Hi all. I have nothing to sell you, so you can lower your shields. I have started, owned, and operated five businesses since the age of 19. I am currently in my late 30s and am retired in the Wine Country of California thanks to the tremendous success of my most recent business (which I sold when I was 35).
At 19, I dropped out of college to start my first business and promptly had my butt kicked up and down the street. Like a lot of business owners, I was willing to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but knew nothing about how to run the place. Got taken advantage of by an unscrupulous landlord and overextended myself on credit cards to pay for it all. It was the most expensive business school I could have attended - and was worth every penny. I learned to get everything in writing, who to trust (me), the importance of keeping an existing customer vs finding a replacement, etc.
I went back to school and got my degree before starting a burger joint at 23 with my (now) wife. While we did "ok," it was hardly what I'd call a success. We scraped by and learned a lot more about dealing with HR, payroll, inventory, actual business credit, business law, refunds, pissed off customers, and dealing with difficult third parties. After a year and a half of that nonsense, we sold the business (for a profit) and I went to grad school to get my CPA license (which I have never used and don't credit at all for any of my business success).
At the age of 28, I started a financial services business which (a year later) turned into a second financial services business that focused entirely on back office compliance instead of securities. Those businesses floundered for a year or so before morphing into my most recent business.
That business was a raging success, mostly due to all the experience and lessons I had learned in the previous businesses. I understood the importance of sales and marketing, blazing response time to client requests, being clear and concise with our website and pricing model, and underpromising/overdelivering. After expanding twice, we went from a 1 man shop in the middle of the desert to a nationwide firm based in midtown Manhattan. In 2011, we got bought out and my wife and I were lucky enough to retire early.
Since then, I've spent my days watching the vines and pines across the valley and not missing the stress of work in the least.
The first thing anyone asks me when I see them for the first time in more than a month is "I have this great business idea, can I bounce it off you?" A friend turned me on to this forum. I figured I might be able to help some people cut some of the BS that I had to learn myself in real time. If not, cool; I hope to learn some interesting things on the off-chance I ever decide to start up something again in the future.
At 19, I dropped out of college to start my first business and promptly had my butt kicked up and down the street. Like a lot of business owners, I was willing to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but knew nothing about how to run the place. Got taken advantage of by an unscrupulous landlord and overextended myself on credit cards to pay for it all. It was the most expensive business school I could have attended - and was worth every penny. I learned to get everything in writing, who to trust (me), the importance of keeping an existing customer vs finding a replacement, etc.
I went back to school and got my degree before starting a burger joint at 23 with my (now) wife. While we did "ok," it was hardly what I'd call a success. We scraped by and learned a lot more about dealing with HR, payroll, inventory, actual business credit, business law, refunds, pissed off customers, and dealing with difficult third parties. After a year and a half of that nonsense, we sold the business (for a profit) and I went to grad school to get my CPA license (which I have never used and don't credit at all for any of my business success).
At the age of 28, I started a financial services business which (a year later) turned into a second financial services business that focused entirely on back office compliance instead of securities. Those businesses floundered for a year or so before morphing into my most recent business.
That business was a raging success, mostly due to all the experience and lessons I had learned in the previous businesses. I understood the importance of sales and marketing, blazing response time to client requests, being clear and concise with our website and pricing model, and underpromising/overdelivering. After expanding twice, we went from a 1 man shop in the middle of the desert to a nationwide firm based in midtown Manhattan. In 2011, we got bought out and my wife and I were lucky enough to retire early.
Since then, I've spent my days watching the vines and pines across the valley and not missing the stress of work in the least.
The first thing anyone asks me when I see them for the first time in more than a month is "I have this great business idea, can I bounce it off you?" A friend turned me on to this forum. I figured I might be able to help some people cut some of the BS that I had to learn myself in real time. If not, cool; I hope to learn some interesting things on the off-chance I ever decide to start up something again in the future.
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