One of them will never build a successful business. He may make a few dollars here and there (if he’s lucky). But nothing meaningful.
The other one will build an asset that gives himself freedom and control of his time.[/text_block]
I’m 33 years old and live in Austin, TX.
I’m a marketing manager for a tech startup. And even though my job pays pretty well, I’ve been thinking long and hard about starting my own biz for a while now.
…Especially over the last few months. I’ve been reading all of these success stories…
• “College kid makes $10k per month selling supplements on Amazon.”
• “High-School Dropout Earns 7-figures a Year Selling Digital Products”
• “Former attorney starts a travel blog, quits her job and makes a full time living doing what she loves.”
…I’ve just never gotten anything going myself. But it’s not like I haven’t tried!
I’ve started a few blogs. They never took off.
I’ve created an eBook, but it never sold any copies.
I’ve invested a few hundred bucks in courses and books, but never saw results from any of them.
What I’ve realized is that business is all about speed. If you don’t jump on the trends quick, you’ve basically missed your shot. That’s why I subscribe to so many people’s newsletters and read so many blogs.
I want to have ALL the information I need to act when the time is right.
I’m 100% committed to owning my thing… I will one day… I hope….[/text_block]
I’m 29 years old and live in San Francisco, CA.
I’m the CEO of 10x School. Like my friend, Russell, I’ve been an entrepreneur-at-heart my whole life.
When I was first starting my business, it was hard as hell.
I was constantly outside of my comfort zone. Challenging myself to do things that felt unnatural and difficult.
I actually wanted to give up a few times, but I’m glad I stuck it out.
Because as soon as I tested my idea and got my first few customers, it got a whole lot easier.
And once things took off, there was no looking back.
I was able to quit my job, work on my business full-time and provide a better life for my future family. My wife and I are getting ready to have our first child and we’re finishing up renovations on the home we recently bought—just in time![/text_block]
But first let me tell you how I met them…[/text_block]
It was 2009. I was a Sophomore in college. My friends and I were huge fans of 2 things:
1. Concerts
And…
2. The occasional (decriminalized) recreational marijuana cigarette.[/text_block]
Thankfully, our two favorite things went perfectly together…Well, kind of.
Until one night at a Kid Cudi concert. We ran into two huge security guards. They confiscated our joints and we almost got into serious trouble. Thankfully they let us off with a slap on the wrists and let us stay.
As we stood and semi-enjoyed/semi-looked-over-our-shoulders for the rest of the concert, I was thinking of how I could avoid that ever happening again.
Bingo. I had a great idea!
“Whoa. What if you could hide your stash in your iPhone?”
Now if that isn’t profound, I don’t know what is. I felt a bit like Adam Sandler from The Hot Chick, explaining this idea to my friends.[/text_block]
And like most bad ideas, I didn’t think about the risks. I didn’t care about product-market fit or demand. I didn’t worry about asking people if they’d actually buy this product. I only thought about the upside.
“This is going to make me so much money!”
Because I was CLEARLY going to make millions off this the natural next step was wiring $7,000 (that I barely had) to China to produce these things. It seemed like a great investment.
I was actually pretty pleased with final product mockups…[/text_block]
25 big boxes of these things showed up on my doorstep. That’s when I realized I had a ton of these things to sell and no idea what I was doing. [/text_block]
I still have no idea how, but slowly between trade shows, cold-calling, my online store, visits to local smoke shops and selling them one-by-one to my friends, I finally managed to sell the last of the original 1,000 units.
The $7,000 I spent wasn’t all lost.
WHEW!
But as soon as I got that huge weight off my back, I got another idea….
“What if I placed a large order of 5,000 units this time….
….That would drop the unit price down significantly and I could make more profit per unit now that I’ve kinda figured out how to sell these things.”
That’s right. I broke out that shovel and dug a deeper hole. Nice.[/text_block]
There was one feature story that gave me a huge, short-lived spike of sales, but I was still $6,537.00 in the hole at the end of the day.
A hole that I never dug myself out. Lucky for me, I shut that business down a few months later. Before digging the hole any deeper.[/text_block]
Even though I’d gotten a few sales, I’d definitely maxed out the potential of what a Russell could ever do with a business (consistently).[/text_block]
Tim “manages” his attraction to shiny-objects. He’s not addicted to “trends.” He can control what he focuses on and what he chooses to ignore.
He’s selective and intentional. He values his time.
Tim validates everything before spending time on it. And as a result, Tim builds a real, “flesh-and-blood” business.
The second that I changed my mindset (and the way I approached building a business) from Russell to Tim, my results changed dramatically.
I went from struggling to recoup a few thousand dollars in sunk costs.
To growing my last business, Case Escape to over $160,000 in one year.[/text_block]
It was about VALIDATING everything, BEFORE spending time on it.
This may sounds subtle. But it’s kind of like the difference between having a GPS, showing you exactly what turns you need to take on a long trip.
Versus starting a trip by just guessing which direction you’re going.
Maybe (with a little dumb luck) you get there. But never consistently.
The difference is huge. I’ve taught others to do the same. And the results they’ve been getting are amazing.[/text_block]
Russell keeps his head on a swivel, looking for opportunities to get started. And if he does start (which is rare), his results trickle in at best. A few dozen subscribers. A few sales.
Tim is different. He knows that building a business is a process, not an event.
He tests his ideas on real people before diving in. He’s slower to start. But he will win in the end.
Good news: every Russell can become a Tim.
I went through the transformation. And I’ve carefully documented every step you need to go through this transformation inside my 30 days to validate program.
If you’re interested, I’ll tell you more about this training soon. But for today, I want to you to think about who you’ve been operating as.
Are you a Russell or a Tim?
More importantly, who do you want to be?
Like I said before, you can always choose a new future.
See you soon,
Ryan[/text_block]