My Q1 update, Warren Buffett strategy, crypto, the ‘make money’ space and more


Since I’m not actively writing articles at the moment, I figured I’d at least post a short update with some things I’m doing or thinking about- that you might find helpful or interesting. Different than my normal articles, but if you’d enjoy this type of update leave a comment on the post and let me know.

What I’ve been up to:

As you probably know from past emails I’ve been focusing on my health lately. Other than that I’ve been working on a new business project that I started experimenting with late last year.

It’d been a while since I started a new business project. A lot of the last few years I was traveling, writing or helping others start businesses. I missed being ‘in the game’ so to speak. So, as I mentioned after the last Incubator I was going to get another project of my own up and running. So, once I was feeling well enough to get something going, I did.

It started off, well… slow. It took longer than I anticipated to ‘solve’. There was a lot of that $0/hr work that I talk about to try and figure out how to make it work.

The reason I share this is I think most people falsely assume everything is an overnight success, and it’s not. That’s lies from info marketers.

I started it 6+ months ago, and only became profitable in the last couple months. But… since I put some time in to figure out what was going on, it started to really gain traction once I ‘got’ it.

I wanted to share this slow start with you because I feel like too many people expect a ‘get rich overnight’ result if their business is going to work.

I saw many what I call ‘quitting points’ during my first 4-6 months that I think most people would have just stopped under the assumption that it ‘wasn’t working’. And since it’s a brand new industry I’ve never been in before I had to kind of figure some things out as I went. Some things worked, some things didn’t, so you take out the things that don’t work, and double down on the things that do, and gain new theories based on the experiences and do tests on those. Rinse, repeat.

Remember if something takes a bit of figuring out- it’s likely why the opportunity is there in the first place.

Anyways, as you can see from the numbers I shared, I was basically producing no results in the beginning. But now that I’m gaining a better understanding I can scale it into a larger business, or get it to the point where I have the option to let it spit out cash as a small, passive cash cow business.

But realize it wouldn’t have gotten to that point if I hadn’t been okay with the $0/hr work and getting past the ‘quitting points’.

I just wanted to share this so that if you’ve got a project that’s not producing results right away, as long as you did the up front work to recognize if it was a decent opportunity, don’t just give up when it’s not an overnight success.

That will help to let you know if it’s worth pushing through the quitting points and doing all the $0/hr work or not.

Remember you can’t just work for a while, or have a good idea to have a successful business, you have to do both.

Each of the following scenarios will be an obvious failure despite doing one thing very well:

  1. Work for a long time on bad ideas (“I think if I keep at it I can make it work” … but if it’s a bad idea why would you want to?)
  2. Work for a short time on good ideas (“It’s not working I’ll just stop” … but if it’s actually a good idea to pursue, stopping when it’s hard is definitely not what you want to do)

What do you think is better:

  1. Working for 2 years on a crappy idea.
  2. Working on great ideas but stopping every few months if they don’t take off super quick.
  3. Just taking a decent idea through the finish line.

#3 by a mile. Even if your ideas are great in #2 but you stop early, a bunch of great ideas taken 75% of the way to the finish line are worth nothing compared to just one decent idea taken 100% of the way. There’s no payday for partly done projects.

 

By ‘take it all the way’ I’m not saying go commit for 5 years to something. You want to get a business to the point where it spits out profit, giving yourself the option of doubling down and scaling it, or just setting it up to run passively as a cashflow business.

But you don’t want to fall into the categories that 95%+ of people fall into – which is working on terrible ideas, or just stopping at the ‘quitting points’ on good ideas before you’ve got far enough.

If you don’t know if an opportunity you’re considering is worth the pursuit, take it through the 4-steps I recommend:

Step 1: Is the product or service you’re offering better than what currently exists on the market?

Step 2: Can you reach the ideal audience for it?

Step 3: Due diligence phase – verification of steps 1+2 as well as in depth research into the market and competition

Step 4: Expected Value phase- what’s the profit potential and would a positive outcome here be worth the pursuit for you?

I’ve always tried to share what’s really up on this newsletter, so realize very few people are getting rich overnight, and even if you’ve started businesses many times, there’s still going to be learning curves, and the same trial and error as anyone else. Remember, no one knows what they’re doing when they try something completely new. So don’t refrain from pursuing an opportunity just because you don’t know all the answers yet. No one does.

Things I’ve been doing to help my quarters:

 

Every year I plan out a few things I want to accomplish for the year. I write down things in categories that I think could lead to accomplishment of whatever it is that I’m trying to do.

Each quarter I set quarterly goals that I think if completed, would put me on a good pace to completing my yearly goals.

Each week, I go through and review my quarterly objectives and see what I need to add to my weekly calendar to stay on track for the quarterly goals.

I also have a list of things I wrote down to keep top of mind at the beginning of the year. It’s 3-4 pages long, and I review it every Sunday- it’s one of several things I have to check off each week on my goals sheet.

Every Sunday I also map out my week so that I make sure the important things will get done the next week. A lot doesn’t get done and that’s okay, as long as the important things do. The things that didn’t get completed either go onto next week, or they get moved to a big list that I’ll get to when I can. The interesting thing is the ‘I’ll get to when I can’ list- if I look at it months later, 90% of the stuff never really needed to get done.

Make sure you’re not using your time on things that won’t be relevant to accomplishing what you’re trying to accomplish.

 

Few things I notice/on my mind that could be helpful to you

 

Cigar butt Warren Buffett strategy vs. grown up Warren Buffett strategy

As many of you may know when Warren Buffett was getting started he bought what’s referred to as “cigar butts”, companies that had a few good puffs left on them, and then they’d be pretty much done. Meaning they could make him short term profit, but probably wouldn’t continue to make him money over time.

He realized that wasn’t a very good long term strategy and started investing in businesses that had a chance to produce income for a very, very long time.

I talked about a similar concept in this post: https://foreverjobless.com/arnold-schwarzenegger-infrastructures-of-wealth/ and asked if you were creating a product or service that is likely to be used just 10 years in the future?

Most people are not. They’re all targeting short term cigar butts in their business endeavors, and will pay the price long term.

Many who called their business an ‘amazon business’ are already experiencing this as margins have been getting eaten away recently. I’ve been saying this was going to happen for a while (https://foreverjobless.com/amazon-price-war-season-3-episode-7) and it’s only going to get worse. Remember you have to have some level of moat if your goal is to have your business be around for the long haul. It’s harder in the short term to try and create a moat, but you get paid significantly more if you can figure it out. Otherwise you may unintentionally be operating a cigar butt business. You might get some more puffs out of it, but it’s going to be over soon.

 

Crypto and the ’make money’ space

 

I assume everyone reading this has heard about crypto(bitcoin etc…). I think watching what happens in the crypto market is a perfect market to realize what’s happening in every other market. It’s just so extreme in crypto that it stands out so obviously that anyone should notice.

I went to a bitcoin meetup last year because I was genuinely curious in learning about something I knew 0 about. When I walked in there was a guy sitting down that seemed to have a pretty good audience around him, so I pulled up a chair right by him and listened. People asked him questions, and he continued to give his feedback as people jotted down all sorts of notes. As the meetup was about to start, I introduced myself to him and this was the beginning of the conversation:

Me: Thanks so much for sharing all that, you sound like you know quite a bit about the industry, how long have you been investing?

Him: Three weeks now.

Me: Three weeks?!?

Him: Ya, but I’ve been reading about it for longer.

Me:

Regurgitated info – the best kind of fake knowledge!

Most crypto experts are not crypto experts, they’re internet marketing experts who notice crypto as the latest opportunity to take advantage of the uninformed/suckers. The same way most “business coaches” have never started an actual business, and are infomarketers wanting people to pay them for coaching for something they’ve literally never done.

Think of that crypto story when considering your next consultant/coach.

The % of ‘never started a business people’ teaching how to start a business in the space is at an all time high right now.

If you’re considering hiring someone for coaching/consulting, couple things to help you steer clear of trouble from the ‘I read about business’ business coaches:

If their only business has ever been blog/podcast/info, unless your goal is to start the same exact thing as them: YOU IN TROUBLE!

Look out for false confidence- notice every crypto “expert” who is very loud when it is going up, wanting to act like they are making lots of money/they knew it all along, but they’re completely quiet when it goes down/were quiet before it went up. A true expert if they thought it was worth more would be louder when it’s going down, unless their goal is fake authority – becoming an authority to sheep who don’t understand, in order to convert more people into a sale.

They should be loud before something happens, not after. If you’re following the guys who are loud about something after the results are in: YOU IN TROUBLE!

… crickets

 

 

 

Have they started ideally two or more real businesses before(real business = product or service of real value that produced income for extended period of time, not temporary arbitrage play)? If not: YOU IN TROUBLE!

I probably harp on that subject too much, but every time I log into social media it’s like a 95/5 ratio of people you should run for your life from, and I don’t want you falling trap to the nonsense and wasting a lot of time/money down the wrong rabbit hole.

 

—-

 

To wrap this quarterly update/mini rant up, here are two books I read recently that I LOVED that you may enjoy:

American Kingpin

 

Red Notice

I hope you’re having an amazing year so far, and that you’re on track for achieving this year’s goals.

-Billy





33 Responses to “My Q1 update, Warren Buffett strategy, crypto, the ‘make money’ space and more”


  1. Rawr

    Good to see a post from you man, and motivating to hear about your success. Put links to books lazy man 🙂

    Reply
  2. Ben

    Hey Billy!

    Your posts always make me think more clearly. I was especially convicted by the part where you mentioned goalsetting and weekly planning.

    Personally, I’ve fallen off the wagon lately in the sense that I have no clue what my yearly goal is and thus have no way to say that my actions are lining up with my goals. This makes it feel like I’m just “dabbling” even though business is booming. Feeling like a “dabbler” sucks, so I need to come up with some compelling targets ASAP!

    Also, I’m voting for more updates!

    Reply
    • Billy

      Good to hear from you Ben!

      Ya, I think that’s a common struggle. Especially in your situation where you’re doing well and things are rolling along like they should, it can be tricky to always have a new yearly goal you feel you have to hit. I think it’s fine to just set them quarter to quarter in that case – it’s what I did here(https://foreverjobless.com/how-to-set-goals/) with no yearly goal – I find quarterly sprint goals even if not towards a larger yearly goal super helpful.

      Reply
  3. Bel

    Excellent writing, excellent content, excellent work.

    Reply
  4. Hunter D

    I enjoyed this update.

    Seeing those “quitting points” or challenges as places where others/competition would stop (as you’ve taught on FJP021) has been really helpful for me. “Crave the hurdles, that’s where your competitors will stop” is something I repeat often to myself when I run into problems. Any hurdles that you go across just separates you from the competition that wasn’t willing to cross those hurdles.

    And to one of your other points, there’s a funny graph of how much some guy tweets per day, and it was basically identical when layered over the graph of bitcoin. Crypto is indeed a mess and an “extreme” case likely due to the widespread the level of hype of people wanting to get rich quick. There aren’t many markets where you can see a 10x+ return by doing as little work as clicking buy on a random currency. Scammers and deceivers are also rampant in the space because is isn’t easy to enforce laws on the scammers.

    The amount of fake experts is out of control in the crypto markets. I’ve personally found it tough to “verify” even longer term experts in the space and struggle to make an informed decision based on their varying opinions. One likely cause of this is that everyone in the space itself has a bias / conflict of interest towards whatever they’ve put money into. This makes it quite tough.

    I’m constantly coming to new conclusions regarding crypto. Only 6 months of experience myself and I’ve found one common thread among pretty much all of the “crypto experts” is don’t invest more than you are willing to lose. If I was to give a 2nd common thread it would be that bitcoin is the safest long term play among all of the cryptos.

    Totally agree with this: “If their only business has ever been blog/podcast/info, unless your goal is to start the same exact thing as them: YOU IN TROUBLE!”

    It’s important to make sure that the authority figure has a decent track record and is willing to show you evidence of their success in the specific thing that you are trying to learn/accomplish. If they aren’t willing to openly prove that, be very suspicious. (I forget which episode this was from, it was the one where you you were talking about getting a personal trainer to get ripped).

    Reply
    • Billy

      Great to hear from you Hunter!

      “Crave the hurdles” – yes! good memory I should have referenced that one.

      Agreed on the conflicts of interest in crypto. I know of a lot of people who are being granted free coins and becoming a promoter of the coin to try and boost it’s value. Many people listening to their advice don’t realize this, and will be the last ones in certain coins and never realize the person who told them to get in already cashed out a long time ago.

      Reply
  5. Maria-Luisa Chiodo

    Hi Billy,
    I really enjoyed reading your perspectives. I found them very insightful. Thank you. I hope you are in great health!
    Peace always,
    Maria Luisa

    Reply
  6. Angelo Sorbello

    Good to see you back Billy, as always your posts are spot on and incredibly useful to think twice about what is my current business strategy and where I’m heading. Thank you so so much! There is really a need for such information in a marketer flooded with bullshit and sleazy info-marketers. Do you plan to launch a new incubator anytime this or the next year?

    Angelo

    Reply
  7. Tomas

    Great post! Inspirational and educational as always. Hopefully, we’ll hear from you more often!

    Reply
  8. Jodi R.

    Well stated! Thanks for the insights.

    Reply
  9. Andrew Miles

    Dude, so good to see something new from you. Hope your health issues are improving, and hope to see more from you soon.

    Reply
  10. Sam

    Great to hear from your adventures Billy.

    I at 900 email subscribers on my blog but wondering if I am in the wrong biz model.

    It sucks time but I have let to monetise it. Plus I’ve been going half-heartedly at this for two years now posting once a month.

    I really feel I want to help more young people get financially fit which is my blogs aim but perhaps there is another way of hitting this goal? After all, there are a lot of personal finance blogs!

    How do I know whether to carry on or not? I do have a history of lots of projects which I quit after hitting a roadblock so with this hindsight and my mission I feel myself carrying on.

    I don’t feel I’ve gone all in as only write around a post a month, but a lot can happen in two years. At least what I have learned has helped me in my day job.

    Sam

    Reply
    • Billy

      Sam, when you put what you’re doing through the 4-steps I lay out, how does it do?

      900 subscribers in 2 years likely = not delivering enough value for people and/or not getting in front of the audience you want.

      If there’s a million people blogging on the same subject, how can you make it different/give them value some other way?

      Reply
  11. Blake (please buy my course)

    With Russell Brunson’s books, he is pumping out tons of info marketers.

    Nice to see you post again.

    Reply
  12. Matt Owen

    Billy,

    Great article and timely for me too. Been at starting this business for coming up on a full year and still haven’t sold any product. So many different hurdles in the food business that I did not expect. We are at the door though and its exciting.

    Thank you for everything you do.

    Reply
    • Billy

      Matt, good to hear from you!

      Not sold because sale attempts didn’t work or something you found during the process to make you tweak the approach?

      Glad to hear it’s about ready to go!

      Reply
  13. Alex Brewer

    Billy – good to hear from you again. Great content!

    I’d be interested in learning more about how you took your business from the 2017 Q4 to 2018 Q1 results, if the tactics are things you’re willing to discuss.

    Reply
    • Billy

      Alex! You too.

      The simple answer is more product to sell/additional sales channels, but I’ll probably post something more in depth at some point. Still testing/tweaking/deciding which direction I’m going w/it.

      Reply
  14. Christian

    Hi Billy,

    it’s so nice to hear from you again. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I received your newsletter telling me you got a new post up. I also definitely “vote” for another update.

    I also hope that your health issues are improving and than can live your life in full potential.

    To be honest I would be really cool if you can tell more about your actual business. What did you learn during Q4 and what did you improve in Q1 to increase sales and rev so much.

    Nonetheless so great to “hear” and read from you again.
    Best
    Christian

    Reply
    • Billy

      Hey Christian!

      Thanks so much!

      Definitely will write more about it and some of the strategy stuff behind it.

      Reply
  15. Del

    Great to hear that you’re doing well Billy.

    What are the most effective ways of networking, in your experience? Contacting as many people as possible online, e.g. LinkedIn, through going to events/meetups, or through your current network? And how do you utilise this network once grown?

    And when you’re doing due diligence, do you just reach out to everyone you possibly can in the industry you’re targeting?

    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Billy

      networking – in person, and add real value to those people- not fake networking like most people do. what’s specific goal Del?

      due diligence- you have to know what information you’re after to know how to best approach DD. This is a really broad question which could be a giant article in itself – more details would help.

      Reply
      • Del

        Thanks Billy. The specific goal – I’ve been talking to friends and looking around online for problems to solve, and have found a few that sound promising (scalable software solutions can be built).

        However, I don’t know if it’s +EV to start developing a solution (or to hire a development team to). I have no familiarity or contacts within the industry, so I’m not sure how much value the solution is really providing (and if the problem is a real one). So to do DD, I’d need to talk to people with direct experience with the (hypothetical) problem, and figure out if they’ll pay for it. That’d be the information I’m after.

        Thanks again!


  16. Stephany Ibrahim

    Hi Billy,

    Great to hear from your adventures! I am living in Bali for the past 2 years and besides my career, which tends to be on Marketing & Digital, specially product/category, I decided to start an eCommerce on my own.

    If possible for you to check and see if you have any inputs or ideas to leverage it (I am running now the launch plan, its been 1 week only) I would appreciate

    Thanks!

    Reply
  17. Nick Di Fabio

    Billy,

    You’re newsletter is one of the few I subscribe to–and this post proved to me again why.

    I do have a question about $0/hr work.

    You’ve mentioned in the past to focus on your One Thing first thing in the morning. Specifically, create a 1 to 5 item task list for that One Thing.

    Would you suggest the thinking / researching / brainstorming happen be included in the 1 to 5 tasks per day on your One Thing?

    I feel that in the morning, it’s better to be in execution mode on tasks (builds momentum, avoids procrastination under the guise of ‘research’ or ‘thinking’)

    However, I also find that the thinking / research phase is critical. Otherwise, you can get just crossing off tasks but not really doing the impactful things.

    Not sure how you balance those two concepts as it relates to planning your day.

    Do you include $0 / hr work in your 1 to 5 morning tasks or do you save that thinking and research for later in the day?

    Reply

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