Warrior Forum help me create 4 great companies
Hey Warriors
My name is Rich and I've been a silent warrior since 2006 (and been on here since 2002). I've been featured in the NY Times, Entrepreneur.com, TechCrunch, Black Enterprise, and more for my companies. I don't say that to impress you but to impress upon you that if I can do it you can to. This will be a long post, but I hope it will add value. I don't post a lot, but I plan to be more active in the warrior community since it has given me so much. The below will be a mixture of lessons learned and some of how I got started.
So here we go... My background has always been sales (since I was 15 now 31) or at least thats what I thought. I've come to the conclusion that my skill and background is building relationships. When you think about it, nothing in this world happens without starting and building some kind of relationship. That can be online that can be offline. When I came to the warrior forum right out of high school I was missing the technical know how of what I wanted to accomplish. Back then you didn't there weren't a lot of open source sites and forums like Github, Stack overflow, and ect. I'm sure there were a couple other forums but WF was the one that stuck with me.
Dreaming to Doing
Was my first company
Lesson learned?
It takes a little bit of money to make a little bit of money. And don't sell out too early.
These were the days. Back then ppc was cheap and effective. Google was still wrapping there mind of how they could really capitalize on ppc. SEO was brand new, it was like the wild wild west. It was right after the dot com boom and the start of another one. So I started a personal development website. I had a great domain (dreamingtodoing.com) and personal development hadn't made its way online yet.
I'd plan to make this the friendster of personal development, yes I said friendster, not myspace, and hell Zuck (zuckerburg) was like 15 then. I was very active online and paid for traffic and had people joining this membership site. I found a template for $200 learned enough html and php to put it up and I thought I was off to the races. Overall I think I put $1500 into that. Then I received an email.
"We're interested in dreamingtodoing".
Then it went on to say we own "x" company and want this site because of "y", and here is how much we'll give you almost 20x return. Can you imagine? I mean this is something I thought up in my head and TOOK ACTION (we'll get to that later) and that's what happened. Holy moly I was 19 and pumped up!! Did I mention I did all of that on the side? Notice I didn't say part time because I put a lot of hours in and we'll get to that later as well. But in hindsight I should've held on to it and I could probably be living on 2 continents, but hey lesson learned.
The present day lesson is don't think your gonna make bagillions of dollars, one without taking massive action, and two without putting some skin in the game. Listen, I've purchased my share of WSO's most of them are a bunch of BS, but then you have some extremely valuable ones. I see people post in the threads for some of WSO's asking things like
" how much time does this take"
"how long until I make $5000"
"Can this scale to $10,000"
"If I put in 2hrs a day will I make bagillions"
"Do I have to put more $$ in after I buy this"
Those type of questions drive me absolutely nuts.
If you really want to build a business it takes dedication and time.
Worry about making your first $ instead of $5000k.
Scale to $10k? Make $100 first
If you think your gonna retire off of a warriors $9.97 WSO... You belong in the crazy place.
Let's think about this for a sec. I know some warriors making great money with affiliate, cpa, and all the other stuff. But they put in massive work ate roman noodles and busted there ass. THEN they documented their process, packaged it up, and sold it as a WSO for $$. Get rich quick in my head doesn't exist. Even the quickest money in the world selling dope or sex takes work and a process.
The Hiatus
I took a long hiatus from the online world after dreaming to doing. Not because I retired, but I got into some offline businesses. I owned a gas station and a detail shop. Then I did sales training and speaking for Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins and Brian Tracey (*Offliners if you DO NOT know who these people are then you're probably not making alot of sales). I help start a Verizon Wireless dealership then came back to my beloved forum. I kept tabs on it from time to time but I was focused on other stuff.
2010 Fix The Glue
Oh how the internet has grown up since I left it. This company was simple we did SEO and web dev. This was a great revenue driver for me we've done work with Michelin, Budweiser and a lot of small businesses. But I did that with me and a outsource team. I built a solid go to outsource team and paid them extra. So they knew when they got an email from me it was about good money. BUT this was an offline business so I had to get out and talk about it. I know we have a lot of introverts who want to make money while they sleep and ect. But if you're getting into the offline world you gotta talk to people.
I hate cold calling just as much as the next guy/gal
Listen, I'm a well trained sales person and I hate cold calling but I love it too. The more no's I get that means I'm closer to a yes. All that said, I built this company off of a referral only network. I joined leadership groups, meetup groups, golfed, rotary, the chamber, went to city council meetings and ect. Its not cold calling if your just telling people what you do. After about 8 months everyone knew that if the needed SEO or anything to do with the internet, they call me. I put a ton of work in it but learned a lot on the WF about how to source, manage, and delegate task. That didn't come from a WSO it came from reading.
Lesson Learned
Learn to do all the things you want to outsource to make it efficient as possible.
No Chains was born
This is my current company that's getting all of the press. And I've used the same things I've learned from the previous companies to build this one. I've attracted the top designers in the country to work on this project. People who designed Starwars.com, Barbie, Mercedes, and ect. But I did that all based on relationships. I outsourced a lot of the development to elance, fiverr, or here. And next year I promise you you'll her more about it.
Lesson Learned
You still need revenue to survive. "money isn't everything but it ranks up there with oxygen" Zig Ziglar
We raised some angel money for this project and been in talks with silicon valley VCs but at the end of the day talks don't make you money. So what did I do? I came back to the WF to seek inspiration. I found a thread of this guy doing cold calls and selling websites over the phone. I think it was started a year ago. So I'm like man this guy has some drive and balls to cold call 100 folks a day.
I dug more into that forum and got my inspiration. This was 40 days ago. I told myself that by next year I'll be able to fund my business (No Chains) by myself. So again I took massive action.
Built a website 2 days
Purchased an amazing software here for leads
Created a value added package for business. No BS a real value add that they couldn't turn down.
Set my subscription model up. Payments, pricing, and ect.
AND IT THE STREET. Charging $199 setup and $99 per month and using people that I met here, the revenue model is producing $5200 per month. Meaning I got 52 clients in about 40 days. Imagine what happens after 120 days.
Entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart.
I get turned down multiple times a day. But the reason why your doing this needs to be bigger than you F.E.A.R (False Evidence Appearing Real).
So if you can't make a sale or put in the hours to be successful then your WHY isn't big enough. Mine is that I have a family to provide for and that's all the motivation I need. I don't have to time for the next great WSO. Build your business then see what WSO can add value to it. Better yet read this forum its free, and educate yourself on the possibilities.
We're in talks with a major morning national talk show so I'll keep you all updated. So with all of that said I thank all of the warriors who are making it happen. I hope to encourage all of the warriors who are trying to make it.
"Never say skies are the limit when there are foot prints on the moon."
Rich
My name is Rich and I've been a silent warrior since 2006 (and been on here since 2002). I've been featured in the NY Times, Entrepreneur.com, TechCrunch, Black Enterprise, and more for my companies. I don't say that to impress you but to impress upon you that if I can do it you can to. This will be a long post, but I hope it will add value. I don't post a lot, but I plan to be more active in the warrior community since it has given me so much. The below will be a mixture of lessons learned and some of how I got started.
So here we go... My background has always been sales (since I was 15 now 31) or at least thats what I thought. I've come to the conclusion that my skill and background is building relationships. When you think about it, nothing in this world happens without starting and building some kind of relationship. That can be online that can be offline. When I came to the warrior forum right out of high school I was missing the technical know how of what I wanted to accomplish. Back then you didn't there weren't a lot of open source sites and forums like Github, Stack overflow, and ect. I'm sure there were a couple other forums but WF was the one that stuck with me.
Dreaming to Doing
Was my first company
Lesson learned?
It takes a little bit of money to make a little bit of money. And don't sell out too early.
These were the days. Back then ppc was cheap and effective. Google was still wrapping there mind of how they could really capitalize on ppc. SEO was brand new, it was like the wild wild west. It was right after the dot com boom and the start of another one. So I started a personal development website. I had a great domain (dreamingtodoing.com) and personal development hadn't made its way online yet.
I'd plan to make this the friendster of personal development, yes I said friendster, not myspace, and hell Zuck (zuckerburg) was like 15 then. I was very active online and paid for traffic and had people joining this membership site. I found a template for $200 learned enough html and php to put it up and I thought I was off to the races. Overall I think I put $1500 into that. Then I received an email.
"We're interested in dreamingtodoing".
Then it went on to say we own "x" company and want this site because of "y", and here is how much we'll give you almost 20x return. Can you imagine? I mean this is something I thought up in my head and TOOK ACTION (we'll get to that later) and that's what happened. Holy moly I was 19 and pumped up!! Did I mention I did all of that on the side? Notice I didn't say part time because I put a lot of hours in and we'll get to that later as well. But in hindsight I should've held on to it and I could probably be living on 2 continents, but hey lesson learned.
The present day lesson is don't think your gonna make bagillions of dollars, one without taking massive action, and two without putting some skin in the game. Listen, I've purchased my share of WSO's most of them are a bunch of BS, but then you have some extremely valuable ones. I see people post in the threads for some of WSO's asking things like
" how much time does this take"
"how long until I make $5000"
"Can this scale to $10,000"
"If I put in 2hrs a day will I make bagillions"
"Do I have to put more $$ in after I buy this"
Those type of questions drive me absolutely nuts.
If you really want to build a business it takes dedication and time.
Worry about making your first $ instead of $5000k.
Scale to $10k? Make $100 first
If you think your gonna retire off of a warriors $9.97 WSO... You belong in the crazy place.
Let's think about this for a sec. I know some warriors making great money with affiliate, cpa, and all the other stuff. But they put in massive work ate roman noodles and busted there ass. THEN they documented their process, packaged it up, and sold it as a WSO for $$. Get rich quick in my head doesn't exist. Even the quickest money in the world selling dope or sex takes work and a process.
The Hiatus
I took a long hiatus from the online world after dreaming to doing. Not because I retired, but I got into some offline businesses. I owned a gas station and a detail shop. Then I did sales training and speaking for Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins and Brian Tracey (*Offliners if you DO NOT know who these people are then you're probably not making alot of sales). I help start a Verizon Wireless dealership then came back to my beloved forum. I kept tabs on it from time to time but I was focused on other stuff.
2010 Fix The Glue
Oh how the internet has grown up since I left it. This company was simple we did SEO and web dev. This was a great revenue driver for me we've done work with Michelin, Budweiser and a lot of small businesses. But I did that with me and a outsource team. I built a solid go to outsource team and paid them extra. So they knew when they got an email from me it was about good money. BUT this was an offline business so I had to get out and talk about it. I know we have a lot of introverts who want to make money while they sleep and ect. But if you're getting into the offline world you gotta talk to people.
I hate cold calling just as much as the next guy/gal
Listen, I'm a well trained sales person and I hate cold calling but I love it too. The more no's I get that means I'm closer to a yes. All that said, I built this company off of a referral only network. I joined leadership groups, meetup groups, golfed, rotary, the chamber, went to city council meetings and ect. Its not cold calling if your just telling people what you do. After about 8 months everyone knew that if the needed SEO or anything to do with the internet, they call me. I put a ton of work in it but learned a lot on the WF about how to source, manage, and delegate task. That didn't come from a WSO it came from reading.
Lesson Learned
Learn to do all the things you want to outsource to make it efficient as possible.
No Chains was born
This is my current company that's getting all of the press. And I've used the same things I've learned from the previous companies to build this one. I've attracted the top designers in the country to work on this project. People who designed Starwars.com, Barbie, Mercedes, and ect. But I did that all based on relationships. I outsourced a lot of the development to elance, fiverr, or here. And next year I promise you you'll her more about it.
Lesson Learned
You still need revenue to survive. "money isn't everything but it ranks up there with oxygen" Zig Ziglar
We raised some angel money for this project and been in talks with silicon valley VCs but at the end of the day talks don't make you money. So what did I do? I came back to the WF to seek inspiration. I found a thread of this guy doing cold calls and selling websites over the phone. I think it was started a year ago. So I'm like man this guy has some drive and balls to cold call 100 folks a day.
I dug more into that forum and got my inspiration. This was 40 days ago. I told myself that by next year I'll be able to fund my business (No Chains) by myself. So again I took massive action.
Built a website 2 days
Purchased an amazing software here for leads
Created a value added package for business. No BS a real value add that they couldn't turn down.
Set my subscription model up. Payments, pricing, and ect.
AND IT THE STREET. Charging $199 setup and $99 per month and using people that I met here, the revenue model is producing $5200 per month. Meaning I got 52 clients in about 40 days. Imagine what happens after 120 days.
Entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart.
I get turned down multiple times a day. But the reason why your doing this needs to be bigger than you F.E.A.R (False Evidence Appearing Real).
So if you can't make a sale or put in the hours to be successful then your WHY isn't big enough. Mine is that I have a family to provide for and that's all the motivation I need. I don't have to time for the next great WSO. Build your business then see what WSO can add value to it. Better yet read this forum its free, and educate yourself on the possibilities.
We're in talks with a major morning national talk show so I'll keep you all updated. So with all of that said I thank all of the warriors who are making it happen. I hope to encourage all of the warriors who are trying to make it.
"Never say skies are the limit when there are foot prints on the moon."
Rich
Direct Response Copywriting
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