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Unexpected Hustle Gone Wrong

Anything considered a "hustle" and not necessarily a CENTS-based Fastlane

10Fold

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Dec 15, 2020
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I’m in university studying engineering at the moment. Because of this, I’m limited to side hustles and short term hustles.

I had an engineering exam coming up and we are allowed to bring a double-sided A4 sheet of notes for it. As I was making mine, I was thinking about how time-consuming and annoying it was to make despite it being a great asset in an exam. And then it hit me. What if I sold copies of mine? I started working on my notes much harder and finally got it done. I typed up a post on our ENGR101 general discussion forum. The great thing about the forum was that it sent an automatic email to every ENGR101 student. Here’s the post:

the post_LI (2).jpg


I was pretty proud of it. I sat back and relaxed, hitting refresh every now and then. That’s when the most beautiful thing happened. I started getting orders!


EMAIL - 1ST CUST_LI.jpg
EMAIL - 2ND CUST_LI.jpg
EMAIL - 3RD CUST_LI.jpg



While all of this business was coming in, I remained oblivious to the destructive problem I had missed. In a moment of fatigue, I had made my redacted version for public viewing a word document! This meant anyone could easily make a copy of the document and remove the black highlights I had made! And here’s the moment I realized:


N.O2 - Cunt of all cunts_LI.jpg


My heart sank. This was the very first time I had ever created value and sold it. I learnt a valuable lesson: Make my sh*t theft proof. I was rushing to post the ad completely missed this iceberg. To say the least, this hustle ship sank like the damn titanic! The following is a bunch of posts and emails that came after the moment I realized (keep in mind that every post and reply sends an automatic email to every ENGR101 student!).


N.O3 - Response to king cunt.png
I was understandably pissed off…


But at least there are still good people in this world:

EMAIL - SUPPORTER 01_LI.jpg



EMAIL - SUPPORTER 02_LI.jpg


N.O4 - Pitch comment_LI.jpg



[This forum limits posts to 10 attachments - I will post the rest in the comments]
 
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10Fold

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N.O5 - Should've copyrighted_LI.jpg
At this point, there were a ridiculous amount of replies (our forum was only meant to handle a few replies for every post!). Here’s my reply to the post above:
N.O9 - In heinsight.png
Here's that Youtube video:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJptNo9OjSY



What a great guy. Not only did he message me privately, he also beautifully explained the circumstances that I was selling under in this post:
N.O6 - Copyright king_LI.jpg


Despite this, there are still haters:
N.O7 - Hater about $$_LI.jpg

Even German ones (or ones trying to show off their German?). It google translate says that it means “You are a bad person”:
N.O10 - Y german_LI.jpg

And there’s always the hater who goes out of their way to contact you personally:
EMAIL-CUNT_LI.jpg

Got a few of these as well:
N.O11 - Incentivised saviour 1_LI.jpg

An ethical conversation was even created! This is especially funny as that was one of the topics in our engineering course!
N.O33 - Ethics_LI.jpg

And that’s when the rickrolling started…
N.O17 - Rickroll_LI.jpg
N.O21 - He got rickrolled_LI.jpg
 

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N.O22 - Shady bitly_LI.jpgN.O30 - rickroll 02_LI.jpg

Someone even made a meme!
N.O37 - MEME!_LI.jpg


In the end, it was a good lesson and some good laughs (after I got over it haha):

N.021 - Comedy_LI.jpg

N.O41 - it's pretty funny_LI.jpg

This guy is checking for plagiarism using turnitin:
N.041 - Hemi_LI.jpg

And here’s my Professor’s response:
EMAIL-PROFF_LI.jpg


All up, there were a total of 2 posts with 51 replies!

Thanks for tuning in and hearing my story!
 

blackbeans

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May 26, 2021
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I think the important thing was for you to start.
It took a lot of confidence for you to put yourself out there.
I am sure you won't make the same mistake again next time.
 

10Fold

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I think the important thing was for you to start.
It took a lot of confidence for you to put yourself out there.
I am sure you won't make the same mistake again next time.
Thank you.

You are completely right, I'm not very extroverted and I still struggle with putting myself out there. Worrying that it will go wrong and it won't work without even giving it a shot.
It was a great lesson to have learnt and because of how I learnt it, I don't think I'll be forgetting anytime soon :)

Thanks for your input!
 

MJ DeMarco

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Ha Ha, as your professor said, great entrepreneurial initiative. Kudos to you.

And you learned a potent lesson: If people were willing to pay to cheat their way to a cheat-sheet, didn't you think they would cheat YOU too?

Welcome to human nature and the growing onslaught of people who think everything should be free. It's now a part of business.
 
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10Fold

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Dec 15, 2020
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Wellington, New Zealand
Ha Ha, as your professor said, great entrepreneurial initiative. Kudos to you.

And you learned a potent lesson: If people were willing to pay to cheat their way to a cheat-sheet, didn't you think they would cheat YOU too?

Welcome to human nature and the growing onslaught of people who think everything should be free. It's now a part of business.
Thank you MJ!
 

SSTrey

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Thank you MJ!
I love this share of yours @10Fold Thanks for being detailed & walking us through this entrepreneurial initiative. I must say, I'm an engineer, & we also had these A4 cheat sheets back on campus over 13 years ago, they were like gold, this was a brilliant idea of yours as I remember it took us hours & hours to personally create & customize them.
I still feel university has MANY more of these challenges which bode well for entrepreneurial minded guys.
 

10Fold

Custom titles are a dope idea
Read Fastlane!
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User Power
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Dec 15, 2020
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Wellington, New Zealand
I love this share of yours @10Fold Thanks for being detailed & walking us through this entrepreneurial initiative. I must say, I'm an engineer, & we also had these A4 cheat sheets back on campus over 13 years ago, they were like gold, this was a brilliant idea of yours as I remember it took us hours & hours to personally create & customize them.
I still feel university has MANY more of these challenges which bode well for entrepreneurial minded guys.
Thank you SSTrey! Happy I could give you a dose of nostalgia! I'll keep that in mind as I go through uni, thanks again!
 
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