amount of time to let it go. I also started to think differently. If already a competition exists , this means that the market exist and the demant also exist. I restructured some things and i believe i can provide a better expierience to my user through my app. So i have been develping since December.

In addition something good happened. I found a guy to cooperate with . He is a gut from my univerity. I did a post to univerities facebook group that i am searching someone. I structured the text in such a way , that only the people with the right or with close mindset with me sent me message. So some guys sent me a message and i selecte this one. He is really smart and very good to the techincal part. I offered him 30% of equity when we start a company. He will construct the backend for the app. So i wanted to be fair here.

Next step is to complete the app and the to begin the platform (this is for th businesses). I want also to create a static website with informations about the app and who we are. Also i want the cooperator to start the backend. Basically he need to reconstruct the existed backend and add many features.

I believe that the app can make it beyond Balcans ( I am from Greece). The goal is to start the stores use the app in Greece and the expand it to nearby countries foe example: Albania, Bulgarym Cyprus, Turkey, etc, and then to go further.

Also i begun the e-commerce (shopify) store. Is about jewels. I have opened it about 1 month now but with none conversion. This is ok because i have run only a boost for a instagram post. This week i will run for 15 days a facebook ad to test the 2 products i have to my page.

I want to use the e-commerce to fund the app project but in the same time to let me quit my job as software engineer.

I have set a goal. I want until November 2022 to make 3000 euros per month.

 

[Skroytz]

Hello everyone,

After 4 months I am writing again. I have done a little progression with each topic that I mentioned in the previous post.

1) The Shopify store has not gone well. The main reason is that I do not have very much time. I started a cooperation with a friend of mine in order to delegate some work for the Shopify. But It didn't go well. The friend barely did the tasks that I asked him. I did almost 90% of the work. Also, the communication was horrible. I couldn't find him in the messenger that we mainly spoke. It gave half of the money to run an ad for the store. At that time i added more jewels (around 15) and the add was about 4 of them. We gave 100 euros each (105$) and we had a very low conversion. The ad run for 15 days and we sold only 2 products. I understand that we had a problem with the creative of the ad and the appearance of the store.

The bad communication continued for many weeks and i told him to stop the cooperation because It did not do well with my nerves. I have not run an ad since then. I focused to find good jewels. The communication with the Chinese agents were horrible, unfortunately. They speak worse English than me and they do not care at all about their products and the website. So it took about 1 month and a half to find products and to understand the specifications.

At the end of this month, I plan to organize the products and run an ad for 200 euros again. I hope at least to sell as products as the money for the ad. Also, I hired a friend of mine to write articles. This person is good and every week she sent me an article to upload it to the store. But again it took me so long because most of the time I try to finish the MVP for the app.

2) The communication with the guy I found is great. We ended up finding the best backend programming language for the app. The answer is the language that he knows better because we want to do things fast. We speak almost every day and I help him with questions that he has with the app and with the business of the app. With the business I mean how the app actually work.

I also tried through LinkedIn to find people who win funding from VCs and I asked them about how they succeed with their businesses and how they found the VCs for the funding. The answer for the last was networking and cold emails. I also follow many VCs and people who work there ( I always talk about Greece and not another country). The startup ecosystem here has grown over the last 3 years a lot. Many investments from companies abroad and many greek companies acquisition. This is good but I understand something.

The VCs care for specific types of companies. That means for example that Microsoft has a program for startups that cares only for businesses that offers solutions B2B and has to do with technology (obviously). My app is not included in that space, I had a conversation with a person that is responsible for a sector in Greece and they said that they did not care. Also, I learned about the rules of sustainability. The VCs and other companies care a lot about that. I rule of sustainability is for example that your company is good for the environment. If you do not have many of these rules in your company they do not care. But I do not care either. I believe that I can have a good impact in the future.

I also spoke with men that had experience with businesses and they gave me feedback on the app and some advice to make it better. I found a piece of specific advice that many suggest to me so I added this feature to the app. A big problem was the revenue model for the app. We decided that a subscription model with 2 or 3 choices for the businesses is the best.

We also create goals for the following months. After an online poll with 200 people participating we found that they want an app like that. So we will give a not functional MVP in the Google store at the end of September. With this, we can understand if the app actually works and we will have good feedback on the progress we have until now. This is a key point to see if this app is actually good.

Also, we decided that the platform that the businesses will use will be free for 6 months ( so the subscription system will open after that period), to test if they really like it and to make them feel that is an important new feature for their businesses.

Something not important but we paid for a logo. I know that is a silly expense but It makes the app feel more realistic and It gave us a little boost.

I have also decided to go on a trip abroad. I have never gone abroad and many people suggested it is good to see something different that will help me with the entrepreneurial mindset and it will open my mind. So I decided to go to Italy which is next to Greece and specifically to Florence. I choose this city because there has started through the Medici Renaissance. I wanted a symbolic trip. So I choose that. How will I pay for the trip? I have a credit card and the trip has monthly interest-free installments. So will go with a friend and we will pay for 3 months a portion (the way the credit cards function here is different from the USA). I believe is an investment for my mind, so I will take that risk.

I still have a goal to make 3000 euros by the end of November 2022.

Take care and I will write again when I will have something different to say

 

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[rymf]

Very few people have such dedication and determination, and most of them are very successful, so will be you.

Just don't stop, but also don't mindlessly spend too much time and effort on things that don't bring you closer to your goals.


Btw: I would recommend doing 30 minutes of meditation instead of 10, it's a massive difference and will help you focus and calm more.

 

[Skroytz]

Very few people have such dedication and determination, and most of them are very successful, so will be you.

Just don't stop, but also don't mindlessly spend too much time and effort on things that don't bring you closer to your goals.


Btw: I would recommend doing 30 minutes of meditation instead of 10, it's a massive difference and will help you focus and calm more.

Thank you rymf for your support , i will try to raise the amount of time for meditation. I need to calm more indeed.

 

[Skroytz]

Hello everyone,

After 4 months I am writing again and this is just a coincidence believe me. Many things changed in the past months both in the practical part and in the psychological part.

1) I decided to close the Shopify store for many reasons. First of all dropshipping is too crowded and it wants a lot of money to test products and market them. Also, it needs a to of money to advertise your products so that find a winning product. Second, it was time-consuming to communicate with the Chinese people from the platforms. I believe that it was a one-time thing but it continued all the time.

I understand that I cannot focus on the app and in Shopify at the same time. I knew that to have your hands on 2 things is difficult to achieve something in any of them but I also believed that dropshipping would be easier and I could have extra money to invest in my app.

So the decision to close it I believe is right.

2) The app has made a progress. Today I signed the contract with my partner and we have an official legal entity of the business. I am both happy and concerned also.

The past months I tried and I consumed a lot of hours to do progress with the app. I communicated also with greek taverns and nightclubs that they said they find the app interesting. But all of them mentioned the competitor that I have.

I had not checked on him for many months but his progress with his team and with the app is very good. Also he incorporated many things that i wanted to add to my app as an advantage. I read an interview with him in the biggest blog for startups in Greece. He has already created contracts with so many stores (nightclubs, restaurants, night-bars, beach-bars etc) almost everywhere in Greece in so little time. He also had contacts with the USA ( he is from Miami ) and he expects the company to expand in the USA, France, Dubai, and Poland and the end of 2023. I just want to have 100 clients (that means stores that pay me to add them to the app and to use the platform for the app ) at the end of 2023 as a goal.

I had a mental breakdown the other day and I did not know after so many hours that i spent in the app, after so many hours of reading, meditation, exercising, and doing everything from the books that I have read if I am in the right road and if I will achieve it.

I want to continue with the business and the app to have this experience and to try to sell the app to the stores. If this does not work I will have the experience and a lot of code that I can use it in a future project. But i cannot take back the time I spent for coding. During my vacation, I had my laptop to code because I wanted to be on schedule with the goals that I had.

I still cannot find somewhere the right answer when it is time to push more and to continue when it is time to pivot and focus your project in another direction or to stop it totally and begin something new.

Never mind, we did not succeed to have the app ready and the company registration to upload in the Google Play Store at the end of September. So I am waiting the next few days to have a VAT to confirm my Google account to upload it to test it with real users.

My partner almost 1 and a half month is sick with many health problems and he cannot do coding. So his part of the app and platform is behind at the same time. I am doing everything now and I try to achieve it as fast as possible. At the same time, I went to a talk and i met other people with the same mindset. I tried to expand my network but only find people who work in their apps and also a potential new competitor ( My luck is not the greatest as you can understand ).

We have set a goal for the app and its platform to go live by the end of January. By this time I want to complete the basic code both for the app and for the platform, to test it, and to go out and have contact with store owners to show the app and to discuss if we can cooperate. The bad thing is that almost everyone is in the app of the competitor.

BUT I will try to show the few factors that my app is better and the future of the platform and the app. Also I have a different payment method that I believe is better for the store. The competitor takes a commission with every reservation. This is the same as having a PR for the store to bring you, people. I have something better, a subscription system. The store pays a specific portion of the money every month to use the platform and to be in the app for a specific amount of reservations. After this amount and only I will charge the store an amount for every reservation. If they do not have so many reservations they do not pay me extra. I believe it is more favorable for the store and for me and we have 2 winners at the same time with great value exchange.

My goal of 3000 euros at the end of November is not achievable. I set the new go to be at the end of March of 2023 to make 3000 per month. I did not succeed in many goals that I set but I will try to achieve the next ones.

I hope the next time I write here to have better and more exciting news.

Take care and remember "A quitter never wins. A winner never quits"

 

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[Two Dog]

I have set a goal. I want until November 2022 to make 3000 euros per month.

I never found that setting goals for earning XXX money to be useful e.g. Be a multi-millionaire in five years.

It's too restrictive, too artificial and gives you no metrics for tracking progress on activities that would actually be helpful in reaching the goal. Let's say you want to run 10K in under an hour. Writing that down is basically worthless. It's not like you're going to forget it.

Instead, it's far more beneficial to write down and commit to all the activities that are needed to make it happen.

• I'll run five days every week for three months
• I'll complete a 10K race event every months for three months
• I'll join a local running club and work out with them each week.

I still cannot find somewhere the right answer when it is time to push more and to continue when it is time to pivot and focus your project in another direction or to stop it totally and begin something new.

Yep, that's always a tough one. There's rarely a clear answer. Your pivot point might be someone else's breakthrough moment.

 

[Panos Daras]

Try some blue Ocean strategy, a product that does not have so much competition so that you can have a good value proposal that sets you appart. The business you are competing with seems to already have traction that is key for this model. To compete with them you will need VC, but do you really want to go down that path and lose control of your business?
Also do some self-reflection.
Why didn't the sales come?
- Was the timing wrong? This is one of the most common reason businesses fail and there is nothing you can do, you just need to pivot.
- Are the customers not interested? Why?
- Did you document your market experients?
- Did you do proper testing?
- Did you measure relevant numbers?
- What can be improved in your execution?
-And the most important question: What did YOU do wrong and how can you improve?

 

[Skroytz]

I never found that setting goals for earning XXX money to be useful e.g. Be a multi-millionaire in five years.

It's too restrictive, too artificial and gives you no metrics for tracking progress on activities that would actually be helpful in reaching the goal. Let's say you want to run 10K in under an hour. Writing that down is basically worthless. It's not like you're going to forget it.

Instead, it's far more beneficial to write down and commit to all the activities that are needed to make it happen.

• I'll run five days every week for three months
• I'll complete a 10K race event every months for three months
• I'll join a local running club and work out with them each week.

Yep, that's always a tough one. There's rarely a clear answer. Your pivot point might be someone else's breakthrough moment.

You are right but The real answer here is that I need a business to have a cash flow. I mean this clearly the path. To start acting and to do some work and to offer value. I write this everywhere in my room. Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it.

Also now I have new data and as result, i am close to 80% dropping the project.

 

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[Skroytz]

Try some blue Ocean strategy, a product that does not have so much competition so that you can have a good value proposal that sets you appart. The business you are competing with seems to already have traction that is key for this model. To compete with them you will need VC, but do you really want to go down that path and lose control of your business?
Also do some self-reflection.
Why didn't the sales come?
- Was the timing wrong? This is one of the most common reason businesses fail and there is nothing you can do, you just need to pivot.
- Are the customers not interested? Why?
- Did you document your market experients?
- Did you do proper testing?
- Did you measure relevant numbers?
- What can be improved in your execution?
-And the most important question: What did YOU do wrong and how can you improve?

The time, as it turns out, was probably wrong.
The customers which is simply people that want to use the app for reservations wanted something like that. I did a survey 2 times and I had over 200 answers and 80% wanted the app for the reservation system.

So the app was about to do a reservation to night clubs. Apparently, the people wanted that but the system that clubbing works in Greece does not allow it. I had a conversation with a club manager and he was positive about the app but the main problem was that in Greece we work with PRs(Public Relationships) that bring people to clubs through invitations and maitre ( They are like leaders of PRs). So the problem was we could not find a way to have a combination with them in the app. We brainstormed and we could not find a solution.

As a result, people may want the app but the nightclubs can not use it because they work with different business model. We searched again the competitor and we spotted that he has almost 85% of restaurants in his app and the other percentage is nightclubs, bars, and live stages. So clearly something do not work to him too. The market here has already 2 apps that work with restaurants and they are very good established for many years and I cannot compete in that level now that they are 3 apps for restaurants.

We will try to find out the way he is paid by the stores because now he may do something different from the beginning.

The odds are against me, so already I bought some Udemy courses and I start to learn new technologies.
I will wait to listen to the new data about the other but my gut feeling says that this is over.

The problem is that I have a code and I do not know what to do it. The code is not finished and my partner now begins to work again to finish the job that he had not done the previous 2 months. I do not know how this code can pivot somehow because It was for a specific industry.

All the ideas I have right now want a big budget ( over 200.000 euros ) so I have been stuck to find a problem and to offer a solution or to find a market and bring value to that market and take a share.

What I did wrong: Apparently I was overconfident that I could finish the minimum app faster. So I was wrong with my calculations. I do know if I was wrong that the individuals that I asked personally and from the poll gave me the wrong impression about the app.
I was half-wrong with my partner. He did not value the business mindset as I do. He worked a lot on the app but when the time was tough and he had a problem he did not push it. I mean when everything is good all are very comfortable. But when the shit happens, this is when you understand who has the guts and the mindset to push it.

Thank you for your feedback and for the recommendations. I appreciate it.

 

[Panos Daras]

The time, as it turns out, was probably wrong.
The customers which is simply people that want to use the app for reservations wanted something like that. I did a survey 2 times and I had over 200 answers and 80% wanted the app for the reservation system.

So the app was about to do a reservation to night clubs. Apparently, the people wanted that but the system that clubbing works in Greece does not allow it. I had a conversation with a club manager and he was positive about the app but the main problem was that in Greece we work with PRs(Public Relationships) that bring people to clubs through invitations and maitre ( They are like leaders of PRs). So the problem was we could not find a way to have a combination with them in the app. We brainstormed and we could not find a solution.

As a result, people may want the app but the nightclubs can not use it because they work with different business model. We searched again the competitor and we spotted that he has almost 85% of restaurants in his app and the other percentage is nightclubs, bars, and live stages. So clearly something do not work to him too. The market here has already 2 apps that work with restaurants and they are very good established for many years and I cannot compete in that level now that they are 3 apps for restaurants.

We will try to find out the way he is paid by the stores because now he may do something different from the beginning.

The odds are against me, so already I bought some Udemy courses and I start to learn new technologies.
I will wait to listen to the new data about the other but my gut feeling says that this is over.

The problem is that I have a code and I do not know what to do it. The code is not finished and my partner now begins to work again to finish the job that he had not done the previous 2 months. I do not know how this code can pivot somehow because It was for a specific industry.

All the ideas I have right now want a big budget ( over 200.000 euros ) so I have been stuck to find a problem and to offer a solution or to find a market and bring value to that market and take a share.

What I did wrong: Apparently I was overconfident that I could finish the minimum app faster. So I was wrong with my calculations. I do know if I was wrong that the individuals that I asked personally and from the poll gave me the wrong impression about the app.
I was half-wrong with my partner. He did not value the business mindset as I do. He worked a lot on the app but when the time was tough and he had a problem he did not push it. I mean when everything is good all are very comfortable. But when the shit happens, this is when you understand who has the guts and the mindset to push it.

Thank you for your feedback and for the recommendations. I appreciate it.

Try launching it somewhere else in Europe eg UK or NL

 

[Skroytz]

Try launching it somewhere else in Europe eg UK or NL

Without networking with nightlife people is difficult. I searched and already exist many apps like that already. So even though I had the networking to speak with a club manager something like that already exists to some extent.

I try to calm for now and to think something else and obviously something to use the existed code because is a shame to stay in my laptop without any use.

 

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[Skroytz]

Hello everyone,

So the past 2,5 months I tried to calm my mind and to have some time with friends and some activities that I do rarely in previous years with the failed project.

I tried to read books ( i succeed to read 2 books ), and to look for evidence for a problem that I can solve. All the projects that I had in my mind I erased them because they already existed.

I found problems that do not have a product to solve them, but unfortunately, I do not have the expertise. I have them in my mind ( and in a notebook ) so that when I have the right partners and the money to implement them. The first month was difficult because I could not find something that my expertise (Frontend developer) can solve. So I started to watch tutorials about blockchain programming in Ethereum. I finished one and h started another one.

At the same time, chatGPT appeared and I use it a lot in my everyday job. I found a blank in the market because prompt engineering is the future. I tried to brainstorm an idea to use chatGPT in a more abstract way. I also tried to validate the idea. Buuuttt.......

Again I spoke with people in the field and after some research, I found that the idea already exists from the previous summer. The problem is that the project is beautiful and the differentiation I can do with my project is something that can be copied in very little time. I have to think about it a little more because maybe I will find a way to make the project better. If I will not find something better I would not proceed to execute it. The main problem again is that I cannot find team members and I am alone. I tried Linkedin, I tried networking, I tried my everyday job, but again none is interesting to create a startup - model that produces money.

I feel bad and good at the same time. Bad because I found an idea and already someone has found a team and has implemented it almost the exact way that I thought it. Good because this time I found it early and not after a year so I can stop it soon if I do not find a solution.

I have 2 guys that they want to talk with me about their projects. I will give it a shot because maybe will have something better with them and maybe this to drive in a win-win situation.

I started singing lessons also. I write songs for many years (I mean lyrics) so I wanted to sing them sometime in the future. This is something different and I wanted many years to start it. I wanted also to put my mind in a different situation so that to let process things differently and maybe come up with a solution to a problem that I can use to build my cashflow company, project, or call it by any name.

I still believe that I will find a solution to a major problem to use it to become a millionaire and free. Now I am 30 years old and I started to search about this and the end of 2020 when I was 27,5 years old. I believe I still have time to make things right and to have my dream and also my goal to become true. I just need to make the first step. I must find and to start something.


I hope the next time I write here to have better and more exciting news.

Take care and remember "A quitter never wins. A winner never quits"

 

[Skroytz]

Hello everyone,

I have not written here for a long time—almost 8.5 months—and I have so much news.

Are the news good ones? Almost NO.

Again, everything has gone in a different direction from what I expected.

Let's start with something not business-wise, and be patient because this will be a big post.


1) Problem with Girlfriend & Friends
The time I wrote the previous post, I had a girlfriend, and we were together for almost 5 years. I really loved her, and I had so many experiences with her for the first time.

We already had problems in our relationship, and after some weeks, things got worse. We had a huge fight, and we stopped speaking to each other for almost a month. I believed that she was wrong because she did a particular thing, and I wanted her to apologize.

When I was wrong, I apologized every time, but I have never listened to an apology from her side.

I had my birthday in May, so I was eager to listen to her apology so we could be together on my birthday.

As you can understand, her ego was bigger. She sent me a wish on Facebook Messenger but never an apology. So, I did not invite her, and I was even angrier.

I was really depressed, and on the day of my birthday, I had other thoughts too that I had for many weeks and months.

At the same time, I took a look at my surroundings and could not find people who have the same thirst for financial freedom, personal development, and entrepreneurship.

I do not have a single person who has the same interest as me in a big proportion. All the people around me have something that I like personally (for example, I like to go to rock/metal concerts), but we do not have something else in common.

"You are the average of the 5 people you spend time with," and almost none of them have the same mindset as me.

I still try to find other people like me to push me further. I go to conferences, meet people, but they already have a team or a project, and I cannot hang out with them because obviously, they do not have time.

So, everything was a little messed up. I was really sad about the problem with my girlfriend and the people around me. I know some of them love me, and we can have great times and fun. But for so many years, this is not my priority.

I will try more, but I know this is something important. If it was not for psychology and so many entrepreneurship books, they would not mention it.

So, after my birthday, I cried a lot and tried again to read books, to work out even more, and to continue with the other 2 projects.

I tried with my girlfriend to go for coffee, and we discussed many things, and after that, we agreed to try one more time to work things out between us. After one month, we had another bigger fight.

I ended the relationship. She said many things, and obviously, I said things too, but she said something particularly that I know was deep inside her heart even though she was very angry at the moment that she said it. But for me, it was a catalyst.

I was very disappointed, and we ended it on 2nd of July. After that, I closed my social media for 2 months until September. Until now, I have not communicated with her.

2) Problem with the 2 projects

As I told you in the previous post, I started to talk with 2 guys about 2 projects.

Project A)

We had almost every week a call for the duration of 2.5 months. At first, I was happy that I found another team with the same mindset. But the "leader" and "CEO" had something off. I recommended him some books to read (obviously, the first books were of MJ). The guy had a concern about the equity that I would have in the project and the future people that would have.

I argued with him. First, I asked for a big proportion, about 15%, because I would start the project and do all the things. I know how to organize a team, and I had some ideas for the project. But they came with less equity. I did not have a problem. I said about 9%.

At the same time, I started to work on an MVP. I read about a technology that I did not know, basically a library in JavaScript, and I started to build it. I showed them the results every week, and every week we had discussions about the equity, about 0.2% less or now, etc. You get the point.

I told him that he was focusing in the wrong direction. He also could not understand that the final version of the project would be very late. For now, we needed to build something fast and release it to get some feedback.

He already had 200 people from Project Hunt who were interested in the project. So, it was a huge opportunity.

He wanted to transform a betting game that would be the 2nd version of the project into an online video game as a second version. I explained to him that these are COMPLETELY different technologies and stacks.

I informed from the beginning that I could do everything until the 1st version. Then, I could organize and be here for creativity. Also, I could slowly learn a new technology to become better. For the 2nd version, we would need a different team and people.

The man was unconvinced. Every week, again, we had the boring conversation about the equity. I had almost a functional prototype that in some weeks we could put it out for people to test it.

And then he announced to me that he decided with his teammate not to continue with me because I do not have the experience to be a CTO and to know the technologies to bring it to life.

So, I lost 2.5 months for a project that is sitting on my PC and said goodbye to him.

Project B:
The project was something completely different.

I met a guy at a conference, and he had many awards in A.I. and had won many competitions. Also, his LinkedIn page was amazing.

He had an idea for an app about photographers, and I liked the idea a lot. He had made some contacts with photographers, and they asked if the program is already out to test it.

So we have a good sign that it is something good.

This guy worked for a company in the USA. He was a contractor, and he lived in Greece like I. The difference in wage was huge because something about 3k-5k in the USA is like being a king in Greece.

So after many layoffs that happened in summer, they fired him too with a hundred from this company. So we started to work on this project. He knew the machine learning part and the A.I. and would do the rest.

So we agreed, and I started to work on my part almost every day. I sent him progressions to know, and I waited for his part. Again, the problem was that his part was never ready until we had a call, and we did it there. So obviously, this call was not for programming but to connect the 2 parts. This happened many times.

I had to learn new technologies, and I wrote Python that was supposed to be his part. So with the help of ChatGPT, I brought the code to a more stable version.

We went to a conference for startups to pitch the idea. The conference did not have rules or formats or something like that. They just announced when we were there that you have 1 minute to pitch your idea (with a stopwatch), and that's it. We constructed a mini pitch, and he said it was a little difficult for me to speak in English, and also more people knew him. So it was strategic for me to take the spotlight.

We did not do it to pass the other round, but it was a nice experience.

But...

After that, he became a contractor again for another company and took another job with his company (a sole company, he was the only person), and he started to have even less time for the project. So in the end, he wanted to focus on that, and we decided to end it until September.

We talked again in September and November, but again, he did not have time to continue, so that project ended as well. Also, we found 4 web apps that were already almost 90% the same as our idea.

So I lost again 2 months with something that is on my PC again.

3) My bad luck (I do not know how to explain it)
As you understood by now, I had so many failures. I will write some of them down, but believe me, more existed.
This continued between August and November.

I tried to do mini vacations extremely cheaply to clear my mind and to have new experiences so that creativity could burst. I read some books about creativity, so I wanted to try different things (one of them was that I started to take song lessons).

My financials until now are very bad. In August and September, everything went wrong.

My car that I had for 4 months had its engine burnt. It was the first day of my vacation, a 3-hour trip, and the engine burnt after 1.5 hours in the middle of nowhere.

I was going camping, which was cheap and very near the city. So I paid a taxi a BIG amount of money to drive me to the camping. Now I had more expenses because I had to use buses and a taxi every day. My mattress broke on the first day, so I slept on the ground. And obviously, I had to pay a bus to take me back home.

But the city was beautiful, but I did not rest a lot. I had my laptop with me so I could write code for Project B.

After that, in September, my mechanic and I could not find an engine for my car. So until the previous week, I was without a car. Also, the price for the engine and to put it together was very expensive. So I had to borrow money to pay it.

All of August and July, I searched for a home, and I found one to rent. Here the situation with rented homes is extremely difficult. You will find very small houses with very bad construction at a very high price. I found something that had more positives than anyone else, and it had an OK price. Just good.

So I made the deal. I still live with my parents because financially I cannot go there. So I have the house from September, and I pay the rent, and I am not inside the house.

Why?

Because after the car that I did not know needed a new engine, I closed the house, and suddenly I had a tax from the government that I did not know about. Also, I had to pay my insurance that came earlier. Insurance for health and the car.

Also, many things that I had in my house broke, so I had to replace them and buy new ones. For example, my mattress that I sleep on also broke, so I had to buy a new one.

I had to buy furniture for the new house.

I had to pay, obviously, the credit card so I do not have to pay interest.

So I was almost 4 months in my house without going anywhere because I did not have the money.

In addition to all this, I hit both of my ankles and I have been fined for parking. One side of the road was okay. The other side was not. Obviously, I did not see that I parked on the wrong side.

I use the credit card every month but for a need, not because I want more.

My goal is now, until the end of January, to pay it back and to finish it.

4) What about the next steps?
In September, while I rented my house, I spotted a problem here in Greece, and I came up with an idea.
After a while, I saw and I read in many comment sections in different Facebook books that people ask for the same solution that I came up with, many variations but the core concept was the same.

So I booked to go to a conference about real estate.

At the same time, I created a questionnaire survey, and 220 people answered to understand better the main problems that they have.

A sales operator from Linkedin read a post of mine that I look for people to have a cooperation to create something new.

We had a discussion and many calls until now.

We said it will be 50/50. I will do the code until we have an MVP, and she will give value after that because now she cannot do something without a product.

But for now, if we find an angel investor or someone interested because of her job that talks every day with CEOs and executives, she can create a very good pitch, and she has good negotiation skills.

I do not write about what feeling I have because all the previous times something went wrong. For now, I just wait and watch.

I write code, and I have to learn again something new, but I believe I can do it.

5) Conclusion
In the upcoming weeks, I will be at my house, and I will, for sure, experience a different psychology. I want so much to be in my place, and I have my rules and my autonomy.

I believe that this will shift my mindset for good.

I will also have paid for so many things, and the stress that I have constantly had for 4 months will reduce a lot.

I will have time to grieve for my girlfriend because all these months I did not have the capacity in my mind to think about it, as everything went so wrong.

Until the end of January, my goal is to have an MVP for the project so we can test it with users from the questionnaire that I did.

The next time, I will write sooner.

Take care and remember, "A quitter never wins. A winner never quits."