How I Turned $2k Into $10,000,000 in Less than 1 Year, Lost Most of it 2 Years Later, and my Plan Going Forward to make it all back X10 — MY STORY

[Vigilante]

The longer you sit at a blackjack table, the higher your odds are that the house edge is going to beat you.

I lost a company once in a hostile takeover. I thought I was done. Maybe seven years later I sold another company. I wasn’t done.

You are not done. You can find success again. Don’t do it via gambling. Build a business.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So I'm trying to understand what everyone's problem is with me here.

Since we have a lot of people from Texas, there's an old saying down there that goes like this: "All hat, no cattle."

Look, we don't have a problem with people who think big (@Kak preaches this entirely here) but the problem is, you think building a company valued at $100M will be as easy as buying 50 shitcoins, waiting, and having 1 of them go parabolic. The greater-fool is not a business model.

Why do you think building a $100M+ business is a joyful ride in the park? Oh yes, because you follow big-time gurus on TikTok and Instagram (just like the other 41,310,000 kids your age on the planet) you know, gurus who are in the business selling $10K coaching programs.

The other "problem" people have is you seem to have projected randomness to skill, and actually think that driving $100M in value will be much of the same. Again, all hat, no cattle. Or as I like to say, "event over process."

The other problem, as mentioned over and over: Money chasing.

In all your posts/boasts here, not one mention of value. Not one mention of bettering humanity in mass, something that truly drives 9-figure valuations.

Interestingly, I don't expect you to know this, but the cumulative net worth of some of the people who took the time out of their day to respond to your thread is well north of $100M. Software companies, real estate companies, B2B services, all value driven enterprises, but what the F*ck do they know?

You got it all figured out.

Just because you're confident in your future ability to earn $100M, doesn't mean that the guy with a $50M company today--right now--is to be righteously dismissed, and laughed at by some "investor" who got lucky with shitcoins.

This is why people have a problem with you.

They have done it, or are already doing it.
You have not. (But you think you have, or you think you will)

Neither commands respect.

Over the last 15 years here, I've seen people like you come and go.

You say you want to chronicle your success.

That's awesome.

I hope you do, and I hope you give us all a 50 page thread filled with awesome, business-building value. We all truly want you to achieve, and achieve big. It's why we're here.

But the fact is, you will disappear on your first failure or your first struggles, and we will never hear about it.

How do I know?

Because that's how these things go.

In fact, consider this your first test. Your first hardship.

Your bluster and bravado here has been met with consternation and friction.

Will you stick it out? Or, will you give up and leave? Will you ask for your account to be deleted because "Oh, those Fastlane losers just don't believe in my grand plan!"

In a similar vein, 100s of people over the years have come and gone after proclaiming that they were going to make millions trading stocks, cypto, binary options, Forex, penny stocks (F*ck, I can go on and on) and other hot investments of the day.

You know what happened?

They posted every win.

And then they disappeared as soon as the losses hit.

Exactly.
As.
I.
Predicted.

You see, everyone's a genius in a bull-market. Everyone loves to post their wins.

But when the market turns south, and that $1000 you spent on Facebook got you 1 conversion and a negative 310% profit margin, that's when the growth begins. That's when the real games begin.

And that's when people like you disappear.

Spoiler: Final Comment

PLEASE!! I would love to have you prove me/us wrong, and your success around here becomes legendary. Quit talking, start doing.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Jesus Christ...

Makes a fortune in crypto...
Loses a fortune in crypto...

Then proceeds to preach about the extreme risks and slowness of business ownership. Is this a joke?

This is a business forum for entrepreneurs who build something REAL with tangible value, something that can be sold for 7, 8, or 9 figures, and/or something that cash flows 5,6,7 figures monthly.

You don't sound like an entrepreneur, you sound like a gambler who won big.

And then lost it.

And then wants to gamble and win big again.

More shocking, you read both my books and instead of understanding WHY your fortune was quickly lost, you seem like you want to double down. Did you read the section on money-chasing in Unscripted ?

What's sad is that your acquisition of easy money will make it terribly difficult for you to build something of real value because when tough times hit, the "sell" or "buy a different coin" mentality will strike.

We build wealth here through business ownership.

Not through stocks or crypto.

I normally don't tell people here "I wish you luck" because luck can be minimized in business with good decisions, but in this case, I feel you will need it.

So... I wish you luck.

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

I often wonder why those who want to start a "business" immediately aim to get into the coaching space without having any past success to back it up. It's an interesting trend along with anything Crypto, NFT, AI, etc and I run the other way. Good luck, stick around, keep posting, and you'll make it. Instant money leaves as fast as you got it, as you've learned. Build something worth building.

 

[Antifragile]

I only had a long time to decide what to do when the market was neutral in Q1 of 2022, but having went from 10m ATH to ~2m, I wanted to get back to 5m at least and tried my best to do that in the first few months which didn't work because the market wasn't as bullish as the year before, and after realizing I was just wasting my time with that, I told myself I was 100% going to cash out the 2m a few weeks before the big May downfall, which was very unlucky.

I know you are getting a beating on this forum, please understand why.

Your big claim is that you made $10M quickly. Then you lost it all. The details of that matter. Most of your discussion is still focused on lucky or unlucky.

The most successful (financially) on this forum are well into our 8 figure net worth, which usually took us a decade to build and frankly, luck had little if anything to do with it. For as long as you have to lean into "luck", you aren't taking full and complete responsibility over your success or failure.

People like JohnnyBoy is probably as young as you but the chances of his business going to zero are... zero. He's doing what people need done and charges for it. Examples are too countless for me to even bother trying to write out, just know that the harsh responses here are for your own good. Once you get it, you get it. It'll be impossible to un-know this new truth: luck has little to do with it, your actions is what drives your success or failure.

Put it another way, you didn't build a crypto / blockchain business, you participated in early stage gambling and confused bull market for your own brilliance. It's a classic.

Now... from henceforth, what will you do differently? When will you remove garbage like this " I was 100% going to cash out the 2m a few weeks before the big May downfall, which was very unlucky." from your language?

Reminds me of this clip from my college years movie!

View: https://youtu.be/TQ1pxgeKwVc?si=c5gCXnrLIPPm2aN_


You describe your adventure as if you almost had it, you almost had your business and your 8 figure exit... dude, you never had either. And those of us who do, get annoyed that you'd even think you did. You don't get any credit here on this forum for gambling adventures.

I truly hope you stick around and learn new ways of thinking. Because you are right about one thing: you are so young, you can absolutely annihilate your $10MM goal if you do it the right way in a real business. And once again, luck will have little to nothing to do with it.

 

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[Johnny boy]

you can laugh all you want, but the online coaching & educational industry is booming & growing every year, and is something I find very valuable & fulfilling, whether you are the producer or the consumer.

you just regurgitate already free and easy to find information

then emotionally sell a lifestyle

that's usually funded from the selling of the course and not from using the knowledge of what is taught

sold to naïve teens who spent their last $400 because they saw a video of you in a lambo.

I'm sure it's fun.

"F*ck this crypto shit, you can lose money. You know what you can't lose money doing? Selling crypto courses to everyone else losing money. This shit is guaranteed dawg. lol"

Go right ahead, make your money. Just don't bullshit yourself and trick yourself into thinking that's not exactly what it is. Call it what it is, just drop the bullshit.

It's just disrespectful to our intelligence for you to pretend like we don't see exactly what all of this is.

 

[DeNero]

Hey there and thank you for stopping by!
(WARNING: This is a LONG read)

My name is DeNero, and as my first post on here, I wanted to start off by introducing myself and sharing a bit about who I am and my story.

I remember first reading TMF in the summer 2016 (and Unscripted a few years later). During that time I was very motivated to start an online business, work from anywhere, make millions every year, and travel around the world - and this was one of the best business books I read at the time that kickstarted my path.

But my journey got off to a bit of a rocky start, where I started and pursued different online businesses/opportunities, and despite having some decent success with them - it was never really consistent enough to the point where I could comfortably travel full-time, afford whatever I wanted, and not have to worry about the price tag (aka at least 10k+/m in profits).

But then came 2021 and everything changed. It was the first time since I started my business journey, where I truly experienced a huge breakthrough and the BIG success that I always dreamed about. However, as you read from the title, to say that the last few years of my life have been a rollercoaster, would be quite an understatement. So without further ado - here is how it all went down:

At the end of 2020 I got into crypto, but more specifically into the whole world of DeFi (I actually first got into crypto in 2017, but that story is for another day). It was a very exciting innovation in the crypto space, and I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could about it. However during that time, I didn't have too much money to invest, only around 2k, as I was working part-time as a coat checker at a banquet hall on the weekends, making on average $120-200/night and about 2-3k/month (and keeping a lot less after paying off a lot of expenses); but despite that I invested as much as I could in various projects in the DeFi space, while trying to figure out how to succeed & make money online so I can travel the world full-time which has always been my biggest dream & motivation.


After a month or so of daily grinding, at the end of January I finally hit my first big “win”. As many of you have probably heard of it, this project was none other than Shiba Inu - in which my friends & I were its first investors in 2021 way before it blew up & everyone started talking about it (at the time it had 0 daily volume and had a MC of 150-200k). However, as most people who got into it as early as I have, sadly I didn’t hold my tokens for very long after the big & very long consolidation & downfall of its first big run (it went down 90%+ and stayed that low for several weeks, which at the time felt like months); but I still was able to turn a $500 investment into 10k within a week or so (I can tell you the whole story about Shiba, its origins, how I found it, how we made it initially blow up, etc another day if you’d like).



And even though it’s not much, this opened a lot more doors and gave much more money to play with, which increased my chances of striking it REALLY big & potentially making millions, at least that’s what I believed and the way I saw it at the time.

Fast forward about a month or 2, and I moved from ETH to a brand new chain called BSC which was created by Binance. At the time it felt like a goldmine because it JUST started popping off, so I decided to go all in on that chain and become one of the earliest investors on it.

Initially things were very rocky and I ended up losing at least half of my 10k due to P&D projects or complete scams/rugs, leaving me with around 5k after a few weeks. But a few weeks later after a lot of grinding & hard work, I finally struck the golden project that I’ve been looking for all along, and this project was called SafeMars.

In a nutshell, SafeMars piggy-backed off the success of the original SafeMoon, which reached an ATH of 10B MC. After missing the SafeMoon train early on (even though funny enough I first saw it during the presale and considered investing, but decided to pass because it felt like a scam & too risky), I came across SafeMars in the beginning of March; and I knew this was my 2nd chance to get in SUPER early and strike it big. So I decided to invest a total of $300–400 at 25–30k MC and got 1–2% of the supply (I also was 1 of the very few people who did the private sale for liquidity)

And boy did I strike it big indeed. Fast forward a month later, and on April 20th my $300-400 initial investment turned into a massive $5,000,000+ bag at the peak MC of 500m, and that’s after I sold a portion of my bag along the way for some 5figure profits.

However, this is also where I made my biggest mistake to date. Instead of selling all my tokens for ~$4.5-5m and re-investing it into safer projects that haven’t blown up yet and could give me virtually guaranteed returns in the coming months, my goal was to hit $10m with it and sell 90% of my tokens for a huge profit and leave a moonbag, or do that when my tokens were AT LEAST worth $7-8m. And although I was SO close to getting there on 2 occasions, big holders just kept selling their entire bags anytime it hit 500m MC and tanked the price (my goal was for it to reach 700-800m at least before selling a lot).
At the very end, I ended up getting out with a very disappointing, but still a large & respected 600-800k by the end of May. Along the way, I also made other great investments on BSC and some on ETH chain that became very successful, so my crypto networth was still well over $1m during this time. Not bad after starting the year off with around 2k a few months earlier, right?

Fast forward to the end of September/early October 2021, and after a very slow summer, I hit my biggest winner to date. After the success of Saitama, anime meme season started taking off. And amongst the many anime projects, I came across and invested very early on into 1 in particular called Mononoke Inu. I believe I invested around 1-2k at around 100k MC, and got 2% of the supply. The team seemed committed and the meme potential was huge.

Despite some early hiccups and FUD, slowly but surely it regained its momentum and then started REALLY taking off. Over the next few weeks, it went from a 50k MC project, to an ATH of ~650m at the end of October. A lot of that success came down to 1 guy who was crazy enough to invest 2-3m into it over the course of a week (sadly it turned out to be a bad investment for him, but I’m sure he’s very well off if that’s how much he could afford to invest in a memecoin), and that made everyone even more bullish than before.

And it was that exact week, nearly exactly 2 years ago, when I reached my ATH crypto networth of EXACTLY $10M, which has been my main goal that entire year and since I started my online business journey many years ago in 2016.

But there was 1 problem - the liquidity on Mononoke was TERRIBLE and very low, which on 1 hand was good because it allowed it to grow quicker, but on the other hand that meant that in order for me to cash out 5m+, I would not be able to do it right away and would have to sell it smaller chunks over time. And similarly to SafeMars, I got a bit too emotionally attached to it thinking it was going to keep going and that this time FOR SURE it would reach a 1b+ MC (after Saitama reached 2-3b at the same time) and I’ll have a $10m+ bag - especially given that the whole the market was looking very strong & bullish as well and December has always been historically a great month in crypto.

Well sadly after being SO CLOSE to start cashing out my millions, it became like SafeMars 2.0 all over again. Just as quickly as it went up, it started to crash as everyone started panic selling after several big whales dumped their bags, and since that moment it never really recovered.

I remember that day like it was yesterday, it all just happened so quickly and I barely even had any time to enjoy this achievement and analyze the best way to approach cashing out my tokens (it was all less than 1 day). So at the end of it all, I ended up getting out around 600-800k a week or 2 later, and missed out on another huge opportunity that felt like my last big chance given this was already the end of the year with not much time left before the start of 2022, which I was not very bullish on.

(By the way, during this whole time, since the summer of 2021, I left Canada and started traveling the world and getting a taste of that luxury lifestlye. I went to Latin America first and then to Europe in the summer of 2022, stayed in some incredible places & villas, went to epic business/personal development events, was living the life, and FINALLY achieved my biggest life dream since many years back when I first started my online business journey.)



Anyways, long story short, over the next few months I kept grinding it out and made some good success with several other projects that I got into early on, but Q1 of 2022 the whole market dipped a bit and became very neutral. Nothing much was happening, and at the beginning of May I made a promise to myself that if in the next few weeks nothing changes - I will cash out & sell everything I had at that time (around $2m worth of tokens), and leave crypto for the time being to focus on various business projects & ventures.

And before I knew it, on May 9th - “1-2 weeks before I planned to sell everything” the whole market flopped. Everything went on a HUGE dip, and by the end of May or beginning of June my 2m networth dropped all the way down to around 1m or even slightly below that. At that point I was very angry, frustrated, annoyed, confused, and didn’t know what to do - I couldn’t believe I mistimed this whole downfall by 2 F-ING WEEKS, or that it at least didn’t happen at the END of May or June instead.

I kept asking myself - do I remain calm and keep going to at least get back to 2m, or do I take the L, accept the loss, cash everything I have left and move on?

I didn’t want to sell at such a huge loss and decided to keep going, and at this point crypto became very mentally draining and was no longer as fun & exciting as it was in all of 2021. I just simply wanted to make my money back and be done for good.
But since I wasn’t in the best mental space, I ended up making some very poor and costly decisions by taking on too many big risks, much bigger than I did before (to speed up the process of making my money back), which also included sports betting - most of which did not pay off. And over the next year or so, I was slowly bleeding my money away and ended up going down to my last 50-100k by spring of this year (2023).

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, life decided to throw even more lemons & challenges at me, and things took another toll.

One day, as I was getting ready to sell the majority of my most valuable NFTs for ~50k, I made one of the worst decisions to date and connected my wallet to a site that was not very reputable but seemed legit, because the buyer wanted to buy my entire NFT collection (instead of only a couple) for an amazing price, and his condition was to do it through that website which he claimed was a reliable escrow service for crypto & NFT transactions. Well, shortly after connecting my wallet and being unable to do the trade after he kept making a bunch of weird excuses (which already seemed fishy to me), 30mins later I get many notifications that all my NFTs have been transferred over to another wallet.

At that moment I felt like my heart just dropped.

Yep, I got hacked & wiped out for the last big amount I had left trying to exit crypto with and start fresh, and that was one of the toughest and worst feelings I’ve felt in my life and one of my lowest points. I went from being a multi-millionaire a year ago, to having virtually nothing left after 2.5 long & tough years of grinding it out everyday (and even longer as I started my online journey at the end of 2016), which felt like all that effort was for NOTHING (although on the positive side I gained a lot of valuable experience and learnt some tough lessons).

I also had a lot of bills to pay, daily expenses to cover, and an expensive flight ticket to purchase to return back to Canada and visit my family who kept asking me every time we spoke when I’ll come back for a visit, and a few months before that we agreed I’ll be back during the summer time in 2023. This was also the best time to visit because my grandparents from another country came for a 2 month visit this summer, and really wanted to see me.

Luckily I had some other NFTs & tokens in other wallets, and I managed to get enough to buy a pretty expensive $1.5k *1-way, economy* 5 hour flight ticket from Panama City to Toronto, and this summer I spent a lot of time with my family, grandparents, friends, played tennis weekly (for the first time since I left a few years back), and most importantly started to go through a lot of my former books, as well as physical + digital notes and strategizing how I plan to getting back on track and reach the level I was at my peak. So the timing of me returning to visit my family was perfect.

Fast forward to today, and I decided to document my whole journey and this new chapter of my life across various social media platforms - firstly for myself to 1 day look back and see how far I’ve come; but most importantly to network with like-minded people who are on the same path as me, and in general for anyone who would like to follow me & my journey and hopefully use it as inspiration.

I am very ambitious and have set a lot of big goals & things I plan to achieve by the end of this year as well as for 2024 and the years to come (a lot of which I’ll be building on top off from various online business projects I was working on a few years prior to getting into crypto).

I’d like to believe that my recent turn of events has been a blessing in disguise, as tough times are part of a hero’s journey. Going forward, I’m ready & excited to overcome any obstacle that comes my way and come back BIGGER & STRONGER than ever before. I’m making this commitment to myself and I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to where I was at my peak, TIMES 10, while making a big & positive impact in the world along the way.

More specifically, from now until the end of the year - I plan to partner with a lot of influencers on YouTube & IG and help them create, package, price, sell, and scale their online coaching program to millions & beyond; and overall to help busy entrepreneurs work smarter and automate various parts of their business to free up their time. This will be my main focus going forward, and I also plan to document my weekly progress about it on here as well, so keep an eye on my future posts.

I know this was a bit long, so thank you for taking the time to read my story, and I look forward to personally connect with you more closely! Also, let me know if you have any questions for me in the comments below and I’ll happily answer.

Cheers to our greatness & success

DeNero

P.S. I’m still a huge believer in crypto and will always own & invest in crypto long-term, I just came to a realization that this is not my passion, calling, or purpose in life; and although it may be fun, I do not get true fulfillment by buying & selling different tokens/coins.

Also, if anyone here happens to know the best way to structure a US LLC for a non-US resident (to accept payments online), and be able to quickly start a corporation in a foreign + reliable country with a low tax rate (<10%) and then connect the 2 together to transfer funds, I'd love to hear your experience & tips on the best way to go about it the right way.

 

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[Kak]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=XamC7-Pt8N0

 

[Johnny boy]

I was applying Warren Buffet's and many other famous billionaire investor's principles

*buys shitcoins worth $0.000000000000049

And now he's gonna start a business

(it's probably gonna be coaching....)

And the other great thing with online coaching/agency business model

I KNEW IT lmao

The best part is he's going to make a lot of money too. All while knowing NOTHING about ANYTHING. Damn.

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

and that one day I can exit for 8-9figures one day if I wanted to.

Easy as that.

They say everyone's life is either a warning or an example.

I'm curious how your mentality has changed during this process... have you actually learned the lesson (or any lesson)?

You knew many of these were "pump & dumps" ... but you participated anyway? I'm no moral authority (clearly) but I'm hoping we can chalk up your Jordan Belfort days up to youth.

I'm also a fan of crypto. I've made a bit with it as well. So I've got no judgment. And we can debate its merits and its future all day long... but I'm hoping you see what MJ points out about actually providing value to the world or your community in exchange for financial success... not just trying to siphon off cash from any sucker who will buy the next meme coin or coaching for coaches who coach coaches how to coach coaches...

 

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[Johnny boy]

Finally, I don't really care what JohnnyBoy does, but for him to bluntly come out accuse me of trying to sell coaching or online courses to newbies and scam them of their hard-earned money as if I'm some kind of conman who has bad intentions & tries to steal money from innocent people, without knowing ANYTHING about me except for what I shared on here, tells me all I need to know about who he is and his character.

I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.

Since this is a gambling thread, who wants to put money down on whether or not he ends up being a crypto guru selling to young guys on social media?

 

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[DragoonDB]

I guess it all comes down to how you run & operate your business. If you work smart and build/have all the right tools, systems & automations in place, hire a superstar team, and also hire the right CEO/COO to help you run the company - then theoretically it should become quite easy once you fully remove yourself from the business, and only have to worry about the big picture stuff, strategizing, and coming up with new ideas on how to keep growing, while your team does all the hard work for you, under your leadership.

I cannot speak on that from personal experience yet, but that's exactly how I plan to build & structure my upcoming businesses. My goal is to remove myself from my business as soon as possible while still leading the way and making sure everyone knows what they're doing, what the grand vision is, that everything is on track as planned, and for me personally I plan to reward my employees with paid yearly company high-end vacations if we hit our goals for that year, which will motivate everyone even more. But I will always see myself & act as the visionary, where my sole purpose is to bring the right people together in order to bring my vision to life.

My goodness, man. I really want to write something encouraging, but you're inviting all the wrath from the forum.

• Claiming you turned the money into $10M is like saying a lottery winner turned their $5 into $500M. You got lucky in an 'investing' space with no fundamentals. Enough has been said on this, so I'm skipping it.
• You pull some numbers out of your butt that you're going to 10x what you had before - so you somehow threw down the gauntlet for $100M. And the business you're going to focus on right now - helping people package coaching programs. So you're learning nothing about creating long-term value - just chasing.
• (I'm going to skip 90% of the back and forth where you rationalize over and over)
• In the quote above, it's clear you have NO IDEA about running a business - either seeing it from the inside as an employee or leading it. If I just hire the right people, it should be easy. I will remove myself ASAP. You are in fantasy land - you have drastically oversimplified.
• You point us to an IG to show us what you aspire to. Really?

You seriously have to be trolling. If not, you need to be far more humble and acknowledge what you don't know. Nothing here lines up with reality.

Stop rationalizing, stop any responses to people that are writing. Listen to what people are saying, be more pragmatic, and start small. Nothing shows you have the capability to earn $100M, so that's the wrong goal. I hope you can turn this around, but you are not operating in reality right now.

 

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[Kak]

Oh shit, sorry. My bad. I didn't know you came here to teach us with your "upcoming mega success", to show us by your own example. Amazing.

Will you be also writing a book on this? Sounds so good, I'd like to pre-order.

You are right, too many people who have nothing come here to learn, to apply and get wealthy. We need more people who just claim big things. Those are the real heroes I want to learn from.

There were times in my life where I was the overconfident, prideful and arrogant guy rubbing everyone the wrong way.

Occasionally someone honest would tell me I have a lot to learn. Usually, I blew them off because, of course, I knew everything. But, I didn't.

Today, after being humbled more times than I can count, with no embarassment, I can say they were 1000% right.

I am 10x the businessman today, having gone through actual humbling failures than I ever was as an unjustifiably confident douche.

Talk is cheap. All that talk and $3.50 will buy you a shitty cup of coffee.

It seems that the "unlucky" nature of the OP's loss didn't teach him much. He doesn't blame himself. The gambler never does. It was the game that didn't go his way. That's why the video I posted was so apt.

He could have had life built on a super solid rock, but he ended up back on the sand.

@DeNero you have a lot to learn.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

As I wrote at the end of my original post, my full focus and attention going forward is creating & scaling highly leveraged online businesses (B2B initially) that have great profit margins, and that one day I can exit for 8-9figures one day if I wanted to.

As I wrote at the end of my original post, my full focus and attention going forward is creating & scaling highly leveraged online businesses (B2B initially) that have great profit margins, and that one day I can exit for 8-9figures one day if I wanted to.

That's exactly why I joined your forum, and I plan to update everyone here with my weekly "business" journey & progress, not my investments.

This post is simply my story of where I've been, what I've done, and the things I achieved in recent years + lessons I learned. Had I just graduated from college/university and had no such history, OR just recently quit a cooking or construction job to pursue entrepreneurship, I would have STILL made an introductory post like this one that may have looked completely different (context wise), but with the SAME INTENTION of showing a commitment to starting & growing an online business going forward and updating the community with my weekly progress.

That's awesome to hear, perhaps I didn't grasp this because you lost me with your continued allegiance to the crypto-bro-mentality, followed by the commentary of "business is risky" trope regurgitated by common people who know nothing about business.

So I'm not sure why this triggered you as much as it did.

I get triggered when people are directed toward uncontrollable, powerless nonsense (crypto, stocks) when they should be embracing their power (business).

Also, it is triggering when someone suffers through a very powerful lesson and then dismisses it. That was my interpretation, so if I was wrong on that note, you have my apologies.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

not just trying to siphon off cash from any sucker who will buy the next meme coin or coaching for coaches who coach coaches how to coach coaches...

For the love of God, I hope he doesn't become another Envelope Stuffing Entrepreneur.

I make money coaching people how to become coaches and coach other people to do the same thing.

I don't understand how young people nowadays can think they can coach other people when they never won a game, much less got to the minor leagues. It's seems like a cop-out because they know the world is full of fools who will buy with the right marketing, and the right angle, and the right shiny Lambo on their TikTok reel.

At the end of the day, it's all one gigantic bro-marketing scheme.

 

[biophase]

but you make it sound like reaching a 100m+ net worth is equivalent to climbing mount everest or swimming across the atlantic ocean lol.

I would wager that climbing Everest is way easier than reaching a $100M networth. If that's all it took to get to $100M there, millions of people would sign up each year.

I mean no offence, but who are you to tell me what/how to think or what I can or cannot achieve when you barely even know me?

I believe that in the few posts that you've made on this thead that many people have a very good idea of who you are.

We have literally seen so many of people like you come with your story and boast about your potential. I don't think we've actually seen someone actual do what they claimed in the 16 years of this forum.

Contrary to what you think, most people on here are rooting for you to succeed.

I'm really surprised and don't understand why my story gets so much hate/backlash for no reason. My story is my story, what happened has happened and I cannot go back & fix or change the past, I can only look forward and think about how to structure & accomplish my ideal future. I do not see anything bad about my past to trigger so much negativity, and it's not like I've actually done some horrible things or harmed anyone either.

It feels like your story just hit a brick wall with us. But it's not your backstory that we care about. It is the fact that you don't know you got lucky and then unlucky. You think it was mostly your skill. So you think the road in front of you is easy due to your intelligence and skill.

I could have easily lied and pretended like I never lost that money, cashed everything out, 5xd it by investing in safer projects that I talked about, and finished the year with a 40-50m networth; and since then have started and invested my money in many legit & successful businesses + stocks. It makes me really wonder now - had written that kind of story instead (or even better, if that ACTUALLY was the case, as it was VERY close to actually happening), or even a simple story where I just quit my job/got fired and decided to pursue entrepreneurship - would everyone here be as negative as they are? I HIGHLY doubt it.

Again, nothing to do with your backstory. If you came in without and background and say "Having a 100m net worth is a lot more simple than people make it to be, and it only feels hard if you don't have a proven system/formula". You are going to get blasted.

So I'm trying to understand what everyone's problem is with me here. I am very mentally strong and have an iron mind so I'm not affected by anyone's negative comments

This is the problem, you are headstrong and won't learn from others, but will only learn from your own mistakes. And learning from your own mistakes is very costly. I'm sure you had friends or family telling you to sell your crypto when it was worth $2M+, but you probably thought they had no idea what they were talking about.

but I have to admit that I really didn't expect such terrible welcoming and negativity from so many "successful" people. I bet a lot of these people aren't truly happy in their life, which is pretty sad - but I hope things change for the better for their own sake & inner peace.

Well that is just deflecting from your own ego now. That person doesn't like me, so I bet he's unhappy. No way that I'm the delusional one and that everyone could be correct. Sometimes, it's better to take a step back and reflect.

Anyways, as I mentioned earlier - I will be primarily focusing on creating & growing multiple businesses for many years to come (but 1 at a time of course) which I'm excited about and look forward to.

Please come back in Oct 2024 and show us what you've done. I'll put a little reminder in my calendar to check this thread.

 

[monnffffiiiiiii]

For those who dont want to read the whole thing, here's a summary provided by ChatGPT:

• First read "The Millionaire Fastlane " (TMF ) and "Unscripted " in 2016 and got motivated to start an online business.
• Initial online business ventures had some success but were not consistently profitable.
• Began investing in the crypto space, particularly Decentralized Finance (DeFi), in late 2020 with a limited budget.
• In early 2021, made a significant profit by investing in Shiba Inu early, turning $500 into $10,000.
• Moved investments to Binance Smart Chain (BSC), experienced losses but also found success in a project called SafeMars, making millions on paper.
• Failed to cash out at SafeMars' peak, eventually leaving with 600-800k instead of potential $5M.
• Invested in another crypto project, Mononoke Inu, in late 2021, which reached an on-paper net worth of $10M but again failed to cash out at the peak.
• Experienced ups and downs, eventually deciding in May 2022 to withdraw $2M, but market crashed, and the worth dropped to $1M.
• Engaged in risky investments and sports betting to recoup losses but continued to lose money.
• Got hacked in 2023 while trying to sell NFTs, wiping out the last of the financial reserves.
• Writer is left grappling with emotions and contemplating the next steps, acknowledging learned lessons and gained experiences.
• Despite financial troubles, had experienced world travel and a taste of a luxury lifestyle, achieving a long-held dream.
• Financial future is uncertain, with a possibility of returning to Canada and starting anew in some capacity.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

First, let me say I kinda like you. You're transparent. Maybe a little braggadocious, but transparent which I respect more than anything. The new kid seems to have some chops.

... so don't take my questioning as an insult, just curiosity.

In terms of morality of buying low and selling high, it's the same as asking if it's morally wrong for an investor like Buffet to sell their entire Coca-Cola stock in recent years after buying it 30-50 years ago when it's up at least 10,000%, or in a similar & more recent example the same idea but with FB or Tesla stocks? And the answer is NO, there's nothing wrong with that.

I'll repeat: I'm no paragon of morality. I'm a capitalist pig. And I'm not judging (even if it comes off that way). But you can't delude yourself into thinking you're just buying low and selling high. It's not a piece of a company like Coca-Cola. It's not a blue-chip stock. It's not even a penny stock. It's a meme coin that has zero value that you're hoping enough suckers buy into and you can time it right to take their money.

You're not betting against investors who think a company's worth is going to go up or down -- you *know* it has no value but convince people it does so you can steal their money.

It's not the same in the slightest. And it's not new, either. It's the challenge with all cryptocurrencies right now -- they are so easily manipulated for this exact purpose. Smarter people are taking advantage of dumb people and creating convincing narratives that they have any kind of value.

Not to go down the rabbit hole (I'm really trying to avoid it because it's not really relevant to the conversation).

Finally, I just want to make it very clear one more time to you and @MJ DeMarco that until the end of the year and for at least the 1st half of 2024, I don't plan to be coaching people MYSELF and selling my own coaching programs; instead I'll be providing a B2B service to influencers and online coaches who are looking to grow their business, and helping them sell THEIR programs across various industries.

Hey -- I'm all for you starting a coaching business. I'm in that world. To MJ I'm a high-class prostitute... but I'm a damn good one .

But I also have a holier-than-thou attitude and try everything I can to separate myself from "THOSE" coaches/consultants.

I almost have a "respectable title" of "Fractional CMO" and some companies believe me enough to run things for them.

The difference (and the joke) is that in this day and age everyone who has had any success (or massive failure) now thinks they should be a coach of that thing for some reason. I'm not saying this is you... just MJ and I are talking shit because there's so many people over the years on this forum that have tried to do the same thing. They were mediocre at what they did, couldn't make enough money doing their skill, so they turned to coaching.

P.S. Building an 8-9fig worth business is very possible and only as easy or as hard as your perceive it to be. Having the right mindset and being disciplined is one of the most important things.

As someone who's built the former and currently runs the latter -- it's F*cking hard as shit... and I was trained by arguably the best mindset coach who has ever lived.

Maybe my perception is super far off.

I was always a multi-millionaire in my mind long before I became one 2 years ago in reality (and even tho it was "on paper", to me that still counts), and I know for a fact that if I can do it once, I can and will 100% do it again many times over. Let's just wait and see.

The hardest pill to swallow is "you are what you DO... not what you DID."

Hurts me to even type because it's very relevant in my life, too.

P.S.

@Antifragile is right about @Johnny boy ... kid is a dick... and I absolutely love him. Because behind his crass shit-talk, he is a really good person.

He provides an incredible service to his community. He creates jobs. He is building something of real value. I've only met him (what, two times now?) but I don't think he'd ever come up to me and say "Hey bro, we're going to create a meme coin to see how much money we can swipe from people."

There are a lot of "nice" people who would steal from you if given half the chance (there's been a few of those on this forum over the years, too)

And his measly couple million bucks per year doesn't compare to your meteoric rise to fame and fortune... but I think he's doing alright for himself.

P.P.S.

I hope you take my comments as they're intended: good-natured shit-talk.

I think there are some fallacies in your thinking but it doesn't mean I don't like you. And, hell, who am I to judge? I'm an idiot, myself.

Anywho... Welcome to the forum!

 

[Johnny boy]

he is a really good person.

take that back right now you're making me look bad in front of my friends

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Thread closed.

As the OP alluded, he is free to start another thread outlining his business journey -- a journey I hope is full of action and results that will benefit all.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

For the love of God, I hope he doesn't become another Envelope Stuffing Entrepreneur.

I make money coaching people how to become coaches and coach other people to do the same thing.

I don't understand how young people nowadays can think they can coach other people when they never won a game, much less got to the minor leagues. It's seems like a cop-out because they know the world is full of fools who will buy with the right marketing, and the right angle, and the right shiny Lambo on their TikTok reel.

At the end of the day, it's all one gigantic bro-marketing scheme.

I'm sure there's a term for it but we've now lived through several economic cycles (you more than me ) and we've had all of the MLM, envelope stuffing, and every other experience(s)...

Is it just a case of "he doesn't know any better"? Or does he know exactly what he's doing?

... it still boggles my mind they knew they were actively pumping & dumping Shiba and all the other shit coins... but I don't think he's ever seen/heard of these situations throughout history... it's not like war profiteering is new, either, but that seems to be the big thing now... and it's no big deal! Get that bag, bro!

 

[biophase]

Much like investing in start-ups and angel investing is another form of "gambling" as well and is probably the closest thing in comparison to investing in crypto projects early on, I mean what's the difference between them?

Angel investing is the same as investing in crypto?

If you had only sold your crypto anywhere between 50% and 100% of its peak. I mean you had a wide wide range to exit. It's not like your crypto shot up for 1 hour and you had to decide quickly. If I remember correctly, you probably had a month or more to decide to sell.

The biggest difference in investing in a company and crypto is that there is a business running under that company stock.

And yes, I also understand that a stock can go from $100 to $10 in a day. There are similarities, but there is underlying value in most stocks.

And many times, you just need that 1 to achieve financial freedom and be set for life. I've have many "unicorn" like winners that year, more than anyone I know in the crypto space - my issue was that I was applying Warren Buffet's and many other famous billionaire investor's principles of investing "long-term" and being patient

This here is your lesson, you applied Warren Buffett's logic to something completely unrelated to his philosophy. Crypto isn't the same as stocks. The stocks that he owns do not have large swings and he's purchasing based on their value. Crypto's current value is literally the price it trades at.

 

[ZackerySprague]

With the decentralization piece missing in Crypto, it could have potentially saved you from that NFT loss. Amazing story man no doubt. Welcome to the forum.

Crypto and NFT for me are a no-go, I've seen too many people believe in its technology, create fake coins, hire influencers to promote it, and then all get rugged pulled because the owners let their greed get in the way and change their mindset. It scares me to know that people could easily create fake coins, trade crypto, and get scammed. I'd rather have the centralization system at play so that I know the other party actually does have the money and to actually stop scams that happen at play.

The ledger itself is also faulty and will not be able to keep up with the transactions that happen on a daily basis for Cards such as Mastercard and Visa. The technology that Crypto uses is not scalable to the American dollar and will not replace it in my opinion.

Good luck in your online coaching program.

 

[DeNero]

The longer you sit at a blackjack table, the higher your odds are that the house edge is going to beat you.

I lost a company once in a hostile takeover. I thought I was done. Maybe seven years later I sold another company. I wasn’t done.

You are not done. You can find success again. Don’t do it via gambling. Build a business.

Yes I completely agree that gambling is not the way to get truly rich and I only really started "gambling" and taking much higher risks after my 2022 downfall, just trying to get back to where I was in early May at least B/E.

But I did not feel like I was "gambling" when I made my initial millions, because I was diversifying and taking calculated risks the whole time. So even if 1 project failed, I had many others on the side that were also thriving and would make up for it (just for the sake of time I only shared my MOST successful ones on here, but I had dozens of other very successful ones as well that passed 7 figures).

So yes going forward I will definitely put all focus on building a highly leveraged online business with high profit margins, that one day I can exist for 8-9figures, and that's my main focus right now.

 

[biophase]

I only had a long time to decide what to do when the market was neutral in Q1 of 2022, but having went from 10m ATH to ~2m, I wanted to get back to 5m at least

This is what they call in poker, upstuck.

You’re up but feel like you’re down a lot.

So you act as if you lost money.

 

[Vigilante]

how'd that happen

The 30 second version is, I had an asset purchase agreement that was separate from an employment agreement, and all of the workout money sat in the employment agreement. They used a clause to terminate the employment agreement, and after two years worth of litigation, the judge ruled in their favor, because of an integration clause in the asset purchase agreement.

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

take that back right now you're making me look bad in front of my friends

I'll buy you a drink at the next all-inclusive we stay at to make up for it.

 

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[MaxKhalus]

take that back right now you're making me look bad in front of my friends

never change @Johnny boy I love laughing at your comments

 

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[Antifragile]

As the saying goes - luck comes when opportunity meets preparation.

Luck is real & exists whether you believe in it or not. The more action someone takes and the more they show up everyday, the "luckier" they become, because they put themselves in the right position.

That being said, I'd be a fool if I said that I had a 10m net worth PURELY based on luck, or lost it purely because of bad luck. This had 80-90% to do with the decisions that I made that led to both outcomes. Luck played a role, but a very small one, and I never claimed it to be the main or sole reason I made or lost a lot, and this could have been easily preventable if I had a better strategy in advance and made better decisions.

I also never mentioned that it was going an 8-figure "business" exit, but it would have been an incredible 8figure investing achievement for all the hard work I was putting in that year behind-the-scenes. In a lot of these projects that blew up, I personally helped the team with marketing & the connections I made in crypto as well to get more people invested, because it was in my best interest for it to succeed as much as it was for them.

You may think this was pure gambling, but I disagree. I was taking calculated risks and had a diversified portfolio of many solid meme coins that actually were working on some unique utilities as well; and after cashing out a really large amount, I was planning to re-invest 80-90% of that into much bigger and safer projects (like Solana), that are very safe and no longer feel like gambling. All which blew up 7-8x in the coming months, and would have made me even more millions. My strategy was almost perfect, except for mistiming the tops of the projects I mentioned (and many others that I didn't) and not taking profits sooner - that was my biggest mistake and something I will definitely learn from going forward.

Finally, I don't really care what JohnnyBoy does, but for him to bluntly come out accuse me of trying to sell coaching or online courses to newbies and scam them of their hard-earned money as if I'm some kind of conman who has bad intentions & tries to steal money from innocent people, without knowing ANYTHING about me except for what I shared on here, tells me all I need to know about who he is and his character.

I feel sad reading your reply. You didn’t accept what I tried to explain to you. Sad because here’s another young man who’s about to learn the hard way… when there was a better path. Another classic.

Your reply is an attempt to protect your own ego, your own feeling of self worth. But I wasn’t judging you. My opinion of you is irrelevant. Your opinion of me is irrelevant. And JohnyBoy is a dick, so what? Still completely irrelevant.

What should be relevant is why you are here!

Why are you on this forum? What’s your purpose?

• Do you want to feel right or be right?
• Do you want to look successful or be successful?
• How much of what happened to you was bad luck vs your own fault?

I have news for you - it’s all your fault.

There is always something in the moment today that you can do to improve your position tomorrow. Something that you do that will make achieving your goal easier or harder. That’s what matters. Learning nothing from those who have more experience than you, is a mistake. You are just making it harder on your future self.

Why?

Trust me, I know from experience… protecting ego, being afraid to look stupid. Yeah. We all struggle with it.

Most people go through life assuming that they are right… and that people who don’t see things their way are wrong. We mistake how we want the world to be with how it actually is. I’m no exception… but at least I’m aware of this blind spot. You aren’t yet.

Deep down you must know you first got a lucky break and then f*cked up. You aren’t going to have another lucky break like that again. Wouldn’t you want to learn something profound from this experience?

Take it or leave it.

PS this is a public forum. My replies are always for mass consumption. I hope young readers like you get value from them. Don’t take my words personally, as I don’t know you.

 

[Antifragile]

Of course losing that kind of net worth was my fault and I take full responsibility for it, not once have I said or claimed it wasn't or it happened because of someone/something else.

And like I mentioned earlier, the main reason I joined this forum is to document my business journey going forward. Firstly for myself so I can look back 1 day and see how far I've come compared to where I am now, but also for anyone on here who wants to follow my journey and see it happen in real time.

I aim to lead by example, I'm hoping that through my upcoming mega success, I can inspire a lot of people on here and prove that there are no limits to what you can achieve, even in a relatively short period of time.

I have my big WHY and will do whatever it takes to achieve everything I desire in this world, and this is simply the beginning of a new chapter for me that I decided to document online.

Oh shit, sorry. My bad. I didn't know you came here to teach us with your "upcoming mega success", to show us by your own example. Amazing.

Will you be also writing a book on this? Sounds so good, I'd like to pre-order.

You are right, too many people who have nothing come here to learn, to apply and get wealthy. We need more people who just claim big things. Those are the real heroes I want to learn from.