The Broke Accountant

[Bekit]

I know there are companies offering these services, but how do I know if they are honest? If the price they offer is fair?

It's a learnable skill to develop competency around vetting possible vendors and software developers.

Part of being an entrepreneur is developing the skill of being really specific about what problem you need to solve, and then being sufficiently auto-didactic to learn what you need to know to solve that problem. Sometimes you will determine it is a skill that you develop yourself. Sometimes you will determine it is something you delegate.

 

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[marchioness]

Have you ever considered moving within the EU? Your English language skills are really great. I live in Galway City on the west coast of Ireland. Hundreds of Romanians are moving to Ireland as our jobs market is crazy right now. It is so easy to find positions and the pay is very high by European standards. The only issue here is it is difficult to find a place to rent and it can be expensive but with an accountancy job you could probably work from home and still make 5k+ per month. Even part-time positions pay a lot if you wanted to move into a different field while transitioning to a business career.

Thanks, @JordanK . I know this is a viable option for me. My only problem is that I do not want to leave Romania. I like it here.
I want to live abroad when I'm retired. Have a little house / apartment close to a beach. Sip coffee with friends and enjoy a milder weather.
For now I'll just take advantage of the fact that borders don't matter much anymore and make the most of it.

 

[marchioness]

It's a learnable skill to develop competency around vetting possible vendors and software developers.

Part of being an entrepreneur is developing the skill of being really specific about what problem you need to solve, and then being sufficiently auto-didactic to learn what you need to know to solve that problem. Sometimes you will determine it is a skill that you develop yourself. Sometimes you will determine it is something you delegate.

Just have to know exactly what I want and get out there, right? <sighs in fear>
Thank you.

 

[marchioness]

I am following your thread since 20 minutes you have created it. Don’t have anything to add with more value than the responses that you are getting.
Just wanted to say to never stop working on your goal, this community will help and support you in the way.
I will be reading your success. If I don’t see people commenting in the future of your updates, I will comment to let you know I will still read you.
Great job, really motivating. Don’t let yourself down.

I really appreciate the support.

 

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[Bekit]

Just have to know exactly what I want and get out there, right? <sighs in fear>
Thank you.

Don't be afraid.

You've got this.

At the same time - the fear is real. The challenges are real. If it was easy, everyone would be on the fastlane. But you can do it.

Don't feel like you have to have everything sorted out ahead of time. Just get really good at asking, "What problem am I solving right now?" And then take action on that. Your path will unfold little by little.

 

[marchioness]

Don't be afraid.

You've got this.

At the same time - the fear is real. The challenges are real. If it was easy, everyone would be on the fastlane. But you can do it.

Don't feel like you have to have everything sorted out ahead of time. Just get really good at asking, "What problem am I solving right now?" And then take action on that. Your path will unfold little by little.

Thank you, @Bekit . Going step by step does help. And I found that asking myself this question: "What is the worst thing that can happen?" helps too. I used to get stuck in analysis-paralysis ---> get scared ---> avoid / postpone (constantly telling myself that I will act after doing a bit more thinking). Now I just ask myself this question and if I can live with the consequences, I just do it. I'm done with overanalyzing. Then I go back to your advice of step by step. It kinda works.

 

[marchioness]

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday. Two years! When did these two years fly? She is intelligent, curious and enthusiastic about life. Everything is a game and she never gets discouraged. She reminds me daily of my goals. I want my kids to experience wonderful things. I want them to be proud of their mom.
This is fresh fuel that makes me alert. Strong. Focused. Engaged. So much so that I decided to start. Got myself a domain. Today I got the website. I have 0 web dev skills, but I know how to drag and drop. I paid for templates for a year. I do plan on learning some basic skills by myself, in order to get more control. But this needs to be executed now.
The plan is to start educating people with the help of my website. I picked a particular fiscal topic (not rare, that people find complex and troublesome) and I will start posting articles about it. Subscribing to the newsletter will be a possibility.
My main goal is to keep going. Post articles. Educate. Gather email addresses. Become more visible. Spread important information that helps people. Engage in comments.
At some point, I might be able to offer fiscal consultancy / organize webinars / offer software that makes this particular issue easier to handle.
Honestly, at the moment I have no idea about the finality, but I know it can be monetized. I'll just see how it goes, based on the feedback that I get from the market.
For now I just want to start working on it. More clarity will come.

 

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[vladikcm]

Yesterday was my daughter's birthday. Two years! When did these two years fly? She is intelligent, curious and enthusiastic about life. Everything is a game and she never gets discouraged. She reminds me daily of my goals. I want my kids to experience wonderful things. I want them to be proud of their mom.
This is fresh fuel that makes me alert. Strong. Focused. Engaged. So much so that I decided to start. Got myself a domain. Today I got the website. I have 0 web dev skills, but I know how to drag and drop. I paid for templates for a year. I do plan on learning some basic skills by myself, in order to get more control. But this needs to be executed now.
The plan is to start educating people with the help of my website. I picked a particular fiscal topic (not rare, that people find complex and troublesome) and I will start posting articles about it. Subscribing to the newsletter will be a possibility.
My main goal is to keep going. Post articles. Educate. Gather email addresses. Become more visible. Spread important information that helps people. Engage in comments.
At some point, I might be able to offer fiscal consultancy / organize webinars / offer software that makes this particular issue easier to handle.
Honestly, at the moment I have no idea about the finality, but I know it can be monetized. I'll just see how it goes, based on the feedback that I get from the market.
For now I just want to start working on it. More clarity will come.

Do send your website and I will try to give feedback and ideas. Keep going!
Happy birthday to her!

 

[marchioness]

In the last couple of days I have been working on my website. I know I'm ignorant when it comes to web development, so I decided to purchase a plan with Wordpress. I got the cheapest one they got, since I figured it would allow me to get a good looking template & it should be easy enough to customize (drag and drop model). At this time I was thinking about writing articles about a particular tax form that most people here have to do annually. It would have a user friendly language (so most people can understand how things work even if they don't know much about finances). All was sweet until I wanted to install a plugin. That's when I realized that my plan allows me to do nothing. I could do some basic changes to the template, add more blocks, but that is pretty much it. Popup for newsletters? Forget about it! You have to purchase the "x" plan for that. Made me sad.
The last couple of days found me disappointed, because I realized that I have so many things to learn. Just scrolling through the forum got me aware of the fact that I know nothing about sales, funnels, MVPs, web dev, AI, marketing, etc. And you know what? I also realized that this is the direction I want to go to with my business. I want my products to be dedicated to the accountants / general people that have to deal with taxes and forms, but I want to be on the other side of the spectrum: not teaching them / offering them consultation about how to do it, but actually providing products that satisfy their needs.
Speaking of needs, I found a website that "translates" some aspects of this tax form in a friendlier language. You basically make an account and they have an easier form that puts all the numbers you declare in the actual official document. I looked at their numbers. 40 000 euros / profit in 2022. The form changes once a year, so basically once you set up the website, you just have to make these changes once a year. They seem to have extremely high expenses in their annual financial statement and only 1 employee. My guess is that whether he hired himself and he does all the work for an astronomic salary, whether he hired someone to do it and they pay a lot for it.
So... more clarity is achieved. I love the accountability calls because people are so blunt and they tell you exactly how they feel about it. Thanks @Spenny for sparing me the ordeal of writing articles that no one would read & I'd probably dislike writing. And as you can imagine, copywriting is not my strength either.
What's next then? Learn HTML, CSS, JS. Work weekly on the website. Get inspiration from my competitors. Hire people to help with / solve the difficult parts. Make August 2024 the absolute deadline for having a MVP. Execute as much as possible. Figure things out. Participate in the weekly calls. Write SMART tasks. Do the best I can.
I will update shortly.

 

[vladikcm]

Don't stress!

Here is some advice from my part that can help you solve the problems you have.
When you want to create a website, you need two things: one place where you save your website online and one way of editing this website. The one related to saving your website is called hosting and it can have two formats: locally in your computer, this means it is not on the internet, and on the internet (there are dedicated services to help you with that like hostinger, linode, ionos, etc.).

First, for you not to spend too much money, I recommend you start by doing it locally, because it is free (I think you are already doing it). But this cannot be shown on the internet. My recommendation to post your website on the internet (and this will save you a lot of money in the future) is to buy a raspberry pi as a server (maybe I will make a thread about it).

I don't know how you installed the wordpress plugin, but I am sure that if you make a quick search on youtube on something like: "wordpress pro free download crack [Mac or Windows or Linux]" you will have someone explaining how to get the pro version for free.

For editing your wordpress, I recommend you use the plugin called Elementor. There is a ton of videos of 3-5h long explaining how to use this plugin to go from begginer to professional. It is really a drag and drop form of creating websites, and yes, you can get the pro version quite easily searching on youtube.

Either way, when doubts arise, I always like to ask the AI on how to solve my problems. You have two ways of doing that:
1) chat.openai.com - you create an account there and you have access for free to the GPT3.5 version, which is not the best version, but it can help you to understand complex topics. Just talk to him like this: "explain [topic, question, doubt] like I have no idea about the topic and I am a total begginer" and if this does not solve your doubts, ask it again: "I still don't understand, explain it simpler and using analogies". It can also help you with things like: "what steps do I have to configure Wordpress on my computer?" "How can I put my website on the internet" "Whatis Elementor" "Show me how to putsome CSS code to improve the blog entry on my website using Wordpress". You will really be amazed. Ask him anything like he hold the keys to any solution you have. The more concise you are about your problem, the better the answer you will get.
2) You have to install Microsoft Edge on your computer. You then go to the bing.com website and on top you will find a bar called "chat" . There you can talk with the GPT4 model. This model is the better version of chatgpt, normally for paid users, but bing gives it for free. If you sign up on yourMicrosoft account, you havea almost unlimited usage. I personally like this option less because it does not give you very long explanations about your problems, but rather goes to the point.

If you want to spend money, I recommend you pay the 20$ for the GPT Plus, it is really worth it for the price it cost. How much would you pay for a personal tutor, brainstomer, helper that is active 24/7? Probably more than 20$/hour.


If you want some help, on anything, you can DM me and I will love to help you. Keep posting!

 

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[marchioness]

Don't stress!

Here is some advice from my part that can help you solve the problems you have.
When you want to create a website, you need two things: one place where you save your website online and one way of editing this website. The one related to saving your website is called hosting and it can have two formats: locally in your computer, this means it is not on the internet, and on the internet (there are dedicated services to help you with that like hostinger, linode, ionos, etc.).

First, for you not to spend too much money, I recommend you start by doing it locally, because it is free (I think you are already doing it). But this cannot be shown on the internet. My recommendation to post your website on the internet (and this will save you a lot of money in the future) is to buy a raspberry pi as a server (maybe I will make a thread about it).

I don't know how you installed the wordpress plugin, but I am sure that if you make a quick search on youtube on something like: "wordpress pro free download crack [Mac or Windows or Linux]" you will have someone explaining how to get the pro version for free.

For editing your wordpress, I recommend you use the plugin called Elementor. There is a ton of videos of 3-5h long explaining how to use this plugin to go from begginer to professional. It is really a drag and drop form of creating websites, and yes, you can get the pro version quite easily searching on youtube.

Either way, when doubts arise, I always like to ask the AI on how to solve my problems. You have two ways of doing that:
1) chat.openai.com - you create an account there and you have access for free to the GPT3.5 version, which is not the best version, but it can help you to understand complex topics. Just talk to him like this: "explain [topic, question, doubt] like I have no idea about the topic and I am a total begginer" and if this does not solve your doubts, ask it again: "I still don't understand, explain it simpler and using analogies". It can also help you with things like: "what steps do I have to configure Wordpress on my computer?" "How can I put my website on the internet" "Whatis Elementor" "Show me how to putsome CSS code to improve the blog entry on my website using Wordpress". You will really be amazed. Ask him anything like he hold the keys to any solution you have. The more concise you are about your problem, the better the answer you will get.
2) You have to install Microsoft Edge on your computer. You then go to the bing.com website and on top you will find a bar called "chat" View attachment 52406. There you can talk with the GPT4 model. This model is the better version of chatgpt, normally for paid users, but bing gives it for free. If you sign up on yourMicrosoft account, you havea almost unlimited usage. I personally like this option less because it does not give you very long explanations about your problems, but rather goes to the point.

If you want to spend money, I recommend you pay the 20$ for the GPT Plus, it is really worth it for the price it cost. How much would you pay for a personal tutor, brainstomer, helper that is active 24/7? Probably more than 20$/hour.


If you want some help, on anything, you can DM me and I will love to help you. Keep posting!

Thank you so much for your help. I will put it to good use & let you know how I go.

 

[solyom]

In the last couple of days I have been working on my website. I know I'm ignorant when it comes to web development, so I decided to purchase a plan with Wordpress. I got the cheapest one they got, since I figured it would allow me to get a good looking template & it should be easy enough to customize (drag and drop model). At this time I was thinking about writing articles about a particular tax form that most people here have to do annually. It would have a user friendly language (so most people can understand how things work even if they don't know much about finances). All was sweet until I wanted to install a plugin. That's when I realized that my plan allows me to do nothing. I could do some basic changes to the template, add more blocks, but that is pretty much it. Popup for newsletters? Forget about it! You have to purchase the "x" plan for that. Made me sad.
The last couple of days found me disappointed, because I realized that I have so many things to learn. Just scrolling through the forum got me aware of the fact that I know nothing about sales, funnels, MVPs, web dev, AI, marketing, etc. And you know what? I also realized that this is the direction I want to go to with my business. I want my products to be dedicated to the accountants / general people that have to deal with taxes and forms, but I want to be on the other side of the spectrum: not teaching them / offering them consultation about how to do it, but actually providing products that satisfy their needs.
Speaking of needs, I found a website that "translates" some aspects of this tax form in a friendlier language. You basically make an account and they have an easier form that puts all the numbers you declare in the actual official document. I looked at their numbers. 40 000 euros / profit in 2022. The form changes once a year, so basically once you set up the website, you just have to make these changes once a year. They seem to have extremely high expenses in their annual financial statement and only 1 employee. My guess is that whether he hired himself and he does all the work for an astronomic salary, whether he hired someone to do it and they pay a lot for it.
So... more clarity is achieved. I love the accountability calls because people are so blunt and they tell you exactly how they feel about it. Thanks @Spenny for sparing me the ordeal of writing articles that no one would read & I'd probably dislike writing. And as you can imagine, copywriting is not my strength either.
What's next then? Learn HTML, CSS, JS. Work weekly on the website. Get inspiration from my competitors. Hire people to help with / solve the difficult parts. Make August 2024 the absolute deadline for having a MVP. Execute as much as possible. Figure things out. Participate in the weekly calls. Write SMART tasks. Do the best I can.
I will update shortly.

Hi @marchioness ,

I assume you are on wordpress.com, aren't you? (assuming after you said you were on the cheapest plan)

While it's a good start to play around with and publish content, after a while you'll bump into constraints that can only be resolved using plugins.

I agree with vladikcm that the cheapest option is building the site locally. But it's also a question of what your strategy is / when you want it to go live.

A) E.g. wordpress.com's personal plan is a good starting point if you want to go online very quickly, share content, grow audience, etc. It can be a strategy to collect audience and build SEO this way while building the next version locally.

B) Another option is to build something locally and go live once it's good enough. It will mean that you won't be online for a couple of weeks/months while you build it.

Both ways need learning lot of things about how websites are built up, about the basic infrastructure behind them, etc.

C) Option is to pay a professional to do it for you. But this is a risky way as it quite expensive and as a beginner you won't know in advance how good the specialist is that you've found.

The good side is that there are tons of materials on the net that can help you (and nowadays you can ask ChatrGPT about nearly anything - which speeds the research up). The bad side is that it needs lot of work to put it together.

A tip: before actually creating the website it's a good idea to:
- Write a doc with the content of the pages (content-first approach). Think about how these will convince the user to buy from you.
- Also, outline the topics you want to write about, etc.
- Plan the outline of the pages ("wireframing" is the keyword here - there are lots of usefult stuff out there)
- Plan the user journeys (step-by-step lists of all the scenarios the users can do on the site: what they will do after what, what happens after they click here/there, etc).

Once you got these, creating the pages will be lot straightforward as you'll have clear guidelines on what to put where on the site.

 

[marchioness]

Don't stress!

Here is some advice from my part that can help you solve the problems you have.
When you want to create a website, you need two things: one place where you save your website online and one way of editing this website. The one related to saving your website is called hosting and it can have two formats: locally in your computer, this means it is not on the internet, and on the internet (there are dedicated services to help you with that like hostinger, linode, ionos, etc.).

First, for you not to spend too much money, I recommend you start by doing it locally, because it is free (I think you are already doing it). But this cannot be shown on the internet. My recommendation to post your website on the internet (and this will save you a lot of money in the future) is to buy a raspberry pi as a server (maybe I will make a thread about it).

I don't know how you installed the wordpress plugin, but I am sure that if you make a quick search on youtube on something like: "wordpress pro free download crack [Mac or Windows or Linux]" you will have someone explaining how to get the pro version for free.

For editing your wordpress, I recommend you use the plugin called Elementor. There is a ton of videos of 3-5h long explaining how to use this plugin to go from begginer to professional. It is really a drag and drop form of creating websites, and yes, you can get the pro version quite easily searching on youtube.

Either way, when doubts arise, I always like to ask the AI on how to solve my problems. You have two ways of doing that:
1) chat.openai.com - you create an account there and you have access for free to the GPT3.5 version, which is not the best version, but it can help you to understand complex topics. Just talk to him like this: "explain [topic, question, doubt] like I have no idea about the topic and I am a total begginer" and if this does not solve your doubts, ask it again: "I still don't understand, explain it simpler and using analogies". It can also help you with things like: "what steps do I have to configure Wordpress on my computer?" "How can I put my website on the internet" "Whatis Elementor" "Show me how to putsome CSS code to improve the blog entry on my website using Wordpress". You will really be amazed. Ask him anything like he hold the keys to any solution you have. The more concise you are about your problem, the better the answer you will get.
2) You have to install Microsoft Edge on your computer. You then go to the bing.com website and on top you will find a bar called "chat" View attachment 52406. There you can talk with the GPT4 model. This model is the better version of chatgpt, normally for paid users, but bing gives it for free. If you sign up on yourMicrosoft account, you havea almost unlimited usage. I personally like this option less because it does not give you very long explanations about your problems, but rather goes to the point.

If you want to spend money, I recommend you pay the 20$ for the GPT Plus, it is really worth it for the price it cost. How much would you pay for a personal tutor, brainstomer, helper that is active 24/7? Probably more than 20$/hour.


If you want some help, on anything, you can DM me and I will love to help you. Keep posting!

Alright. I finally managed to read your answer properly. I didn't now you could set up a website locally in your computer!
To be more specific, in the making of my website I purchased a domain name. Then I made an account on wordpress.com and purchased the cheapest plan they had. No software to install, nothing. Just access the website, log in and start editing.
I knew about wordpress.org and their software. I heard about Elementor here on the forum. I just thought that maybe I won't be able to pull this off.
I recently started a HTML / CSS course that will allow me to be more proficient in web dev. If I have any other questions, I'll make sure to reach out. Thanks again, @vladikcm !

 

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[marchioness]

Hi @marchioness ,

I assume you are on wordpress.com, aren't you? (assuming after you said you were on the cheapest plan)

While it's a good start to play around with and publish content, after a while you'll bump into constraints that can only be resolved using plugins.

I agree with vladikcm that the cheapest option is building the site locally. But it's also a question of what your strategy is / when you want it to go live.

A) E.g. wordpress.com's personal plan is a good starting point if you want to go online very quickly, share content, grow audience, etc. It can be a strategy to collect audience and build SEO this way while building the next version locally.

B) Another option is to build something locally and go live once it's good enough. It will mean that you won't be online for a couple of weeks/months while you build it.

Both ways need learning lot of things about how websites are built up, about the basic infrastructure behind them, etc.

C) Option is to pay a professional to do it for you. But this is a risky way as it quite expensive and as a beginner you won't know in advance how good the specialist is that you've found.

The good side is that there are tons of materials on the net that can help you (and nowadays you can ask ChatrGPT about nearly anything - which speeds the research up). The bad side is that it needs lot of work to put it together.

A tip: before actually creating the website it's a good idea to:
- Write a doc with the content of the pages (content-first approach). Think about how these will convince the user to buy from you.
- Also, outline the topics you want to write about, etc.
- Plan the outline of the pages ("wireframing" is the keyword here - there are lots of usefult stuff out there)
- Plan the user journeys (step-by-step lists of all the scenarios the users can do on the site: what they will do after what, what happens after they click here/there, etc).

Once you got these, creating the pages will be lot straightforward as you'll have clear guidelines on what to put where on the site.

@solyom I cannot thank you enough for the information you just shared, especially your tip (write a doc with the content of the pages, etc.). When doing something for the first time it can be quite intimidating and you can end up wasting a lot of time, not knowing where to start. Your suggestion to use ChatGPT is more than welcome & I intend to use it more often. @vladikcm had the same advice for me in a previous post.
I will go with option B, since I don't need the website to be online any time soon. However, I know I have the option to play around with html in the wordpress.com account, so I will probably end up doing that a bit.
Once again, thank you so much for your help.

 

[vladikcm]

@marchioness
We are here to help! I recommend you start using AI as soon as possible because it is advancing quite fast and you can get behind easily. Also, it will help you a lot in everything.

As you know, I will be reading your psots and progress, keep me updated. Good luck!

 

[vladikcm]

Hello @marchioness !

Any updates for us? Don't give up!

 

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[marchioness]

Update. I don´t understand where these last 3 months went. I know it's March and I want to update my thread.
December was amazing. I had a really good time with my family. My 2 kids are growing beautifully and I have to admit that I'm a proud momma. We are expecting our 3rd child this August (baby boy from what I know right now) and I couldn't be happier! I've always dreamed of having 3 kids and now that this dream is so close to becoming a reality makes me see everything in pink. I am happy. From the bottom of my soul, to the bottom of my being. This part of my life is just perfect. Demanding, expensive and sometimes hard, but worth it and everything I've ever wanted. I've always been big on family matters.
This amazing reason for happiness does not change my financial situation. We're still making little money. Enough to cover our expenses, but not for long now. Soon, I'll have 2 kids going to kindergarten and that is expensive, because we've chosen private education. I'm not even thinking about my 3rd one going to kindergarten in the future for now.
These last 3 months have been a good chance for soul searching. Questioning aspects of my life and thinking a bit more about the future. Bottom line is that I want out of the accounting world. I've tried approaching this from many perspectives, I even had a little idea for monetizing it, but the truth is I want out. Game over.
Wanting out made me think about some other skills that I have. It's good to start with what you know, right? I realized that I'm good with kids. Absolutely brilliant. No studies in the field. Just patience, smiles, and honest love for kids. My kids and other kids in general. I know how to deal with them, I do my best to understand them and I can spend days on end with them. And kids kind of love me back.
I know from MJ's books that passion is overrated. And I am not claiming that children are my passion. I'm just good with them and I think that I could find a way of monetizing this skill.
This is where I am at the moment. Absolutely convinced that I'm heading in the right direction. Just not knowing exactly what and how to monetize it.
My homework for the week is to find a few ideas and analyze them through the CENTS lens.
Feels good to be back. Hope you are all doing amazing!
I'll keep posting.

 

[marchioness]

Hello @marchioness !

Any updates for us? Don't give up!

Thank you for your message and sorry for the absence. I hope that my message finds you well, @vladikcm

 

[marchioness]

Back to updating the thread. The week is almost gone and I've spent most of it thinking about business ideas and re-reading The Millionaire Fastlane .
At this point I found it's hard for me to identify a valid need that parents have when it comes to raising children. I know what my needs are, but styles are different for each family. There are also many factors to consider (age of the kids, interests, etc.).
I analyzed a few ideas that might work (online English classes for Romanian kids, age appropriate games that can fill kids' time), but at the moment I feel clueless because I don't know enough about how these systems work. I did teach online English lessons for a few years, but it was mostly adults. I assume that kids would be a different cup of tea.
In order to make a bit of research, I decided to start a YouTube channel that focuses on kids / parenting and try to gather as much feedback as possible from the people watching the channel. I understand this might seem like complicating my life (developing skills like scripting, shooting, editing videos takes time, getting audience, posting videos, etc.), but I find these skills valuable, so I might as well learn them. It's also work that I can do while my kids are sleeping or going to the kindergarten, in the privacy of my house at any hour of the day or night.
This year I decided to challenge my mostly introverted nature and try to be more outgoing, so freely exposing my points of view and learning how to communicate effectively will help me in the long run. Of course that before getting to this conclusion, I tried my hardest to find a way of getting away with a faceless channel. I won't do that though. I'm all in this time.
Step 1 Content creation in order to get feedback of my methods, of problems that parents face, etc.
Step 2 would be identifying a valid problem that needs solving and eventually offering a solution to that problem. (still far away from where I am at the moment)
I know content creation is not easy and getting an audience takes time. At the moment it's what I can do. Luckily I have no initial investments to do, because a few years ago in the splurge of the moment I bought mics, cameras, lights and everything else and then decided (even before starting) that this was not for me (didn't want to show my face).
The challenge for next week is to post my first video on YouTube. I will have to go through all of the stages of content creation (from idea to final product). The video will suck and it will look absolutely amateurish, but it will give me an idea of how long the process takes and what are the steps, so that will allow me to perfect my strategy and be able to post more videos during the week in the future.
I expect 0 views and absolutely no feedback. My plan is to get better at it and post consistently at least until August. In August, I'll just see where I am and find a strategy, according to my situation.
I've seen a few threads on the forum about content creation, so I plan on devouring them.
Have a great weekend everyone!

P.S. For those of you loving F1, enjoy the race today! <3

 

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[marchioness]

Thread update.
Action faking at its finest. It's the only way to describe this last week. Instead of doing - scripting, filming, editing, etc.(team producer) I just fell into the trap of learning how to make a video (team consumer). I ended up consuming hours and hours of YouTube content about how to make YouTube content. Ha ha! What an idiot! Lesson learned.

So, I have a new plan for this next week.

Step 1 Brainstorm video ideas.
Step 2 Pick 3 ideas that I can comfortably talk about. (I already feel the imposter syndrome kicking in, but I don't care. I never claimed to be an expert in this field).
Step 3 Write scripts for these 3 videos. I will write full scripts, so there are no excuses later on. (Oh, I just had bullet point ideas and I really didn't know what to say).
Step 4 Make a simple filming setup & start filming the videos on a chosen day (talking head style).
Step 5 Edit the videos. No B Roll, fancy animations or gifs. I have no such skills. Just put the video sections together, make sure it's all good and I'm done.
Step 6 Post the first video next Saturday.

Any issues that I experience during this process will be addressed on the spot (research the exact problem, find the solution and apply it).
I will also use my timer in order to make sure I hyper focus on the issue at hand, without any distractions, at least for the assigned 25 minutes (I've had excellent results using the pomodoro method).
That's it. As simple as it can be. No more action faking. No more excuses. Pure action.
A great Sunday to all my fellow fastlaners! Keep punching!

 

[marchioness]

Weekly update.
Managed to accomplish steps 1 to 3 (partially - I only have one full script, not 3). I also managed to prepare the whole setup in Step 4 (camera, lights, etc.). I completely missed the other steps, which is disheartening. I basically have no output. No published video. No views. No feedback.
The funny thing is that yesterday I was going through the Millionaire Fastlane and I started reading the chapter about execution. I lack execution. And speed. And execution IS king. Indeed. You can have many great ideas, but if you don't put them into practice it's just a waste of time.
My lack of commitment comes from the fact that I don't take this activity seriously. At all. And it's upsetting. Especially because during step 2, I came up with over 50 video ideas in 25 minutes. Which brings me back to execution is king.
I want to step it up this week. I want that bloody video published. I want to start developing a routine that allows me to create videos no matter how busy life gets. If I can't do it now, I'll never be able to do it. I also know that appearing in front of the camera is freaking me out. But I'm taking myself too seriously, so I should just stop.
That takes us back to the plan for this week:
Step 4 - Prepare the setup and start filming.
Step 5 - Edit the video.
Step 6 - Bloody post it on YouTube ASAP.
This is the main plan. New week, new video. Finishing scripting the 2 other ideas that I picked and film the videos would make my life easier in the long run.
I know nothing about this platform, but I'll be damned if I stop here.
Hope to come back next week with wins, not only stupid losses.
Keep punching everyone! We can't lose if we don't quit.