Hi there fellow Steemians, promised myself I would start posting here this year, so here I am.
What a pleasure to be here. After reading some of the introduceyourself posts, I was blown away and felt obligated to introduce myself and let you know a bit about my story.
My name is Dan. I'm a South African bloak passionate about entrepreneurialism and sharing what I learn each day.
About 2 years ago I hit a real low point in my life, strange seeing as I had completed a degree cum laude a few months prior and should've been on top of the world.
The reason for this was that I couldn't see a path forward that I could be passionate about. I had worked while studying, managing a supplement store, for hours on end, for low pay...it sucked. I really didn't enjoy working for someone else's dream and feeling the blame for shortcomings that were clearly the fault of terrible high-level strategic decisions. Now the last thing I wanted to do was to enter that same routine, even if the pay was better. There had to be something more.
(Image credits: Pixabay)
Anyhow, I took a step back and searched through job offerings, no harm in having a look right? I actually got a job working marketing for a corporate as a contractor. My hope was that it would be different. It wasn't.
That was it! Hour after hour in traffic, pointless meetings and office politics. This wasn't for me...
(Image Credits: Pixabay)
I decided I would follow my own path, no matter what.
Like many, I started my search online. One business model after the other, one scam after the other, I searched tirelessly.
Now, at this point, I just want to point out that I would have definitely been classified as a "technophobe" back then. I didn't enjoy email (okay, no one does). I didn't even have the FaceBook.
(Image Credits: Flickr)
Regardless, I was so sure of this that it wouldn't have mattered what I had to learn. I was going to do it and do it my way, alone if I had to.
The First Dabble.
I was slightly sucked into a slight scam. Okay, a huge scam. The pyramid scheme of death. I quickly changed course.
Lesson Learned:
If the main aim of the thing is to teach you how to get more people into the thing, then run.
Also if the first things you see are images like below, then that's probably not good either.
(Image Credits: Pexels)
Second Dabble.
I started an affiliate marketing business, focusing on building niche websites about Amazon products and ranking these on the Google. The aim was to gain traffic to these, give people content they wanted about the product and offer them an opportunity to click through to Amazon to buy the product. This would result in a tiny commission on any sales made on Amazon by the customer who clicked through from the site.
Lesson Learned:
Legit but commissions are small while the workload is huge, a lot of content and SEO (if you do it yourself). Audience, Audience, Audience. You need an audience. Then you could just run this on the side with stuff your audience loves. I quickly started looking for something more solid.
Dabble 3 (Third time lucky)
Feeling disheartened that my hard work had not paid off how I would have liked, I sat and considered my options. And then it hit me. Wait a minute...I am busy promoting the products of sellers on Amazon and bringing them big business. I wonder what the margins are like there. Why couldn't I be the end seller of my own products? I know the marketplace and now have a thorough knowledge of listings etc.
Please enter Amazon FBA.
(Image Credits: Flickr)
For the next few months, I poured myself into this. Learning everything I could. Sleepless.
It was an incredible find. Automated, Scalable, Exciting! I sold my car, truly ensuring that this was what I was going to do, goodbye transport. I coupled the proceeds with some savings and decided I would use this lump to start my private label business and also invest in the bitcoin. Very passionate about cryptocurrencies and decentralization. On the business side, I decided I would focus purely on private label and creating my own unique products with suppliers, with Amazon as the launch pad. A real business, that you own. It's yours! Run it how you wish, when you wish, from anywhere.
(Image Credits: Flickr)
Due to my location and the fact that no one in my vicinity even knew what FBA stood for, I soon reached a point of feeling like I needed to surround myself with like-minded individuals, a community, a mentor and learn from them.
Out of all the free content and hyped up programs, one guy, in particular, caught my attention. He had a small YouTube channel with a handful of followers, less than 50 at the time and was also offering a course in this area. Bearing in mind, I was hugely sceptical of anyone offering courses online by this point, there was just something about him though, a genuineness. He was teaching properly and for free, you could be successful by following the free content without even joining his course. I liked that it wasn't overhyped and that there were so few members in his course. Personal. It was the community and networking opportunity that I was after.
I pulled the trigger and joined. I was the 15th member of the community and little did I know this was the best decision I was ever going to make.
Fast-forward to present day.
(Image Credits: Flickr)
I now run a successful Amazon Private Label business with EU and NA stores. Investing in the crypto space has also helped me grow my business.
This past Quarter 4, the EU store alone, in one week, made a profit that amounted to what I would've made in a year working in that supplement store.
More than the money side though, I have so much fun with this business and can work my own schedule. I love it!
I have also been coaching on the program I joined for a year now and have developed a great passion for helping others set up and grow their businesses. I’m blessed with the opportunity to meet and speak to around 10 new members every single week from all over the world. People looking for that same avenue to freedom and control over their lives.
I can honestly say that I love what I do.
Realizing that there are many people out there just starting out on the trails that I have trodden thus far, I have just started Maverick Methods. A place where I can share what I’m doing and interact with like-minded individuals. Where we can learn from each other.
For those of you who are interested, I will be sharing the step-by-steps of this business model here. Here's the first intro video (Also, looking into D Tube now and the possibility of making videos exclusively for this community):
Steemians, if you're interested, I present to you an option. No strings attached. It will not be easy, not at all, there will be mountains, false summit after false summit, but when you turn around in a year or two, you'll thank yourself for it.
No more trading your time for money, let's get automated, scalable and build life margin, let's fix the value equation!
It's great to be here and I look forward to interacting with you all.