Erock87
Regular Contributor
I am new to posting here, and generally new to lurking as well.
A little about me: I am 26 and a Military Intelligence officer in the Army National Guard, and I spent a year in Afghanistan a couple years ago. Civilian side, I went to a strong business school, got a degree in actuarial sciences, and have worked for a global actuarial consulting firm since I graduated college in 2010 (save for my one year journey to Afghanistan). My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world in November of 2012, and by relative means we have been very successful. We both work jobs that pay us more than our peers, we live in a very nice $400k house about 30 minutes west of Boston, we own another house about 40 minutes south of Boston that we rent out and make about $400 a month on, and are not in any sort of debt (aside from our mortgage). The entrepreneur in me decided to go to storage / estate auctions last February, and I opened an eBay store around that time. While business has not been booming per se, it has padded our accounts with a couple extra hundred bucks a month. Being an actuary, I diligently track our finances, and our liquid assets grow about $2,500 per month, which is very comfortable for our age. Without a doubt, I know that if we continue at this pace for another 10 or 15 years, we will be in control and have leverage of our future.
But then I found this forum, and I ordered TMF . I am only about half-way through the book, but I will continue reading while I pursue my opportunities.
I've only made one post thus far, and it was in HfR's thread about how he inspired me to finish and publish my first book of about 12k words to KDP. While sales are not taking off, I am roughly 8k words into my second book (at this pace I expect it to end up somewhere between 16k - 20k), and this time I outsourced the cover to someone on fiverr.
But my larger vision involves a website linking consumers with producers by different means online. Without getting into too much detail, my ultimate goal is for producers to pay a nominal monthly fee to list on our site. I know I can add value to both consumers and producers, and I honestly don't see how producers can not want to invest in this, but I'm sure I'll encounter the road bumps along the way. Once the site is up and running, and I have dedicated producers on a monthly basis, my involvement will be minimal (I can relate it "watering" the site, similar to MJ's reference from TMF ).
I have spent the past few days interviewing multiple candidates on oDesk (I have no knowledge on web design, my expertise lies in numbers and analysis), and I have finally hired a candidate for my job. My website is underway, and should be up in 2-3 weeks.
In the interim, my goal is create a short powerpoint that I can brief to local producers, outlining the value that can be added by working with me. In terms of users, once I have troubleshooted the site enough, I will advertise locally and work on building a local database. My goal is to make it functional on a micro-level now - my immediate county as therein lies half a million users. If successful, then I would look to expanding, but my goal is to perfect the process on a small scale first.
I know progress threads are always encouraged, so here is mine. I plan on keeping my job (having a child makes me want security, I can't imagine putting his needs in danger), but my ultimate goal is to be self-employed through a site similar to this.
Oh and on a side note, I pick out tidbits to read to my wife as well. She has submitted her first project on oDesk for an app idea she has, and she is about a week away from hiring someone for it.
We've always been entrepreneurial and driven, but this book was the kick in the butt I needed. I'm not getting any younger, and if not now, then when? Looking forward to learning from mistakes, and striving to separate my time from my money!
A little about me: I am 26 and a Military Intelligence officer in the Army National Guard, and I spent a year in Afghanistan a couple years ago. Civilian side, I went to a strong business school, got a degree in actuarial sciences, and have worked for a global actuarial consulting firm since I graduated college in 2010 (save for my one year journey to Afghanistan). My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world in November of 2012, and by relative means we have been very successful. We both work jobs that pay us more than our peers, we live in a very nice $400k house about 30 minutes west of Boston, we own another house about 40 minutes south of Boston that we rent out and make about $400 a month on, and are not in any sort of debt (aside from our mortgage). The entrepreneur in me decided to go to storage / estate auctions last February, and I opened an eBay store around that time. While business has not been booming per se, it has padded our accounts with a couple extra hundred bucks a month. Being an actuary, I diligently track our finances, and our liquid assets grow about $2,500 per month, which is very comfortable for our age. Without a doubt, I know that if we continue at this pace for another 10 or 15 years, we will be in control and have leverage of our future.
But then I found this forum, and I ordered TMF . I am only about half-way through the book, but I will continue reading while I pursue my opportunities.
I've only made one post thus far, and it was in HfR's thread about how he inspired me to finish and publish my first book of about 12k words to KDP. While sales are not taking off, I am roughly 8k words into my second book (at this pace I expect it to end up somewhere between 16k - 20k), and this time I outsourced the cover to someone on fiverr.
But my larger vision involves a website linking consumers with producers by different means online. Without getting into too much detail, my ultimate goal is for producers to pay a nominal monthly fee to list on our site. I know I can add value to both consumers and producers, and I honestly don't see how producers can not want to invest in this, but I'm sure I'll encounter the road bumps along the way. Once the site is up and running, and I have dedicated producers on a monthly basis, my involvement will be minimal (I can relate it "watering" the site, similar to MJ's reference from TMF ).
I have spent the past few days interviewing multiple candidates on oDesk (I have no knowledge on web design, my expertise lies in numbers and analysis), and I have finally hired a candidate for my job. My website is underway, and should be up in 2-3 weeks.
In the interim, my goal is create a short powerpoint that I can brief to local producers, outlining the value that can be added by working with me. In terms of users, once I have troubleshooted the site enough, I will advertise locally and work on building a local database. My goal is to make it functional on a micro-level now - my immediate county as therein lies half a million users. If successful, then I would look to expanding, but my goal is to perfect the process on a small scale first.
I know progress threads are always encouraged, so here is mine. I plan on keeping my job (having a child makes me want security, I can't imagine putting his needs in danger), but my ultimate goal is to be self-employed through a site similar to this.
Oh and on a side note, I pick out tidbits to read to my wife as well. She has submitted her first project on oDesk for an app idea she has, and she is about a week away from hiring someone for it.
We've always been entrepreneurial and driven, but this book was the kick in the butt I needed. I'm not getting any younger, and if not now, then when? Looking forward to learning from mistakes, and striving to separate my time from my money!
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