Hey guys! Over the past couple of years I have mentioned some of the things I have done, businesses I have failed etc. A few of you have had questions so I thought it would be good to right a story/progress thread. So we'll start with a bit of background:
At 18 years old I had my first business without even knowing it. Back then I was a bit of a party animal and at evenings and weekends I could be found canned up in a pub. I worked a day job but the amount of drinking I liked to do cost a lot more than minimum wage - go figure! I have a lot of tattoos which were a great conversation piece. I would always get approached, "Oh, they're cool! Where did you get them?" The answer was always the same. I did them myself. I love drawing and thought i'd put my talents to good use and do my own instead of paying some artist. Then came the wonderful thought! I'll do tattoos for the people that ask about them and it'll pay for my "lifestyle." Of course as I got older (19-20ish) I stopped going out drinking, never met people at the bar to gain customers and business dried up. Not that i was worried really as it was just "beer money." Around that time I started a website with the goal to make some money online but nothing ever came of it.
Jump to 21 and I'm still working my crappy day job, now a father and desperately stuck doing the same thing day in day out I knew something had to change. I wanted to be RICH! How do people get rich? Own a business! So I gave myself until the end of the year to start a business doing something...anything, I didn't care as long as it could make me money. I came across a takeaway resteraunt that had been closed down for some time and was available for lease. A quick march to the bank it was to withdraw my life savings of £600, get a £1500 overdraft, max out my credit card and BOOM! We're in business!
As it turned out the 21 year old me who knew everything about the world still had a lot to learn. And a lot of growing up to do. Business was good ish. I always had compliments about the food and people loved the personal service I gave them. Problem was I'm taking in five grand a month and spending six. Having no money of my own I started getting stock on credit to pay the electric, skipping this bill to pay that and 9 months later I was cleaning out my store and locking the doors for the last time.
It wasn't a complete waste of effort though. I learned how to keep books, how to advertise, hiring and firing of employees, and generally what it takes to run a business. It's funny how failure is the best teaching method.
So broke, depressed, feeling like a useless failure and owing a lot of people a lot of money there was no other option than to go back to my "trade" fitting tyres for minimum wage. So with my tail between my legs and my head down, I stuffed away my ideas of being rich and went back to work. This business thing wasn't for me anyway. One night I was browsing a website for books to read having just finished my favourite book for the millionth time. I stumbled across a book: The Millionaire Fastlane - Crack the code to wealth and success. I don't know why I downloaded it (sorry MJ), perhaps the title sparked some of my previous dreams of success or something. After reading a few chapters something clicked, I'm not really sure how to explain it. The only other time I've heard something similar was when I was speaking to a Mormon gentleman. He said he picked up the book of Mormon and he just knew it was for him. Well I'm not a religious man or even spiritual but that's how I felt about The Millionaire Fastlane . I deleted the downloaded book without finishing it and immediately bought it. I loved it and immediately headed to the fastlane forum and into a wealth of information. Through some of my posts I've tried to help younger entrepreneurs that reminded me of myself at 21, and soaked up a heap of information for my own benefit.
I continued to work my job, pay my debts and visiting the forum trying to figure out a way out. A year later my wife took ill and I had to give up my job for a while to help run the house, help with the kids etc. It left me bored and feeling useless. I missed working, so I started another website (well 3 to be truthful). More for something to do than anything else. Something amazing happened, I don't know if it was luck or maybe it came from what I read on the forum but one of my websites made a sale, then another and another! I deleted the other two from the server and focused on the one that was making money.
After 3 months off and my wife being in better health I went back to work but kept up with the website at nights and weekends. It is now a year later and is making a reasonable amount and growing though affiliate ads and PPC. After analysing the other successes in the niche I was in i discovered recently that they were all using a certain advertiser to get most of their traffic. I decided to do the same and now my site is growing on a daily basis and is performing quite well.
Due to it doing well and growing I decided to quit my job and go to college (its free here) to learn software engineering. This decision was partly moved forward from reading UNSCRIPTED . The story about the guy in traffic really resonated with me and helped me decide I needed a big change! The theory of changing and going to college is that it'll help me learn things that'll help me with my online business, give me more time to work on the site than I would have in my 6 day per week job and itll also help my get a visa to the USA which has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.
And here we are. I plan on continuing to grow my site and move from affiliate marketing to selling my own product. I'm going to fund it using the money I am making from the site with affilate commissions as I have developed an understanding of the niche and have a good idea what people want through selling others products.
Thats it guys! If you made it this far thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments feel free to say something, I'd love to hear from you. I'm going to update this thread as and when things change and more happens, just to keep you guys updated. Hopefully it'll help others like many of the threads here have done for me.
At 18 years old I had my first business without even knowing it. Back then I was a bit of a party animal and at evenings and weekends I could be found canned up in a pub. I worked a day job but the amount of drinking I liked to do cost a lot more than minimum wage - go figure! I have a lot of tattoos which were a great conversation piece. I would always get approached, "Oh, they're cool! Where did you get them?" The answer was always the same. I did them myself. I love drawing and thought i'd put my talents to good use and do my own instead of paying some artist. Then came the wonderful thought! I'll do tattoos for the people that ask about them and it'll pay for my "lifestyle." Of course as I got older (19-20ish) I stopped going out drinking, never met people at the bar to gain customers and business dried up. Not that i was worried really as it was just "beer money." Around that time I started a website with the goal to make some money online but nothing ever came of it.
Jump to 21 and I'm still working my crappy day job, now a father and desperately stuck doing the same thing day in day out I knew something had to change. I wanted to be RICH! How do people get rich? Own a business! So I gave myself until the end of the year to start a business doing something...anything, I didn't care as long as it could make me money. I came across a takeaway resteraunt that had been closed down for some time and was available for lease. A quick march to the bank it was to withdraw my life savings of £600, get a £1500 overdraft, max out my credit card and BOOM! We're in business!
As it turned out the 21 year old me who knew everything about the world still had a lot to learn. And a lot of growing up to do. Business was good ish. I always had compliments about the food and people loved the personal service I gave them. Problem was I'm taking in five grand a month and spending six. Having no money of my own I started getting stock on credit to pay the electric, skipping this bill to pay that and 9 months later I was cleaning out my store and locking the doors for the last time.
It wasn't a complete waste of effort though. I learned how to keep books, how to advertise, hiring and firing of employees, and generally what it takes to run a business. It's funny how failure is the best teaching method.
So broke, depressed, feeling like a useless failure and owing a lot of people a lot of money there was no other option than to go back to my "trade" fitting tyres for minimum wage. So with my tail between my legs and my head down, I stuffed away my ideas of being rich and went back to work. This business thing wasn't for me anyway. One night I was browsing a website for books to read having just finished my favourite book for the millionth time. I stumbled across a book: The Millionaire Fastlane - Crack the code to wealth and success. I don't know why I downloaded it (sorry MJ), perhaps the title sparked some of my previous dreams of success or something. After reading a few chapters something clicked, I'm not really sure how to explain it. The only other time I've heard something similar was when I was speaking to a Mormon gentleman. He said he picked up the book of Mormon and he just knew it was for him. Well I'm not a religious man or even spiritual but that's how I felt about The Millionaire Fastlane . I deleted the downloaded book without finishing it and immediately bought it. I loved it and immediately headed to the fastlane forum and into a wealth of information. Through some of my posts I've tried to help younger entrepreneurs that reminded me of myself at 21, and soaked up a heap of information for my own benefit.
I continued to work my job, pay my debts and visiting the forum trying to figure out a way out. A year later my wife took ill and I had to give up my job for a while to help run the house, help with the kids etc. It left me bored and feeling useless. I missed working, so I started another website (well 3 to be truthful). More for something to do than anything else. Something amazing happened, I don't know if it was luck or maybe it came from what I read on the forum but one of my websites made a sale, then another and another! I deleted the other two from the server and focused on the one that was making money.
After 3 months off and my wife being in better health I went back to work but kept up with the website at nights and weekends. It is now a year later and is making a reasonable amount and growing though affiliate ads and PPC. After analysing the other successes in the niche I was in i discovered recently that they were all using a certain advertiser to get most of their traffic. I decided to do the same and now my site is growing on a daily basis and is performing quite well.
Due to it doing well and growing I decided to quit my job and go to college (its free here) to learn software engineering. This decision was partly moved forward from reading UNSCRIPTED . The story about the guy in traffic really resonated with me and helped me decide I needed a big change! The theory of changing and going to college is that it'll help me learn things that'll help me with my online business, give me more time to work on the site than I would have in my 6 day per week job and itll also help my get a visa to the USA which has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.
And here we are. I plan on continuing to grow my site and move from affiliate marketing to selling my own product. I'm going to fund it using the money I am making from the site with affilate commissions as I have developed an understanding of the niche and have a good idea what people want through selling others products.
Thats it guys! If you made it this far thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments feel free to say something, I'd love to hear from you. I'm going to update this thread as and when things change and more happens, just to keep you guys updated. Hopefully it'll help others like many of the threads here have done for me.
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