So why would I try and restart my life at the age of 33? You can take a quick read at my intro to give you a background story of my travels being an English teacher in South Korea for 6 years and returning back home to “moms” to build my fortunes below:
1 year ago from today:
I just got fired my my teaching job in Bundang Korea and have been occupying a couch my friend’s couch for the past week. Frankly, though it stung, they were right in firing me. After 6 years, it started becoming a soul-sucking job teaching little Korean kids and I had no joy in coming into work. They saw it. I saw it. After 6 years in Korea, I was making less money in with no growth in the industry.
The English teaching companies realize the revolving door of foreigners coming in and out of the country to teach English have no stability. So the response to that are salaries in which there is little growth and ever-shrinking benefits. I was thinking:
What the hell am I still doing here?
I was making barely enough to pay off bills and I had no future and no assets I was building. I fast forwarded to my future, like getting in a beat up imaginary DeLorean, in my 40’s, living in a one room, still trying to teach English in a small rural town in South Korea.
So what was I too do?
Honestly? I didn’t have a plan other than going back home and staying thereto figure it out. But my brain was scrambling. I was researching on google terms like “how to start a business” and “making money online”. I soon found a blog that I read on and off for the past 5 years, but until recently, didn’t really notice. It was a blog that followed a guy named Johnny, who left California (and sold all of his belongings) to become a muay thai fighter in Thailand. That blog eventually evolved into a diving blog, and then eventually a digital nomad blog.
Here is a link to his blog if you are interested (I am not affiliated in any way to his site):
I started researching a method he used to earn over $4,000 in passive income a month…Passive income?? I’ve heard this word before. I read a fantastic book from Tim Ferris called The Four Hour Work Week, which if you haven’t read, you should. This got me excited and I reread that book and started to research the method he recommended. So what was his not-so-secret method for earning over $4,000? He used dropshipping.
So what is dropshipping? Here are the basics:
Create an online store using Shopify.
Start contacting manufacturers/ distributors and add products to your store.
Optimize your store for conversions (better design, better copywriting, etc)
Use google adwords to sell those products.
I won’t go over all of the steps he outlines, but if you read through Johnny FD’s blog he can he can give you the jist.This article is about my journey thus far and where I am going next.
I flew back to Southern California and nestled back in my old room and bunkered down with my laptop and started a dropshipping store. After I added all of the products I thought I needed, I launched the store. I started to get some inquiries, but it just wasn’t enough to cover my advertising costs. After 7 months since starting the store, I realized my fatal error. I chose the wrong product niche.
Eighty percent of dropshipping is choosing the right product. I chose a niche that had brand loyalty (such as Samsung, Apple, etc). I had also chosen an electronic product which doesn’t work in this model. The reason for this is that you will never be able to compete with price in electronics such as flat screen tvs. It also doesn’t help that it is in a overcrowded marketplace.
But I still work on my dropshipping site and I have started to enjoy the hobby of flying drones. I think these machines and the technology will get better and bigger in the next 10 years. Which brings me to a review of the new DJI Mavic Pro. This is the new drone from DJI (the apple of this technology) that addresses all of the issues of owning and flying a drone.
The DJI Mavic Pro has been made smaller, and more compact than any previous drone, from any company. No more do you have to carry a huge case and equipment. You can just throw it in your backpack and travel with ease.
The controller has also been slimmed down so that it looks more like a small RC controller. This eliminates the previous bulky design of other drones.
Here is a video from youtuber CaseyNeistat and his review of the DJI Mavic Pro (he does a much better job):
If you want to get the new DJI Mavic Pro, send me an email at andrew@easyshopdrone.com and say that your from my steemit blog post and I will send you an exclusive discount that won’t be available anywhere else on launch day.
So what will I do now? I am in the midst of starting a new dropshipping store that I think will be a better niche product. I am also getting into creating my own product with a partner and selling it on Amazon FBA.
With all of these channels of probable income, I’m bound to catch one winner, right? Right? Well that’s what I am hoping. I’ll post updates on my feed and let you guys know how it goes! I hope this gives you a small insight to a guy trying to start over at 33.
(Me and David Choe)
With warm regards,
Andrew