Slowcoach to the fastlane

[pawon]

I've been lurking on the forums for a while.. time for an introduction.

38 years old. Married. Two kids.

The history

Let's start at the beginning... it's a long story and I will try to keep it short.

I still remember I was 14 years old, walking around school with just 1 though in my head.. I had just found out it was possible to put a website online, myself, for free... I couldn't believe it.

The year was 1996. Most of the kids in my class had never even been on the internet. I used to cycle 20 minutes to the local university library a few times a week, to be able to work on my sites.

I don't think CSS even existed, it was all just pure HTML, with table, buttons, images - all that good stuff! I didn't even have a domain name it was on a subdomain with an ugly banner ad, which I had clever ways for to hide).

At some point, I found out it was possible to make money online! Wow! I was determined to do it. But I was alone. My friends didn't understand anything of it. My parents thought I was crazy.

I must have been 15 or 16 when I made my first $ online. I had a free account at xoom.com (it was still a webhosting company back then) where I had a few websites about different topics and I made some money with affiliate links.

The checks were mailed to me every month, all the way to The Netherlands. Checks were anywhere from $10 to $80, maybe more (don't remember) - I didn't cache them because it was costly to cash the checks, so I would collect them, and once I had a decent amount, send them back (to the USA) and they would consolidate them into 1 big check.

Even at this time, my parents where skeptical - yeah, I received some paper check (either fake or real) form the USA - could still be a scam.

I remember the first time I went to the bank to cash my check. “smiling all the way to the bank” is what comes to mind but to be honest, I was a little nervous. Never cached a check before (they're not widely/not used in Holland) - had no idea how those things work - the bank clerk might think I try to scam him - what does a 16 y/o kid to with a check from the USA? He took me apart in one of those meeting rooms and told me to wait...

15 minutes later I was outside. With the $$$

YES!

Now this would be a great intro to a story how I made millions of dollars online... but (unfortunately) that's not the case. (or better, not yet).

Taking it (too) slow - unfocused - mediocre

I'm a slowcoach... I was not focused. After the initial success, those websites slowly died. I had many different ‘websites’ about many different subjects, but never really pushed through. Tried many different things.. affiliate, ‘business opportunities’ with resale rights (those where HOT). Remember Corey Rudl? He was the man back then (rip).

Years later, I had an e-commerce store (imported backup camera's from china myself in small batches (Aliexpress wasn't a thing yet), simply by DHL - stored it in a spare bedroom). That store did around 1000 euro's per month - ran that one for 2 years. Looking back, could have done a LOT more with that store - it just let it ran on ‘auto pilot’ for many months.

All the while I was building my ‘slow lane’ career... which went reasonably well, money was enough to live on, go on vacation, you know.. slow lane.

Slow lane exit

we (me and my wife) had enough of the slowlane life, or where it was taking us (more of the same, work for the weekend, etc).

So we decided to sell all our stuff, quit our jobs and move to Malaysia (she was born there but basically grew up in Holland). This was in 2013.

Since we still needed money to live on (we had some savings, - I started freelancing (web development). Had my first real client after a week or two of posting on forums and replying to postings. Made a fantastic website for him for way too little (and he was a high maintenance customer) - but $500 goes a long way in Malaysia and it gave me confidence “I can do this". Found more clients, some great, some easy, some difficult - got scammed out of a few thousand dollars (delivered work, he was like a middle man, but decided to keep the money himself - lesson learned).
It was a roller-coaster time - ups and downs. Stress and happiness and everything in between.

Eventually found 1 customer who had so much work, I basically worked just for them most of the time (anywhere from 1500 to 4500 EUR a month).

Life was good.

Until they went bankrupt.

Another lesson learned (no real other clients, no prospects in the pipeline, etc).

... got back up.

The F#&* this moment

All those years, besides the freelance work to pay the bills, I had a separate project, a website about a particular highly technical niche, which was doing actually quite well visitor-wise. I wrote a book and started selling it. Added a course later and another book.

That business is generating around $1000 a month - best month ever was $3500.

But, I KNOW it can do a lot better. My problem is - I loose focus and start slacking, get interested in other things (had some bad cases of shiny object syndrome).

I learned I have a tendency to accept mediocrity. If it's doing ‘ok’ , I stop caring. I also have a hard time dividing my time between this website and my freelance work. Some months I put a lot of effort into the website which hurts my freelance work, other months, I am so over my head into freelance work, I completely forget about the other website.

We had a rough couple of months in oct/nov/dec .. basically all bad things came together at the wrong time (website tanked, some bad customers, slow payers, etc, etc) .. and I had my F*($ THIS moment.


Situation Right Now

Right now we are living in Andalucia, south of Spain.

I started reading the Millionaire Fastlane this week. Not sure in which lane I am right now.

But I'm going for that FASTLANE. 100% sure.

Since freelancing is not fastlane, my main focus now is the website in the technical niche (btw I learned the skills I share on that site in one of my slowlane engineering jobs).

I still do freelance work - the bills have to be paid. Again, I find myself in a situation where I have a big client that keeps me busy for most of the time - but I make sure to keep some other clients on. As I said, lesson learned.

My goal is to hit 10k/month for the technical niche website, this year.

I'm thinking about starting a progress thread about this. It will help me to keep on track and accountable and hopefully help some of you guys.

Why I'm here

This place is simply AMAZING. Can't believe how much energy it gives me to read all these stories, advice, the generosity. Everything. The lack of guru-ness, etc.

To be honest, the life we chose can be lonely at times. Glad to have found some like-minded people here.

Thanks MJ for creating this place.

I'll try to give back as much as I can.

 

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[Andy Daniels]

Fup'v apfiswemai zuas gsiimepdoph hoht, iwip vjuahj ov fuitp'v jov emm vji Getvmepi dunnepfnipvt, muvt ug gumlt huv vjios tvesv gsiimepdoph.

Ci tasi vu emtu figopi zuas "Xjzt". Vjuti esi xjev xomm mohjv vji gosi apfis zuas ett vu fu vji xusl xjip vonit hiv siemmz jesf, us xjip zua medl nuvowevoup.

Cuvvun mopi ot, og zua siemmz xepv ov, zua jewi vu hu uav vjisi epf hiv ov. Jatvmi. Howi vu uvjist. Tumwi piift. Veli edvoup.


Citv ug madl,
Epfz

 

[richstone.io]

Zua jewi tuni onqsittowi tvusz notvis, epf zua'wi caomf raovi tuni tvagg emsiefz! O en tasi zua xomm hiv vjisi xovj tuni duptotvipdz, epf et zua fitdsoci ov zuastimg, xovj tuni "qatjoph vjsuahj".

Nez O etl zua, xjz jewi zua migv Nemeztoe gus Epfemadoe?
O epf nz xogi esi emtu up e duptvepv sofi piesis vu vji tap (Nutdux -> Cismop -> Cesdimupe -> Cismop) epf O en dasouat xjev zua jewi miespif gsun emm vjev vsewimoph. Fu zua vjopl, zua'f jewi jef nusi duptotvipdz og, gus iyenqmi, zua'wi tvezif op vji Pivjismepft?

Xjev't zuas vidj podji emm ecuav? Ev mietv xjodj fosidvoup, og ov't dupgofipvoem