Hi guys
Glad to find this forum because it seems like people are very focused here.
I'm a cash poor millionaire living in LA. I started a company that does dating advice about 10 years ago. I was able to "ride the wave" when men's dating advice was hot on the internet a few years back, and I rolled all the money into real estate around 2009 and 2010. The value of my properties has shot through the roof in the last few years, catapulting me to millionaire status.
I combined the dating advice with the real estate and created a program where people rent out rooms for $3000 a month and take trainings while they live in the house. This was very profitable.
Men's dating advice has become a more competitive business, but I'm still doing OK with it. I've hired a marketing team that does affiliate marketing, video sales letters, and cold traffic. Business has gone way up since I hired them. It took me years to find the right team. I did zero marketing for the first 7 years I was in business, I just got by on word of mouth. In my business you can make a lot of money buying banner ads and selling eBooks (cold traffic). We have been working to find the right offer and the right traffic for about 1.5 years now. Cracking cold traffic is very hard to do. I plan on trying and trying until we get it right. I don't care if it takes another 5 years. As we work on this, everything else gets better in our marketing and we are making more and more money.
Real estate has been good to me, but I have no interest in being a traditional buy and hold landlord who breaks even on cashflow and builds assets over 30 years. I prefer to make lots of cash. Right now I am transitioning my dating advice houses to a new business- rehab. The reason why is two-fold. 1- demand is down for live trainings. People just want to buy an eBook and then do nothing with it. I seriously doubt people even finish reading them. So we are moving away from services and more towards publishing. 2- I'm sick of teaching these guys and dealing with all their wacky problems. I've been at it 10 years. I will let my other coaches continue to coach and make me money but I'd like to retire from teaching pretty soon.
For the rehab, I have partnered with a doctor and a lawyer who already have an outpatient facility running. They don't do much marketing and they're not making that much money yet, but they've only been open for a few months. I think they have what it takes to succeed. I am part owner of the rehab business and I'm going to handle marketing, sales, and expansion of the business. I am only a few weeks into this project. I plan to post more about it in the implementation section later.
I also play in a rock band that tours around the USA. I sit in the tour bus and run my businesses during the day and at night I play my show and chase chicks. I have toured about 6 weeks total this year ad I expect to tour another 6-12 weeks. We recently signed a record deal and our album comes out in Oct. This might result in more touring in 2015, so I don't take on any responsibilities that would need me to be there in person all the time.
I am very happy. I've had success beyond my wildest dreams. I never thought in a thousand years that I would become a millionaire and be driving around Hollywood in my own Lamborghini. Every day I take time to appreciate my success. I come from a lower-middle class family and no one has ever done things like this before....not that it matters what your family thinks or does.
My challenges right now are-
I'm a bit low on cash and I haven't had a big breakthrough success in a while. My cash reserves are lower than I'd like them to be, considering how much real estate I'm holding. My houses go cash flow positive sometimes, other times they go neutral, on rare occasions they go negative for a couple months.
I need to figure out some better asset protection ideas for my houses. I have huge amounts of insurance already, but I think I should transfer them into a company and out of my name just in case. I'm not sure how to do this.
I need to figure out a better tax strategy and get someone better to implement this. I can tell that my book-keeper and tax guy are run-of-the-mill hacks. They get the job done, but it's nothing special. From reading this forum for a few days now, I already see loads of ideas that my guys are not using but could be using.
I should eventually figure out a better investing strategy than "buy a bunch of real estate" and "start a new company any time you have extra money." I fully recongnize that I got lucky on my timing in real estate. I knew very little about the RE market when I bought my houses. Turns out I bought at the bottom, lucky me. What goes up must come down, so I am sure my assets will be down a bit a few years from now if I don't diversify a bit.
My lifestyle is kind of hectic and I'm trying to get even better focus. I've been trying to decrease the time I spend on women this month so I can work more, and next week I'll be getting my living situation more organized. I am excited about this rehab venture and I want to put a lot of time into it. I can go back to 5 girls a week later once it's up and running.
Those are my challenges.
I have many things to add and I have great advice to give on this forum. I will join as a full member after I have read the book this site is based on. This could take a while since I have a strict rule on reading only 2 books a year, and never moving on to a new book until you've fully implemented the last book you read.
Glad to find this forum because it seems like people are very focused here.
I'm a cash poor millionaire living in LA. I started a company that does dating advice about 10 years ago. I was able to "ride the wave" when men's dating advice was hot on the internet a few years back, and I rolled all the money into real estate around 2009 and 2010. The value of my properties has shot through the roof in the last few years, catapulting me to millionaire status.
I combined the dating advice with the real estate and created a program where people rent out rooms for $3000 a month and take trainings while they live in the house. This was very profitable.
Men's dating advice has become a more competitive business, but I'm still doing OK with it. I've hired a marketing team that does affiliate marketing, video sales letters, and cold traffic. Business has gone way up since I hired them. It took me years to find the right team. I did zero marketing for the first 7 years I was in business, I just got by on word of mouth. In my business you can make a lot of money buying banner ads and selling eBooks (cold traffic). We have been working to find the right offer and the right traffic for about 1.5 years now. Cracking cold traffic is very hard to do. I plan on trying and trying until we get it right. I don't care if it takes another 5 years. As we work on this, everything else gets better in our marketing and we are making more and more money.
Real estate has been good to me, but I have no interest in being a traditional buy and hold landlord who breaks even on cashflow and builds assets over 30 years. I prefer to make lots of cash. Right now I am transitioning my dating advice houses to a new business- rehab. The reason why is two-fold. 1- demand is down for live trainings. People just want to buy an eBook and then do nothing with it. I seriously doubt people even finish reading them. So we are moving away from services and more towards publishing. 2- I'm sick of teaching these guys and dealing with all their wacky problems. I've been at it 10 years. I will let my other coaches continue to coach and make me money but I'd like to retire from teaching pretty soon.
For the rehab, I have partnered with a doctor and a lawyer who already have an outpatient facility running. They don't do much marketing and they're not making that much money yet, but they've only been open for a few months. I think they have what it takes to succeed. I am part owner of the rehab business and I'm going to handle marketing, sales, and expansion of the business. I am only a few weeks into this project. I plan to post more about it in the implementation section later.
I also play in a rock band that tours around the USA. I sit in the tour bus and run my businesses during the day and at night I play my show and chase chicks. I have toured about 6 weeks total this year ad I expect to tour another 6-12 weeks. We recently signed a record deal and our album comes out in Oct. This might result in more touring in 2015, so I don't take on any responsibilities that would need me to be there in person all the time.
I am very happy. I've had success beyond my wildest dreams. I never thought in a thousand years that I would become a millionaire and be driving around Hollywood in my own Lamborghini. Every day I take time to appreciate my success. I come from a lower-middle class family and no one has ever done things like this before....not that it matters what your family thinks or does.
My challenges right now are-
I'm a bit low on cash and I haven't had a big breakthrough success in a while. My cash reserves are lower than I'd like them to be, considering how much real estate I'm holding. My houses go cash flow positive sometimes, other times they go neutral, on rare occasions they go negative for a couple months.
I need to figure out some better asset protection ideas for my houses. I have huge amounts of insurance already, but I think I should transfer them into a company and out of my name just in case. I'm not sure how to do this.
I need to figure out a better tax strategy and get someone better to implement this. I can tell that my book-keeper and tax guy are run-of-the-mill hacks. They get the job done, but it's nothing special. From reading this forum for a few days now, I already see loads of ideas that my guys are not using but could be using.
I should eventually figure out a better investing strategy than "buy a bunch of real estate" and "start a new company any time you have extra money." I fully recongnize that I got lucky on my timing in real estate. I knew very little about the RE market when I bought my houses. Turns out I bought at the bottom, lucky me. What goes up must come down, so I am sure my assets will be down a bit a few years from now if I don't diversify a bit.
My lifestyle is kind of hectic and I'm trying to get even better focus. I've been trying to decrease the time I spend on women this month so I can work more, and next week I'll be getting my living situation more organized. I am excited about this rehab venture and I want to put a lot of time into it. I can go back to 5 girls a week later once it's up and running.
Those are my challenges.
I have many things to add and I have great advice to give on this forum. I will join as a full member after I have read the book this site is based on. This could take a while since I have a strict rule on reading only 2 books a year, and never moving on to a new book until you've fully implemented the last book you read.
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