The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Use your ideas as fuel, not as a destination.

Idea threads
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
0% - New User
Dec 18, 2019
1
0
Boston
Hello everyone, after reading TMF and I'm almost done reading Unscripted . A lot of what MJ says has been resonating with me everyday and I've wanted a lot of the things he's listed for my own personal brand for a while. The truth is, life as Entrepreneur can be lonely sometimes. I have built one highly profitable business in the past netting me more than $30k a month. That was years ago, I've decided to learn to code a few years back before the Bitcoin boom. I actually caught the rise in early 2017 and went all in with some of my savings and 10x my profits. I was 6 figures up and thought I had it all figured out. I got blind sided thinking it was a great time to be passive and focus on dating and living life. Quickly, Bitcoin reversed at the beginning of 2018 and I was handed the L of a lifetime. I lost a lot of money diversifying in Crypto. Such as, alt coins, miners, fiat currency and margin trading. When all said and done, I actually ended up losing all my profits a year later and was left with less than I started. I decided to take coding even more seriously and realized after a couple years that the days of "I have an app idea or this website is going to make me rich" are done. The companies you see getting rich today are usually teams of engineers with one vision and backed by VC's. Yes, you may have read about that one kid who made a million dollar app, but that's the exception and not the rule. The gold rush in this market is over and if you didn't know, software engineers double every year, meaning the competition only gets more fierce. Outside of Silicon Valley and expensive cities like Boston (where I'm from) coding is low level job. It barely gets the reputation it does, like America. Why? Because Americans are lazy. Just look at our education system vs other countries. Computer Science is taught early on in other countries and people spend up to 10 years really mastering the craft. If you think you're building the next Facebook, chances are you're not.

Now, I am not saying this to discourage you. I'm saying this as, this is not a get rich quick scheme even though it seems like it when you have no knowledge. Your idea is just an idea, and every cheapskate on the planet has an idea. Unfortunately, no one cares about your ideas because ideas are cheap. Execution is gold. If you can execute on your idea then you are in the 1% and the rest of the "Sheep" won't have a chance against you. When I started, I had this idea of building something similar to Instagram and as time passed, my idea got smaller and smaller. It did keep me learning but (software industry secret), tech is always changing extremely fast. What you know today, will be outdated tomorrow. Same goes for a lot of these get rich quick schemes. The days of Bitcoin booms are over. I was lucky to have read a lot about cryptocurrency before the rise and ceased an opportunity that was very short lived. Much like everything in tech.

Web Development environments are always changing, so you have to always keep learning about the new tools that get updated and same for platforms and etc. My point is, unless you are in it for the long haul, stop think coding is going to make you rich, because it's probably not. Truth is, if I knew what I know now. I would've just hired other engineers in cheaper parts of the world and worked with a designer to make it look good. Much faster and you can focus on other important parts of your so called business. I think if you like to learn and don't mind giving up a few years to have a shitty product and have enough diligence to keep pushing through the boring days, which is a lot of tech when it becomes work. Then you can reach a place where you can be a valuable coder and maybe get picked up by a company for a above average salary. This will be the 9-5 script Mr. Demarco is talking about. So it's actually quite the opposite from Unscripted .

So back to my solution. You must act now on what you want. Not tomorrow, not a month from now, or a year. If you have an idea, talk to people about it and find someone more competent than you to work with you on it. Get a contract and have them help you finish it. There is something very important about learning from a mentor that doesn't get spoken about. You will save lots of time, and they can tell you if your idea is worth pursuing or not. Software is nice because you can reach more people, but if you don't have a business to begin with, you're just wasting time. Establish your business first, whether it's physical goods, digital goods, or services.

Real Estate is still a valuable get rich quick scheme and it always has been. Buy multi family homes and rent out each unit, and now you got cashflow. One house, Two house, Three house, etc. Software is risky because of the lifecycle of ideas. Software Development usually requires a lot of upfront work and the truth is, most apps only last a few months until they go nowhere. Ok, now to the money. Website builders exist, so just use that and test your idea quickly. Yes, you will split some profits with the host, but who cares, you're still a small fish. You need validation to see if your idea is worth pursuing. So launch a quick website with your product or service in your neighborhood and see if there's demand for it. Then if all goes well, branch out, go regional, and etc. You will also realize, you need to put in work to keep your business afloat. Writing a book isn't easy because it takes years of experience and wisdom to be able to make a best seller that can pay you for a lifetime. Same goes for software.

Ok, wrapping this up, just be conscious about your time. Time is the most valuable asset we have. You want the most bang for your buck and as much as I hate to let others do the work for me. This sometimes is the best option for the solo entrepreneur. You can't wear all the hats, and expect to hit a home run. So do yourself a favor, and build a TEAM of people who want the same thing as you. You are the entrepreneur, which means you are the brains behind the vision. Lead your team to the promise land. Yes, there will be hurdles but this is part of the learning experience. What I recommend is you don't do everything yourself which is what a lot of us tend to do. I am guilty of this. It costs way too much time, and your idea will become outdated. Best of luck to all my entrepreneurs out there. I know this battle is not easy, but I wake up everyday wanting to get one step closer to my ideal lifestyle. Traveling, Sports Car, Nice Condo, Passive Income, and most importantly, control of my TIME.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

James Orman

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
88%
Dec 22, 2019
26
23
Only 12 out of 100 original students in my college made it to computer science. I just quit a good job because it was feeling soulless and being treated like a machine is no good either.

I've seen so many crappy poorly made apps out there. It just shows desperation vs dedication to quality. Which shows that few people are devoting to excellence or value skewing. It will be so easy for me to compete because I care about continually improving a product.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top