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First off, I don't know if I should be making this post. I'm not in a position of great wealth yet but I finally started seeing positive results after about 5 years of struggles and failures.
In the past 5 years, I tried the following:
- Creating a blog and monetizing it (1 year of work)
- Started a YouTube channel (4 months of work)
- Tried to compete with OnlyFans in 2020 and build a better service (2 years of work)
None of these worked out. I want to make this post short and straight to the point. None of these worked out for the following reasons:
Now...have I made it? Obviously not. I just started out. But hopefully, with a great service and marketing expansion, this will keep going and scale to 30k gross a month.
In the past 5 years, I tried the following:
- Creating a blog and monetizing it (1 year of work)
- Started a YouTube channel (4 months of work)
- Tried to compete with OnlyFans in 2020 and build a better service (2 years of work)
None of these worked out. I want to make this post short and straight to the point. None of these worked out for the following reasons:
- Blogs have no barriers to entry (as MJ said more than 10 years ago). Everyone wants and can be a blogger. There's no unique differentiator, really, that can set a blogger apart from another blogger, especially in the age of ChatGPT and generative AI.
- Monetizing your blog is where you have to use your brain. Churning out 20-30 posts a week is useless if you don't know how to monetize all that traffic. Find a way to monetize the traffic. That can be affiliate marketing, selling courses/e-books, whatever. The reason I did not do this is because I felt like a fake guru trying to teach people what to do when I wasn't yet in a position of success. I felt like a snake oil salesman and definitely not like an entrepreneur.
- Trying to copy a competitor and 'just improving the product' is a failing strategy 99% of the time. You will work hard for leftovers, if any. People buy the first product that solidifies their neural pathways with a certain word. Think Apple for high-end tech, Mercedes-Benz for 'premium', Lamborghini for 'boss', whatever, you get the point. If you are not the first in your category, good luck with that. It's much easier to start a business and conquer a unique spot in the mind of the consumer than trying to be number 2. If you started building high-end phones today, you would still fail to conquer the market because Apple has that spot in the minds of consumers. It's very hard to change the opinions of the market.
- Most people claiming they're entrepreneurs are not. I'm sorry, but I don't see how blogging or drop shipping, or any of the sort, can be considered a business. To me, a business is something that can scale easily and is organized around a system. MJ's CENTS paradigm is what I'd call a business. If you cover all 5 variables (or 4, at least), you have a real business.
- If you want something hard enough, you'll get it. This path is not for everyone. I had to sacrifice all I had to get out of the other side. I had no social life for the past 5 years, no real vacations, no entertainment, no netflix. Yes, I took the extremist approach but I don't believe you can do anything serious in life unless you cut all that crap out and focus until you achieve what you want. You can't have it all. Energy is scarce and so is your time.
- Stop using social media. Seriously. Deleted Instagram in 2019 and never looked back. Can't imagine what my life would be if I were Gen Z and had to use TikTok or any other dopamine slot machine app and ruin my prefrontal cortex. There's a reason why most Gen Z people are lazy or have no motivation. Modern entertainment is a curse.
- Think like a businessman, not like a script seeder. I build and give people what they want. It's often clear what people want and if you build it they'll pay you for it. In my industry, in particular, adult entertainment, this is more real than ever. If you don't do this, someone else will. It's like seeing a hot girl and not approaching her because she's busy, then you see your friend go up there, approach her, and sleep with her the same night. You are your own worst enemy. If you want money, give people what they want.
- Read but don't be an idiot. Reading 100 books and 3 years later not having taken action is idiotic. Reading can easily become an excuse for not taking action. I haven't read a book in a year and I'm still making more money than I ever did. I did read a lot of books before that, however, but after a certain point, you have diminishing returns.
- Don't listen to outsiders. They have no F*cking clue what they're talking about. Most middle-class individuals talk bullshit and can't give you advice on how to make it in life, because they've never done it themselves. They speak in clichès and repeat what they heard said by someone else, without ever questioning it.
Now...have I made it? Obviously not. I just started out. But hopefully, with a great service and marketing expansion, this will keep going and scale to 30k gross a month.
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