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
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Last edited:
Access Restricted: Unlock 1,000,000+ Posts
Stop Peeking Through the Keyhole.
Open the Door.
You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.
- Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
- MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
- Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
- Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."— User Richard Peck
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?
