Choosing the road less traveled. My ecom & service biz adventure.

[Natural]

Hello dear Fastlaners and those currently in transition. Ahh, it feels good to be back.

Quick intro first. You can call me Al, I’m 27 born in Bosnia (next to Croatia) but grew up in Denmark. I was a former online poker pro from age 18-24. I then realised I didn’t want to “grind” every single second in order to make an income so I slowly transitioned to business and started my first service based business with my younger brother (#2 below). This was also around the time I read TMF for the first time, so thank you for that @MJ DeMarco.

What will this thread document? Here is the rough plan for 2019.

1. Start a private label product (brand) from scratch. I got my first order of 600 units made a couple of weeks ago. If it goes well then expand to multiple products in the same niche. Start off on Amazon then add my own website to the mix.
2. Remove my self (at least 90%) from my current service-based biz. It did a bit over 300k in revenue in 2018. So I’ll need to optimise, systemise and delegate. Add a small extra service (recurring revenue based) to my current service (one time gig). This will help the cash flow for the business a lot and the new service will also be relevant to my current service. I’ll also try to increase net profits by 15% on my one-time gig service. Either by raising my prices or by offering a plan B with higher profit margins. Revenue goal 300K again (will explain why later)
3. Learn a 'high-income skill': Facebook ads. This will benefit me greatly for both my ventures (#1 & #2). I’ll learn this through courses, youtube videos and FB groups.
4. Create a good daily routine and discipline my self. I tend to be “too good” to myself, sleep to whenever I want, work sporadically throughout the day and therefore not be as effective as I know I could be. I want to remove as many distractions as I possibly can so that it will be easier to FOCUS. A good routine will help me do that I'm sure.

A couple of extra notes on the points above.

#1. Regarding my physical product. I have been reading and learning about Amazon and what it takes to start a physical product nowadays for almost 1 year. I have given up on 2 products right before production before this product. Why? Because the more knowledge I got the more I realised the products sucked long term. I feel confident in the product I have chosen now I and I have made some clear improvements to it. Can you do it faster than me? Absolutely. I’m not perfect and definitely need to learn to execute faster.

#2. A week ago my brother and I decided to split the service based business due to many reasons. No hard feelings. I’ll pay him a salary the next 12 months as well as some other things. We learned a lot of valuable lessons together and we both feel that working alone will benefit our relationship to each other but also help us grow personally and business-wise. We will both need to step up our game if you will. So I’ll be happy to hit the same revenue as last year because I’ll be doing it alone (+my small team) plus a heavy focus on automation, systems and processes to free up my time.

#3. I want to learn a skill set that I can use no matter how it goes with #1 and #2, crypto or the stock market. If everything goes to shit I’ll still have a valuable skill that I can get paid for. I could, for example, do some consulting work for other service or e-commerce businesses. On top of that, I can use it to further improve #1 and #2 by generating more traffic and sales through ads and funnels.

My long term goal (2020+) is to start my own brand that I am SUPER into and have been for a long time (the niche has been growing year by year too) and use a combination of all the skills I’m going to learn this year (Amazon launch, ranking, brand building, paid advertising, setting up my own webshop, delegate work, hire team members, create a crazy discipline etc..) and grow that brand to the multi-million dollar business that I know it can become. Big claim I know... But.... Why not?

…. So with that said I think this will do for the first post in my thread. Any questions, hello’s and feedback would be appreciated very much. Looking forward to meeting likeminded people and to share my progress.


Until next time!

-Al

 

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