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- Nov 13, 2022
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Happy and excited to be a part of this forum! I am 20 this year and currently serving my mandatory 2 years of army here in my country. I am so glad to stumble across @MJ DeMarco 's book for The Millionaire Fastlane . It helped me identify the many problems that is existing in my current business. (Please excuse my poor english or use of vocabulary, still trying to improve my english further 
)
Let me give you all a preface of my situation involving business, 3 years ago, a friend and I saw potential in creating a business revolving fishing. My friend was engrossed with fishing while I was just a newbie. But we saw many problems involving the local market here about fishing, not beginner friendly and nobody to really run you through how to go about fishing (other than online resources; but it really differs from country to country). We came up with an idea to make fishing easier and more beginner friendly for new anglers, we would create affordable fishing products and sell them in sets (all-in-one fishing packages) which makes it much more simpler to understand and get into fishing. We saw the numbers rolling in and were very much excited and exhilarated about our business moving forward. However, this is where things took a turn for the worse.
About 6 months into our business venture, my friend decided that it would be a good idea to bring more knowledgeable anglers and friends into the company. This was the first mistake, even though bringing more people on board with more knowledge about the industry is great, they were not brought in as employees. They were brought in as shareholders or as they would call it 'owners'. So, with this our 6 month old company had 7 owners including myself. This is where I failed my first commandment of Control. Having so many members in our company made me have limited control in changes made in the company. And this failure would come to show when more important decisions were brought about to the company.
1 year down the road, we opened a physical shop featuring our products as well. But because we opened this physical shop, we required people to operate it everyday and at the time the most readily available manpower was us the 'owners'. Its been a year since we have opened the shop and it requires massive amounts of time and resources to operate it and market. On top of this, we have an online shop (targeted more towards the locals) as well which required its separate system of operations. Which makes it hard to be automated to detach ourselves from the time spent (working for time instead of time working for us). This is where I failed the commandment of Time.
Before I entered the army, I thought about these decisions quite frequently and the state of what our company is in. Expenses increasing, little to no income for the 'owners' as most of what we earn is put back into the company for our expenses and purchasing more stock. While I understand investing in our business is necessary to grow it and push it into the Fastlane, I get barely any noticeable share of income which I can be proud of. Also opening 1 shop in our country where others are nearby also limits the audience and customers we can attract. As opposed to fully focusing on a national audience or international through online sales. It becomes painfully obvious that I have failed many commandments in CENTS (failing Control, Time, Scale most notably). I always knew that something was wrong with the way we operate and how our business is growing (at a slow pace, the Slowlane) but was not able to articulate it properly.
Reading the 'The Fastlane Millionaire' book has opened my eyes to all the issues involved with the way we operate. I hope to rectify as much issues that we have or start again with a clean slate. I have a long 2 years ahead of me in my army service, so I want to gain as much knowledge and skills about business and entrepreneurship. And I strongly believe that joining this forum and reading through the book is a step in the right direction. I know that this is my calling in life, I want to become a Fastlaner. Nothing has resonated with me as much as this. Godspeed, onto the Fastlane.
)Let me give you all a preface of my situation involving business, 3 years ago, a friend and I saw potential in creating a business revolving fishing. My friend was engrossed with fishing while I was just a newbie. But we saw many problems involving the local market here about fishing, not beginner friendly and nobody to really run you through how to go about fishing (other than online resources; but it really differs from country to country). We came up with an idea to make fishing easier and more beginner friendly for new anglers, we would create affordable fishing products and sell them in sets (all-in-one fishing packages) which makes it much more simpler to understand and get into fishing. We saw the numbers rolling in and were very much excited and exhilarated about our business moving forward. However, this is where things took a turn for the worse.
About 6 months into our business venture, my friend decided that it would be a good idea to bring more knowledgeable anglers and friends into the company. This was the first mistake, even though bringing more people on board with more knowledge about the industry is great, they were not brought in as employees. They were brought in as shareholders or as they would call it 'owners'. So, with this our 6 month old company had 7 owners including myself. This is where I failed my first commandment of Control. Having so many members in our company made me have limited control in changes made in the company. And this failure would come to show when more important decisions were brought about to the company.
1 year down the road, we opened a physical shop featuring our products as well. But because we opened this physical shop, we required people to operate it everyday and at the time the most readily available manpower was us the 'owners'. Its been a year since we have opened the shop and it requires massive amounts of time and resources to operate it and market. On top of this, we have an online shop (targeted more towards the locals) as well which required its separate system of operations. Which makes it hard to be automated to detach ourselves from the time spent (working for time instead of time working for us). This is where I failed the commandment of Time.
Before I entered the army, I thought about these decisions quite frequently and the state of what our company is in. Expenses increasing, little to no income for the 'owners' as most of what we earn is put back into the company for our expenses and purchasing more stock. While I understand investing in our business is necessary to grow it and push it into the Fastlane, I get barely any noticeable share of income which I can be proud of. Also opening 1 shop in our country where others are nearby also limits the audience and customers we can attract. As opposed to fully focusing on a national audience or international through online sales. It becomes painfully obvious that I have failed many commandments in CENTS (failing Control, Time, Scale most notably). I always knew that something was wrong with the way we operate and how our business is growing (at a slow pace, the Slowlane) but was not able to articulate it properly.
Reading the 'The Fastlane Millionaire' book has opened my eyes to all the issues involved with the way we operate. I hope to rectify as much issues that we have or start again with a clean slate. I have a long 2 years ahead of me in my army service, so I want to gain as much knowledge and skills about business and entrepreneurship. And I strongly believe that joining this forum and reading through the book is a step in the right direction. I know that this is my calling in life, I want to become a Fastlaner. Nothing has resonated with me as much as this. Godspeed, onto the Fastlane.
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