Hey All,
I guess it's been a while. I was a regular for a while, but haven't been on for some time. I can't find my old introductory post, so I suspect it got archived/deleted. I'll give the short of it here.
I'm a 28 year old Mechanical Engineer residing in the central valley of California. I've always been entrepreneurial minded. Throughout my life, I'd say I was always a hustler. When I was a kid, I was one of those kids that pushed their lawnmowers around the neighborhood soliciting landscaping services to anyone brave enough to let an eight year old mow their lawn. That spirit has stayed with me to this day. I always have a side job. Unfortunately none of these had the potential to really support me. They've only ever been good for a bit of extra "walking around money." The closest thing I've ever had to passive income is when I convinced about two dozen people in the dorms, when I was in university, to pay me $20 a month to use my internet so they wouldn't have to pay for their own.
I grew up a fairly typical tight budget middle class childhood, but thanks to a family member's address. I went to school with the rich kids. It left me with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, but also showed me that I'm not stuck with my current circumstances. I got a bit of insight into why wealthier families are wealthy and it gave me some great inspiration to become what I am today. I admit that my motivations to be an entrepreneur are not selfless in their entirety.
I became an engineer for one major purpose. I can build (and play with) cool toys. As a kid it was bikes (not really hardcore engineering by any stretch) but throughout college it was race cars, drones, and small electronics projects. When I got out of college, I started working for a pump manufacturer. I've been doing very well there, but I'd be a filthy liar if I said I was happy. Sure I occasionally get to work on cool projects (Wanda Vista Skyscraper, University of Alabama Football Stadium, etc.), but I never get to really experience the joy of taking my creations from their infancy all the way to the final installation at the end user. I sit in my cubicle, design my pumping system, hope the customer orders it, watch it through a window while it gets assembled, and then pray that it makes it through shipping without arriving on its side.
All this is well and good. It pays the bills (barely), but due to the crumby economy and job market, I'm not really raking it in and the stress of the job doesn't justify the pay. I've doubled my salary in the last two years and I'm a key asset within my department, but I've never really felt fulfilled. I'm left feeling frustrated knowing I've just made someone else a lot of money (occasionally 1/4 million before lunch!). Most of all, I don't have that fire for this job that I started with. To compound matters, recently my department was assigned a new manager. I want to continue to pursue engineering making awesome toys that people appreciate without all the drama and lack of appreciation that comes with a job.
I took my first serious stab at this about 15-ish months ago. I helped create a startup with some friends of friends from college. We came up with a really cool project and bootstrapped our way up to working prototypes. We got some initial funding and were off to a great start. Unfortunately, further development got tricky and we ran into a lot of stumbling blocks. The others decided that we needed help and hired an outside firm to tackle the bit that we were having issues with. The outsider firm was happy to oblige, but wanted to take over my section as well, since the problem bit worked in harmony with my duties. The founding guys made the vote and I was effectively kicked out of the company six months ago. It was a big blow to my morale, but I understand the business logic behind the decision. It eliminated finger pointing if the two parts of the product weren't in concert with each other and would get us to market faster since development would be under one roof. I currently retain a good share of stock in that company and they have been making great strides since my departure. It is possible that those six to eight months of work in that company might be all the work I'll ever need to put in to become financially independent, but I still want to create something of my own. (It's also possible that the company will flop and I'll never see a dime, but I'm really optimistic that they're onto something and will be successful.)
When I first wanted to go down the entrepreneurial path, I expected to need to do a few little businesses to raise capitol before graduating to my "high impact" business that had a great chance of making me financially independent. The business I spoke of above interrupted those musings temporarily. After leaving that company I toyed with and developing some of these smaller products and seeing what really goes into starting and managing a production company. After looking at the mountain I was going to climb and weighing the possible returns, I decided to skip straight to my big idea. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I think I can shake up an industry and make something really cool (okay... cool if you're an engineer.... just useful if you aren't) that will help solve a few problems in an industry.
P.S. I'll link to my original thread if I ever find it.
I guess it's been a while. I was a regular for a while, but haven't been on for some time. I can't find my old introductory post, so I suspect it got archived/deleted. I'll give the short of it here.
I'm a 28 year old Mechanical Engineer residing in the central valley of California. I've always been entrepreneurial minded. Throughout my life, I'd say I was always a hustler. When I was a kid, I was one of those kids that pushed their lawnmowers around the neighborhood soliciting landscaping services to anyone brave enough to let an eight year old mow their lawn. That spirit has stayed with me to this day. I always have a side job. Unfortunately none of these had the potential to really support me. They've only ever been good for a bit of extra "walking around money." The closest thing I've ever had to passive income is when I convinced about two dozen people in the dorms, when I was in university, to pay me $20 a month to use my internet so they wouldn't have to pay for their own.
I grew up a fairly typical tight budget middle class childhood, but thanks to a family member's address. I went to school with the rich kids. It left me with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, but also showed me that I'm not stuck with my current circumstances. I got a bit of insight into why wealthier families are wealthy and it gave me some great inspiration to become what I am today. I admit that my motivations to be an entrepreneur are not selfless in their entirety.
I became an engineer for one major purpose. I can build (and play with) cool toys. As a kid it was bikes (not really hardcore engineering by any stretch) but throughout college it was race cars, drones, and small electronics projects. When I got out of college, I started working for a pump manufacturer. I've been doing very well there, but I'd be a filthy liar if I said I was happy. Sure I occasionally get to work on cool projects (Wanda Vista Skyscraper, University of Alabama Football Stadium, etc.), but I never get to really experience the joy of taking my creations from their infancy all the way to the final installation at the end user. I sit in my cubicle, design my pumping system, hope the customer orders it, watch it through a window while it gets assembled, and then pray that it makes it through shipping without arriving on its side.
All this is well and good. It pays the bills (barely), but due to the crumby economy and job market, I'm not really raking it in and the stress of the job doesn't justify the pay. I've doubled my salary in the last two years and I'm a key asset within my department, but I've never really felt fulfilled. I'm left feeling frustrated knowing I've just made someone else a lot of money (occasionally 1/4 million before lunch!). Most of all, I don't have that fire for this job that I started with. To compound matters, recently my department was assigned a new manager. I want to continue to pursue engineering making awesome toys that people appreciate without all the drama and lack of appreciation that comes with a job.
I took my first serious stab at this about 15-ish months ago. I helped create a startup with some friends of friends from college. We came up with a really cool project and bootstrapped our way up to working prototypes. We got some initial funding and were off to a great start. Unfortunately, further development got tricky and we ran into a lot of stumbling blocks. The others decided that we needed help and hired an outside firm to tackle the bit that we were having issues with. The outsider firm was happy to oblige, but wanted to take over my section as well, since the problem bit worked in harmony with my duties. The founding guys made the vote and I was effectively kicked out of the company six months ago. It was a big blow to my morale, but I understand the business logic behind the decision. It eliminated finger pointing if the two parts of the product weren't in concert with each other and would get us to market faster since development would be under one roof. I currently retain a good share of stock in that company and they have been making great strides since my departure. It is possible that those six to eight months of work in that company might be all the work I'll ever need to put in to become financially independent, but I still want to create something of my own. (It's also possible that the company will flop and I'll never see a dime, but I'm really optimistic that they're onto something and will be successful.)
When I first wanted to go down the entrepreneurial path, I expected to need to do a few little businesses to raise capitol before graduating to my "high impact" business that had a great chance of making me financially independent. The business I spoke of above interrupted those musings temporarily. After leaving that company I toyed with and developing some of these smaller products and seeing what really goes into starting and managing a production company. After looking at the mountain I was going to climb and weighing the possible returns, I decided to skip straight to my big idea. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I think I can shake up an industry and make something really cool (okay... cool if you're an engineer.... just useful if you aren't) that will help solve a few problems in an industry.
P.S. I'll link to my original thread if I ever find it.
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