Hey guys! I've been lurking on the forum for a few months now, but I've finally decided to come on in and join the party instead of just peeping through the window. I am almost done with reading the book and have already read through all the gold threads. I definitely like what you guys have going on here and I'd love to be a part of it!
I apologize in advance for the lengthy intro...
Background:
I grew up as the mischievous middle child of an upper-middle class family the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. We weren't rich, but we weren't hurting financially. My whole family is pretty close minded and risk adverse which lead them to live life in the slowlane and work corporate jobs. I understand that entrepreneurship isn't for everyone and that's completely fine, but I'll be dammed if I follow in my family's footsteps and work for the same company for 40 years just to retire old and regret never working on my dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur and being able to live life the way I truly want.
Anyways, I always knew I liked business even from a young age. I've always been the idea guy and always seem to come up with the best ideas, inventions, business models (or at least I think they're awesome lol).
So who wants to hear a story about how how much of an idiot I am?
Of course you do!!! haha
So I wanna start off by saying that this was during my very naive early college years. Not sure why that's supposed to matter, but I guess it makes me feel a little better throwing that out there lol. Like I said , I've always been the ideas guy and always come up with cool product inventions. Soo one day I was laying around my room watching tv and then one of those invent help commercials happened to come on... Yep. I did it. I called the number. Why? Simply because I was always curious if they could actually help a kid like me with nothing but an idea and no money at all. Instead of pitching them one of my not so great ideas, I idiotically pitched one of my favorite ideas because that's what I had done the most research and (rough) design for. After giving my pitch, explaining the design, and explaining the use and how this could be scaled into a great consumer product, the guy loved the idea and actually seemed excited about it. A few days later I got a call back from this company saying that they had looked over my idea with their team and decided it was a solid product and had not found any other product similar to mine. They wanted to move on with finding a supplier to get a prototype made and then get this thing to the market. I was getting really excited at this point and started seeing green. But first they needed money to hire a patent lawyer to do more extensive research to make sure we weren't going to violate any existing patents. I was immediately devastated because I was just a broke college student at the time and I knew for a fact my parents wouldn't lend me the hundreds of dollars because they knew I should be focusing on getting my grades up instead of "wasting time on other things". Game over for me. Sure, there are other ways I could've raised the money or could've just walked away, crowdfunded or bootstrapped it and made it happen myself, but I didn't.
Fast forward about a year or so and whaddaya know.... The Hoverboard was launched and soon became a hugeeee hit worldwide. I was furious. These guys literally made millions off of my invention while I was left broke. I know some people probably won't believe it and might think it was just coincidence, but it's hard to argue when these things were literally the exact same thing I pitched using the same design and technology. Lesson learned. But at the same time I got validation that with execution my ideas could become majorly successful. But like one of my favorite entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuck says, Ideas are shit. Everybody has ideas. They guy/girl that executes the best and the quickest wins.
Today:
I graduated May 2016 from the University of Alabama with a marketing degree, concentration in entrepreneurship, and with a UA sales certification. Needing to get a job to save up money for future ventures, I moved to Atlanta and got a job in logistics (primarily because of the company culture and a little previous knowledge of logistics). It's very low paying with my degree but I have learned a lot about logistics and supply chains that will help me in the long run with my future businesses. I also recently got engaged so obviously a lot of my time and money are going to the wedding and honeymoon. In the meantime, I am still just reading and learning more about online marketing and SEO so after the honeymoon, it's time to execute.
Sorry for the long intro, but thanks for reading and I am happy to finally be a part of the fastlane community!
I apologize in advance for the lengthy intro...
Background:
I grew up as the mischievous middle child of an upper-middle class family the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. We weren't rich, but we weren't hurting financially. My whole family is pretty close minded and risk adverse which lead them to live life in the slowlane and work corporate jobs. I understand that entrepreneurship isn't for everyone and that's completely fine, but I'll be dammed if I follow in my family's footsteps and work for the same company for 40 years just to retire old and regret never working on my dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur and being able to live life the way I truly want.
Anyways, I always knew I liked business even from a young age. I've always been the idea guy and always seem to come up with the best ideas, inventions, business models (or at least I think they're awesome lol).
So who wants to hear a story about how how much of an idiot I am?
Of course you do!!! haha
So I wanna start off by saying that this was during my very naive early college years. Not sure why that's supposed to matter, but I guess it makes me feel a little better throwing that out there lol. Like I said , I've always been the ideas guy and always come up with cool product inventions. Soo one day I was laying around my room watching tv and then one of those invent help commercials happened to come on... Yep. I did it. I called the number. Why? Simply because I was always curious if they could actually help a kid like me with nothing but an idea and no money at all. Instead of pitching them one of my not so great ideas, I idiotically pitched one of my favorite ideas because that's what I had done the most research and (rough) design for. After giving my pitch, explaining the design, and explaining the use and how this could be scaled into a great consumer product, the guy loved the idea and actually seemed excited about it. A few days later I got a call back from this company saying that they had looked over my idea with their team and decided it was a solid product and had not found any other product similar to mine. They wanted to move on with finding a supplier to get a prototype made and then get this thing to the market. I was getting really excited at this point and started seeing green. But first they needed money to hire a patent lawyer to do more extensive research to make sure we weren't going to violate any existing patents. I was immediately devastated because I was just a broke college student at the time and I knew for a fact my parents wouldn't lend me the hundreds of dollars because they knew I should be focusing on getting my grades up instead of "wasting time on other things". Game over for me. Sure, there are other ways I could've raised the money or could've just walked away, crowdfunded or bootstrapped it and made it happen myself, but I didn't.
Fast forward about a year or so and whaddaya know.... The Hoverboard was launched and soon became a hugeeee hit worldwide. I was furious. These guys literally made millions off of my invention while I was left broke. I know some people probably won't believe it and might think it was just coincidence, but it's hard to argue when these things were literally the exact same thing I pitched using the same design and technology. Lesson learned. But at the same time I got validation that with execution my ideas could become majorly successful. But like one of my favorite entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuck says, Ideas are shit. Everybody has ideas. They guy/girl that executes the best and the quickest wins.
Today:
I graduated May 2016 from the University of Alabama with a marketing degree, concentration in entrepreneurship, and with a UA sales certification. Needing to get a job to save up money for future ventures, I moved to Atlanta and got a job in logistics (primarily because of the company culture and a little previous knowledge of logistics). It's very low paying with my degree but I have learned a lot about logistics and supply chains that will help me in the long run with my future businesses. I also recently got engaged so obviously a lot of my time and money are going to the wedding and honeymoon. In the meantime, I am still just reading and learning more about online marketing and SEO so after the honeymoon, it's time to execute.
Sorry for the long intro, but thanks for reading and I am happy to finally be a part of the fastlane community!
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