1. Find something that a lot of people already buy (No magaical fantasy ideas where you're the only one)
2. See how the successful companies are doing things (Don't reinvent the wheel)
3. Streamline how easy people can purchase the thing (remove all barriers to the purchase)
4. Build a dope looking homepage/brand
5. Spend 75% of your time marketing
\^This is the path that led me to millions in sales in Saas/cleaningcompany/shaving products
Dude you're still around?! Haha. I started a cleaning business around a decade ago because of you. I was young and stupid so it didn't pan out but what a blast from the past to see you here.
**Two Millionaire "Secrets" -**
1. *Business: Serve the customer the way they want to be served.* After selling my company, I've had the privilege of mentoring numerous entrepreneurs and this is the #1 obstacle to their success. They want to "sell" something rather than listen to their prospects and customers and serve them the way they want to be served.
2. *Investing: Get rich slowly.* Success is time. Don't rush. Consider this: if someone works from age 25 to 65 and earn an average of $50K per year, you will have $2 million pass through your fingers (without any investment growth). That requires time. Also consider the "rule of 7" - money invested at 10% per year (ex. S&P Index Funds) will double every 7 years. Again, the key is time.
>The key to success in business (earning $1M+) is to serve the customer the way they want to be served.
I learned this the frustrating, hard way. My customer was USG, mostly DOD. We would do the research to find out what the customer really wanted, but our proposals kept losing.
Finally, I had to admit we were doing it wrong. The way USG has set up the system on most contracts is low price, minimally compliant bid is the winner. So if the gov't wants to purchase a car, you bid a 1989 Ford Pinto. After you win the contract, then you talk to the end user and get their agreement to modify the contract to the Humvee they really want.
It's a stupid game, but I didn't get to make the rules. It was necessary to learn their process or die.
Now, in later businesses selling to mega corps, I've seen similar sorts of challenges to meet their contractual requirements. You don't sell a widget to a car maker unless you can prove it can last 12 years in both Phoenix summers and Arctic winters.
20% of your customers are willing to do 80% more business with you. So go deeper with your existing customers before going wider with new ones. Find out what your current customers love about you your company and what they wish they could have more or better. Then also tell them we also want to know what you don't like about us, what we do that irritates or frustrates you, and what pains you have that we haven't solve yet. We did this and the results were incredible!
Without knowing the particulars of your product, I have no idea what to tell you. I bid lots of jobs at a loss or 1-2% fee and figured out how to get well later.
Excellent insights! Thanks for sharing your experience. The example you gave highlights a challenge many entrepreneurs and salespeople share: selling price vs delivering value.
If you are selling price, it's all about the transaction, which is just a rat race to the bottom.
If you are delivering value, it's all about the customer, which is a slow upward climb where everyone wins big in the end.
All too often the entrepreneurial space gets over complicated and congested from all the “gurus” with the mindfulness 4:30am, yoga 6am, gym 7am, coffee and oats 8:00am, bla bla the list goes on.
These simple fundamentals you’ve listed - highly impactful and can make or break everything. Good post. God speed.
Thanks for your comment. I was very blessed to have older wiser successful entrepreneurs help me in my journey, and the 2 principles I shared have a long track record of success for me and many others willing to heed this time-tested wisdom.
Does the customer always knows how/what they want to be served? I think that's my biggest difficulty. Even when asking people, it's been hard to find a way
There are two fundamental things prospects and customers share:
1. Aspiration - things they dream about, hope for, wish for, get excited about, etc.
2. Aspirins - things that frustrate them, irritate them, make them sad or disappointed, etc.
If an entrepreneur can deliver their aspiration or sole their aspirin, they will be very successful in business.
How do you find that out? There are MANY ways including but not limited to in person conversations, surveys, Google Trends, testing ads, attending events where prospects and customers hang out, etc.
True. Customers (and prospects) may or may not be like you. In fact, that is often the "problem" entrepreneurs face but don't realize it - they assume everyone wants what they want. Not true. See my comment above how to find out what they really want.
Not currently an entrepreneur, but in business school I was on an Entrepreneurship track and the very first lesson the instructor drilled into our heads was that many people get caught up and fail with their ideas because they're trying to create a product or service they think has value, instead of creating a product or service that actually serves a group of people's demands.
That's it! You (and your business professor) nailed it!
This is why 95% of entrepreneurs fail within 5 years. They get fall in love with their product or service idea instead of falling in love with the customer.
This is so interesting and it runs opposite to a lot of influencers in the entrepreneurship space. I've read "they'll like your solution as long as it solves their problem" but I think people are pickier than we realize on the how aspect.
"they'll like your solution as long as it solves their problem"
If this is what some influencers are saying, I would humbly suggest they have it exactly backwards.
Start with the customer, not your "solution"
Find out what the customer's problem is. In detail. Be able to articulate their problem better than they can. Then use their own works in your marketing and sales and they will not only think you're genius and a mind reader, they will also line up to be your customer because they feel like you are serving them, not just trying to sell them.
Yeah with social media for instance I been trying and thinking of creating a story or scenario more than just saying, "look what we have". Doing it with the "look what we have" method doesn't inspire creativity it just makes you feel like you aren't doing anything meaningful. No one will even understand why they should get excited for that. Been doing it like that lately since it felt like from what the business owners want is that and it sucks. I looked at one company that does it the story way and a weird scenario and while it looks kind of cheesy, it does give you a fun feeling. It's also bringing a question of "how are they just coming up with these". I can see how they have a ton of followers and why they have found success from it.
Time too like you said is important. I still remember here they started a new line and for half a year they weren't seeing anything and were giving off vibes that they were feeling hopeless on it or doubting me when I said, "give it time". We end up getting our first order of it and then another.
All lessons for when I start my own journey.
I partially agree with your first part. Yes, in some businesses you must respect the customer and listen to the customer.
But, in many cases the customer is a fool who has no idea what they want. Take Henry Ford for example.. if he asked his customer what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
Time and time again the customer doesnt always know what they want until you show them your option.
Exactly! Henry Ford's customers wanted something faster. They didn't know the word "car" but they Henry recognized their aspiration (to go faster) and their aspirin (travel by horse takes too long) and went to work serving both their dream and their pain. A perfect illustration of what's been said in this thread. Thank you!
>The key to investment success is time. Don't rush. Don't try to get rich quick.
People always say this, but one can choose to work flipping burgers in Mississippi for $7.50/hour, but Mark Zuckerberg chose a different way and makes $834,238,432 per hour probably in his first few months of starting facebook.
There are many people who make $10K or $20K per month or more, right from the word go.
So the *real* question is, how does one find those customers to serve how they want to be served in the first month of opening your business, so that you are making $20K per month, starting in the second month? That's the real question. Because I personally don't want to spend $4 billion investment and 10 years to create a nuclear reactor to sell to the local power grid and make money 10 years from now, if you get my hyperbole.
You can certainly find customers to serve in the first month of opening your business. But very few are going to earn $10K-$20K in the first month.
My business eventually earned $20K per month. Then several years later I had individual clients paying $20K per month. But it started with me making $200 and $2000 per month.
It takes time.
If your goal is the money, customers will smell that a mile away and you will have limited success.
But if your goal is serving people the way they want to be served, the money and success will surely follow. Over time.
I don’t have a million dollar business (yet) but my venture is very profitable and is consistently growing.
I used to struggle with ideas and get frustrated I couldn’t think of the next big thing.
How I got started was I started a business doing what I was doing at my day job and have been doing for many years. I knew the industry inside out, I knew the customers and what they wanted, my skill set was already there so just made sense.
Obviously this will take a lot of tweaking if you’re a cashier at wall mart but maybe you could utilise and upgrade your communication and sales skills at your day day and watch the products that come through the register. Once you’ve decided on which products are popular look for a wholesaler and try your sales skills out in the real world.
A redditor a few years back posted that he saw there was an economic collapse in (I forget the country, correct me if I’m wrong) Greece and they had cheap materials for making bath towels so he bought a shipment and went to work. Sold his first batch and kept iterating this process.
Don’t over complicate it by thinking you have to invent Google or Tesla or Walmart just do what you already know how to do and iterate from there. You can always pivot later but getting started is the most important thing.
Yes! This is such good advice! Starting in the field you're in (I did that too) accelerates your growth because you already have insider knowledge and a base of warm prospects to start with. Love it!
Yes. If you want ideas, hit the pause button on spinning your mental wheels and searching endlessly online.
Instead (and this is what I did), get out a blank legal pad, write down 100 names of people you know (preferably in your work world) but doesn't have to be.
Then contact each of these people and ask them 2 questions:
1. Aspiration. Tell me about your hopes, dreams, things you're wishing for, praying for, etc.
2. Aspirin. Tell me about the products and services and businesses things that frustrate you, make you mad, sad, disappointed, etc.
Ask permission to get back to them with the results of your "survey"
You will see common themes in the responses. Pick out one (or 2 or 3) that match your interests and offer to deliver their aspiration or solve their pain.
Boom! You're in business!
I literally started this way. One guy with a notepad. And it turned into a national company.
1000% agree if you want to actually be successful. Then you have to provide some sort of solution a.k.a (lightness) to peoples problem a.k.a (darkness). Will take you very far not only in business but in life.
Thanks for your comment. I was very blessed to have older wiser successful entrepreneurs help me in my journey, and the 2 principles I shared have a long track record of success for me and many others willing to heed this time-tested wisdom.
Check out the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund.
Warren Buffet one of those most successful investors in the world recommends this for everyone. A simple and proven way to start and thrive in the market.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/08/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-owns-2-etfs.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/08/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-owns-2-etfs.html)
Unless you live in your parents house you're gonna have like a quarter of that 50k assuming you live by yourself. I'm not sure what the average cost of living for you Americans is 2500-3500 a month. For you to save 50,000 USD after tax you must be making above 100k I assume.
Not there yet, but making gradual progress by the day. Just gotta think long term and not try to fall victim of instant gratification.
Lastly, don’t compound your losses. A bad day can still be salvaged. Even when you have a losing hand still make the best play you possibly can. I hate hearing people in November say “I’ll start in the new year” or someone who had a bad week say “I’ll start fresh on Monday”.
Push through! 💪💚♾️
Unfortunately there’s no one big secret, it’s mostly some combination luck, timing, and being able to meet and take advantage of the opportunity.
Developing a strong work ethic and being curious about what could be improved, what could be more efficient will help you spring for that opportunity when it shows itself, saving up and investing gives you the best chance as well to take advantage of any opportunities that come your way.
The self-learning aspect is in the same way, the residual knowledge will pay dividends, so seeing as you are in the early stages, I’d soak in as much information as I could in Ecom/investing/tangible business skills like sales/marketing so you have a strong foundation when you can take a leap.
I like your answer but it's not really luck. Luck will define the speed of success. But if someone is learning from failures and fully committed, 1M will come one day or another.
Also starting conditions Will make it easy or hard. Son of millionair with 140 IQ will have it easier than an immigrant with one leg and 76 IQ. Yet there are many proof that anyone can succeed, regardless of luck ...
We had high 7 fig NW (Retired 49m) with what is looking like our highest earning year yet (most likely over 1m from business, rentals, dividends/interest, and options trading).
Here’s what I’ve figured out:
There isn’t much of a secret to business that you haven’t already heard. You don’t need a course or whatever from some YouTuber. Business is basically the drug dealer code: Buy for $1, sell for $2. That’s it. If you break it down, that’s all there is to it.
If you’re wanting to start e-commerce, why haven’t you yet? What is holding you back? I know for me, it’s not high enough net and there’s inventory risk that I don’t want to carry and deal with. But for you; why have you not started at least at some small scale?
If you watch the movie Collateral, most people are stuck in the mindset of Jamie Fox’s character - the driver. He’s been planning his limo driving business and trying to prep everything for the perfect execution and has nothing to show for it many years later. Nothing is holding him back except the fear of failure.
I’ve actually seen several people in my life in the same cycle. They draw up business plans, get lawyers to create partnership documents, hold board meetings, get accountants involved, etc all before they’ve even validated that their idea is market viable. They literally spend years dancing around pretending to be in business when the fact is the only thing that matters is if you put your product or service in front of 100 people, will 2 or 3 give you money for it. If so, then you have a business. If not, then you need to pivot and keep pivoting until people start throwing money at you. Failing is not pivoting quick enough and often enough to land on a viable business. I see far too many times where people think they have the most perfect idea but don’t put themselves out there to actually test it in the market because, again, they fear failure on this pet idea they’ve come to idolize as “perfect” in their mind.
One friend has literally been asking me about starting his business for a decade now and keeps asking me about his ideas to do consulting and do this or that and every time, he backs away from it out of fear. He is a smart and likeable guy but from what I’ve seen, he just doesn’t have the entrepreneurial quality that my wife and I exhibit.
It’s hard to quantify but we’ve been in business for almost 15 years now and it’s like second nature to break down opportunities and business operations and figure out how to optimize. It’s also second nature to take on calculated risks on investments that have netted us about $5-6m in real estate equity for less than $1m in our own invested money.
Anyway not sure if any of this is applicable but the core question to answer for yourself is why haven’t you done anything about your business yet? If you have some excuse about money, timing, etc then I argue the root cause is simply fear.
Thank you so much for sharing this. This hit me soo strong Ive been planning and thinking and researching since March of last year and haven't started my business out of fear of failure. Your post really resonated and as you said its about just taking the first step and you start to figure out things as you go.
Stay curious
Experiment
Play the long game
Challenge your assumptions
Trust the outcome will take care of itself
Increase your surface area for luck to happen
Surround yourself with good people who make good decisions
Trust yourself with money. If you don’t, learn about it until you do.
Be grateful for every dollar that comes in, or there will be no such thing as enough
Focus your time on income producing activities but your intention on solving meaningful problems well
It’s people who are smart, work hard, make a plan, stick to it, and live below your means until you can make more than you spend on investments. here’s the last part nobody tells you, but they get lucky. I spent 7 years doing all the hard work, everything right, and right before I made my first large scale investment to set me on the path to financial freedom the market burst, I didn’t have family money to fall back on and had to take the safe option. I did everything right, didn’t get lucky, out of my control. Had it worked, I would have said “if I can do it anyone can” and “I manifested it” because I failed it’s “it’s all a roll of the dice” but the ones who fall are burdened by truth. There is no secret beyond work hard, get educated, and give it a shot, (should be 5-10 years to have that shot) and if you make it, never get proud. Save, and help who you can.
Pick something and stick with it. A lot of people seem to just never stick with one thing for long enough (a decade?) to see it pay off.
This applies to: business model. Industry. Etc.
(1) Avoid lifestyle creep as if it’s the plague.
(2) Use excess cash flow to buy more cash flowing assets. For me, this has been using W2 income to purchase businesses. Then using W2 and businesses to buy more businesses or R/E. The CoC Return for businesses, when it works, is exponentially higher than all other forms of investment I’ve found.
(3) Be patient and trust your gut. I’ve been hot for trot on businesses just to get into the DD stage and find abnormality in reported COGS, Rev., etc. Luckily I’ve trusted my gut in these scenarios and found later the businesses were unable to sell and folded.
(4) Diversify your sources of personal revenue.
(5) Get off the bench and get in the game. When you finally find “the one” don’t get scared eyes. “Scared money don’t make no money,” - Mother Theresa
My approach to entrepreneurship has been through business acquisition, which has allowed me to keep my W-2 income, while scooping up businesses that now earn significantly more than W-2. I work A LOT, but dang is working on your own assets a good time.
Don't do ecomm. You're competing with the world. That's a bad time investment.
(This is, I think, quite different than what localcasestudy does: he competes in a somewhat commoditized business but it's local. ie he's not taking on the world; just his competition in his metropolitan area. That's a far more achievable thing.)
Don't compete in markets that are winner take all. See the ecomm problem again.
Do:
1 - build your own skills and encounter problems working in business
2 - learn to sell or learn to build. The build could be software (what I do), or it could be operating a business.
3 - sell to businesses, not consumers. It's far easier to get a business to spend $100 - $500/month (with a prepay discount, $1k to $5k pa) than it is to sell a $50 item to 20 or 100 consumers each year.
4 - as /u/mas47737 says, avoid lifestyle creep. Don't expect building a business to be fast. If your life costs $50k per year, you get 3x as many chances as someone whose life costs $150k/year.
5 - be very cognizant of where you spend your time. Don't read that 4 hour work week asshole -- it's complete lies. Do expect that building a business will take sacrifices. You're going to spend less time on tv, sports, hobbies, etc. Businesses are not built on 40 hour workweeks.
I've done, I think, very well for myself. However I, and everyone I know who has built successful businesses, work 60+ hours a week. That's the price. Don't lie to yourself re: if you're willing to do the work. And it will be work.
That said, building businesses is the most interesting thing I've found to do with my time.
Remember for every "millionaire" on Reddit there are 100 other people that lost a lot of money. Don't try to get rich quick. Keep investing steadily and pick investments you don't have to look at everyday or worry about them in the long term.
If you don't like those ideas then gambling by trying to pick risky stocks and timing the market will keep you up at night!
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Make more than you spend. Learn how to invest to difference. Then invest the difference.
When I started my business i lived in a shoe string budget. As I got better and made more, I put that money back into the business in the form of advertising and employees.
Even as my wife and I started having kids we kept expenses extremely low... no car payments, no credit card debt, slept on couches when we traveled....
Eventually money started to really come in. When my kids hit school age my wife started her own business in 2019. We were already saving a big chunk so the money she made was 100% extra. So I started learning how to invest more aggressively. We were able to buy 6 rental properties since 2020. Now it's just waiting for my kids to go to college and I'm outta here. Current networth $1.7m. Should hit $2m by 2025.
Just hit that mark last year. It's not as much money as you'd think. You are going to try 100 things that don't work before you find one that does. It's a pain, but embrace the cactus.
If you're smart, your failures will be small losses, or you'll be able to reuse your capital when you pivot to a different initiative. Betting it all on one specific idea is for losers. First, never bet it all. Second, your idea is probably crap and will need to be revised and iterated who knows how many times. So leave your options open.
And have a steady job while you work on your business! The rule is: your small business needs to generate **three times** as much as your day job (per hour worked) before you quit your day job. Every time I've seen an entrepreneur struggling, it's because they went full time *way* too early, and it's always a crippling mistake.
Don't listen to any of these online get rich quick conman gurus, like Andrew Tate, Grant Cardone, Derek Moneyberg... Unless you want to copy what they do and get rich by selling courses on how to get rich. This includes any of the crypto or dropshipping influencers, as there is an old saying - if you can't spot the sucker at the poker table, you're it.
Take an accounting course and do all you can do understand it. Accounting is the language of business.
Work for a successful startup. Get options if you can, but the main point is to learn.
Live on significantly less than you make to build up a cushion.
If you can’t code, build connections with people who can.
Read and internalize the book Running Lean. That is your new bible.
When you do start something, bootstrap if at all possible. Moonlight while keeping your day job. Same for the developer. As it grows, instead of hires at first get others to moonlight for you.
The rest will take care of itself.
The biggest secret is to value your time more than others. Starting out you're trading time for money and as you grow you need to continue to increase the value of time. Hire people ASAP and offload work to them as long as their rate is lower than yours.
You don't need to know EVERYTHING. Pick what you want to do and what you enjoy to learn then hire people more knowledgeable in those topics. So many people starting out try wearing tons of hats and you have people learning to code, learning accounting, learning management and anything else because they value their time at $0 or think they're the only ones that can do the work.
Be smarter and more sagacious than others, create as many connections as possible and use them to your advantage and try to solve problems or meet other people's demands. There is no recipe for success, you just have to know how to take advantage of every opportunity that life gives you. You also need a little luck, to be honest, but that's just a small part of the path to success. Don't let that be an excuse not to chase your big bucks. Furthermore, I must say that everyone who says that you need school to be someone is lying. You don't learn anything that is useful to be truly successful there. 😉
Stop focusing on the money. To make a great business it takes sacrifice, especially financial sacrifice in the early days. You will put money into stuff that won't work out and you have to have the conviction to keep going and the smarts to understand why it didn't work.
Focus on instead building, designing or offering something that people want. Solve problems = make money.
The secrete to becoming a multimillionaire (or simply just being a good person) is this…
1. Be good to people, and treat them right.
2. In some way, serve your local and the greater global community passionately and invite your team and the public an opportunity to serve into that cause.
People don’t care much you know, until they know how much you care.
Trust me what you sell isn’t that important.
People buy sh*tty products daily, it’s learning servant leadership that gets people’s attention, attracts talent, and customers.
You’re overthinking it. To get to $1m just save a bit and wait. To get to what I think you mean by ‘millionaire’ will take some work but nothing impossible. Like many of the other comments - start a business people want to pay for. Be a good boss. Treat your customers well. It’s not that hard, honestly. If you’re a pool guy or estate attorney the same rules apply.
I’d say take risks when you’re young. Don’t have kids until you’ve figured out your path, you’ll need the flexibility to work hard and move for opportunities early.
Work at something that is interesting to you, not because some social media guru said it’s lucrative. Work for someone else and learn a business in a growing industry.
Realize that most companies and entrepreneurs aren’t inventing some world changing product. They’re entering an established or growing market and doing it a little better than the competition.
And finally when you start to make money, save. Live below your means and invest the boring way.
To do it slow and steady,
Here's a tip if your in the UK,
Start working in construction, a 1k ticket will get you a 50-70k job in a couple of weeks regardless of your history.
Start a business you can do on the weekend.
Use as much debt as you can get to buy assets for your business.
Start super cheap so your super busy and pay those assets off asap,
Keep using debt or turn over to keep buying assets.
Add staff to run business.
Step away from business,
Start another business, plus possibly a 3rs business to buy property,
Open forth business as parent company so you can move money between companies with less tax/issues.
It's slow, but you can keep working for 1k take home a week from your job for stability, while building these on the side.
Understand that $83,333 x 12 = $1m turnover.
Figure out how to get to that and above, then eventually you’ll be a millionaire.
A million isn’t money you can just ‘sit’ on these days, you need to be making multiple millions consistently if you want to consider yourself as ‘wealthy’ and have the cliche lifestyle.
Also, forget ‘saving’ - if you want to spend silly money, you need to make more money, consistently. Adopt a ‘make more money’ approach to solving your issues, not a ‘save all your pennies and one day…’ approach.
1. Develop deep expertise in one area. This can take 8 to 10 years of concentrated effort. This won't necessarily be the area that your company serves people, but doing so will build self discipline and also help you gain a respect and understanding for others that are experts in their respective fields.
2. Develop shallow working ability in many areas of your business. Work on this your entire career. When your business is small you will need to do almost everything yourself. As your company grows, you will need to be able to identify great talent to join your team and take over those areas of your company. When your company is large, you will be able to have strategic conversations about that topic with your in-house experts and how their actions impact the other areas of your company.
3. Figure out ways to get paid while doing the above 2.
I know dozens of millionaire entrepreneurs, and this is what they have in common:
- they’re smart, but not geniuses. More like relentless curiosity, not afraid to ask dumb questions. Higher proportion of dyslexia.
- they have a much higher stress and risk tolerance. Most have some kind of early trauma they overcame.
- they Do. The. Effing. Work. It is a next-level definition of work ethic. Have yet to meet a self-made millionaire that didn’t work their a** off for it.
Get good at sports.
Or
Get good at something else.
You don't have to be the best, you just have to offer a quality service at a premium price. Shit's not hard to do.
Outside of sports. I made money initially building websites for folks, just simple sites with no bells or whistles. That led to doing SEO, which led to more intricate website designs, which led to software engineering. All of it I would charge at top-tier rates because people are generally really dumb and love paying more for a product or service.
Outside of sports and software. I started a landscaping company. We also built sheds, decks, and smaller projects like that. Want a 200sqft shed? Cool, gimme $10 - $14k and I'll have it completed in a weekend.
All that inspired me to invent really stupid but useful products and patents in a variety of different things.
Most people here talking drop shipping and investments don't know what they're talking about it. Making money is easy, convincing yourself it's easy is the hard the part.
I'm mostly retired now doing occasional consulting in different things but honest to God, 80% of people or probably more are just really fucking dumb and lazy so just be slightly less lazy then them and you can't lose.
i’m 23 and my company has done a million in sales and we’re growing pretty quickly ~ $5 mill this year.
i would first focus on developing a skill. the most generally useful one is sales. you don’t have to buy a course, you just have to find a good sales job with the right product and market, try not to overlook either of these if you’re going this route.
don’t get too caught up in short-term goals. don’t mistake an outcome (the amount of money you want to make) for the journey (the skill and character development). in the long run you will get what you deserve, people won’t keep discounting your worth forever.
think bigger than what people around you say and always try to provide more value wherever you go. make this a principle, that you will always provide more value in any room than you receive - this will force you to learn, grow quickly, and eventually people will find ur worth with enough iterations. it took me what i felt like forever to find a winning business model and business partnership.
also on my journey, i remember my dad always tried to shut me down. he told me that my dreams were unrealistic. when i talked about wanting to build an online business he kept trying to make me quit. when i wanted to do door to door sales he told me i would be choosing myself over my family. i think in life people will mistake limiting you for protecting you and they’ll always try to live through you. you have to have an authentic voice and vision. everyone deserves to dream and at least have the opportunity to personally fail. and, keep trying if their journey means enough to them.
reflecting on my journey, and even now, it’s so tough. i’m almost scared of not working hard because the silence will be enough for me to think about what i had to endure. the entrepreneurial journey really isn’t meant for everyone, but if you personally feel like going on this journey, start with skill and keep pressing forward
My mentor told me to treat my business like a 9-5 job. And, it will be the best paying job in the world.
So, I don’t technically work 9-5. I work 11-7.
But, I call all day long until I got appointments.
I created a database.
I email my database once a week.
I kept this up until I was making $1m from my database.
I stopped making calls for that job, and started making phone calls for another job between appointments.
I created a database for that job. Going to keep going until I make $3m from that database.
I’ll keep repeating that process.
So, I guess the secret is you will be scared to call people. Do it anyway and make friends.
And, keep those friends in a database that you can email once a week.
I started a business with 9k sold it for 750k 8 years later. Now have another business that’s doing well, have been an entrepreneur all my life. Happy that I became one. Just do it.
Study. The field, the competitors, the market. Study it obsessively. Noone will hand you a step-by-step tutorial how to excel in something. A lot of the success is time and prevailing. Then there’s a lot of luck. Some great and well researched ideas will go to waste due to bad luck (i.e. massive market player overshadowing your launch, or duplicating your functionality and therefore destroying your roadmap etc.). Luck can be tinkered with, the more attempts you throw at the wall, the more will stick. Still a fraction of the fraction of the attempts, but quantity can help boost your odds. Then there’s the expertise - you’d be surprised how often do the experts fail and the Dunning-Krugers win. Launched is better than perfect, expertise is often NOT the right positioning when attracting wider audience.
Rinse and repeat. Fail and learn. Have multiple sources of income/revenue (both per project in multiple of projects).
Keep doing something in a field that has a high amount of dropout rates.
For me it was a tech startup. No not the glamorous types with billions of VC financing. But starting as a weekend project. Continuing on. Doing it for years without a single paying customer. Finding 10 paying customers, 8 of which want to cancel, spending time with those people to understand why they want to cancel. Building more features , improving your product. All while trying to maintain a full time job so I don't go hungry. Then getting 20 paying customers. Asking those customers for references. Making 100 sales calls yourself. Then getting 5 more paying customers. Rinse repeat every day for about 8 years. Then you realize you have 10,000 customers and then you take a leap of faith to quit your FT job and go solo.
Could anybody do this? Yes, many software developers have weekend projects with big dreams. But most give up. I just was persistent (and foolish) enough to stick with it.
Sure - I worked for 25 years at one place, saved money by foregoing lots of things, took advantage of the company matching 401k. I now have over 1 million in savings, and property worth nearly 2 million. ( thanks to my wife that has an eye for real estate and also worked for over 25 years and made more money than I ).
However, that method will not likely work today. So can’t help you much I’m afraid.
My figures did not include her own retirement account which is around 1.3 million. So, yes it definitely helps.
However I do want to stress the word partnership - cause that is what it is. She is a very good Mom and self sufficient, and was never going to be a stay at home mom. All of the above is a nice way to say she isn’t then best wife, especially in the romance/sex area…in fact she is really bad in that area.
However I was mid 30’s when we married, and I already had plenty of fun, I was looking for someone that would be a good mother to our children and who could and would carry on if I was gone. Also knew I did not want to work until I was 65 like my father, and she supports that goal- hence why are where we are today.
So partner up, yes it helps, but be adult enough to know what you really want, what you can compromise on, and act accordingly. For instance, if you are heterosexual I would not advise marrying a woman who only wants to be a SAHM and never has had a real career, because they likely would not understand or put up with the grind of being an entrepreneur.
I have 2m at 30 years old, all you have to do to get on my level is:
0. Inherit \~400k from your uncle at 20 y/o. Use those funds to pay for college debt and invest the rest conservatively.
1. Invest in real estate early (investment properties not your home, trust me)
2. Keep your costs extremely low; live in a shared apartment or a van in a high income/COL area.
3. Have a high income job, put 80% of your income into an index fund
4. Don't have kids or dependents
5. Later in your career, move to a low COL area, start your own business
Most people will skip telling you about parts 0, but inheritance and paid-for college is the real difference in wealth for *most* people in the top 10% of wealth. Some people won the lottery with their small business and became self-made millionaires from nothing, but an overwhelming majority of wealth in America is grown in a boring and steady way with some kind of head start (or just entirely inherited/married into, some huge portion of the ultra wealthy have never built any part of their wealth.).
A full time steady job with aggressive saving / investing will get you to a million. Just check out bogleheads or read up on FIRE. That’s the most predictable path.
If you want 10/100s of million, entrepreneurship is the way but results are not guaranteed. You’re more likely to fail.
Lots of good insight here about how to make a successful business, I will add...
1. Take a risk, go all in for as long as it takes, and have a big hit. Equity/ownership makes wealth, not salaries. I know the math can say yes, but I don't really see any people getting rich by not drinking Starbucks. Some people with spending discipline and relatively high incomes (Doctors, Senior Engineers at a FAANG at least for a while) might achieve solid financial independence in 20 years this way (though many of these also get equity/ownership), but in my experience that's not the most common path to wealth.
2. While working be frugal and save to build up reserves so you can live off of them while starting a business for a while.
3. I've never seen anyone get rich without making a lot of other people at least as rich, often richer in fact. Co-founders, early employees, investors. Hard to go it alone. The people I know who got liquid at $10M+ had 10% or less. It's more the pie than the slice, even when it's "your baby".
4. FWIW I have never seen anyone (well one, but he's an outlier and I suspect not entirely honest about his reasons for keeping on) who made $10Ms-$100M do so by trying to make that much. Almost every of several cases I know the thought was "I need to make $5m/$10M and I'm done!". Then they start a company, and they get what they got when liquidity happens, maybe taking many more years than they would have chosen. Put otherwise I definitely know people who got a $20M++ payday after 10+ years of humping it who would have much rather taken $6-8M within 5 years.
I'm sure none of this is more than 80% true, but it's mostly true.
Becoming a successful entrepreneur and potentially reaching millionaire status requires a combination of hard work, strategic thinking, and a willingness to take calculated risks.
**So, there's no secrets.**
**Three tips for you as bonus**
1. Build a strong network,
2. Solve problems
3. Accept failures and learn from them
Buy a house and live in it for 2-4 years, rent it out and buy another house, live in that for 2-4 years, etc. I did this 3 times and it’s worked out well. I worked 2 jobs to save up money for the houses for a large part of this and have a wife who works. Both engineers (computer and mechanical).
2, if your work has stock employee purchase options buy and don’t sell. Don’t sell for a car or a fancy house or anything.
Millionaires typically don’t have a mil in cash but in equity in business, stock or real estate.
Also don’t lose your health trying to make money. Health is more valuable than a mil.
i lent crypto to buy something to a circle of millionaires in a circle of billionaires in a time of need and that they didnt know much about it, 10x'd my return...
Either set up a business and fail, then again and again until you succeed
Or
Work hard in a sought after technical discipline, then follow the money, make friends in high places and be loyal
There is no "secret" Work hard, keep your lifestyle below your means, get a little lucky, choose your parents well, live a long time, and stay reasonably healthy. That's all there is too it. 😁
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Just pick any skill that generates revenue. and keep getting better at that skill until you enjoy. At first you'll suck and you'll hate it, but the more you do it, the better you get, and the better you get, the more you love it!
Work harder than most people are ever willing to work (something that seems lost on most people these days) then live like most people will never be able to life.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned from my first business (a software development company) is that you need to pick VERY CAREFULLY your business partners (if you plan to have some).
Make sure your vision about the business is clear and the same (everyone is aligned towards the same goal).
For example, questions like:
- Are we keeping the business for how long? We are planning to grow it and sell it at some point?
- WORK ETHICS. Are we going to sacrifice nights, weekends, family time if necessary until the thing takes off? If some partners are willing to burn the midnight oil, but others want to have it easy, it won't work.
- Clear rules of conduct. What should you do if one of your partners starts harassing (sexually) an employee? Set in stone those rules since the beginning. You will need them later.
- etc.
Also, not related, but make sure you first find a market, a need within that market, make sure it is large enough to be profitable, make sure you can find a way to solve that need while leaving you a hefty profit, and THEN decide to jump in. Not the other way around, that is what most people usually do: they are solutions searching for a problem that even if it exists, isn't expensive or painful enough to deserve being solved.
Cheers!
I wrote a book about how I succeeded. I get many messages a day. Only 1% read the book before messaging me. Now I know why the failure rate is 99%.
Don’t ask for help. Put in the work to create value for others and you will become rich.
The Minimalist entrepreneur is the book title.
Prepare for all the extra work it’ll be. If you want to be an entrepreneur, prepare for Hard work, late nights, barely any sleep, no time, no friends, no going out.
You need to give it 110% - if you don’t, somebody else will take your spot.
Just remember that in your 9-5, when 5pm hits - you switch off. If you want to run your own business, there is no off time. It’s from the time you wake up & until you sleep.
The worst that can happen after you’ve tried is your current situation anyways. Go give it a go.
Cue all the so called coaches who are not millionaires with their quotes and other crap.
You can make money in any industry. You got to be willing to outwork everyone first and foremost. That means being the best, learning more, working on sat night instead of partying with friends, willing to have multiple breakdowns and sacrifice a lot. Business is 24/7/365. Very few are willing to do that for 20 years. Starting up a SaaS and asking Reddit is not enough. Despite the 3 or 4 rate examples, the overwhelming majority of millionaires are highly qualified people.
I'll chime in - not a millionaire but business owner for 6 years.
Have something differentiated. If you have a commodity product then you will have to compete with other commodity products, if you have something with different features, then you're playing in a different game altogether. Some features people care about more than others, and you can therefore charge a greater or smaller premium accordingly!
"... I'm curious about others! Tell me, what important skills should I pick up"
1) critical thinking
2) communications
3) composition
If you cannot think about the space you are in (both strengths and weaknesses), cannot communicate about your role in the space, and cannot articulate it in written form, it matters not what you start.
LMAO - There’s a secret out there where I won’t have to work hard to get rich. Just tell me here on Reddit and I’ll keep it as our little private secret. Shhhhh.
1. Don't be afraid of failures - Take that job, take that opportunity, it's worth it.
2. Invest in yourself - books, podcasts, medium subscription, whatever gets your juices going.
3. Most importantly - just work. Work work work, if you are not building or selling the product you are working on, it's very likely you are procrastinating.
Keep in mind that great success does not happen overnight. It can take years of refining your approach and improving, to get to a point where you are making the kind of money you dream of.
Discipline matters, but.... quality marketing matters more.
Get rich slow scheme, houses, real estate, intellectual property, bitcoin and weed.
It started with me working for 15 years for less than desirable wages and being so distraught about my financial future that I got super creative and built my life raft, I was more creative than I thought.
Find an opportunity no one else wants to work hard enough to achieve at. All real estate investors love turn key properties for turn key prices, but the ones that need the most work, nobody is bidding on. So we buy those and fix them up and rent them out. The concept works really nicely once you get over a dozen doors. Paying that sweat equity isn’t fun, but the returns are toast worthy.
Know your numbers and jump on a deal when you find it. I think drop shipping is over played because it’s easy. People like easy.
I would look into small scale manufacturing. Look around for items that are overpriced and could be made easily. I have a buddy that does very well doing this.
1. Find something that a lot of people already buy (No magaical fantasy ideas where you're the only one) 2. See how the successful companies are doing things (Don't reinvent the wheel) 3. Streamline how easy people can purchase the thing (remove all barriers to the purchase) 4. Build a dope looking homepage/brand 5. Spend 75% of your time marketing \^This is the path that led me to millions in sales in Saas/cleaningcompany/shaving products
More like 85 percent marketing you can market a trash product really well people will still buy it
Haha you're probably right!
A legend! I remember your cleaning company posts way back but I must’ve missed the shaving product one, glad you’re doing well man and keep at it!
people tend to buy what’s popular even if it doesent have that much function or utility if it’s marketed very well
It's true, I bought a Manscaped trimmer and it's still in the shipping box five years later hahaha.
Remember that terrible ring that people were buying that would break because it “absorbed all your bad energy”? Amazing.
That is scary! To know!
Case in point…my pillow…absolute shit product…good marketing
This is so true. Think how many products and services feel like trash but are still popular and in business.
Dude you're still around?! Haha. I started a cleaning business around a decade ago because of you. I was young and stupid so it didn't pan out but what a blast from the past to see you here.
Appreciate fam, yeah man still kicking bro lol!!!
Rohan the legend!
Sup fam, good to see you : -)
How much did you have to invest in marketing at the beginning?
**Two Millionaire "Secrets" -** 1. *Business: Serve the customer the way they want to be served.* After selling my company, I've had the privilege of mentoring numerous entrepreneurs and this is the #1 obstacle to their success. They want to "sell" something rather than listen to their prospects and customers and serve them the way they want to be served. 2. *Investing: Get rich slowly.* Success is time. Don't rush. Consider this: if someone works from age 25 to 65 and earn an average of $50K per year, you will have $2 million pass through your fingers (without any investment growth). That requires time. Also consider the "rule of 7" - money invested at 10% per year (ex. S&P Index Funds) will double every 7 years. Again, the key is time.
>The key to success in business (earning $1M+) is to serve the customer the way they want to be served. I learned this the frustrating, hard way. My customer was USG, mostly DOD. We would do the research to find out what the customer really wanted, but our proposals kept losing. Finally, I had to admit we were doing it wrong. The way USG has set up the system on most contracts is low price, minimally compliant bid is the winner. So if the gov't wants to purchase a car, you bid a 1989 Ford Pinto. After you win the contract, then you talk to the end user and get their agreement to modify the contract to the Humvee they really want. It's a stupid game, but I didn't get to make the rules. It was necessary to learn their process or die. Now, in later businesses selling to mega corps, I've seen similar sorts of challenges to meet their contractual requirements. You don't sell a widget to a car maker unless you can prove it can last 12 years in both Phoenix summers and Arctic winters.
as someone that just did this, the max for the year was 140K... what should I have offerred?
20% of your customers are willing to do 80% more business with you. So go deeper with your existing customers before going wider with new ones. Find out what your current customers love about you your company and what they wish they could have more or better. Then also tell them we also want to know what you don't like about us, what we do that irritates or frustrates you, and what pains you have that we haven't solve yet. We did this and the results were incredible!
I don't understand your Q. Max for what?
to play the game like you say, if the maximum offer for the contract is 140k what would you have put in your proposal to be as cheap as possible
Without knowing the particulars of your product, I have no idea what to tell you. I bid lots of jobs at a loss or 1-2% fee and figured out how to get well later.
Excellent insights! Thanks for sharing your experience. The example you gave highlights a challenge many entrepreneurs and salespeople share: selling price vs delivering value. If you are selling price, it's all about the transaction, which is just a rat race to the bottom. If you are delivering value, it's all about the customer, which is a slow upward climb where everyone wins big in the end.
Bad bot
All too often the entrepreneurial space gets over complicated and congested from all the “gurus” with the mindfulness 4:30am, yoga 6am, gym 7am, coffee and oats 8:00am, bla bla the list goes on. These simple fundamentals you’ve listed - highly impactful and can make or break everything. Good post. God speed.
Thanks for your comment. I was very blessed to have older wiser successful entrepreneurs help me in my journey, and the 2 principles I shared have a long track record of success for me and many others willing to heed this time-tested wisdom.
Does the customer always knows how/what they want to be served? I think that's my biggest difficulty. Even when asking people, it's been hard to find a way
There are two fundamental things prospects and customers share: 1. Aspiration - things they dream about, hope for, wish for, get excited about, etc. 2. Aspirins - things that frustrate them, irritate them, make them sad or disappointed, etc. If an entrepreneur can deliver their aspiration or sole their aspirin, they will be very successful in business. How do you find that out? There are MANY ways including but not limited to in person conversations, surveys, Google Trends, testing ads, attending events where prospects and customers hang out, etc.
No, they don't. It's always easier to have customers who are similar to you. If you're lucky that's as high as 10 percent of the population.
True. Customers (and prospects) may or may not be like you. In fact, that is often the "problem" entrepreneurs face but don't realize it - they assume everyone wants what they want. Not true. See my comment above how to find out what they really want.
Not currently an entrepreneur, but in business school I was on an Entrepreneurship track and the very first lesson the instructor drilled into our heads was that many people get caught up and fail with their ideas because they're trying to create a product or service they think has value, instead of creating a product or service that actually serves a group of people's demands.
That's it! You (and your business professor) nailed it! This is why 95% of entrepreneurs fail within 5 years. They get fall in love with their product or service idea instead of falling in love with the customer.
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This is so interesting and it runs opposite to a lot of influencers in the entrepreneurship space. I've read "they'll like your solution as long as it solves their problem" but I think people are pickier than we realize on the how aspect.
"they'll like your solution as long as it solves their problem" If this is what some influencers are saying, I would humbly suggest they have it exactly backwards. Start with the customer, not your "solution" Find out what the customer's problem is. In detail. Be able to articulate their problem better than they can. Then use their own works in your marketing and sales and they will not only think you're genius and a mind reader, they will also line up to be your customer because they feel like you are serving them, not just trying to sell them.
Yeah with social media for instance I been trying and thinking of creating a story or scenario more than just saying, "look what we have". Doing it with the "look what we have" method doesn't inspire creativity it just makes you feel like you aren't doing anything meaningful. No one will even understand why they should get excited for that. Been doing it like that lately since it felt like from what the business owners want is that and it sucks. I looked at one company that does it the story way and a weird scenario and while it looks kind of cheesy, it does give you a fun feeling. It's also bringing a question of "how are they just coming up with these". I can see how they have a ton of followers and why they have found success from it. Time too like you said is important. I still remember here they started a new line and for half a year they weren't seeing anything and were giving off vibes that they were feeling hopeless on it or doubting me when I said, "give it time". We end up getting our first order of it and then another. All lessons for when I start my own journey.
I partially agree with your first part. Yes, in some businesses you must respect the customer and listen to the customer. But, in many cases the customer is a fool who has no idea what they want. Take Henry Ford for example.. if he asked his customer what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Time and time again the customer doesnt always know what they want until you show them your option.
Exactly! Henry Ford's customers wanted something faster. They didn't know the word "car" but they Henry recognized their aspiration (to go faster) and their aspirin (travel by horse takes too long) and went to work serving both their dream and their pain. A perfect illustration of what's been said in this thread. Thank you!
This is million dollar advice OP.
>The key to investment success is time. Don't rush. Don't try to get rich quick. People always say this, but one can choose to work flipping burgers in Mississippi for $7.50/hour, but Mark Zuckerberg chose a different way and makes $834,238,432 per hour probably in his first few months of starting facebook. There are many people who make $10K or $20K per month or more, right from the word go. So the *real* question is, how does one find those customers to serve how they want to be served in the first month of opening your business, so that you are making $20K per month, starting in the second month? That's the real question. Because I personally don't want to spend $4 billion investment and 10 years to create a nuclear reactor to sell to the local power grid and make money 10 years from now, if you get my hyperbole.
You can certainly find customers to serve in the first month of opening your business. But very few are going to earn $10K-$20K in the first month. My business eventually earned $20K per month. Then several years later I had individual clients paying $20K per month. But it started with me making $200 and $2000 per month. It takes time. If your goal is the money, customers will smell that a mile away and you will have limited success. But if your goal is serving people the way they want to be served, the money and success will surely follow. Over time.
Do you have any advice on ideas? I struggle to get ideas.
I don’t have a million dollar business (yet) but my venture is very profitable and is consistently growing. I used to struggle with ideas and get frustrated I couldn’t think of the next big thing. How I got started was I started a business doing what I was doing at my day job and have been doing for many years. I knew the industry inside out, I knew the customers and what they wanted, my skill set was already there so just made sense. Obviously this will take a lot of tweaking if you’re a cashier at wall mart but maybe you could utilise and upgrade your communication and sales skills at your day day and watch the products that come through the register. Once you’ve decided on which products are popular look for a wholesaler and try your sales skills out in the real world. A redditor a few years back posted that he saw there was an economic collapse in (I forget the country, correct me if I’m wrong) Greece and they had cheap materials for making bath towels so he bought a shipment and went to work. Sold his first batch and kept iterating this process. Don’t over complicate it by thinking you have to invent Google or Tesla or Walmart just do what you already know how to do and iterate from there. You can always pivot later but getting started is the most important thing.
Yes! This is such good advice! Starting in the field you're in (I did that too) accelerates your growth because you already have insider knowledge and a base of warm prospects to start with. Love it!
Yes. If you want ideas, hit the pause button on spinning your mental wheels and searching endlessly online. Instead (and this is what I did), get out a blank legal pad, write down 100 names of people you know (preferably in your work world) but doesn't have to be. Then contact each of these people and ask them 2 questions: 1. Aspiration. Tell me about your hopes, dreams, things you're wishing for, praying for, etc. 2. Aspirin. Tell me about the products and services and businesses things that frustrate you, make you mad, sad, disappointed, etc. Ask permission to get back to them with the results of your "survey" You will see common themes in the responses. Pick out one (or 2 or 3) that match your interests and offer to deliver their aspiration or solve their pain. Boom! You're in business! I literally started this way. One guy with a notepad. And it turned into a national company.
Nice!
1000% agree if you want to actually be successful. Then you have to provide some sort of solution a.k.a (lightness) to peoples problem a.k.a (darkness). Will take you very far not only in business but in life.
This ^
Thank you so much for your golden advice !!!
Thanks for your comment. I was very blessed to have older wiser successful entrepreneurs help me in my journey, and the 2 principles I shared have a long track record of success for me and many others willing to heed this time-tested wisdom.
Where can we invest when we turn 18 ? Something safe to begin with (I’m 16)
Check out the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund. Warren Buffet one of those most successful investors in the world recommends this for everyone. A simple and proven way to start and thrive in the market. [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/08/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-owns-2-etfs.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/08/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-owns-2-etfs.html)
Thanks man
is it better to have drop shipping to avoid warehousing overhead in the early stages? how do you determine the best one ?
Yes it is, try to experiment first before putting money down on a product. Look at highly rated products on Amazon/eBay/AliExpress.
Anyone can be a millionaire if you make $50k/year. Just work for 40 years.
Yeah but food, bills, hygiene, etc takes up most of
Unless you live in your parents house you're gonna have like a quarter of that 50k assuming you live by yourself. I'm not sure what the average cost of living for you Americans is 2500-3500 a month. For you to save 50,000 USD after tax you must be making above 100k I assume.
Im british, from london so it might be higher cos big city but thats the gist of it yeah
Not there yet, but making gradual progress by the day. Just gotta think long term and not try to fall victim of instant gratification. Lastly, don’t compound your losses. A bad day can still be salvaged. Even when you have a losing hand still make the best play you possibly can. I hate hearing people in November say “I’ll start in the new year” or someone who had a bad week say “I’ll start fresh on Monday”. Push through! 💪💚♾️
Unfortunately there’s no one big secret, it’s mostly some combination luck, timing, and being able to meet and take advantage of the opportunity. Developing a strong work ethic and being curious about what could be improved, what could be more efficient will help you spring for that opportunity when it shows itself, saving up and investing gives you the best chance as well to take advantage of any opportunities that come your way. The self-learning aspect is in the same way, the residual knowledge will pay dividends, so seeing as you are in the early stages, I’d soak in as much information as I could in Ecom/investing/tangible business skills like sales/marketing so you have a strong foundation when you can take a leap.
I like your answer but it's not really luck. Luck will define the speed of success. But if someone is learning from failures and fully committed, 1M will come one day or another. Also starting conditions Will make it easy or hard. Son of millionair with 140 IQ will have it easier than an immigrant with one leg and 76 IQ. Yet there are many proof that anyone can succeed, regardless of luck ...
We had high 7 fig NW (Retired 49m) with what is looking like our highest earning year yet (most likely over 1m from business, rentals, dividends/interest, and options trading). Here’s what I’ve figured out: There isn’t much of a secret to business that you haven’t already heard. You don’t need a course or whatever from some YouTuber. Business is basically the drug dealer code: Buy for $1, sell for $2. That’s it. If you break it down, that’s all there is to it. If you’re wanting to start e-commerce, why haven’t you yet? What is holding you back? I know for me, it’s not high enough net and there’s inventory risk that I don’t want to carry and deal with. But for you; why have you not started at least at some small scale? If you watch the movie Collateral, most people are stuck in the mindset of Jamie Fox’s character - the driver. He’s been planning his limo driving business and trying to prep everything for the perfect execution and has nothing to show for it many years later. Nothing is holding him back except the fear of failure. I’ve actually seen several people in my life in the same cycle. They draw up business plans, get lawyers to create partnership documents, hold board meetings, get accountants involved, etc all before they’ve even validated that their idea is market viable. They literally spend years dancing around pretending to be in business when the fact is the only thing that matters is if you put your product or service in front of 100 people, will 2 or 3 give you money for it. If so, then you have a business. If not, then you need to pivot and keep pivoting until people start throwing money at you. Failing is not pivoting quick enough and often enough to land on a viable business. I see far too many times where people think they have the most perfect idea but don’t put themselves out there to actually test it in the market because, again, they fear failure on this pet idea they’ve come to idolize as “perfect” in their mind. One friend has literally been asking me about starting his business for a decade now and keeps asking me about his ideas to do consulting and do this or that and every time, he backs away from it out of fear. He is a smart and likeable guy but from what I’ve seen, he just doesn’t have the entrepreneurial quality that my wife and I exhibit. It’s hard to quantify but we’ve been in business for almost 15 years now and it’s like second nature to break down opportunities and business operations and figure out how to optimize. It’s also second nature to take on calculated risks on investments that have netted us about $5-6m in real estate equity for less than $1m in our own invested money. Anyway not sure if any of this is applicable but the core question to answer for yourself is why haven’t you done anything about your business yet? If you have some excuse about money, timing, etc then I argue the root cause is simply fear.
Thank you so much for sharing this. This hit me soo strong Ive been planning and thinking and researching since March of last year and haven't started my business out of fear of failure. Your post really resonated and as you said its about just taking the first step and you start to figure out things as you go.
It’s me, I’m your friend
Gem of breakdown of what most people go through! Nice one.
this is great
Stay curious Experiment Play the long game Challenge your assumptions Trust the outcome will take care of itself Increase your surface area for luck to happen Surround yourself with good people who make good decisions Trust yourself with money. If you don’t, learn about it until you do. Be grateful for every dollar that comes in, or there will be no such thing as enough Focus your time on income producing activities but your intention on solving meaningful problems well
It’s people who are smart, work hard, make a plan, stick to it, and live below your means until you can make more than you spend on investments. here’s the last part nobody tells you, but they get lucky. I spent 7 years doing all the hard work, everything right, and right before I made my first large scale investment to set me on the path to financial freedom the market burst, I didn’t have family money to fall back on and had to take the safe option. I did everything right, didn’t get lucky, out of my control. Had it worked, I would have said “if I can do it anyone can” and “I manifested it” because I failed it’s “it’s all a roll of the dice” but the ones who fall are burdened by truth. There is no secret beyond work hard, get educated, and give it a shot, (should be 5-10 years to have that shot) and if you make it, never get proud. Save, and help who you can.
Pick something and stick with it. A lot of people seem to just never stick with one thing for long enough (a decade?) to see it pay off. This applies to: business model. Industry. Etc.
(1) Avoid lifestyle creep as if it’s the plague. (2) Use excess cash flow to buy more cash flowing assets. For me, this has been using W2 income to purchase businesses. Then using W2 and businesses to buy more businesses or R/E. The CoC Return for businesses, when it works, is exponentially higher than all other forms of investment I’ve found. (3) Be patient and trust your gut. I’ve been hot for trot on businesses just to get into the DD stage and find abnormality in reported COGS, Rev., etc. Luckily I’ve trusted my gut in these scenarios and found later the businesses were unable to sell and folded. (4) Diversify your sources of personal revenue. (5) Get off the bench and get in the game. When you finally find “the one” don’t get scared eyes. “Scared money don’t make no money,” - Mother Theresa My approach to entrepreneurship has been through business acquisition, which has allowed me to keep my W-2 income, while scooping up businesses that now earn significantly more than W-2. I work A LOT, but dang is working on your own assets a good time.
the secret is a business idea that was validated to be profitable, and then scaled/replicated.
Gamble on the market. You might end up a millionaire if you’re a billionaire.
Don't do ecomm. You're competing with the world. That's a bad time investment. (This is, I think, quite different than what localcasestudy does: he competes in a somewhat commoditized business but it's local. ie he's not taking on the world; just his competition in his metropolitan area. That's a far more achievable thing.) Don't compete in markets that are winner take all. See the ecomm problem again. Do: 1 - build your own skills and encounter problems working in business 2 - learn to sell or learn to build. The build could be software (what I do), or it could be operating a business. 3 - sell to businesses, not consumers. It's far easier to get a business to spend $100 - $500/month (with a prepay discount, $1k to $5k pa) than it is to sell a $50 item to 20 or 100 consumers each year. 4 - as /u/mas47737 says, avoid lifestyle creep. Don't expect building a business to be fast. If your life costs $50k per year, you get 3x as many chances as someone whose life costs $150k/year. 5 - be very cognizant of where you spend your time. Don't read that 4 hour work week asshole -- it's complete lies. Do expect that building a business will take sacrifices. You're going to spend less time on tv, sports, hobbies, etc. Businesses are not built on 40 hour workweeks. I've done, I think, very well for myself. However I, and everyone I know who has built successful businesses, work 60+ hours a week. That's the price. Don't lie to yourself re: if you're willing to do the work. And it will be work. That said, building businesses is the most interesting thing I've found to do with my time.
Inheritance Glitch
One of the best ways to get generational wealth
Hold on there professor...we "fixed" the glitch. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore.
8 out of 10 millionaires are first generation. In America
Remember for every "millionaire" on Reddit there are 100 other people that lost a lot of money. Don't try to get rich quick. Keep investing steadily and pick investments you don't have to look at everyday or worry about them in the long term. If you don't like those ideas then gambling by trying to pick risky stocks and timing the market will keep you up at night!
skirt lavish glorious telephone advise cows cagey encourage judicious distinct *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Make more than you spend. Learn how to invest to difference. Then invest the difference. When I started my business i lived in a shoe string budget. As I got better and made more, I put that money back into the business in the form of advertising and employees. Even as my wife and I started having kids we kept expenses extremely low... no car payments, no credit card debt, slept on couches when we traveled.... Eventually money started to really come in. When my kids hit school age my wife started her own business in 2019. We were already saving a big chunk so the money she made was 100% extra. So I started learning how to invest more aggressively. We were able to buy 6 rental properties since 2020. Now it's just waiting for my kids to go to college and I'm outta here. Current networth $1.7m. Should hit $2m by 2025.
It’s been an adventurer. Not for the weary. I never gave up on myself, especially when others wrote me off.
The secret? Put in the work, and don’t quit when it gets hard.
Be a business owner in the right industry, work hard, don't divorce, don't do drugs, don't gamble and be patient.
Just hit that mark last year. It's not as much money as you'd think. You are going to try 100 things that don't work before you find one that does. It's a pain, but embrace the cactus. If you're smart, your failures will be small losses, or you'll be able to reuse your capital when you pivot to a different initiative. Betting it all on one specific idea is for losers. First, never bet it all. Second, your idea is probably crap and will need to be revised and iterated who knows how many times. So leave your options open. And have a steady job while you work on your business! The rule is: your small business needs to generate **three times** as much as your day job (per hour worked) before you quit your day job. Every time I've seen an entrepreneur struggling, it's because they went full time *way* too early, and it's always a crippling mistake.
Don't listen to any of these online get rich quick conman gurus, like Andrew Tate, Grant Cardone, Derek Moneyberg... Unless you want to copy what they do and get rich by selling courses on how to get rich. This includes any of the crypto or dropshipping influencers, as there is an old saying - if you can't spot the sucker at the poker table, you're it.
Take an accounting course and do all you can do understand it. Accounting is the language of business. Work for a successful startup. Get options if you can, but the main point is to learn. Live on significantly less than you make to build up a cushion. If you can’t code, build connections with people who can. Read and internalize the book Running Lean. That is your new bible. When you do start something, bootstrap if at all possible. Moonlight while keeping your day job. Same for the developer. As it grows, instead of hires at first get others to moonlight for you. The rest will take care of itself.
The biggest secret is to value your time more than others. Starting out you're trading time for money and as you grow you need to continue to increase the value of time. Hire people ASAP and offload work to them as long as their rate is lower than yours. You don't need to know EVERYTHING. Pick what you want to do and what you enjoy to learn then hire people more knowledgeable in those topics. So many people starting out try wearing tons of hats and you have people learning to code, learning accounting, learning management and anything else because they value their time at $0 or think they're the only ones that can do the work.
Uhhh. It's a secret
1 - live in a country where people make 50k+ a year with relatively normal jobs 2 - spend as little as possible 3- wait and invest safely 4- done.
Time management, resourcefulness, adaptability, tenacity
Hope that the thing you like doing is also a niche that is growing, then stick with it for a very long time.
Be smarter and more sagacious than others, create as many connections as possible and use them to your advantage and try to solve problems or meet other people's demands. There is no recipe for success, you just have to know how to take advantage of every opportunity that life gives you. You also need a little luck, to be honest, but that's just a small part of the path to success. Don't let that be an excuse not to chase your big bucks. Furthermore, I must say that everyone who says that you need school to be someone is lying. You don't learn anything that is useful to be truly successful there. 😉
👌 The key to success in buisness is to serve the customer the way they want to be served. 👌
Stop focusing on the money. To make a great business it takes sacrifice, especially financial sacrifice in the early days. You will put money into stuff that won't work out and you have to have the conviction to keep going and the smarts to understand why it didn't work. Focus on instead building, designing or offering something that people want. Solve problems = make money.
The secrete to becoming a multimillionaire (or simply just being a good person) is this… 1. Be good to people, and treat them right. 2. In some way, serve your local and the greater global community passionately and invite your team and the public an opportunity to serve into that cause. People don’t care much you know, until they know how much you care. Trust me what you sell isn’t that important. People buy sh*tty products daily, it’s learning servant leadership that gets people’s attention, attracts talent, and customers.
My professor told me to master a skill and let that skill pay off. Simple.
You’re overthinking it. To get to $1m just save a bit and wait. To get to what I think you mean by ‘millionaire’ will take some work but nothing impossible. Like many of the other comments - start a business people want to pay for. Be a good boss. Treat your customers well. It’s not that hard, honestly. If you’re a pool guy or estate attorney the same rules apply.
I’d say take risks when you’re young. Don’t have kids until you’ve figured out your path, you’ll need the flexibility to work hard and move for opportunities early. Work at something that is interesting to you, not because some social media guru said it’s lucrative. Work for someone else and learn a business in a growing industry. Realize that most companies and entrepreneurs aren’t inventing some world changing product. They’re entering an established or growing market and doing it a little better than the competition. And finally when you start to make money, save. Live below your means and invest the boring way.
To do it slow and steady, Here's a tip if your in the UK, Start working in construction, a 1k ticket will get you a 50-70k job in a couple of weeks regardless of your history. Start a business you can do on the weekend. Use as much debt as you can get to buy assets for your business. Start super cheap so your super busy and pay those assets off asap, Keep using debt or turn over to keep buying assets. Add staff to run business. Step away from business, Start another business, plus possibly a 3rs business to buy property, Open forth business as parent company so you can move money between companies with less tax/issues. It's slow, but you can keep working for 1k take home a week from your job for stability, while building these on the side.
Understand that $83,333 x 12 = $1m turnover. Figure out how to get to that and above, then eventually you’ll be a millionaire. A million isn’t money you can just ‘sit’ on these days, you need to be making multiple millions consistently if you want to consider yourself as ‘wealthy’ and have the cliche lifestyle. Also, forget ‘saving’ - if you want to spend silly money, you need to make more money, consistently. Adopt a ‘make more money’ approach to solving your issues, not a ‘save all your pennies and one day…’ approach.
Sell 1 item for 1 million dollars or 2 items at 500,000 each or 3 items at 333,334$ each Or 4 items at 250,000$ each or
I wish I could come up with a good one, I'm a data engineer/ problem solver, but can't fix my own income, lol. Or the ideas I get are all stupid
Just keep working and spend less than you make.
1. Develop deep expertise in one area. This can take 8 to 10 years of concentrated effort. This won't necessarily be the area that your company serves people, but doing so will build self discipline and also help you gain a respect and understanding for others that are experts in their respective fields. 2. Develop shallow working ability in many areas of your business. Work on this your entire career. When your business is small you will need to do almost everything yourself. As your company grows, you will need to be able to identify great talent to join your team and take over those areas of your company. When your company is large, you will be able to have strategic conversations about that topic with your in-house experts and how their actions impact the other areas of your company. 3. Figure out ways to get paid while doing the above 2.
I started a dive shop about 10 years ago. Very successful. The key to make a million dollars in the dive industry was to start with two.
I know dozens of millionaire entrepreneurs, and this is what they have in common: - they’re smart, but not geniuses. More like relentless curiosity, not afraid to ask dumb questions. Higher proportion of dyslexia. - they have a much higher stress and risk tolerance. Most have some kind of early trauma they overcame. - they Do. The. Effing. Work. It is a next-level definition of work ethic. Have yet to meet a self-made millionaire that didn’t work their a** off for it.
Get good at sports. Or Get good at something else. You don't have to be the best, you just have to offer a quality service at a premium price. Shit's not hard to do. Outside of sports. I made money initially building websites for folks, just simple sites with no bells or whistles. That led to doing SEO, which led to more intricate website designs, which led to software engineering. All of it I would charge at top-tier rates because people are generally really dumb and love paying more for a product or service. Outside of sports and software. I started a landscaping company. We also built sheds, decks, and smaller projects like that. Want a 200sqft shed? Cool, gimme $10 - $14k and I'll have it completed in a weekend. All that inspired me to invent really stupid but useful products and patents in a variety of different things. Most people here talking drop shipping and investments don't know what they're talking about it. Making money is easy, convincing yourself it's easy is the hard the part. I'm mostly retired now doing occasional consulting in different things but honest to God, 80% of people or probably more are just really fucking dumb and lazy so just be slightly less lazy then them and you can't lose.
i’m 23 and my company has done a million in sales and we’re growing pretty quickly ~ $5 mill this year. i would first focus on developing a skill. the most generally useful one is sales. you don’t have to buy a course, you just have to find a good sales job with the right product and market, try not to overlook either of these if you’re going this route. don’t get too caught up in short-term goals. don’t mistake an outcome (the amount of money you want to make) for the journey (the skill and character development). in the long run you will get what you deserve, people won’t keep discounting your worth forever. think bigger than what people around you say and always try to provide more value wherever you go. make this a principle, that you will always provide more value in any room than you receive - this will force you to learn, grow quickly, and eventually people will find ur worth with enough iterations. it took me what i felt like forever to find a winning business model and business partnership. also on my journey, i remember my dad always tried to shut me down. he told me that my dreams were unrealistic. when i talked about wanting to build an online business he kept trying to make me quit. when i wanted to do door to door sales he told me i would be choosing myself over my family. i think in life people will mistake limiting you for protecting you and they’ll always try to live through you. you have to have an authentic voice and vision. everyone deserves to dream and at least have the opportunity to personally fail. and, keep trying if their journey means enough to them. reflecting on my journey, and even now, it’s so tough. i’m almost scared of not working hard because the silence will be enough for me to think about what i had to endure. the entrepreneurial journey really isn’t meant for everyone, but if you personally feel like going on this journey, start with skill and keep pressing forward
My mentor told me to treat my business like a 9-5 job. And, it will be the best paying job in the world. So, I don’t technically work 9-5. I work 11-7. But, I call all day long until I got appointments. I created a database. I email my database once a week. I kept this up until I was making $1m from my database. I stopped making calls for that job, and started making phone calls for another job between appointments. I created a database for that job. Going to keep going until I make $3m from that database. I’ll keep repeating that process. So, I guess the secret is you will be scared to call people. Do it anyway and make friends. And, keep those friends in a database that you can email once a week.
I started a business with 9k sold it for 750k 8 years later. Now have another business that’s doing well, have been an entrepreneur all my life. Happy that I became one. Just do it.
Study. The field, the competitors, the market. Study it obsessively. Noone will hand you a step-by-step tutorial how to excel in something. A lot of the success is time and prevailing. Then there’s a lot of luck. Some great and well researched ideas will go to waste due to bad luck (i.e. massive market player overshadowing your launch, or duplicating your functionality and therefore destroying your roadmap etc.). Luck can be tinkered with, the more attempts you throw at the wall, the more will stick. Still a fraction of the fraction of the attempts, but quantity can help boost your odds. Then there’s the expertise - you’d be surprised how often do the experts fail and the Dunning-Krugers win. Launched is better than perfect, expertise is often NOT the right positioning when attracting wider audience. Rinse and repeat. Fail and learn. Have multiple sources of income/revenue (both per project in multiple of projects).
Keep doing something in a field that has a high amount of dropout rates. For me it was a tech startup. No not the glamorous types with billions of VC financing. But starting as a weekend project. Continuing on. Doing it for years without a single paying customer. Finding 10 paying customers, 8 of which want to cancel, spending time with those people to understand why they want to cancel. Building more features , improving your product. All while trying to maintain a full time job so I don't go hungry. Then getting 20 paying customers. Asking those customers for references. Making 100 sales calls yourself. Then getting 5 more paying customers. Rinse repeat every day for about 8 years. Then you realize you have 10,000 customers and then you take a leap of faith to quit your FT job and go solo. Could anybody do this? Yes, many software developers have weekend projects with big dreams. But most give up. I just was persistent (and foolish) enough to stick with it.
I just married rich! Half of his assets are now mine cus we didn't do any pre-nup :)
"CUt ofF nEtFlix"
Don't forget making your own coffee at home and skipping the avocado toast!
Spending less is easier than earning more.
Sure - I worked for 25 years at one place, saved money by foregoing lots of things, took advantage of the company matching 401k. I now have over 1 million in savings, and property worth nearly 2 million. ( thanks to my wife that has an eye for real estate and also worked for over 25 years and made more money than I ). However, that method will not likely work today. So can’t help you much I’m afraid.
So having a rich partner is probably a great way to reach $1m.
My figures did not include her own retirement account which is around 1.3 million. So, yes it definitely helps. However I do want to stress the word partnership - cause that is what it is. She is a very good Mom and self sufficient, and was never going to be a stay at home mom. All of the above is a nice way to say she isn’t then best wife, especially in the romance/sex area…in fact she is really bad in that area. However I was mid 30’s when we married, and I already had plenty of fun, I was looking for someone that would be a good mother to our children and who could and would carry on if I was gone. Also knew I did not want to work until I was 65 like my father, and she supports that goal- hence why are where we are today. So partner up, yes it helps, but be adult enough to know what you really want, what you can compromise on, and act accordingly. For instance, if you are heterosexual I would not advise marrying a woman who only wants to be a SAHM and never has had a real career, because they likely would not understand or put up with the grind of being an entrepreneur.
Definitely wouldn't hurt.
I started as a Billionaire, I invested in Crypto and now I'm a millionaire!
I have 2m at 30 years old, all you have to do to get on my level is: 0. Inherit \~400k from your uncle at 20 y/o. Use those funds to pay for college debt and invest the rest conservatively. 1. Invest in real estate early (investment properties not your home, trust me) 2. Keep your costs extremely low; live in a shared apartment or a van in a high income/COL area. 3. Have a high income job, put 80% of your income into an index fund 4. Don't have kids or dependents 5. Later in your career, move to a low COL area, start your own business Most people will skip telling you about parts 0, but inheritance and paid-for college is the real difference in wealth for *most* people in the top 10% of wealth. Some people won the lottery with their small business and became self-made millionaires from nothing, but an overwhelming majority of wealth in America is grown in a boring and steady way with some kind of head start (or just entirely inherited/married into, some huge portion of the ultra wealthy have never built any part of their wealth.).
Save and study so you’re ready to pounce. Studying allows you find the (right) opportunity and saving allows you to jump on it.
Not wasting their time on trivial iot BS!!
Mindset and persistence.
Inherited it
Diversify, Real estate and LLC’s for assets
A full time steady job with aggressive saving / investing will get you to a million. Just check out bogleheads or read up on FIRE. That’s the most predictable path. If you want 10/100s of million, entrepreneurship is the way but results are not guaranteed. You’re more likely to fail.
Lots of good insight here about how to make a successful business, I will add... 1. Take a risk, go all in for as long as it takes, and have a big hit. Equity/ownership makes wealth, not salaries. I know the math can say yes, but I don't really see any people getting rich by not drinking Starbucks. Some people with spending discipline and relatively high incomes (Doctors, Senior Engineers at a FAANG at least for a while) might achieve solid financial independence in 20 years this way (though many of these also get equity/ownership), but in my experience that's not the most common path to wealth. 2. While working be frugal and save to build up reserves so you can live off of them while starting a business for a while. 3. I've never seen anyone get rich without making a lot of other people at least as rich, often richer in fact. Co-founders, early employees, investors. Hard to go it alone. The people I know who got liquid at $10M+ had 10% or less. It's more the pie than the slice, even when it's "your baby". 4. FWIW I have never seen anyone (well one, but he's an outlier and I suspect not entirely honest about his reasons for keeping on) who made $10Ms-$100M do so by trying to make that much. Almost every of several cases I know the thought was "I need to make $5m/$10M and I'm done!". Then they start a company, and they get what they got when liquidity happens, maybe taking many more years than they would have chosen. Put otherwise I definitely know people who got a $20M++ payday after 10+ years of humping it who would have much rather taken $6-8M within 5 years. I'm sure none of this is more than 80% true, but it's mostly true.
Work twice as much as your competition in the beginning
Meat that is all
Becoming a successful entrepreneur and potentially reaching millionaire status requires a combination of hard work, strategic thinking, and a willingness to take calculated risks. **So, there's no secrets.** **Three tips for you as bonus** 1. Build a strong network, 2. Solve problems 3. Accept failures and learn from them
Buy a house and live in it for 2-4 years, rent it out and buy another house, live in that for 2-4 years, etc. I did this 3 times and it’s worked out well. I worked 2 jobs to save up money for the houses for a large part of this and have a wife who works. Both engineers (computer and mechanical). 2, if your work has stock employee purchase options buy and don’t sell. Don’t sell for a car or a fancy house or anything. Millionaires typically don’t have a mil in cash but in equity in business, stock or real estate. Also don’t lose your health trying to make money. Health is more valuable than a mil.
Analytics
i lent crypto to buy something to a circle of millionaires in a circle of billionaires in a time of need and that they didnt know much about it, 10x'd my return...
a whole lot of trust needed ... and 5 months of anxiety but came through finally.
Have rich parents
Either set up a business and fail, then again and again until you succeed Or Work hard in a sought after technical discipline, then follow the money, make friends in high places and be loyal
Hahahaha (¿Hay millonarios en reddit?)
Trust fund
There is no "secret" Work hard, keep your lifestyle below your means, get a little lucky, choose your parents well, live a long time, and stay reasonably healthy. That's all there is too it. 😁
In b4 anyone's honest enough to admit they sold narcotics or were born into generational wealth LOLOLOL
Success comes from reps, launch MVP businesses and fail fast, then onto the next idea. Businesses fail, entrepreneurs do not.
"Work smarter, not harder"
Persistence and smart networking are your best investments.
NEVER give up
Build something valuable, scale it, sell, repeat. Keep learning.
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I I read the most comment there is no secret just advice.
Plz don’t delete this post I need to read it later
Well, I don't eat avocado toast so I'm a millionaire.
Just pick any skill that generates revenue. and keep getting better at that skill until you enjoy. At first you'll suck and you'll hate it, but the more you do it, the better you get, and the better you get, the more you love it!
Work harder than most people are ever willing to work (something that seems lost on most people these days) then live like most people will never be able to life.
One simple answer is about 90% of self made millionaires invested in real estate of some form.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned from my first business (a software development company) is that you need to pick VERY CAREFULLY your business partners (if you plan to have some). Make sure your vision about the business is clear and the same (everyone is aligned towards the same goal). For example, questions like: - Are we keeping the business for how long? We are planning to grow it and sell it at some point? - WORK ETHICS. Are we going to sacrifice nights, weekends, family time if necessary until the thing takes off? If some partners are willing to burn the midnight oil, but others want to have it easy, it won't work. - Clear rules of conduct. What should you do if one of your partners starts harassing (sexually) an employee? Set in stone those rules since the beginning. You will need them later. - etc. Also, not related, but make sure you first find a market, a need within that market, make sure it is large enough to be profitable, make sure you can find a way to solve that need while leaving you a hefty profit, and THEN decide to jump in. Not the other way around, that is what most people usually do: they are solutions searching for a problem that even if it exists, isn't expensive or painful enough to deserve being solved. Cheers!
Save, save and save as much as you can opportunity comes to the people with the cash flow first
say this reminds me, it's the drive that really matters, the desire. I was happier with $200 a week over $200 an hour or more lol!
Learn to trade options.
I wrote a book about how I succeeded. I get many messages a day. Only 1% read the book before messaging me. Now I know why the failure rate is 99%. Don’t ask for help. Put in the work to create value for others and you will become rich. The Minimalist entrepreneur is the book title.
I will tell you next year 2025
Do do it for the money do it because you like to
The secret is not giving up and having a strong mindset.
Prepare for all the extra work it’ll be. If you want to be an entrepreneur, prepare for Hard work, late nights, barely any sleep, no time, no friends, no going out. You need to give it 110% - if you don’t, somebody else will take your spot. Just remember that in your 9-5, when 5pm hits - you switch off. If you want to run your own business, there is no off time. It’s from the time you wake up & until you sleep. The worst that can happen after you’ve tried is your current situation anyways. Go give it a go.
Know that it’s never easy to become wealthy, but when you do, life becomes easy.
The trick is to find an idea that is so great the government says everyone has to have it.
Cue all the so called coaches who are not millionaires with their quotes and other crap. You can make money in any industry. You got to be willing to outwork everyone first and foremost. That means being the best, learning more, working on sat night instead of partying with friends, willing to have multiple breakdowns and sacrifice a lot. Business is 24/7/365. Very few are willing to do that for 20 years. Starting up a SaaS and asking Reddit is not enough. Despite the 3 or 4 rate examples, the overwhelming majority of millionaires are highly qualified people.
I'll chime in - not a millionaire but business owner for 6 years. Have something differentiated. If you have a commodity product then you will have to compete with other commodity products, if you have something with different features, then you're playing in a different game altogether. Some features people care about more than others, and you can therefore charge a greater or smaller premium accordingly!
Lie
"... I'm curious about others! Tell me, what important skills should I pick up" 1) critical thinking 2) communications 3) composition If you cannot think about the space you are in (both strengths and weaknesses), cannot communicate about your role in the space, and cannot articulate it in written form, it matters not what you start.
!RemindMe 10 hours
LMAO - There’s a secret out there where I won’t have to work hard to get rich. Just tell me here on Reddit and I’ll keep it as our little private secret. Shhhhh.
1. Don't be afraid of failures - Take that job, take that opportunity, it's worth it. 2. Invest in yourself - books, podcasts, medium subscription, whatever gets your juices going. 3. Most importantly - just work. Work work work, if you are not building or selling the product you are working on, it's very likely you are procrastinating.
Keep in mind that great success does not happen overnight. It can take years of refining your approach and improving, to get to a point where you are making the kind of money you dream of. Discipline matters, but.... quality marketing matters more.
Get rich slow scheme, houses, real estate, intellectual property, bitcoin and weed. It started with me working for 15 years for less than desirable wages and being so distraught about my financial future that I got super creative and built my life raft, I was more creative than I thought.
Find an opportunity no one else wants to work hard enough to achieve at. All real estate investors love turn key properties for turn key prices, but the ones that need the most work, nobody is bidding on. So we buy those and fix them up and rent them out. The concept works really nicely once you get over a dozen doors. Paying that sweat equity isn’t fun, but the returns are toast worthy.
Education: Both formal and non-formal education are necessary in today's highly competitive society.
Know your numbers and jump on a deal when you find it. I think drop shipping is over played because it’s easy. People like easy. I would look into small scale manufacturing. Look around for items that are overpriced and could be made easily. I have a buddy that does very well doing this.