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The 5-hour Per week Business Experiment

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

S.Y.

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Ah... The idea you can come with when you walk...

I was walking a bit earlier in the beautiful cold Canadian winter when I remembered a question from Peter Thiel.

"How can you achieve your 10-year plan in the next 6 months?"

Somehow, right after that, I thought about the 4h workweek. And through a series of thoughts as random as it can get, one question popped into my mind:

..."Can you build a business and make money by spending 5 hours max a week?"

And I gave it some thoughts. It is probably not possible, but if you were to do that, and not spend a dime, what would you do?

And I gave it some more thoughts to arrive to:
1. start with social media (for this case Insta)
2. pick a product that is visually appealing and that people will be compelled to like/share. Something with a feel-good effect.
3. Grow a following on Insta
4. Presell the product when the followers' count is high enough
5. reinvest in the business

I will document how it goes here and update it sporadically. I will track 3 things:
1. Follower counts
2. Money spent
3. Money made
 
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Mihalsky

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Hi, fingers crossed for you!
I will check your progress as I am also starting adventure. I will be especially interested how you conduct insta - as it is my only mean of getting recognized
 

Hadrian

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I have a feeling if you got to that stage you'd be so invested in creating value for the world that you wouldn't be able to stop working hard... I'll keep you posted when I get there! :peace:
 

Knugs

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Ah... The idea you can come with when you walk...

I was walking a bit earlier in the beautiful cold Canadian winter when I remembered a question from Peter Thiel.

"How can you achieve your 10-year plan in the next 6 months?"

Somehow, right after that, I thought about the 4h workweek. And through a series of thoughts as random as it can get, one question popped into my mind:

..."Can you build a business and make money by spending 5 hours max a week?"

And I gave it some thoughts. It is probably not possible, but if you were to do that, and not spend a dime, what would you do?

And I gave it some more thoughts to arrive to:
1. start with social media (for this case Insta)
2. pick a product that is visually appealing and that people will be compelled to like/share. Something with a feel-good effect.
3. Grow a following on Insta
4. Presell the product when the followers' count is high enough
5. reinvest in the business

I will document how it goes here and update it sporadically. I will track 3 things:
1. Follower counts
2. Money spent
3. Money made
Sounds like modified dropshipping via a social media channel aka "product based influencer".

What is the value?
 
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S.Y.

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I have a feeling if you got to that stage you'd be so invested in creating value for the world that you wouldn't be able to stop working hard... I'll keep you posted when I get there! :peace:

I value freedom. My philosophy is not to work hard all the time to add value to the world.

Yes. I do add value but to a limit. Right now, I am fortunate to be in a position to invest less than 3 hours a day, make good money and have my freedom.

And that freedom is allowing me to do things like this.

Sounds like modified dropshipping via a social media channel aka "product based influencer".

What is the value?

I picked a product that entertains and raises positive emotion.

The question now is how do I add a value skew? That part, I don't know yet and I have to figure out.

I won't go the dropshipping route. Or at least, I am not planning too. The idea is to grow followers and then introduce a product.
 

WJK

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Ah... The idea you can come with when you walk...

I was walking a bit earlier in the beautiful cold Canadian winter when I remembered a question from Peter Thiel.

"How can you achieve your 10-year plan in the next 6 months?"

Somehow, right after that, I thought about the 4h workweek. And through a series of thoughts as random as it can get, one question popped into my mind:

..."Can you build a business and make money by spending 5 hours max a week?"

And I gave it some thoughts. It is probably not possible, but if you were to do that, and not spend a dime, what would you do?

And I gave it some more thoughts to arrive to:
1. start with social media (for this case Insta)
2. pick a product that is visually appealing and that people will be compelled to like/share. Something with a feel-good effect.
3. Grow a following on Insta
4. Presell the product when the followers' count is high enough
5. reinvest in the business

I will document how it goes here and update it sporadically. I will track 3 things:
1. Follower counts
2. Money spent
3. Money made
Does your tracking presuppose that you are only working 5 hours per week?
 

S.Y.

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Does your tracking presuppose that you are only working 5 hours per week?

Yes. The goal is to block 5h max of my own time on growing the page per week.

Hiring a VA is an option I leave open. And that will not count towards the 5 hours.

--
For people interested, I'm using Canva to make graphics when needed.
 

SoftwareEducator

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As much as I am intrigued by your experiment, isn't this kind of platform dependent? In Unscripted , we are warned about allowing ourselves to depend on just one platform or channel of communication or sales. If Instagram thinks you're violating their terms of service (not saying I think you're doing anything wrong, but who knows what IG might do just on a whim), doesn't your following just vanish and you're back to square one?
 
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WJK

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Yes. The goal is to block 5h max of my own time on growing the page per week.

Hiring a VA is an option I leave open. And that will not count towards the 5 hours.

--
For people interested, I'm using Canva to make graphics when needed.
And what are you doing with the other 163 hours in your week?
 

S.Y.

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And what are you doing with the other 163 hours in your week?

The underlying question here is: why am I not investing more time on this?

If I got it right...

This is a pure experiment. Nothing more than that.
My main sources of revenue require 10 to 20 hours of my time per week
 

WJK

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The underlying question here is: why am I not investing more time on this?

If I got it right...

This is a pure experiment. Nothing more than that.
My main sources of revenue require 10 to 20 hours of my time per week
OK. So, this is a side gig.

I too always have several things going. And I work a lot of hours when I add them all up. I just move around from task to task, and from gig to gig, as the days move on.
 
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Success Soldier

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Ah... The idea you can come with when you walk...

I was walking a bit earlier in the beautiful cold Canadian winter when I remembered a question from Peter Thiel.

"How can you achieve your 10-year plan in the next 6 months?"

Somehow, right after that, I thought about the 4h workweek. And through a series of thoughts as random as it can get, one question popped into my mind:

..."Can you build a business and make money by spending 5 hours max a week?"

And I gave it some thoughts. It is probably not possible, but if you were to do that, and not spend a dime, what would you do?

And I gave it some more thoughts to arrive to:
1. start with social media (for this case Insta)
2. pick a product that is visually appealing and that people will be compelled to like/share. Something with a feel-good effect.
3. Grow a following on Insta
4. Presell the product when the followers' count is high enough
5. reinvest in the business

I will document how it goes here and update it sporadically. I will track 3 things:
1. Follower counts
2. Money spent
3. Money made

Love your idea!

I have a similar story. So I own a business and it's making me and my family good money but it is very unpredictable (weather related mainly) and it takes away almost all of my time. Our main working seasons are in the summer times when I hustle minimum of 12 hour work days and that just leaves no time for my family. Other times are more relaxed and we can spend more time together.

As my kids are getting older and they will be going to school soon, their main free time will be in summer when there is no school, so my though was I need to get something else going that can allow me to have more free time in general to spend it with my family.

I decided to take my spare time now and invest it in YouTube platform and I am investing my money in real estate to create passive income. I hope one day I can grow YouTube channel enough to be my main source of income and can focus on YouTube and Real Estate. This will allow me more flexible/predictable work schedule and more available time for family :)

Of course this is a fun side project for now and my main business is still my business :)

Good luck to you and would love to see how you do on insta!
 

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