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Hello everyone!
Very happy to be joining the forums and having discovered this place - I've read many good stories that are truly inspiring, so thank you.
A bit about me:
I grew up in an entrepreneurial family who made a decent exit with their business in the Netherlands selling trade-show displays in the 80s. My parents moved us to Canada to start new - they didn't find the same success again, as they tried repeating their business model but the market was completely different and they couldn't get traction, but they kept on being entrepreneurs and never went back to the slowlane .
With that upbringing I've always had the bug but haven't been able to "stick it" yet when making the switch to the fastlane, but reading this book I know why.
I have made a few attempts in my adult life to switch to the fastlane but with the wrong types of businesses, and I was clueless to the
CENTS business commandments.
Attempt 1: Bought a carpet cleaning franchise - realized it was a dead end and sold it (for a small loss) - this was the perfect example of starting a business for the sake of owning a business, I had not done proper market research and didn't see the handcuffs I would be in when starting a franchise in this sector, I was sold by the master franchise and I didn't ask enough questions about the structure.
Attempt 2: Started a retail business, heavily under-funded, and it was even advised against by our mentor as well as my own family - yet my business partner and still went ahead. It lasted about 5 years before we had to close the doors. This is another example of doing something because we thought it was "cool" and wanted to business owners as we had just both graduated from a marketing/sales program at college. We didn't do proper market research, if we had we would've realized how retail is not scalable with the small amount of startup capital we had. I ended up going back to the slowlane to get a job to try and support the store and hired staff, obviously this was not ideal and the writing was on the wall.
My previous attempts taught me a lot, so I'll never regret them. I don't look at them or call them failures since they taught me more than my diploma in sales and marketing ever did.
I decided to follow a passion of mine which is programming software. I took the path less travelled and started a career without a university degree and I'm completely self taught. Currently I contract my programming skills out alongside a full-time job as a senior developer. I can't really scale this unless I start an agency and begin to hire other devs, and devs are hard to find plus they're expensive. However it taught me how to start and run an incorporation which has been eye opening. I know this isn't going to be what's going to get me in the fastlane either as I'm still trading my time for money.
Here I am with a valuable skillset to build sites/web-apps. During my career as a software developer I realized that I'm making others rich and that I have the skill to do this for myself with the right idea. After reading this book it has motivated me to start collaborating with my network/friends and formulate an idea. Among a small group of us we have some very focused knowledge of an certain industry which we hope to leverage into a web app. We're currently identifying the need for this in the marketplace and assessing if there is competition if any, and identifying an exit plan.
I'll be careful to evaluate the business idea with the CENTS framework this time around.
Very happy to be joining the forums and having discovered this place - I've read many good stories that are truly inspiring, so thank you.
A bit about me:
I grew up in an entrepreneurial family who made a decent exit with their business in the Netherlands selling trade-show displays in the 80s. My parents moved us to Canada to start new - they didn't find the same success again, as they tried repeating their business model but the market was completely different and they couldn't get traction, but they kept on being entrepreneurs and never went back to the slowlane .
With that upbringing I've always had the bug but haven't been able to "stick it" yet when making the switch to the fastlane, but reading this book I know why.
I have made a few attempts in my adult life to switch to the fastlane but with the wrong types of businesses, and I was clueless to the
CENTS business commandments.
Attempt 1: Bought a carpet cleaning franchise - realized it was a dead end and sold it (for a small loss) - this was the perfect example of starting a business for the sake of owning a business, I had not done proper market research and didn't see the handcuffs I would be in when starting a franchise in this sector, I was sold by the master franchise and I didn't ask enough questions about the structure.
Attempt 2: Started a retail business, heavily under-funded, and it was even advised against by our mentor as well as my own family - yet my business partner and still went ahead. It lasted about 5 years before we had to close the doors. This is another example of doing something because we thought it was "cool" and wanted to business owners as we had just both graduated from a marketing/sales program at college. We didn't do proper market research, if we had we would've realized how retail is not scalable with the small amount of startup capital we had. I ended up going back to the slowlane to get a job to try and support the store and hired staff, obviously this was not ideal and the writing was on the wall.
My previous attempts taught me a lot, so I'll never regret them. I don't look at them or call them failures since they taught me more than my diploma in sales and marketing ever did.
I decided to follow a passion of mine which is programming software. I took the path less travelled and started a career without a university degree and I'm completely self taught. Currently I contract my programming skills out alongside a full-time job as a senior developer. I can't really scale this unless I start an agency and begin to hire other devs, and devs are hard to find plus they're expensive. However it taught me how to start and run an incorporation which has been eye opening. I know this isn't going to be what's going to get me in the fastlane either as I'm still trading my time for money.
Here I am with a valuable skillset to build sites/web-apps. During my career as a software developer I realized that I'm making others rich and that I have the skill to do this for myself with the right idea. After reading this book it has motivated me to start collaborating with my network/friends and formulate an idea. Among a small group of us we have some very focused knowledge of an certain industry which we hope to leverage into a web app. We're currently identifying the need for this in the marketplace and assessing if there is competition if any, and identifying an exit plan.
I'll be careful to evaluate the business idea with the CENTS framework this time around.
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