Going Fastlane with mobile app

[crunchies]

Hi, I've been coming to this forum for few times and I soon enough I knew this is the place for me to fuel up myself again.


My Story

At the moment I'm 39 years old and January next year I'll be 40. Too be honest I'm flat broke, It has been like this for about 20 years now since I dropped out from college.

When I was 19, I accidently bump into programming and I knew the only way for me to make money was through software development. I spent countless nights not sleeping trying to learn everything I could so I can write a good desktop application. This was 1998 when I bought my own computer. I didn't do anything much with desktop programming except for personal use. In year 2000 someone offered me a job to develop a website for his company, I took it and started learning html, graphics and other thing like database. I tried to learn as quick as I could so I can deliver job and I did. That was the 1st ever I got paid from programming work.

So I learned more to sharpen my skills and by year 2001 I got my own web portal up. It was a website where I ranked all the consumer product prices so people can look for the cheapest one. I was trying to emulate Kakaku.com website (http://kakaku.com) which pretty big in Japan at the time except kakaku.com was only ranking up computer peripheral prices, I wanted to rank everything. I wanted to make it a business, but when people discovered the site, I got call from some company wanting to hire me for their projects. I took it and soon I wasnt doing my own thing anymore. I was working hard for others.

The ambition was still there, I quitted everything after my contract expired and try to do my own thing with websites again. It was a great timing because Google Adsense has just started and I saw a way to make money easier. Things didn't go smooth as expected because I had too many ideas and didn't put my focus and effort to what which was working. I was trying to do too much at one time.

In conquest for money, I stumbled into forex trading in 2003. I was overwhelming and tried to teach myself everything about forex. I loved it. I thought to myself that I was pretty smart guy and would someday crack the mystery of forex and be able to millionare. Looking back, for almost 12 years I've poured too much sweat and my hard work into forex without making a dime out of it.

I felt like it was my calling when I started trading forex, it took me so long to realize that I was
wasting my youth, compromising my relationships for an addiction. I was addicted to it. I didnt regret any
of it though, thats life and I learned something.


Mobile App

My interest with mobile app started around 2011. I was trying to get my flight ticket at the travel agency counter, they had a small kiosk with an Ipad on it where you can play with their app. Browsing travel packages, prices and such. I was like wow, this is the future. Cool software is not in the computer anymore, it's in Ipad.

So I spent the next 2 years trying to learn how to create app, xcode programming or any short cut to accomplish it. Never felt so much frustrated in my life before, it was even harder than forex. I couldnt grasp the concept and the programming language. I gave up.

I had an idea to create a marketplace for women products, where people can buy and sell anything to women. It could be clothing, cosmetics, anything for women and women only. My only solution was probably to outsource it, but without money it was impossible. And it's expensive to build a mobile app. Furthermore it will hurt my pride if I dont build my own app/project by myself considering I was able to create websites years earlier.

In March 2013, I took a week off from everything and just sit in any cafe with wi-fi with my laptop and giving myself 1 last time chance to learn from the beginning. This time I chosed Android, I didnt mind much not going for iOS since Android market in my country is about 80% of total mobile phone users.


I came across MJ's book about 2 weeks ago, everything in the book resonate with what I had in mind since I was 19. It was there but I guess it wasnt that concrite as a concept layed-out by MJ. Now I think I've found something that I wanted to follow as if I found it many years ago.

These days I'm already able to create decent apps and I did a few for clients and as personal projects.
My app for the marketplace idea i also coming to an end, I probably going to finish it in a week or two.

I think this is my Fastlane project and intent to make it one, hence the title of this thread. Yes I want to go to Fastlane with my mobile apps.



This Forum

I know I'm not 17 or 19 anymore, I know that I'm merely chasing the years of my life. The fire is still there inside me and I want to bring that fire out.

With so many watching, probably a good thing for me to keep pushing it till I make it. So my intention here is to make this forum works for me, to keep me motivated and stay true to myself and do what it takes to make my idea materialised and executed.

My plan is to keep this thread as my Fastlane journal, and record whatever needed to make it works for me. I'm lucky to have read the Fastlane Millionare book and found this forum.

TQ all & cheers, to be continued.. please excuse my poor writing of English. I'm in South East Asia and English is not my 1st language.

 

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[100k]

I respect your determination and resolve to make your goals/dreams come true! Many people would have given up a long time ago, it takes heart to keep moving forward when life throws you low blows and punches, but you eat those suckers up and keep rolling.

All the best with your new app. Post the general idea of the app on the forum and people can give you feedback on whether its something that has potential or not.

 

[crunchies]

@100k thank you for your words of encouragement. I will try to explain about the business as detail

In my country at the moment, cosmetics & beauty products are hot stuff. The industry is booming nothing like I ever seen compare to 5 years ago. Cosmetics millionaires are popping left & right. All of these happening because of social media & dropshipping business. Many young girls try to make some money promoting these products. But its a seasonal products, when the old products fading from the limelight, they come up with new one and repeating the same process.

These products are not like western established cosmetic brands but a mixed up of a lot of things like whitening, serum and other things, mostly are skin care related and women care.

The market is not that big, probably around 5-10 million people, but the sales are quite astonishing. Some brand are making like 50million sales a year. As they claimed publicly in newspaper. The bigger one reaching more than 200millions..so the bigger brands are dominating national tv ads, sponsoring sports teams and so on. They are really making headlights for themselves. Some brand owner are very young, as young as 20 years old and a multimillionaire.

So my idea is to create a mobile app, load the app with all these products and sell it. Make it easy to buy, to pay, free delivery, easier tracking and probably giving some incentives to buyer as well. My competitions are those who are selling it on social media.

For past few month, I've managed to photograph of all the products and strike deals with many suppliers around my city, so that I can buy it at wholesale price without MOQ. Basically the suppliers doesnt know my intention, I just convinced them that I can sell their stuff. What I'm betting on is the mobile app. If I can get my app into the hands of many, I think I could win the market.

Basically those are the idea.

Today I've managed to finish my app, the 1st hurdle is done. The real work is from now onwards. I knew 1st hand that getting users to download an app is such a difficult task to do. Promoting and marketing is not really my stuff. That is something I need to figure out.

As I'm hoping to learn more, I've noticed myself started to believe more and more that the Fastlane is real . I walk half a mile everyday to find cafe with internet connection to finish the app do things online. That's the personal challenge that I have to endure at the moment..but it's fine with me.

My 1st strategy with the app is to create a promo video and post it on social media. That's what I have in mind for now. I dont really know how to make it viral or other marketing strategy.

If any of the readers here have some suggestion, please do suggest me some. I want to try it and see how. I guess that's all for now.

Cheers

 

[Georgy]

I stumbled into forex trading in 2003. I didnt regret any
of it though, thats life and I learned something.

First off, welcome to the forums Crunchies! I love your story man because all I smell in your past is an "ACTION TAKER", someone that doesn't bit*h and complain without even trying something and going all out. So I really feel with your story dude. With regards to Forex trading, you'll find a fantastic article in the "INSIDERS" community. Basically the "INSIDERS" club is a subscription here on the forums that you sign-up to and have access to a lot of articles you won't find outside this club. Well worth the time to look into and there's an article inside that with your experience in Forex, you might find verrry interesting.

I think this is my Fastlane project and intent to make it one, hence the title of this thread. Yes I want to go to Fastlane with my mobile apps.

You're on the right path Crunchies. You are finally building apps and putting your hard work behind it. This can VERY WELL BE the product to push to you the fastlane. So keep up the hard work! If you also don't mind telling me Crunchie, how did you learn how to create apps? I've been looking at "how-to" websites and all, even downloaded the Android Studio Bundle. So I wanted to know if maybe you can suggest me some places you found helpful to learn?

I know I'm not 17 or 19 anymore, I know that I'm merely chasing the years of my life. The fire is still there inside me and I want to bring that fire out.

Man, this is so much motivation for me who's 33 years old. I never stop giving up, and someone a little bit older in the same boat is always a good feeling. You don't need to be 18 years old to have the fire in your a$$, and you're never too old to have it in you also. Stay driven and motivated my friend. IT WILL PAY OFF IN THE END.

 

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[100k]

You should try to leverage other people's traffic, influence and reach.

Find out who the big youtube/twitter/facebook personalities/brands are that have lots of followers and offer them something they want in exchange for them recommending your app.

That could perhaps be a 1 off payment, a percentage of ownership in the app and the future profits or some other deal. It has to make sense to them - they have to benefit from it just as much from it as you (if not more).

All the best man, keep us updated.

If you struggle with that - consider using Facebook ads to promote your app. Its not easy, but it can be done - you might be able to get installs from the app store for under $0.20 depending on your targeting and how good your offer/ad is.