Journey: Using TikTok to Launch My Fastlane Idea

[Jessica Reid]

Hi everyone,

My name is Jessica. I'm 28 years old, a licensed attorney, and my goal is to leave my 9-5 by 30 and become completely unscripted by 32 (Meaning no debt and owning a million dollar business).

To hold myself accountable and committed to the teachings and principles of MJ DeMarco 's books, I have decided to share my process and journey to becoming Unscripted .

Unfortunately, It's taken a lot of time to get here.

The last time I was active in this group, I was getting ready to launch a planner. And despite the red flags and the fact that it violated the most important commandment of CENTS - need, I pushed on anyway because of all the work I had done up to that point.

In sum, it flopped.

With no other business ideas, I decided to lean into blogging since I have a passion for blogging, hoping that it would free me from my 9-5 in a year and a half.

I had no idea, however, about how I would turn my blog into a Fastlane business. I figured I might stumble upon an idea or a product as I chugged along, until that is, I read MJ DeMarco's latest book - Escaping the Rat Race.

I knew MJ DeMarco would call me out for blogging and cause me to doubt the business I was pursuing.

The chapter that did it for me was his talk on Passion. He said in sum and substance, "For the love of God, don't go pursuing your passion. Solve a problem."

It was a wrap. I knew I was making a poor time investment building a college advice blog that wasn't tethered to anything that would help me get onto the fastlane. I also knew where I needed to be looking for a problem - in Law.

For years, I ignored looking for problems to solve in law because I absolutely hate the practice of law and law school was torture.

I knew from the first semester I didn't want to be a lawyer and will never forget the thought that constantly ran through my mind that semester - "What did I get myself into??"

The workload didn't scare me. It was learning the "profession" and what "practicing law" actually meant in terms of work assignments that scared me. It was like walking into world championship fighting match that was about to begin with Mohammed Ali dancing in the ring and being told I was going to be the one fight him.

"The hell I'm not! I'm in the wrong room!"

Yeah, that's how I felt.

I didn't enjoy the dry, rules-oppressed, paper pushing work and had 0 interest in practicing.

Had I known before I spent $35,000 in student loans to kick off the first semester of law school that practicing law requires you to do x, y, and z, I would have never pursued law!!

I hated the fact that I was so knee deep in student loans, I had a useless degree (political science) that I couldn't fall back on, and hated that I felt like I had no choice but to keep going because "I'm a child of immigrant parents" and we don't give up. The stigma of being a law school dropout was too much for me at the time.

But I was extremely upset!

Why did I have to wait till law school to find this out??

My summer internship I had taken before law school shed absolutely no light on what practicing law looks like because I spent the summer shredding papers, filing documents away, and stapling things together.

And taking an entry level paralegal job wouldn't have made it any better because paralegals are just glorified secretaries who calendar and schedule meetings, file documents, draft basic correspondences, and draft complaints (some paralegals).

Few entry level paralegals get to do anything more substantive than that.

Anyway, I don't want another aspiring lawyer to have the same "Uh oh," moment I had the first semester of law school.

I want them to know what they are getting themselves into.

As such, I came up with a product to solve the "unknown" problem.

I won't say what it is right now because I'm too afraid that if I share the idea too early, then someone else might beat me to the punch.

And I suck at coming up with ideas!!

I'm afraid if I lose this one, I'll never get another as good as this one again.

And for those of you who are concerned about me launching a product in law despite my early hate comments above for the subject , don't get it twisted! ‍♀️

Even though I don't like practicing law and I hated law school, I freakin' gave my best at all times. I did fine in law school and freakin' killed the Bar exam. ‍♀️

In practice, I gave my best to my clients. I was regularly praised for my work. My employer was sad when I resigned to transition into a supportive litigation role, and even offered to keep me on as a consultant. I kindly declined.

So I have the knowledge and the expertise to do what I set out to do. Plus my product is for pre law students. Lol.

Anyway, I tested the idea out using MJ DeMarco's rate my business quiz and it checked out!!

It makes cents.

The only obvious struggle that the quiz warned me about and which I was aware of, is that I'll have some trouble in the beginning building momentum.

It a one and done product.

That's why building an email list to get this product off the ground is going to be so important.

I have decided to use TikTok to build my email list since my target audience (GenXers) hang out there.

I will post on TikTok every day Monday through Friday for about six months and direct them to my lead magnet.

Once I have at least 1000 subscribers, I'm going to send out a survey asking if they would be interested in said product to confirm interest/demand.

Once I have confirmation, I'll get to work on creating the product and prepare for a summer launch.

All the while, I hope to continue to grow my email list.

I'll also hope at some point to do a presale and get TikTok influencers as well as the legal publication community in on it to create hype for the product.

Then my goal is to launch the product next summer, June 2022.

If executed right and marketed well, I know this idea will make me tens of millions of dollars in the long run.

My ultimate goal is to scale the business and sell it. I already have the company in mind who I want to sell my product to. They are multi billion dollar company .

I want to scale and exit because as I mentioned before I don't like practicing law and really didn't want to get into law again.

I'm just ready to solve a much needed problem to get on the fastlane.

I'll pursue my passions after.

So far, I've posted two videos this week on TikTok. @prelawdijess.

The first one flopped (0 views as of now) because I forgot the phone must be held upright (vertical) to avoid the "movie bars."

The second video was posted this morning (I held it up this time) and has gotten 200+ views and counting.

I know with time I'll get better.

I'm super out of my element right now cuz I have no idea how to use the platform or the editing tools.

But I also know the massive potential and reach I'll have if I don't give up and figure it out.

As such, I'll be studying other videos and spend time learning the platform.

I already have a video in mind that I have a strong feeling will do very well but need my husband's help to film.

I'll share that video next week once I publish.

Right now, my only real fear is that I'll get discouraged and give up on TikTok if I don't gain any momentum/feedback from the platform.

But that's why I started this thread.

So that way despite how defeated I feel, I'll keep pushing on because Im being held accountable.

I'll report here once a week to share at the very least that I've published the videos.

Anyway, here are my Planasy goals:

• Leave my 9-5 by 30.
• Buy a Tesla by 30/31
• Pay off my student loans by 31/31
• Have a million dollar business by 32.
• Retire my husband by 31/32.
• By 35, sell my product for multiple millions ($30-50 million)
• Build my dream house by Toll Brothers by 35.
• Pay off my mother's medical school loans.
• Buy my sister a house.
• Buy vacation homes in Bahamas and Orlando Florida.
• Write a book
• Travel the world and all 50 states.
• Have four kids, a nanny, and a chef because I hate cooking.

If you read this... You're the best. Thanks so much for reading!!

I truly appreciate your time.

 

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