Which job should you pursue until you can live from entrepreneurship

[Nico_K]

Hello,

After i have achieved my master degree from university, I started to work long hours in a consulting firm until i have read unscripted along other books. I am wondering which job is the right to pursue until you can live from your entrepreneurship life? Should you work part time to have even more time to pursue own ideas/entrepreneurship or full time at a startup where you probably learn more and can network better? Which kind of job would also be interesting.

Any response would be highly appreciated!

 

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[ravenspear]

I think this depends on the person tbh. Some people can work on a side project and make it work while they have a regular job, others can't. I put myself in the second category.

 

[Empires]

The honest answer to this is that there is no answer.

Every single persons situation is different. I currently work 7 days a week at my job to make as much money as possible to put into put into my business.

But if you hate your job and it drains your energy and prevents you from working on your business, then quit that job and find something that works for you even if it means less pay.

The job is just a means to an end. How you get to the end is not the important part. Getting there is.

 

[Ismail941]

You can keep your current job and start something small to get traction.
Unless you want to burn the boats and go All-In.

The Beauty of networking with like minded people: There is a little chance you could meet your business partner or something like that!

If you can downsize, it would be great.
Don't get too fancy.
It depends on your personal situation.

Patience is very important!

 

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[Empires]

Unless you want to burn the boats and go All-In.

Just to add, I've done both before. I quit my job and went all in with 20k in savings and after I burned through that I went back to work.

Now that I am working 7 days a week I have so much less stress because my bank account is not slowly draining, I can fund my business comfortably until it is profitable.

 

[DeletedUser0287]

I think this depends on the person tbh. Some people can work on a side project and make it work while they have a regular job, others can't. I put myself in the second category.

It depends if a person has the cash reserves to go all in actually. Anyone in this space wants to make their venture the main thing. If you can just drop the job and build the business, that’s a luxury. Either built by slaving away for years/living like crap or some hefty inheritance.

 

[ravenspear]

It depends if a person has the cash reserves to go all in actually. Anyone in this space wants to make their venture the main thing. If you can just drop the job and build the business, that’s a luxury. Either built by slaving away for years/living like crap or some hefty inheritance.

Agreed, I worked for 10+ years to give myself a 2+ year runway.

 

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[Entre Eyes]

As mentioned above it will be unique for every individual. If you had babies and have some type of insurance at your job not a very easy thing to cast aside right?

There are lots of Digital Nomads that hopped on a plane and work from where ever they have an internet connection if you know the marketing hustles to do so or as alot of them do is create a travel blog while traveling.

 

[Kid]

No job.

 

[Thiago Machado]

Business at a basic level is:

1. Identify Problems

2. Provide solutions

--

You can learn to identify problems by yourself.

You can provide solutions by DIY, hiring, outsourcing, white labeling etc.

But you still need to SELL your solution to people.

I recently saw an Instagram story of Orlando City's Billionaire owner Flavio Augusto.

He answered this exact question.

He said: "I spent 4 years in sales before I went off on my own. I tell everybody to do this too. Just find a way. Do it for free. Heck, even pay to do this if you have to. It will make all the difference in the long-run"

Now, sales often has a bad vibe around it.

The first thing that comes up in most peoples mind are the Grant Cardone types: high pressure, high motivation, bully, etc.

But that's not true...

Sales has changed and I won't get into details (but I'll leave some links below).

So to answer your question: learn how to sell!

Job wise, I only see 2 paths to make the most out of this.

1. B2B Sales / Enterprise Sales

Here you'll learn about modern selling.

I recommend you check this out The Original Sales Bootcamp

You'll learn about cold emails, Linkedin selling, building a pipeline etc.

Here are some links I think you'll enjoy:

Maintenance mode

- Wall Street Playboys - Advice from Real Wall Street Professionals

wallstreetplayboys.com

Maintenance mode

- Wall Street Playboys - Advice from Real Wall Street Professionals

wallstreetplayboys.com

Maintenance mode

- Wall Street Playboys - Advice from Real Wall Street Professionals

wallstreetplayboys.com

2. Paid advertising (PPC)

It's pretty obvious right now that a lot of sales are done online these days.

So it pays to know how to sell online. In short, you need to understand this:

Traffic + Conversion = Money

1. get peoples attenetion.

2. Take them to a page.

3. Make them an offer.

4. And get paid (or make them sign up for your email list)

Here's what I recommend you read if you want to take this route:

80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More | Amazon.com.br

Compre online 80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More, de Koch, Richard, Marshall, Perry na Amazon. Frete GRÁTIS em milhares de produtos com o Amazon Prime. Encontre diversos livros escritos por Koch, Richard, Marshall, Perry com ótimos preços.

www.amazon.com.br

GOLD! - SOCIAL MEDIA - MARKETING - Paid Advertising Crash Course

I was asked to write this for another forum and I got permission to share it here. But first, I want to give you some background on why I wrote this... I have been purchasing PPC ads since 1998 and I cut my teeth on both ecommerce and lead generation campaigns for almost a thousand different...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

HOT! - MARKETING - Andy's Google Ads Posts

If you have any questions relating to a thread, please reply to that thread instead of this master one. If there's anything not covered, ask in here and I'll see about creating a thread for that. A) Here's a "braindump" thread in the Speedway where I'll continuously drop content: Mastering...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Conclusion:

The path you take depends on your personality and future business interests.

I'd say path 1 for extroverts and path 2 for introverts.

This isn't a rule either - just something I've noticed from observation from a personality perspective.

 

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[broswoodwork]

Sales

^
If it wasn't for my time in an outbound call-center, I'd probably still be a daydreamer.

 

[Thiago Machado]

^
If it wasn't for my time in an outbound call-center, I'd probably still be a daydreamer.

@broswoodwork , how long did you stay there?

The hardest part of sales for me is prospecting.

I know it's all mental though. I need to get over the small bs that holds me back from cold pitching more often.

 

[broswoodwork]

@broswoodwork , how long did you stay there?

The hardest part of sales for me is prospecting.

I know it's all mental though. I need to get over the small bs that holds me back from cold pitching more often.

I was there for about 5 years (technical recruiter firm). It was long enough to get starter level grasp on: hearing and saying "no", to get a feel for it all basically a numbers game, and to learn how to quickly get past people's guard to figure out what problems they actually needed solved (even if I wasn't the guy selling it at that time).

 

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[Dereklacrone]

You only have 100% to give. any time you give 5% to something, you only have 95% left. The less you do that's NOT related to your business, the more focus and energy you can give your business to grow. "Eat dirt" for a while. Time is on your side if you're under 75 years old. Live as cheap as possible. When I started my business it was after almost a year in Brasil and I had just enough savings for a few months left. I rented a 10x10 room at my friend's house and slept on a sofa/futon with a cheap wal mart desk nearby and each night fell asleep reading and dreaming about what was possible. no TV, no distractions. Took me 3.5 months to build a revenue stream of $3,200/month, and by 8 months it was at $8,600/month profit pre tax. It has gone up and down since then, with a lot of shifts and changes and I even moved to a whole new city and learned how location dependent that business was and kept evolving. I have learned that it really does come down to focus and discipline, at least for me, to drive the right energy needed to close deals and drive revenue and help those around me.

 

[Ismail941]

Business at a basic level is:

1. Identify Problems

2. Provide solutions

--

You can learn to identify problems by yourself.

You can provide solutions by DIY, hiring, outsourcing, white labeling etc.

But you still need to SELL your solution to people.

I recently saw an Instagram story of Orlando City's Billionaire owner Flavio Augusto.

He answered this exact question.

He said: "I spent 4 years in sales before I went off on my own. I tell everybody to do this too. Just find a way. Do it for free. Heck, even pay to do this if you have to. It will make all the difference in the long-run"

Now, sales often has a bad vibe around it.

The first thing that comes up in most peoples mind are the Grant Cardone types: high pressure, high motivation, bully, etc.

But that's not true...

Sales has changed and I won't get into details (but I'll leave some links below).

So to answer your question: learn how to sell!

Job wise, I only see 2 paths to make the most out of this.

1. B2B Sales / Enterprise Sales

Here you'll learn about modern selling.

I recommend you check this out The Original Sales Bootcamp

You'll learn about cold emails, Linkedin selling, building a pipeline etc.

Here are some links I think you'll enjoy:

Maintenance mode

- Wall Street Playboys - Advice from Real Wall Street Professionals

wallstreetplayboys.com

Maintenance mode

- Wall Street Playboys - Advice from Real Wall Street Professionals

wallstreetplayboys.com

Maintenance mode

- Wall Street Playboys - Advice from Real Wall Street Professionals

wallstreetplayboys.com

2. Paid advertising (PPC)

It's pretty obvious right now that a lot of sales are done online these days.

So it pays to know how to sell online. In short, you need to understand this:

Traffic + Conversion = Money

1. get peoples attenetion.

2. Take them to a page.

3. Make them an offer.

4. And get paid (or make them sign up for your email list)

Here's what I recommend you read if you want to take this route:

80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More | Amazon.com.br

Compre online 80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More, de Koch, Richard, Marshall, Perry na Amazon. Frete GRÁTIS em milhares de produtos com o Amazon Prime. Encontre diversos livros escritos por Koch, Richard, Marshall, Perry com ótimos preços.

www.amazon.com.br

GOLD! - SOCIAL MEDIA - MARKETING - Paid Advertising Crash Course

I was asked to write this for another forum and I got permission to share it here. But first, I want to give you some background on why I wrote this... I have been purchasing PPC ads since 1998 and I cut my teeth on both ecommerce and lead generation campaigns for almost a thousand different...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

HOT! - MARKETING - Andy's Google Ads Posts

If you have any questions relating to a thread, please reply to that thread instead of this master one. If there's anything not covered, ask in here and I'll see about creating a thread for that. A) Here's a "braindump" thread in the Speedway where I'll continuously drop content: Mastering...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Conclusion:

The path you take depends on your personality and future business interests.

I'd say path 1 for extroverts and path 2 for introverts.

This isn't a rule either - just something I've noticed from observation from a personality perspective.

Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate you!

 

[SeanLewis]

I work part time in sales right now, thanks to being a decent sales man i make about 2k per month from about 100-130h per month of work.

I have a 1+ year buffer ready for when I launch my new business and get my first sale. Thats when i'll quit and go all in.

 

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[happiness2go]

One other option could be to work a very easy job that just hardly keeps you afloat. Think anything similar to what a student would do (20 hours per week at a bookshop or something like that).

In this way you'll have plenty of time and energy left to work on your business.

 

[BizyDad]

Personally, I found great education in being a banker. This is a place where everyday business owners go to talk about money and you can ask them all kinds of questions, like "How do you get your clients" or "What is something you wished you had done differently" or "How did you get the idea to start this business". 90% of the time, they'll tell you. Occasionally, someone might look at you sideways for asking an unrelated quesiton, but I would just say something like "Sorry, I am just fascinated by people's business stories", and they'd go right back to talking. I did it for 3 years, talked to maybe a couple thousand business owners and it taught me so much more than just "selling" or "networking". A specific perk is you usually know how much runs through that bank account, so you have a better idea of who to actually listen to or not.

Sure you can go into other fields, marketing, finance, sales, or even a job in the field you eventually want to be a business owner in, but if you have absolutely no clue what you want to do, I'd say be a banker.

 

[BellaPippin]

Personally, I found great education in being a banker. This is place where everyday business owners go to talk about money and you can ask them all kinds of questions, like "How do you get your clients" or "What is something you wished you had done differently" or "How did you get the idea to start this business". 90% of the time, they'll tell you. Occasionally, someone might look at your sideways for asking an unrelated quesiton, but I would just say something like "Sorry, I am just fascinated by people's business stories", and they'd go right back to talking. I did it for 3 years, talked to maybe a couple thousand business owners and it taught me so much more than just "selling" or "networking". A specific perk is you usually know how much runs through that bank account, so you have a better idea of who to actually listen to or not.

Sure you can go into other fields, marketing, finance, sales, or even a job in the field you eventually want to be a business owner in, but if you have absolutely no clue what you want to do, I'd say be a banker.

I was a banker and I agree with this! I'd strike awesome conversations with some small business owners.


Personally I think my plan is to save as much as I can from this high paying job to get my first property, then if the rent covers most of the mortgage and my expenses are still low (I might still milk the job for a while to make a good cushion) I was thinking of getting certification for EMT-P, you work long shifts but then you have several days off which would give me time to develop my venture. ALSO because that's a job I'd honestly like to try rather than a job for a paycheck; way more active and interesting than sitting at a desk all day and you help people

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Foremost, any job that allows you to continue your entrepreneurial pursuits.

Bonus #1: Any job that teaches you a higher-value skill.
Bonus #2: Any job that grows you as a person.
Bonus #3: Any job that gives you industry insights so you can find value opportunities.

 

[Andy Black]

Personally, I found great education in being a banker. This is a place where everyday business owners go to talk about money and you can ask them all kinds of questions, like "How do you get your clients" or "What is something you wished you had done differently" or "How did you get the idea to start this business". 90% of the time, they'll tell you. Occasionally, someone might look at you sideways for asking an unrelated quesiton, but I would just say something like "Sorry, I am just fascinated by people's business stories", and they'd go right back to talking. I did it for 3 years, talked to maybe a couple thousand business owners and it taught me so much more than just "selling" or "networking". A specific perk is you usually know how much runs through that bank account, so you have a better idea of who to actually listen to or not.

Sure you can go into other fields, marketing, finance, sales, or even a job in the field you eventually want to be a business owner in, but if you have absolutely no clue what you want to do, I'd say be a banker.

Wow. Talk about an inside track.

What patterns did you see amongst those doing well and those not doing well?

What were your main takeaways, and surprising insights?

I’m curious what you learned too @BellaPippin.

 

[BizyDad]

Wow. Talk about an inside track.

What patterns did you see amongst those doing well and those not doing well?

What were your main takeaways, and surprising insights?

I’m curious what you learned too @BellaPippin.

One of these days I'll do my intro post, I plan on including some of that in there... I link to it here when I do...

But honestly, I learned a lot that will simply reinforce what MJ writes about and what others have discussed in here. I'm new, but I'm finding this forum is a treasure trove of actionable info.

 

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[BellaPippin]

Wow. Talk about an inside track.

What patterns did you see amongst those doing well and those not doing well?

What were your main takeaways, and surprising insights?

I’m curious what you learned too @BellaPippin.

Most of them well doing well, and the ones not doing well were usually people falling behind on trends/technology. There was this sweet old guy taxi driver that was losing all his clients to uber. I felt bad for him, he is an immigrant my dad's age (60ish) and gave that super hard-worker type vibe, I remember telling him it was time he started doing that himself. He kept coming in to do cash advances. because he was sending money to his brother back home (Israel, I think) because they were building a property.

Another biz was a couple ladies that ran a business of *I forgot what exactly it was* some concoction... sauerkraut or something like that... they were friends and just jumped into business together and one cooked with her recipe and the other one sort of managed. They sold at farmers markets. I found it fascinating to ask them basic questions like "so, how did you decide to go into this?" " what did you do first?" "How do you handle putting everything in jars?" and things of the kind, process related.

I learnt a lot of businesses are cheap AF when it comes to using PoS because they don't wanna get charged the credit card processor transaction fee and they rather lose business because of it. It was also the business owners that needed it the most! (mom and pop's places)

I learned how to talk to the customer and make conversation rather than pitch stuff, let them tell you what they need help with and then come up with the solution to suggest. I wasn't GREAT at it, selling isn't my thing, but I got the core understanding of doing that vs just sounding like a salesperson.

Eventually I left because the sales quotas were killing me and I was lucky enough to find the analyst position but I learnt quite a bit.

 

[Champion]

In my opinion, the job you pursue should be something that fulfills these 3 requirements:

- Smart (Makes enough cashflow, that you can pump into your business and doesnt rob you of too much time, which can be used to invest in your business).

- Happy (Life is too short, to waste on stuff that you completely hate doing. Even if its only temporary, try to find a job that you enjoy doing).

- Useful (Yes, even if this is the main job of your real FastLane-Business, its really important to also be useful at your job in my opinion. At the very least, it will build your confidence and self esteem as well as prepare you to have the right mindset for your entrepreneurial business).

Hope this helped!

Best
Champion

 

[Sandholdt]

I find it rewarding working as a production manager (could be any job within the leadership branch).

I get to develop and inspire my workers in a way I find ethical. It helps fulfilling me, it grows my social skills, and it help me networking for my eventual fastlane business.
Also I get paid for learning to become a better leader - both through experience, courses and also a paid education.

Oh, and it keeps food on the table, while allowing my wife to be home being a mom.

 

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[BizyDad]

Wow. Talk about an inside track.

What patterns did you see amongst those doing well and those not doing well?

What were your main takeaways, and surprising insights?

I’m curious what you learned too @BellaPippin.

Here's what I learned.

 

[Ing]

From my experience now I would say:
No job. As Kid said.
The nearest at this is: do the job you have with as little effort you can.

As I have a good job and quite many years on my back, I do my loved, well paid job with little effort while doing the business thing with really having fun while working and thinking about on it many hours a day.

A job with revenue sharing ( right words?) is best, as there the individual experience bears the most fruits.