Enough walking on the sidelines; time to shift to the Fastlane! Btw, my name is Pranav.

[Pranav_Banerjee]

Hello, everyone!
I hope you all are having a great time in this forum. My name is Pranav. I am from India. Age is 22.
A little bit about myself. Like most Indians, I am a computer science graduate. As a fresher, I got myself a job as an Ethical Hacker/Security Analyst at one of the growing start-ups here in India. I must say, unlike most people, I actually do enjoy my work! I take pride in what I do.

That being said, I have a total of one year of professional experience in penetration testing(hacking, basically). During this period, I picked up the book The Millionaire Fastlane (not finished, currently reading it ). One thing I realized after reading the first two parts is that obtaining freedom with a job as the primary source of income is just a dream that most people have. Now, I am not saying this because I read this in the book. Whatever I read, my habit is to analyze the author's opinion with my own experiences and knowledge base. From what I see, MJ is not wrong about this stuff. Although a high-paying job can be achieved with hard work, you'll still be at the mercy of your employer - not a good place to be at!

Even before coming across MJ's book, I tried to earn some extra cash on the side when I was still in college. How? I used to play piano for music composers on Fiverr, in exchange for money. Although it wasn't much, I was earning an additional 10$ per client with this side gig. This was going pretty good for a side-hustle style thing, but then the pandemic hit. Where I used to get like 2 orders a week, it dropped to like barely 1 a month.
I modified my profile for more attention from musicians but in vain. Nothing I was doing was getting me more orders. This was the end of this side gig.

After this, like most people, I was searching "quick ways to make money online" on youtube and google and whatnot. Most videos and blogs mentioned stuff like dropshipping or print-on-demand style businesses. I played my hand on these too but failed.

Other than online businesses, once the pandemic restrictions began to lift off a bit in early January this year, I decided to start a small-scale food cart business. I was going to sell cold coffee, mocktails, refreshing drinks, lemonades, etc. I was all pumped up and was conducting heavy ground research. I was visiting nearby markets looking for places where I could set up my cart, where there was a footfall in the evenings, etc. When everything was done, I went ahead and gave the order for a food cart to a local manufacturer. The total cost of the cart was around 50k INR ( around $700). I paid half the amount as an advance payment to the manufacturer. This was my first mistake in this business. I did not do my proper research on this manufacturer. He failed to deliver the cart and returned only half of the amount I paid to him.

After reading this post, most sideliners and slowlaners will throw tantrums at me for trying to defy their proposed way to spend my life (get educated, get a job, invest, and so on...). But, being in the Fastlane forum, I know I won't have to deal with such nonsense.

To be clear, I did not let these small setbacks affect me. In fact, I learned something from each mistake I made. Some about money, some about business, some about life in general.

Now, I don't want to be that guy who just introduces himself and expect everyone to like him. I'll contribute something to the community in my first post. Let me share the lessons I learned the hard way.

• From Fiverr, I learned that anything ( a job or a business) can come to an end. Never rely on just one thing to earn money.
• From dropshipping and print-on-demand, I learned the importance of proper marketing.
• I learned to never follow these so-called gurus blindly. As MJ mentions, see if they really practice what they preach, or do they just preach and earn from the preaching?
• You will be paid ONLY if you provide value. No one owes you ANYTHING. If you see that opening a marketing agency is good business, don't expect it to make money for you. Now, don't get me wrong. Any business, if done properly, can earn money. But, that is it. Do it properly and with the intention to provide value.
• There is no easy way to earn money. Everything that looks easy has TONS of people doing that thing already and the competition is SUPER HIGH. If you want easy, ready to face the competition.
• From my food cart business (that never unfortunately even started), I learned to perform thorough background checks on the type of people I am entering into a deal with.
• Some extra cash in the bank never hurts. Even if you are in a job, save a big chunk of it. This sounds like a slowlane guideline. But, the purpose of this money is not to retire with - this money will be useful once you decide to start your own business.
• Last thing, kind of a cliche, but, I learned to not give up on one minor setback.

Now, I know I did not mention anything groundbreaking here. But, these are some valuable lessons that I had to learn the hard way and they matter to me a lot. And if you already heard of this stuff, a little revision never hurt anybody!

Well, that was enough of an introduction from me. I really look forward to contributing more to this community and gaining value from it as well.

Also, English isn't my first language, so excuse any mistakes.

Say hello in the replies.

Thanks!

 

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