Late Intro

[CDM]

Sorry for the delay... I've been lurking for maybe a month now. But since I'm waiting around for my host site to reset my permissions, I figured I'd write this...

I've been an entrepreneur of sorts since I was seven, when a friend and I put fliers up in our neighborhood to kill bugs for people. We even made $10 from some old lady who admired our creativity.

Since then, I've done a long list of things, with varying amounts of success.

From 13-21 I was a professional musician (I moved out at 15)
I bred reptiles for a living from 22-28 (as both an employee and owning my own business)

During those times, I also worked a number of odd jobs from managing a Dominoes, to retail appliance sales, and outside sales.

In 2004 I had to liquidate my reptile business and move to San Diego to deal with family shit (far too complicated and not relevant enough to explain here).

Shortly after I got involved in an MLM. I drank the Kool-aid for about a year before realizing what a waste of time it was.

Around the same time I became obsessed with figuring out what seperates wealthy people from everybody else. I started a diet of reading a MINIMUM of one finance, business, or self improvement book a week... something I still do to this day.

In doing so, I became completely fascinated with the financial markets. Feeling a bit lost I decided I would go back to school, get a business degree, then become a financial advisor. So I did. I graduated in 2011, got my series 7 and 66, and spent all of 2012 as a licensed FA.

Somewhere during 2012 I heard something that has stuck with me since. Another more experienced FA was explaining his process to me and said, "people become wealthy only 3 ways: they inherit the money, they own real estate, or they own a business."

And I couldn't help thinking...'well, then what the F*ck am I doing?"

I kept going, not wanting to give up on something I had worked so hard for... but I couldn't get that statement out of my head. I tried to convince myself that I was "building my business," but it seemed like crap. If it was my business, then I wouldn't have a boss and wouldn't have to follow other people's rules.

Then in November I went on a week long hunting trip with my dad and my two brothers. The entire time I was there, all I could think about was how much I hated my job. Then when I got back to work, my boss saw my "idea bucket" (since I read 4 Hour Workweek in 2010 I've kept a list of business ideas and notes on my iPad) and chastised me for "not being committed 100%."

And it occurred to me that he was right. I simply didn't believe in the FA business anymore, which was an extremely depressing realization considering I had spent the last 3 years of my life either studying to be an FA or actually being one. I also came to the conclusion that I was over commission sales work (something I've done at least part time for ten years). If I had to work, I wanted a steady predictable paycheck so I could focus my efforts on actually building a business.

So I quit. Probably prematurely since I've spent the last 5 months unemployed. Thankfully, my wife makes good money as a high level graphic designer for a large corporation, which has kept us afloat.

During the last 5 months I spent a lot of time thinking about and adding to my idea bucket trying to figure out which of my ideas would have the best chance of success and that I could afford to put into action. One of those ideas was a video game, which I had no idea how to accomplish. But then it occurred to me that I could make it a card game relatively easily and rather cheaply. So I spent a couple months designing it and coming up with an execution plan.

Since then, my wife helped with the card designs and logo. I've had the game prototyped, tested, and prototyped again. My testers received the new prototypes yesterday and I'm waiting for feedback. I have packaging figured out and ordered. I've set up Adwords and FB campaigns that are ready to run as soon as I get feedback from the testers.

I've designed the website, and am just waiting on my wife to finish with a few product pics. I'm currently (as I type this) waiting for my host permissions to reset so I can upload the website I designed to my host.

I did recently get a job for an online brokerage and start in 2 weeks. It's a salary job working bankers hours, which will leave me plenty of time to focus on my business.

I didn't read FLM until about a month ago when most of the above was already well under way. After reading it, I was concerned that there might not be a big enough market for the game... however Adwords traffic estimator is estimating 15,000 impressions a day with my campaigns, so there is still hope. I also know that there is at least one other game that is similar that sells well. And frankly, I think that game sucks a$$ and mine is much better.

FML really validated a lot of conclusions that I've drawn on my own regarding money, investing, business...etc., but it also pointed out a number of things that I had not thought of before. I especially like the fact that is squashed the "follow your passions" crap. I was definitely hung up on that in the past. And I was relieved that it didn't spew more law of attraction.

Anyways, I'm completely ready to fail when I launch my game (hopefully 2 weeks? depends on feedback). If it does fail, I learned a TON in the last few months getting it ready and trying to launch it and can easily translate that information to the next project I decide to work on. But I also think it has great potential to do well. We will find out soon enough. = )

 

Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member: Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)