Post: #26

(12-03-2016 05:35 PM)ceowannabe Wrote:  

(12-03-2016 06:00 AM)Rawmeo Wrote:  I'll be happy to meet you whenever you come to Thailand, shoot me a PM if you ever come by.

Thailand is the place to be for people like me, huh?
I see a lot of entrepreneurs go there.

Let's say Pattaya is for who has plenty of money and little "romance".

Post: #27

(12-02-2016 04:07 PM)ceowannabe Wrote:  I'm 23 y\o immigrant from Russia (since 13). I grew up poor and from young age was very passionate to change that. I quit school at 17 and started working 2 jobs instead. At 19 i saved up and started my own business. It's been rough for a long time. 2 years i lived on rice and water only, i was focused 100% on business, nothing else on my mind, I was (am) working 18-19 hours a day. Almost always forgetting to eat. Always have "shit" to deal with. I never been on a vacation or had time to watch TV, play video games, party or what other guys my age do. I didnt tried weed or been drunk in my life, I was just a work monster.
Today I'm 23 and that's my situation:

I'm set financially. I make at least 50k$ a month whether I worked or slept 24h a day. My business growing month by month. Bought house with no mortgage. That's the only "good" thing in my life.

No social life at all. I have 1 "friend" which is employee. I was only focusing on my business my whole adult life.

-Lack of "romantic" expirience. I had 1 gf for very short period of time long time ago. It doesnt help that I'm kinda shy. That's the thing bugging me the most.

Im asking you for advice... what would you do if you were me.
I do most of the work on the laptop now, i dont have to physically go there. Actually my business blew up after I "hacked" the "online game" which gives me huge advantage over my competitors in my area.
So I'm free in terms of location. I'm free financially. But..
Now i want to enjoy my life more. Less workoholic - more being normal human being.
Thing is I'm kinda stuck. Idk where to start. Should i fly aboard? Where the hell I'm suppost to find "social life" from zero?
What would u do if u were me? :\
Thanks

Its an interesting question. Not least because I'm considering some of the themes for myself right now.

Let me explain. Like you, I left my country of birth at 13. Since then I've been ultra focussed on my business and haven't considered "getting a job" for a long, long time. I don't really "get" some people, and I've seen friendships, even whole circles of friends come and go again in recent years. Not my "fault", some were toxic people, others just faded away. I'm of Russian descent on my father's side, and was looking at settling with a Russian girl til things all fucked up recently. Anyway, now I'm thinking "business is fine, time to focus on winning life". I'm seriously looking at moving to Russia in 2017. My social skills are good, but .. I need to start concentrating on life not business again.

OK on your situation. 1stly congratulations on what you've done so far. You really need to protect what you've done. Never take things for granted with it. And never think that splashing money can enhance your life and relationships. If people try and guilt trip you, be firm, or even cut them off temporary or permanent.

Try and get some balance in your life. Otherwise you will feel drained. There's a pattern of people asking qs here saying "what should I do?" just before some sort of "crunch event" occurs.

Be methodical about building a life. Friends, hobbies, pussy, community stuff etc. You can't learn and succeed at everything all at once. What sort of life, friends, hobbies, girls do you want? What interests you? Life doesn't just "happen", it needs management, a keen eye, strength of decisionmaking and self-honesty. Your business is cold hard logic. But life has its own "logic".
Example: in school and college I did martial arts (still do). Problem is, it meant I didn't play football or rugby. Which meant, I found it far harder to settle in the "cool crew". I had my reasons to do martial arts, but if I'd realised "avoiding football/rugby will stop cool friendships and lots of pussy" would I have concentrated on martial arts? Erm, nope, not in those years. To me, life is full of these sorts of decisions. You have to do these things to get in with people, no matter how illogical or bizarre they are. And you will get the rewards back.

A mentor like Suits would be great for you. I'd think of it almost like a business plan. But brief, punchey, realistic and scaleable. Who do you want to be? Do you like sports, drinking beer, playing guitar, or what else? Good luck, and if I can help, give me a shout!

Post: #28

I would try to make a situation where I'm collecting passive income and then focus on my lovelife abroad in EE or other country where there are no divorce-rape laws and the women are better. I'd get into respectable shape, read up on game, and find a marriageable young woman who has a notch count of one or less. Have kids, live out my life.

Post: #29

(12-02-2016 10:05 PM)ceowannabe Wrote:  

(12-02-2016 08:14 PM)Captain Gh Wrote:  As a future entrepreneur I would like to read about the steps you took to develop your busineessbto 50K a month? That would be a great read!

That''ll be too long and i had no steps. It was a big mess with very bad planning (made sooo many mistakes in the last few years)
I actually had many things I tried (in different fields - online or offline or mixed), most failed, some made ok money. and 1 skyrocketed pretty fast.

First off with this like many forums your reputation means a lot. To get a better reputation, read as one where you can travel to other cities and guys here will help you improve socially, you have to be willing to give to the forum. You're pretty much living the dream of a lot of guys here and you're not really giving a lot. Even if it is long start a thread and write what you can when you can and answer questions. If you do that I have no doubt that guys on here from Vegas to Manila would be happy to have you come visit and help you out be it with women or just with getting a healthier lifestyle.

In regards to what I would do if I were you...I would put a good chunk of money away where I couldn't touch it. You're young and as I've gotten older I've realized that a nest egg is important. I would also give serious thought to how happy I am in my current location. If I was happy then I would start volunteering and trying to connect with the local business community. I would do the aforementioned in order to start building out a personal and professional network that would improve my life. If I didn't like my location or found that networking was tough or I hated the people then I would move. Maybe not a permanent move but I would pick a handful of cities and stay in each for at least a month.

In addition to the above I would take on a few hobbies. It doesn't matter if the hobby is reading 100 classical books, playing guitar, woodwork, building playgrounds...it's really just a matter of finding something you enjoy doing to occupy the time.

Someone here mentioned escorts, don't do that. I can tell you from experience that it's not worth it and will be a bigger financial drain than just meeting women in real life.

Post: #30

(12-04-2016 12:57 PM)DoctaWho Wrote:  You're pretty much living the dream of a lot of guys here and you're not really giving a lot. Even if it is long start a thread and write what you can when you can and answer questions.

OP, you received quite a few questions about what you do and how you make your $50K per month. Obviously, nobody expects you to share the "secret sauce", but why don't you post a datasheet and tell us, at least in general, how you achieved it?

-What information, within reason, can you share about this niche, other than "it's complicated" and "it's in the adtech world"?
-What resources (online and offline) did you use to discover your niche?
-What technical skills did you learn to do what you do?
-What else would you recommend to guys who are trying to achieve the same thing?

It is fair to say that most guys on this forum want to achieve location independence. Any advice from successful entrepreneurs, even if it's not very specific, would be a great contribution to the community.

Post: #31

I think we all agree that one of the big benefits of a forum is the way people share experiences, ideas, skills etc etc.

But I think there's a limit to what we can realistically share. No one can give away their "secret formula", IMO.

Here the OP found some treasure after digging in many areas. He can't really say where the treasure is, if he hasn't finished digging it... IMO.

As an example, I know quite a few people in the financial markets, and also in general import export. We regularly share bits of information eg a method of assessing the direction of the S+P, and chat about how to improve that predictor. Or I might share info on the perils of using Ukrainian shipping agents. But its only a trade of one thing for another. I only know ONE financial markets trader who ever gave away their actual system. Tragically, I understand that person was dying of cancer at the time. Infact, MANY of the books on "how to trade the financial markets" are written by people who don't have great success at trading!

If the OP gave away too much information, infact even if he gave away surprisingly little, he may find his 50k/mth income went down to 1k or even zero. He's spent time, money, stress etc over quite a long time, so realistically I don't think he can afford to give that away.

Now I'll happily give away everything I know on how many reps to improve my pectorals or how I find the pussy market in wherever place. But there are some things eg the "secret formula of xyz", its just not practical to post.

Anyway, this reminds me, I've been meaning to post a couple of datasheets. : )
Hopefully next weekend, when I should have some time spare.

Post: #32

(12-04-2016 02:36 PM)Brodiaga Wrote:  

(12-04-2016 12:57 PM)DoctaWho Wrote:  You're pretty much living the dream of a lot of guys here and you're not really giving a lot. Even if it is long start a thread and write what you can when you can and answer questions.

OP, you received quite a few questions about what you do and how you make your $50K per month. Obviously, nobody expects you to share the "secret sauce", but why don't you post a datasheet and tell us, at least in general, how you achieved it?

-What information, within reason, can you share about this niche, other than "it's complicated" and "it's in the adtech world"?
-What resources (online and offline) did you use to discover your niche?
-What technical skills did you learn to do what you do?
-What else would you recommend to guys who are trying to achieve the same thing?

It is fair to say that most guys on this forum want to achieve location independence. Any advice from successful entrepreneurs, even if it's not very specific, would be a great contribution to the community.

The only "forum" i used before is Stackoverflow (which is my main source of answers for coding issues), not used to it.
I'll just answer here.

-What information, within reason, can you share about this niche, other than "it's complicated" and "it's in the adtech world"?
Basically you have many sources of traffic like google, facebook, etc. What I do is buy "garbage" traffic (porn, warez, torrent websites etc). I offer "free shit" - software for example. After users "infected" with my "free shit" - I can monetize that. You have 20 users you'll see no money, when you have 20k, 200k, 2m, that's a whole different story.
That's my business really briefly.
-What resources (online and offline) did you use to discover your niche?
I started like most people. Wordpress, SEO, the regular. I was even dropshipping football jerseys at one point (too much hustle). I was able to analyze website profiting from SEO and their strategy than compete with them.
Than I taught myself (built tools for that too) to analyze internet succesful campaigns who were running facebook ads. Benn copying that. Than i discovered where the real money is ("dark internet").
I started copying other people affilate marketing campaigns, had an "ok" success. Than i thought to myself "why am i promoting other people stuff, why not to promote stuff i own and make money long term, not just instant comission?
That's when (after long time) things starting to look real promising.
-What technical skills did you learn to do what you do?
I know it will sound bad but - I'm pretty sure there arent many people in this world who can analyze traffic like me. That's my edge.
In terms of coding: PHP, JS, C. That's it. Design, Front-end stuff (sometimes backend too) i take freelancers who work full time for me. I manage the traffic myself. How I "studied"? I copied others, had problems, went to google for answers, if didnt find anything, go to stackoverflow.com, asked a question, got answer, fixed my issue, rinse and repeat x100000.
-What else would you recommend to guys who are trying to achieve the same thing?
I honestly dont know. If it was that easy anyone would do it.
Honestly, almost evey time i tried something original, i failed. Than i just analyzed what's already working and started building on that. Which turned things around.

I had many succesfull "projects" before my big one, which i just stopped doing, not even sold, just because the money from that one thing is so much that the best thing is to focus on that. And yeah btw 50k$ is a very bad month for me, I prefered to write that beucase some people might be having problems believing it.

This industry is huge. But hard to get into, you gotta have some edge over the others or you'll lose money. I know a guy (4 people company) making over half mil\ month doing the same thing im doing (he's in the industry longer, former babylon employee).

There's also the traffic area of it which i dont wanna talk about its super geeky and complicated. Basically it's how you take that "shitty traffic" and with algorithms make it "reasonable" traffic. Bsically the "machine" making calcualted guesses what offers to show to users based on data.

Lots of traffic + being smart about it = $.

If someone have specific question can just PM me.


Good day everyone and thanks for all the info, cant wait to start my new "journey".

Post: #33

Hey man, thanks a lot for your answers.

Now, regarding your questions. Full disclosure: I am not location or financially independent (yet). Just an office worker who has never made $50K per month. I'm also not a financial adviser, so keep that in mind.

You have a nice gig going, but it's not going to last forever unless you keep coming up with new, profitable business ideas which may or may not happen.

I would say live below your means, stack that money while you can and invest as much as possible. Travel around and find a nice location (or several locations) depending on your preferences when it comes to climate, women, cost of living, visa situation, etc. You have plenty of information about specific countries and cities on this forum.

Regarding investments. Two popular choices here, not mutually exclusive: stock market and real estate. I prefer the stock market, but other guys may differ.

Regarding stock market investments, for example, you can read my post from the Stock Market thread and explore other forums and web sites I mentioned there:

Quote:These tips are US-specific. Other countries have local differences and nuances, but the fundamental principles are the same. I am not a financial adviser, so use this at your own risk.

I assume you don't have any high interest debt outstanding (if you do, pay it off first). If it's a mortgage, or a subsidized low-interest student loan, you can still invest while paying it off.

Keep an emergency fund (e.g. 6 months of expenses, may be more or less depending on your job situation, etc.) either in checking or savings accounts which you can access easily. The rest of the money you can invest.

I would recommend "passive", hands-off approach to investing using Vanguard index funds which generally charge the lowest fees. Always pay special attention to management fees. The difference between a low fee of 0.05% (5 basis points) per year and 1% (100 basis points) is huge. It's like going to a grocery store and paying 20X the prices for food. Anything above 50 basis points is a rip off. Tell anybody who wants to charge above that to fuck off. Even 50bp is only acceptable if there is no other choice (e.g. your employer offers only expensive funds and matches your contributions).

Every year, max your tax advantaged accounts first: 401K, IRA and Roth IRA depending on income. There may be other equivalents for certain categories of employees (Government, schools), but these are the most common ones. If you still have money left, invest in taxable accounts with Vanugard. Also, if you have a high deductible health insurance plan, max your HSA which is basically another tax advantaged retirement account. Every dollar you save on taxes adds to your investment return and compounds going forward.

Do not try to time the market. Nobody knows where the market will go in the long term. However, on average, the S&P500 returns over the past few decades were above 7% per year. No guarantee they will be the same in the future, but statistically, passive approach to investing beats market timing and stock picking.

Decide on asset allocation. For example, 60% US Stocks (S&P500 index fund, VVO). 30% international stocks (VGTSX or ETF equivalent) and 10% REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust, VNQ). I do not include bonds in this example because I assume you are relatively young. Research https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/ for asset allocation examples and back tested performance and comparisons.

If you have a lump sum you are looking to invest, statistically, investing the whole amount right away beats dollar cost averaging this amount over time. Both the approaches beat keeping it in cash (I wish I knew that before).

Additional resources to get you started:

Bogleheads.com - many, if not most forum members are in the two comma club. Probably the best investment forum out there.

Mr Money Mustache blog and forum - also a very good resource.

Portfolio Visualizer - great way to learn about back testing, monte carlo simulations, asset allocation and other investment topics.

Other good blogs: Mad Fientist, Go Curry Cracker.

Post: #34

Sounds like Beginner's Luck, if I were your competitors I would be licking my chops right now.

Money has a strange way of finding people who want it more...

Those two (cent)ences are what they are...

"Only the Paranoid Survive" - Andy Grove, co-Founder of Intel

Post: #35

OP has made two other threads on this subject:

1.) /thread-52197.html

2.) /thread-28324.html

Stories do not add up...

And even if they do, he's spent 3 years on this forum with nothing to show for it, but posting the same questions over and over.

Post: #36

Since your business is pretty much in the grey zone, and may be illegal in some juridictions, you might want to consider using an offshore company with nominees to hold your cash. Do not hold that under your name, because a simple warrant of seizure and you're out the cash.

Stay away from portfolio apps like Portfolio Vizualiser - they are just a way for the government to track how much money you make, and spy on you.