Howdy,
I'm happy to have stumbled on this forum!
How I got here, short version: I was reading Chris Guillebeau's new book Side Hustle. It jogged a memory of an online course I once considered joining--Noah Kagan's "How to Make a $1,000 a Month Business." I Googled it, reacquainted myself with its pitch, then Googled reviews. A discussion on this forum came up on the first results page. I read the reviews (mixed), then found, "How to Learn Code, Start a Web Company, $15k+ per month within 9 months." Great stuff. That, in turn, led me to The Millionaire Fastlane . I read half of it on Kindle last night. More great stuff.
So now I write to introduce myself. I'm forty-eight, live in Portland, Oregon, happily married with one kid, age six. I've had five different "careers" in my working life: in my twenties, I was a network engineer, then an ESL teacher overseas in Europe and Asia, then an academic, then a enterprise software analyst, and now a web developer.
Through it all I've been a Sidewalker and a Slowlaner, as well as an on-again-off-again Wantrapreneur. Yesterday, I made a list of all the hare-brained schemes I've concocted and launched over the years. My first hustle was in Grade Four. A friend of my dad's gave me a case of Pop Rocks. I brought the case to school and sold packets to my classmates at 2 quarters a pop. Pop Rocks were the must-have teeth-rotter of the season. As you can imagine, I made a killing. But then my parents dragged me to an adult party with other kids present. They were always pulling stuff like that. I was bored out of my mind. While poking around the host's bedroom, I found some change under the dresser. I asked if I could keep it. She said yes. Still bored, I looked for other sources of free money. Next to the pile of coats on her bed, I found the host's purse. Her wallet was inside. With my fingertips pinching a dollar bill, she walked in.
The folks were mighty embarrassed. The ride home was pure dread. My punishment: grounded for two weeks. And my pops confiscated the remaining Pop Rocks inventory--and all my earnings.
My relationship to entrepreneurship--and money, for that matter--has been f**cked up ever since.
A list of various hare-brained schemes concocted since then: a resume writing service , a job hunting workbook, a novelty book about swearing in foreign languages, a service sampler promotion company, freelance work as a network administrator, an admin assistant recruitment and training service, a non-destructive examination compliance documentation BBS, a self-help book about excelling at an entry-level tech job, consulting in organizational development, a Star Wars parody call The Empire Menaced, an ESL school in China, a non-profit online college prep school, a collection of creative writing inspired by string theory, a wiki with articles on how popular products are made, a college admissions consultancy, an iOS app to help high school kids prepare for college interviews, a course on popular culture criticism, an iOS and Android app to help drivers study for the DMV written exam, an app that hones critical reading skills, and, currently, a learning management system for driver ed schools.
Most of these ventures never got past the validation phase. With some, I marketed finished products, with few sales. In looking them over now, two things stand out. I failed to base them on solving the problem of an actual prospective customer who was willing to pay for the solution. Most were merely clever ideas, or so I thought, I hoped the world would take a shine to.
In reading The Fastlane Millionaire, one this is crystal clear--I embrace the gospel of the Fastland business. I'm looking to build a system that generates passive income. Yesterday.
Sean Miller
I'm happy to have stumbled on this forum!
How I got here, short version: I was reading Chris Guillebeau's new book Side Hustle. It jogged a memory of an online course I once considered joining--Noah Kagan's "How to Make a $1,000 a Month Business." I Googled it, reacquainted myself with its pitch, then Googled reviews. A discussion on this forum came up on the first results page. I read the reviews (mixed), then found, "How to Learn Code, Start a Web Company, $15k+ per month within 9 months." Great stuff. That, in turn, led me to The Millionaire Fastlane . I read half of it on Kindle last night. More great stuff.
So now I write to introduce myself. I'm forty-eight, live in Portland, Oregon, happily married with one kid, age six. I've had five different "careers" in my working life: in my twenties, I was a network engineer, then an ESL teacher overseas in Europe and Asia, then an academic, then a enterprise software analyst, and now a web developer.
Through it all I've been a Sidewalker and a Slowlaner, as well as an on-again-off-again Wantrapreneur. Yesterday, I made a list of all the hare-brained schemes I've concocted and launched over the years. My first hustle was in Grade Four. A friend of my dad's gave me a case of Pop Rocks. I brought the case to school and sold packets to my classmates at 2 quarters a pop. Pop Rocks were the must-have teeth-rotter of the season. As you can imagine, I made a killing. But then my parents dragged me to an adult party with other kids present. They were always pulling stuff like that. I was bored out of my mind. While poking around the host's bedroom, I found some change under the dresser. I asked if I could keep it. She said yes. Still bored, I looked for other sources of free money. Next to the pile of coats on her bed, I found the host's purse. Her wallet was inside. With my fingertips pinching a dollar bill, she walked in.
The folks were mighty embarrassed. The ride home was pure dread. My punishment: grounded for two weeks. And my pops confiscated the remaining Pop Rocks inventory--and all my earnings.
My relationship to entrepreneurship--and money, for that matter--has been f**cked up ever since.
A list of various hare-brained schemes concocted since then: a resume writing service , a job hunting workbook, a novelty book about swearing in foreign languages, a service sampler promotion company, freelance work as a network administrator, an admin assistant recruitment and training service, a non-destructive examination compliance documentation BBS, a self-help book about excelling at an entry-level tech job, consulting in organizational development, a Star Wars parody call The Empire Menaced, an ESL school in China, a non-profit online college prep school, a collection of creative writing inspired by string theory, a wiki with articles on how popular products are made, a college admissions consultancy, an iOS app to help high school kids prepare for college interviews, a course on popular culture criticism, an iOS and Android app to help drivers study for the DMV written exam, an app that hones critical reading skills, and, currently, a learning management system for driver ed schools.
Most of these ventures never got past the validation phase. With some, I marketed finished products, with few sales. In looking them over now, two things stand out. I failed to base them on solving the problem of an actual prospective customer who was willing to pay for the solution. Most were merely clever ideas, or so I thought, I hoped the world would take a shine to.
In reading The Fastlane Millionaire, one this is crystal clear--I embrace the gospel of the Fastland business. I'm looking to build a system that generates passive income. Yesterday.
Sean Miller
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