Hey everyone,
I want to take the time to introduce myself to the wonderful folks at the Fastlane forum. I am 20 years old, I live in Ohio, and I have started two businesses in my life. My first business goes back to 6th grade. I was a lacrosse player and I noticed that everyone was getting their sticks strung at local shops, who did pretty terrible jobs with kids’ sticks. Making it harder for them to play at a high level. So I learned to string sticks in my spare time. This became a great money maker for a younger kid. I made just under 10k before I had to quit stringing because I was going off to college. Not much money for around 7 years, but I was making $20 for 30 minutes of my time. I also had a job during high school so I was pretty well off compared to my peers. I deem it a success.
My next business venture was an e-commerce business. I took graphic design in high school and learned that I had pretty good knack for designing and using Photoshop. I started making car related posters. I set up an online store to try and sell them but I didn’t get the results I wanted for many reasons. One being that I wasn’t proficient with online marketing so I had trouble driving traffic to my site. The only marketing strategy that worked was using business cards. I am a huge car guy so I would go to car shows/events and chat up car owners. I could tell they liked talking to younger people who knew about their cars so there were good connections happening. Toward the end of the conversation, I would causally bring up that I run a small online business and give them my business card. It got me some sales but it wasn’t scalable in the least and the sales numbers weren’t anything to run home about. I closed up shop after a few months and went back to the drawing board.
For the past 2 years I have been digesting all that I can about business/entrepreneurship. I read the MFL very early into this education period. I never thought of looking into the forums until about a year ago when I opened up the book again. I have been reading up on the forums since then and I love the community. However, I have been a chronic lurker. That is changing today. None of my friends seem to have any interest in the Fastlane or entrepreneurship. That is why I want to engage in conversations here on the forum.
Currently I am taking a year off from college. I had to get a job to get by for the mean time. No fun. However, I am getting paid pretty well for a 20 year old. However, the main perk of the job is that I do mindless work on the computer (data entry). This allows me to listen to audiobooks/podcasts for 8 hours a day. My daily listening is about 80% business related with the occasional Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast. I love that guy. I know many people talk about how learning isn’t doing. You don’t get results from consuming information. That is true but getting to hear from the best people in business for 8 hours a day has given me great perspective into the businesses and entrepreneurs of the present time we live in.
My broad goal here is to interact with fellow entrepreneurs and have discussions with the people here. As I get a better sense as to what my next venture will be, I hope to generate good relationships that could become partnerships. I see partnerships as very valuable and i believe they give businesses a better chance at success. Obviously that is only if the two partners have the same line of sight and aspirations.
This was a pretty long post, cheers to you if you read it all. I look forward to having conversations with everyone and I hope I can bring a fraction of the value you guys have given to me.
Thanks,
-EC
I want to take the time to introduce myself to the wonderful folks at the Fastlane forum. I am 20 years old, I live in Ohio, and I have started two businesses in my life. My first business goes back to 6th grade. I was a lacrosse player and I noticed that everyone was getting their sticks strung at local shops, who did pretty terrible jobs with kids’ sticks. Making it harder for them to play at a high level. So I learned to string sticks in my spare time. This became a great money maker for a younger kid. I made just under 10k before I had to quit stringing because I was going off to college. Not much money for around 7 years, but I was making $20 for 30 minutes of my time. I also had a job during high school so I was pretty well off compared to my peers. I deem it a success.
My next business venture was an e-commerce business. I took graphic design in high school and learned that I had pretty good knack for designing and using Photoshop. I started making car related posters. I set up an online store to try and sell them but I didn’t get the results I wanted for many reasons. One being that I wasn’t proficient with online marketing so I had trouble driving traffic to my site. The only marketing strategy that worked was using business cards. I am a huge car guy so I would go to car shows/events and chat up car owners. I could tell they liked talking to younger people who knew about their cars so there were good connections happening. Toward the end of the conversation, I would causally bring up that I run a small online business and give them my business card. It got me some sales but it wasn’t scalable in the least and the sales numbers weren’t anything to run home about. I closed up shop after a few months and went back to the drawing board.
For the past 2 years I have been digesting all that I can about business/entrepreneurship. I read the MFL very early into this education period. I never thought of looking into the forums until about a year ago when I opened up the book again. I have been reading up on the forums since then and I love the community. However, I have been a chronic lurker. That is changing today. None of my friends seem to have any interest in the Fastlane or entrepreneurship. That is why I want to engage in conversations here on the forum.
Currently I am taking a year off from college. I had to get a job to get by for the mean time. No fun. However, I am getting paid pretty well for a 20 year old. However, the main perk of the job is that I do mindless work on the computer (data entry). This allows me to listen to audiobooks/podcasts for 8 hours a day. My daily listening is about 80% business related with the occasional Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast. I love that guy. I know many people talk about how learning isn’t doing. You don’t get results from consuming information. That is true but getting to hear from the best people in business for 8 hours a day has given me great perspective into the businesses and entrepreneurs of the present time we live in.
My broad goal here is to interact with fellow entrepreneurs and have discussions with the people here. As I get a better sense as to what my next venture will be, I hope to generate good relationships that could become partnerships. I see partnerships as very valuable and i believe they give businesses a better chance at success. Obviously that is only if the two partners have the same line of sight and aspirations.
This was a pretty long post, cheers to you if you read it all. I look forward to having conversations with everyone and I hope I can bring a fraction of the value you guys have given to me.
Thanks,
-EC
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