Hi everyone,
first of all I'd like to say thank you to MJ and this community! You guys are awesome, an inspiration, and - oh boy - do you make me feel inadequate!
In this post I want to introduce myself. I will tell you a bit about
About myself:
I´m a 35yo guy from Germany working at a company in the optics sector (the company is named after the founder and even mentioned by MJ in Unscripted ). I´ve been a project manager for the last 4 years and recently switched within the company to team lead in one of the R&D departments. Before entering the workforce, I majored in chemistry with a focus on physical chemistry where I also got my PhD.
How I got in contact with the Fastlane
Let me start at the beginning. I got raised as the perfect slowlaner. My parents had always had high expectations of me but in the typical Slowlaner way: good grades and - even more important - not making mistakes. As you can probably guess my parents aren´t exactly risk-takers or people who rock the boat. So I followed the Script: left school as top 3 of my class, went to university, graduated with excellent grades, and finished up with a PhD. All with the goal to get a good job afterwards. And I don´t want to complain. I make 140k dollars for a job that is quite interesing and leaves me a lot of freedom. Things good be way worse and I´m probably one of the more successful Slowlaners. But I´ll quote MJ here: "Even if you´re winning the rat race, you´re still a rat".
A couple years back I started to think that there must be something more. I always knew that you will never get wealthy with a job, but my Scripted environment reinforced me with the idea that pursuing business is a bad idea ("Do you think you´re the first to think about that? There have been smarter people before you - and they failed!"). So, I dropped the idea for some time but got back to it about 1 year ago. While doing research on the internet I stumbled - you might guess it - upon TMF . Funny enough, I do associate TMF and MJ with the Greek island of Crete! Why? I took the book with me for vacation and devoured it. I have to hand it to MJ: I´ve never been one to lie on the beach for more than 3 days without getting bored. But with the book in hand I had no issue whatsoever.
I remember reading the pages and repeatedly thinking "Yes! Yes! He´s obviously right! I knew I wasn´t crazy to think that way!". I read pages and I it was so refreshing that I often re-read the paragraphs but this time aloud to my gf lying next to me (and so much that she eventually got annoyed: "That´s enough of MJ for today, alright?!"
). After our return I also read Unscripted and finally the TGRE shortly after its release while again on Crete (we actually wanted to go to SE Asia but thanks Corona!).
What I did afterwards
I read several books about entrepreneurship and even though interesting, they were not what I needed. Many of those books try to motivate you to start a business and give advice on what to do AFTER you have already started your business. None of them talk about how to START which is obvious. The whole point of starting a business is that there can't be a How-To Book about it. Well, I was hoping for it anyway.
I´ve been trying to tune my antenna to issues and at the same time decided I should learn a new skill. It always bothered me that I couldn´t code so I started learning about a year ago and have gotten pretty decent at web design (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Redux...) and Python. I finished some smaller full-stack projects.
Unfortunately, I still don´t have a business in the making, which brings us to the next paragraph.
Where my struggles lie
I´d be very happy to get some outside feedback with the following! I´ve had a hard time figuring out what business to pursue and I´ve been reflecting on why that might be and what to do about it. Here´s what I came up with:
a) was coding. And while I'm quite proud of what I've done, it hasn't resulted in a business idea. And 'tuning' in to problems works but I guess you really need to find a problem sweetspot, i.e. it must be a problem worth solving and tough enough (entry) to solve but also not too tough (requiring 10 years of training is not feasible). I guess that most people starting a business do have a LOT of domain experience already and not only see the problem but also have a decent idea on HOW to solve it. The knowledge on how to solve a problem is the hard part after all.
What was it like for you? Did you have (most of) the skill you needed for your business when starting or did you find a problem first and required the skill later? How long did that take you?
One of my definite strengths is my absolute dedication to 'customer' satisfaction. I just love when I can help people, provide real value and get positive feedback ("Wow, that was exactly what I needed!", "You've really helped me, great work!"...). I just wish I had a way to provide more value at greater scale. But the positive feedback loop should be familiar with anyone on this forum anyway!
Well, that was a wall of text. I hope it was not too boring. Thanks for taking the time if you made it this far. Again, you guys really are an inspiration. Entrepreneurship is probably one of the toughest things to do and you guys are doing it!
All the best!
first of all I'd like to say thank you to MJ and this community! You guys are awesome, an inspiration, and - oh boy - do you make me feel inadequate!
In this post I want to introduce myself. I will tell you a bit about
- myself
- how I got in contact with the Fastlane and this forum
- what I did afterwards and where my struggles lie.
About myself:
I´m a 35yo guy from Germany working at a company in the optics sector (the company is named after the founder and even mentioned by MJ in Unscripted ). I´ve been a project manager for the last 4 years and recently switched within the company to team lead in one of the R&D departments. Before entering the workforce, I majored in chemistry with a focus on physical chemistry where I also got my PhD.
How I got in contact with the Fastlane
Let me start at the beginning. I got raised as the perfect slowlaner. My parents had always had high expectations of me but in the typical Slowlaner way: good grades and - even more important - not making mistakes. As you can probably guess my parents aren´t exactly risk-takers or people who rock the boat. So I followed the Script: left school as top 3 of my class, went to university, graduated with excellent grades, and finished up with a PhD. All with the goal to get a good job afterwards. And I don´t want to complain. I make 140k dollars for a job that is quite interesing and leaves me a lot of freedom. Things good be way worse and I´m probably one of the more successful Slowlaners. But I´ll quote MJ here: "Even if you´re winning the rat race, you´re still a rat".
A couple years back I started to think that there must be something more. I always knew that you will never get wealthy with a job, but my Scripted environment reinforced me with the idea that pursuing business is a bad idea ("Do you think you´re the first to think about that? There have been smarter people before you - and they failed!"). So, I dropped the idea for some time but got back to it about 1 year ago. While doing research on the internet I stumbled - you might guess it - upon TMF . Funny enough, I do associate TMF and MJ with the Greek island of Crete! Why? I took the book with me for vacation and devoured it. I have to hand it to MJ: I´ve never been one to lie on the beach for more than 3 days without getting bored. But with the book in hand I had no issue whatsoever.
I remember reading the pages and repeatedly thinking "Yes! Yes! He´s obviously right! I knew I wasn´t crazy to think that way!". I read pages and I it was so refreshing that I often re-read the paragraphs but this time aloud to my gf lying next to me (and so much that she eventually got annoyed: "That´s enough of MJ for today, alright?!"
). After our return I also read Unscripted and finally the TGRE shortly after its release while again on Crete (we actually wanted to go to SE Asia but thanks Corona!).What I did afterwards
I read several books about entrepreneurship and even though interesting, they were not what I needed. Many of those books try to motivate you to start a business and give advice on what to do AFTER you have already started your business. None of them talk about how to START which is obvious. The whole point of starting a business is that there can't be a How-To Book about it. Well, I was hoping for it anyway.
I´ve been trying to tune my antenna to issues and at the same time decided I should learn a new skill. It always bothered me that I couldn´t code so I started learning about a year ago and have gotten pretty decent at web design (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Redux...) and Python. I finished some smaller full-stack projects.
Unfortunately, I still don´t have a business in the making, which brings us to the next paragraph.
Where my struggles lie
I´d be very happy to get some outside feedback with the following! I´ve had a hard time figuring out what business to pursue and I´ve been reflecting on why that might be and what to do about it. Here´s what I came up with:
- I'm a terrible consumer.
That means I spent very little money on things. With most products I do not see the benefit in contrast to what is already available (example: do I need an apple cutter when a normal knife can do just the same and doesn´t require any extra space AND is easier to clean?). I'm not even trying intentionally to be a frugal savings rat. Most of the time I really don´t see the point. As a 'side effect' of this behavior I have saved up more than 300k, mostly invested in the stock market (I know it won´t make me rich, just to keep it decently save from inflation and maybe make small profits). That is a disadvantage, however because I misjudge opportunities. Example: I´m watching the German version of Shark Tank and think "That product helps no one and doesn´t provide value! No one is going to want it!" and the investors are like "Shut up and take my money!". I guess I just need to get calibrated here. Anyone has had a similar problem? How did you go about it?
- I believe I have no specialized skill.
MJ is right. You need to have a specialized skill you can use to create or improve something, not 'manage it'. Engineers know how to really design physical products. Software engineers do the same in the virtual world. A great salesman directly increases revenue. I feel like that as a project manager I don't provide a skill that can really solve a problem and help people.
a) was coding. And while I'm quite proud of what I've done, it hasn't resulted in a business idea. And 'tuning' in to problems works but I guess you really need to find a problem sweetspot, i.e. it must be a problem worth solving and tough enough (entry) to solve but also not too tough (requiring 10 years of training is not feasible). I guess that most people starting a business do have a LOT of domain experience already and not only see the problem but also have a decent idea on HOW to solve it. The knowledge on how to solve a problem is the hard part after all.
What was it like for you? Did you have (most of) the skill you needed for your business when starting or did you find a problem first and required the skill later? How long did that take you?
One of my definite strengths is my absolute dedication to 'customer' satisfaction. I just love when I can help people, provide real value and get positive feedback ("Wow, that was exactly what I needed!", "You've really helped me, great work!"...). I just wish I had a way to provide more value at greater scale. But the positive feedback loop should be familiar with anyone on this forum anyway!
Well, that was a wall of text. I hope it was not too boring. Thanks for taking the time if you made it this far. Again, you guys really are an inspiration. Entrepreneurship is probably one of the toughest things to do and you guys are doing it!
All the best!
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