Biz (and decision to hit the event button) completely based on teachings from your blog / book.
Not sure what you mean you just sell it and everything is under the same name… You have to work that out with the legal owner but just means you pay tax no big deal.
Doesn’t sound like a real situation because this response would be the logical answer
Have you read any good books lately?
Sidenote: What is the situation with your third book?
Nothing good, read about 10 this year and don’t even remember more than 3-5 points from them. Seem to be hitting the limit.
Still considering it, would be more entertaining than anything else.
What’s your top advice on how to transition from thinking in six figures into thinking in seven figures and beyond? I find it progressively harder to continue getting high returns and growing my business quickly and am wondering how to hit that next level.
Usually comes down to sales, have to find a way to attract a larger audience instead of a niche.
For example, this blog will never get big. Too niche. You’d have to expand to make anything or start many niche items.
You say in one of your articles that if you get into the top 2-3% of the dating market, you will be swarmed with options. Can you please explain the make-up of a top 2-3% man?
Net worth. $5M+.
Hi there,
my situation is as follows, I am working a dead end job making 2000£ a month at 32 living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I have the chance to make a career change to fly planes I am holding all licenses but would start from the bottom.
I am planning going into e-commerce as outlined in your book. The question is shall I go straight into it or “waste” another year doing the career change and than go into business.
Thank you love your content.
Switch. Airports are the easiest places in the world to get work done.
I’m an EU airline pilot.
If you really have all licenses you have already made an investment worth between £50k and £100k. Why are you not already flying?
Entry pay in most airlines is at least £2k per month. Nowadays there are a ridiculous amount of airlines hiring out of London airports and you can almost pick and choose if you are good.
For your previous e-commerce, as I understand it, it was a B2C physical product (diet or skincare or supplements or whatever), did you use Amazon (seller or FBA) as a sales channel?
Thank you for your help.
Merci.
As usual no comment, if you’ve read the blog you already know what we did
Currently at a top 10 US undergrad b-school. Buyside firms are increasingly recruiting us. I know you recommend m&a to keep options open, but is it worth it to go straight into PE/HF if the pay is higher(at least per hourly basis)?
No they underperform. You will more likely get fired and not see any of the upside, your best bet is still M&A for stability.
Hedge funds don’t generate alpha, hence why they shut down every year.
I may improve face-to-face sales skills through mastering body language. However, what do you suggest so I could improve my online sales skills? (for basic metrics such as click rate/engagement/conversion rate)
trial and error selling an actual product. It’s the only way
You mentioned investment is only meaningful once you hit a meaningful number like $500K. Though I am improving my skillsets for getting into high-paying positions, as a fresh graduate I can only save a limited amount of money.
With the limited amount of idle money what would you do if you have to start over again?
We just deleted a 7 paragraph rant.
Same answer. Start a business, investing is worthless unless you have $1M+
What’s the best job in sales I can get without a degree?
All I have is a highschool diploma and work experience in marekting / sales.
We don’t know as we haven’t worked in tech sales. We would follow the same path in efficiency and get started 1 year ago because you’re very far behind (this is the truth and no one else is going to say it).
I am in tech (sales/marketing and engineering), I’ll be honest. Most of those sales jobs don’t really require a degree. You just need a recommendation from someone inside. Most SDR jobs are shit for the first year or so. I am sure if you survive your lack of degree becomes negligible.
In year 2 (out of 3) undergrad business program (elite university). Bad decisions in Y1 led to a current 2.9 GPA, with no M&A internship offers at bulge brackets for next summer.
In light of this and:
1) your newest guidelines saying in the future you should only shoot for M&A at bulge brackets
2) BBs (seemingly) taking +90% of their full-time analysts through their own summer interns
Is it worth/realistic pursuing M&A (by aiming for lower-tier banks and “working my way up” later) – or should I switch paths entirely (i.e. Enterprise Sales)?
Trying to start working right after undergrad and avoid Masters/MBA.
Thank you for your time.
Go to sales, you have almost no shot at banking with that
According to your experience, what do you boys recommend to take for joint care & regeneration of the joints from years of wear & tear from heavy weight lifting? Thank you
Again nothing, we don’t take supplements
If we’re talking years of joint damage, you’re going to need more than supplements. Supplements will not help in terms of cellular regeneration, especially when we’re talking cartilage. Only thing that will do that is stem cell therapy.
Supplements will only help you maintain where you’re at now and help to prevent further degradation. Look into turmeric/curcumin, make sure your vitamin D levels are optimal, glucosamine/chondroitin, omega 3 fatty acids, PRP is a great option if you’re still young.
You want to decrease inflammation systemically so look into cryotherapy, heat therapy, etc. Analyze your diet: no sugar or refined carbs, only lean clean meat, lots of water, healthy fats, stay away from impact-type cardio such as running and opt for swimming, cycling, etc.
As a Personal Trainer I approve of WS’ reply. Was going to recommend exactly the same thing.
Any new cryptos you’ve added to your portfolio since triangle investing? Additionally any change to your outlook given the vol?
No change as usual
Hate Tech culture but love technology. Graduating this year with computer science degree and looking at software jobs at non-software (banks, healthcare, etc.) companies.
Is that a bad idea since these companies are focused on other things? I want to be close to the profits of the company, but I want to stay as far from silicon valley as possible.
Terrible idea, go where the money is
Plenty of engineers making 200k and above in finance. Look into that.
NYC tech is booming right now.
Google is your friend…
Plenty of engineers making 200k (or at least 170k-180k) out of undergrad. You can do better.
Question: How does one secure a spot as a “career associate?” I know you have said it’s an “awful idea,” but I’ve done 3 years as analyst and 4 years as associate in a niche group at a BB that has extremely lax hours, so it’s basically $160-200k to do nothing most of the time with significant work from home flexibility (sometime there are busy days/weeks). Could use a lot of that time for a side hustle but been lazy so far. That said, I’ve gotten vibes that there hasn’t been much “precedent” for a 4th year associate, etc…I’ve always thought Wall St was more of an “up and out” system but wouldn’t mind the chill life of a career associate (if it remains as it has been these past 8 years), and am not suited at all for the salesmanship of the VP+ level, so how would you advise maintaining this position (and hopefully I can start using the free time to start a biz per your system)?
We have no idea, if you’re well liked you can just negotiate that at your mid-year review or year-end review.
No clue why you would ever want to do that, if you can’t sell we can all but guarantee the business you start will also fail
Thanks for the response. So what did you mean by “Career Associate”? Is that something you’ve actually seen or have you only seen people “up or out”?
Want to do it because, as mentioned, it’s a $200k+ comp package for a few hours of work a week (on average).
Yeah lots of career associates in the industry, they usually don’t end up being happy as they see everyone else surpass them and eventually drop contact with them.
Usually involves drug and alcohol abuse as well
When reaching out to influencers to get traffic to your SEO affiliate niche site; do you mean paying for a backlink from their blog content?
No it means they say “check this out or buy this” that’s really all you need. And of course the link
Interviewing with a very large tech company for a newly grad tech sales position (solutions engineer). Made it through the first 2 rounds by following your strategy, which is showing excitement about their product and having a good story. The final round is in 2 days (with a panel of 4 people) and it will be 90 minutes, along with a presentation to sell them on a product I have made or believe (i.e. I have built my own product before and have already mentioned in in my other interviews as well).
Any additional suggestions on what I should focus my presentation on and what else I should prepare?
No as we have never worked in tech sales… can’t help as it’s bad info
send an email to make sure you can connect your laptop to their tvs bc you want to do a presentation – do they have lightning port etc
do research on everyone you’re interviewing beforehand!
for the interview/presentation: build a little rapport based on research you did pre demo, then set an agenda….could be as simple as today we’ll be going through a deck, q&a, product demo + questions during demo, then discussing next steps for a product evaluation (or dive further into questions you have about the company – how many reps, trajectory, % people hitting quota on team, what vertical you’d be in etc)
also – anytime you get asked a question, make sure you answer concisely, remember the WHY not just a rambling explanation of the technical details and ask a question back – ie “why is it important or would that be a dealbreaker or how do you do this now, etc etc”
get emails of everyone you interviewed with, ask if it makes sense to connect by a specific day with feedback on moving forward or not
send concise follow up emails with 1 personal point you learned from everyone in meeting + thank you
this is essentially a loose template of what an intro ae or qualifying sdr call/meeting looks like – interview should just be a model of that
Regarding your last post talking about going into services as a last resort
I have a skill that can be performed as a service for new homeowners, potential gain is between 2k per week up to 2% of the total property value per week
Downside is it’s not scalable and cannot be effectively performed by anyone else other than me because the learning curve is extremely steep
Would it be viable to continue with this while creating an info product about the skill, then training students to perform it and kind of forming an agency?
Yes this works. It’s only going to be a good idea if you can scale it with other people though
Staying with current employer for one more year may profit 70k usd. But incurs trip to dangerous area (health), 12-18 hr days, 9-10 months, no side hustle from summer 2019 to spring 2020
Would be a sizeable % net worth gain for me, gain skills 10 years building to get, and better contacts. But- i dont know if they will pay off or not. Do I burn the political capital and leave for new career before trip (conservative assume flat income/hours move), or do the trip and then leave employer after?
Impossible to answer. If there is a real health hazard (death) definitely no, if its just an awful living environment for a year but no real physical harm then go. You have to make that calculation yourself
Thanks for taking the time. All-in on equity/ownership as the end game, and I’m familiar with the precept in the books and on the blog about building a side business while maximizing career income until the inflection point when side business becomes full-time. But how would you suggest approaching things if the business idea, to be launched a few years down the road, is essentially doing what one is currently doing, except going into business for oneself?
Thats a terrible idea as it means you only have one skill which conflicts directly with the advice in the book. We wouldn’t do it.
Original Poster: I’m hoping to ask a quick follow-up, as I’m not sure that I fully follow (or maybe I didn’t articulate the question well in the first-place). I realize that it’s not a product-based business—the focus in Efficiency—but you feel that it’s a terrible model for wealth generation for, as an example, a high-performing real estate agent to open up his own brokerage and scale based on producing agents or for a skilled HF employee to raise his own fund?
Real estate is fine as you’re basically learning sales then transfering that skill to learn something else (leverage and management)
For the hedge fund side, yeah we’re gonna take the bet that no one reading here is starting a hedge fund themselves. They underperform every year. If you are actually a successful hedge fund manager, there would be no questions as you’d already be rich
Thanks for the clarification on your thinking; particularly, regarding the real estate example. It’s helpful.
1) Good time to DCA into crypto given bloodbath? If not, when?
2) Any change to coin recommendations mentioned in Triangle Investing?
Thank you
No not until hedge funds get out, it needs to get off the news before you can bother buying it again
No
Curious what are your thoughts on the dropshipping business model?
Thank you.
Never did it and don’t have any interest in it. Has come up in every Q&A thus far, won’t change our response as it isn’t worth our time to look at it.
Just read efficiency, and had a few questions off of it:
Selling one product to start off with or many products. When starting a business, is it okay to sell multiple products off that bat, if there is a certain niche that has multiple products?
Is $5 – 15 k in inventory okay, or is there an upper limit/lower limit you recommend?
Best to do one product. If you can’t succeed with one unlikely you sell with many. The only exception is basic items like t-shirts where it’s essentially one item.
I read Triangle investing, great book, very to the point.
My only concern and question is regarding your long-term confidence in averaging into the US stock market via index funds, and an average return of 7% or similar on that.
What makes you so confident this will remain the next 50 years the way it has worked out the past 50 years, specifically for the US?
I would feel more comfortable betting on the growth of the world economy, or a select few regions. From what I see happening globally, the US had a great time post WW1/2, rising to become the global superpower. This time is usually the time-frame used for calculating those average yearly returns.
But it won’t stay like this forever, obviously. Great nations rise and fall.
It appears for the next 20-30 years, SE Asia is much stronger on the rise. The US (and EU) are showing more signs of decline. Many news coming from EU and US are very worrying.
One being the massive unsustainable growing debt in US and EU – on that note I also do not understand your confidence in US government bonds as a safe long-term investment. Short-term ok, but past 10 years I am much less confident.
It has worked for 100+ years. People are irrational and will always try to beat the market (they won’t) so your returns will always be better than the average guy by dollar cost averaging. If you’re negative on the USA, you can always just buy a world market fund and call it a night
Thanks for the response.
I am more negative on the US correct.
My question was mainly WHY you are positive on the US by recommending US stocks and US government bonds as part of Triangle Investing? Not about the benefit of dollar cost averaging, I agree with those.
That the past 100 years have been great is correct, but not a good argument. There is plenty of evidence the next 50-100 years won’t be as rosy as the last 100 years for the US. I think nations move along very long time-frame cycles, many decades to centuries.
The US had a great bull market as a nation the last 100 years, it won’t go on forever, question is will it end in our lifetimes. I think it’s likely.
But I have to admit I do not know all the variables to make a fully informed decision, thus my question, as you might know some more factors I am not aware of. It’s a more detailed long question to answer, so if you don’t find the time that’s totally fine.
Maybe you recommend to invest long-term but if it looks quite bad in 2028 to pull out and put your money elsewhere? To be more flexible.
I would not trust US stocks or bonds as an investment with a 50 year time-frame locked down without ability to sell, just being able to receive price appreciation / dividend / interest. Would you?
From what I see:
– Totally unsustainable government debt
– Cultural shift from producing and long-term thinking to short-term thinking, entitlement, hedonism
– Decrease of birth rates and healthy stable families
– General shift to more Socialism, free stuff for all type politics that hurt the economy long-term
– Increased violent confrontation between Political Left and Right, little rational adult conversation
– Growing Corporatism, growing wealth inequality
– Increased international competition from countries much hungrier, harder-working and with better cultural attitudes for strong economic growth
we are based in the USA , the chances all US companies fail is essentially next to zero so seems like a big post with no real reason to worry. If the entire USA dies, we have bigger problems than a stupid stock chart with numbers on it
Read the Millionaire teacher, it goes into depth on index funds (basically the whole book). Essentially you’ll want a portfolio of consisting of both US & international index funds + a portion of bonds depending on your risk tolerance (a basic way is allocating the percentage of bonds to your age, aka if you’re 25 years old it’ll be 25% bonds and 75% index funds
In Efficency you say that: “If you develop an immense amount of will power which is a skill that can be improved upon you will find a way to succeed”
Also said: “Anyone can put in the work and reach the first percentile in will power… making intelligence the most malleable item in the world.”
Wondering if you could explain a little more or if you had action steps to increase will power.
Thank you!
No actionable steps, you just put yourself in situations that require tough decisions over and over and over again. Only real way to do this is by starting a biz as you’re forced to focus all your time on it or die with nothing.
Question on getting started in AM: Native, FB, IG, Other – is there a traffic source someone doing AM *purely* to hone online sales chops should prioritise learning (i.e. sending traffic to a landing page/offer and getting it to convert)?
And then once you can get a traffic/lander/offer funnel to convert you’d be confident enough to move on to building something legit?
If you can master google or Facebook you’re set.
What you’re selling determines the type of ad you need to get good at (general statement)
It’s Black Friday week for fricken stocks and crypto!
Have you guys expanded your investments into some additional currencies?
BAT, ZeroX, etc?
Or still sticking with the core ones you guys wrote about in Triangle Investing?
No hedge funds will sell and liquidate till end of year so we’ll look again then
Thank you for your previous advice, my financial situation has already done better in the last few months. Regarding your previous post about millennials, do you have any specific tips to get ahead for someone in university who comes from a family with money and contacts?
Same answers my man… hopefully the Q&A is not like this.
1) use contacts to get into one of the careers in efficiency
2) use contacts to boot strap a biz
Nothing else changes, never will
Triangle Investing Real Estate Section
Return Hurdle of monthly rent / Property value = x.x% – x.x%
Since the day Triangle Investing came out, I couldn’t find any property that was within the above-mentioned range.
Based on your recent tweet, wait until the RE market gets crushed?
Yes or look in other Geos. If the math doesnt work you never buy
Hi guys, bought efficiency but can’t find the transaction-ID sorry.
Just wanted to know your opinion on start-up accelerators/ incubators. Involved in one at (IB target) uni right now but am I right to think that no-one of any value would bother using one? Most of the start-ups are complex + bad business models and only a few of the teachers are worth listening to.
Is this just because it’s at university or are all incubators like this? Best to go alone?
We have no idea as we never went that route, most finance professionals have no skills to add to a start-up.
1.) From your experiences, what are best practices for making a private label nutra (supplement) product more defensible? Custom formulation, packing, etc.?
2.) When you were on the comeup, what was a typical weekend routine? Assume you only go out one night a week max.
Thanks as always. You guys might be able to save the millenials yet!
Never did nutra supplement and you know very well we’re not going to give out that much detail. Would be idiotic.
No difference than any other weekend, work out, friends, reading
Fair enough, thanks guys.
Nice try though lol!
2. Any advice for reaching out to online businesses? I’m selling a payment solution for online stores. Our clients are seeing increased conversions (due to more options). It costs the same to merchant as a credit card. Efficiency gave great info on sales but not sure how to adapt it for email & phone marketing.
Thanks again, guys.
Reach out to online business? This is the same as recruiting in the Q&A portion of blog, you have to offer something upfront otherwise no one will read it. So give them something of value and a reason to talk to you is the only advice we can really give.
Not sure what you mean by your question to be honest, who reaches out to online businesses?
Exploring best sales funnels right now. Solution can be put on any online cart to increase conversions and reduce chargebacks. Larger companies are an obvious target but are less tech-savvy, longer sales cycle, harder to reach, etc. So we are exploring general ecom companies and and are exploring how to reach them at scale.
Became financially independent within a year (one-event). Quickly outmatched long-term friends last year financially because of that. Can feel some distance and sometimes disgust to their civility + non-entrepreneurial mindset since then. What is the next step in the social realm?
Go out on weekdays as that’s the time when rich people go out. You’ll need new friends, time to move on as you need to associate with winners not losers who secretly want you to fail
Thanks for the truth.
Best skincare product?
Reference due to increased back breakouts from more workout frequency in the week.
Don’t use supplements so no recommendation
23 old making 105k + restricted stock awards worth 50-60k over 2-3 years at a very large public tech company, with student loan debt of 20-25k. Should I A) focus on paying off debt aggressively and getting rid of it ASAP or invest agressively and wait till stocks vest pay off all debt with stocks immediately?
Neither option matters. Results in same ROI. Just start a biz asap.
5% return or 7% return on 20K is absolutely nothing.
I’ve bought effiency and have been very close to achieving what your graph sets out. I’m 27 at 3.0x. However, unfortunately I’ve just received my inheritance of $12m and I really don’t know what to do. Shall I continue to work as if I didn’t receive my inheritance for self-fulfilment purposes ?
My father recently died too early. He didn’t leave a business. Just cash.
Thanks
You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t spend the principal. Only live off interest income/investment income and don’t do anything you don’t enjoy. You’re set
What’s something you guys are looking forward to in the next 3-6 months?
Looking forward to starting a new project. Continuing to get in better shape and generally spending less time worrying about increasing numbers on a screen
Do you feel that the softening housing market, plus companies like Realtyshares going under will have a larger effect on the economy?
RE shares is irrelevant, they just spent too much money erroneously the projects are still funded and work.
Rest of RE, yeah we think it’s over heated we wouldn’t buy a *first* home with leverage here
Mid-20’s engineer at startup.
Which path is better:
1. Pursue FAANG (pay, prestige, network) then work on side biz/project
2. Side biz/project
Same answer #1
Bought Efficiency and Triangle investing – best books I ever read.
30 yo. quit “Career”
1m in crypto (7m at peak) can hold till 2023
250k in stocks
100k cash
Moved to Asia to start AM biz.
Only need 5k a month to live.
Am I fucked, or keep trucking?
Sounds like you’re set but got way too greedy on the crypto side. Lesson learned just take your extra money you earn and fix your allocation
“Just take your extra money you earn”. Do you mean funnel profits from AM biz to diversify to RE, and sell more crypto on way up (if it happens again) to get a RE stream?
I’m 27 and I am currently at a large IT consultancy company. Started working way too late only at 26. Pay is shit and work as well. Thinking to go back to a fast tracked manager supply chain position where I studied Industrial Engineering for. It is either that or find a programmer position at a Tech firm.
What would you advice?
This is literally in the book. There are only 3 careers we recommend.
Clear, no exceptions
Working a career in enterprise sales selling software – currently a BDR. In my free time, practicing copywriting and getting ready to sell a product I sourced online…
Trying to offer freelance direct copy consulting… while also starting up my online store.
Am I being a juggler right now? If so, should I initially be focusing on sharpening my copywriting skills or just jumping into eCommerce?
Yes. Focus on one biz and your career that’s enough
Okay –
eCommerce > Consulting
Thanks.
I want to scale and become a good copywriter. I have no clients, nor testimonials.
Currently writing sales letters and articles that I plan to collect in a book and then hand out, for free, to potential clients at a big business conference I’m attending.
Do you agree with this approach? If no, why?
Sure that’s a way to do it, selling someone elses product is always a billion times better since it has results
Hi, I’m in a similar position as you – work in tech sales, and am looking at selling a product online.
Where did you source your product from, and did you spend much up front?
Anywhere particular you’re practicing your copywrighting?
I follow an outline from Ben Settle. Creating my own product. I’m writing a book with sales letters in my preferred niche – commercial real estate. My plan is to upload them on my homepage, then physically print the book, sell it on Amazon so that is has a tangible retail price – and give it away for free if people sign up to my email list.
Also do a daily podcast and I plan to read my sales letters on YouTube down the road. The plan is just to open as many traffic channels as possible.
What specific sectors/sub-sectors of the stock market interest you right now?
My own favorite sector right now: small, medium and large bank stocks. Yes we’re 10 years into a bull market. But. We’ve also (probably) got 10 years *until* the next credit crisis. Valuations are totally reasonable (forward P/E’s are 10-12x and some banks still trade at discounts to book value), you can still find really good dividend yields and future div growth, etc.
Already in triangle investing, our views are 10 year frames though we don’t care about a single year
When do you reach fi with a family of 3? Is it 3 mill in your opinion – could you elaborate?
What is there to elaborate on? That’s about $50k per person so livable for sure
How do you determine the quantity of product to purchase if it is a seasonal item(Christmas)?
Based on seasonality and the product, it’s usually the biggest month by 2-3x depending on category
Recently started IB after retiring from professional athletics – hate the inefficient hours (no wonder tech is surpassing finance) but love the money. Have a financial modeling biz in the works to generate some FCF, and right now it’s target market is need-to-succeed college students. I could, however, target a more professional (older) market and charge higher margins. Any thoughts on the optimal market to launch to? Any advice would help me save some much-needed time. Thank you!
We can’t help as we never did it. The real money is naturally the high end but then you’re competing with training the street.
Bought efficiency, and looking to start a business ASAP like you recomend. However, I don’t have the capital you recomend to test a business out (pay to drive traffic), or spend a huge amount on product development.
I don’t want to waste time on affiliate marketing as an alternative.
What do you recomend? Would starting a low cost business, based on white labelling be worth it?
(Apologies for the repeated submissions)
Get a job to get the capital, work 80 hours a week. Shouldn’t take more than a couple years, 99.99% won’t do it
1) What is more impressive / prestigious (in your mind and in normal people’s minds) – elite tier athlete (“pro” designation but not enough sport income to support yourself) in something like Triathlon or Crossfit, or a top 5 MBA?
2) Assuming a side business is not an option and one wants to pursue entrepreneurship full time – is it better to jump in as young as possible, or start full time entrepreneurship after financial independence is already achieved (around age 30-35)?
Thanks for the Q&A!
1) ridiculous question, probably pro designation. Any degree that require prestige to make it valuable by definition means there was no actual value.
2) younger the better
23 yo based in EU
Due to circumstances started studying 6 months ago (3 year bachelor here is about 10k). Got random telecom sales job to get something quick 1 month ago. No previous work experience. Very good with people.
Want to get into tech sales. Which option is more efficient?
Option A: Study (get bachelor around 26), do b2b sales on side and start online biz
Option B: Stop studying, do sales jobs until good record to pass tech sales and start online biz
Biz (and decision to hit the event button) completely based on teachings from your blog / book.
Not sure what you mean you just sell it and everything is under the same name… You have to work that out with the legal owner but just means you pay tax no big deal.
Doesn’t sound like a real situation because this response would be the logical answer
Have you read any good books lately?
Sidenote: What is the situation with your third book?
Nothing good, read about 10 this year and don’t even remember more than 3-5 points from them. Seem to be hitting the limit.
Still considering it, would be more entertaining than anything else.
What’s your top advice on how to transition from thinking in six figures into thinking in seven figures and beyond? I find it progressively harder to continue getting high returns and growing my business quickly and am wondering how to hit that next level.
Usually comes down to sales, have to find a way to attract a larger audience instead of a niche.
For example, this blog will never get big. Too niche. You’d have to expand to make anything or start many niche items.
You say in one of your articles that if you get into the top 2-3% of the dating market, you will be swarmed with options. Can you please explain the make-up of a top 2-3% man?
Net worth. $5M+.
Hi there,
my situation is as follows, I am working a dead end job making 2000£ a month at 32 living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I have the chance to make a career change to fly planes I am holding all licenses but would start from the bottom.
I am planning going into e-commerce as outlined in your book. The question is shall I go straight into it or “waste” another year doing the career change and than go into business.
Thank you love your content.
Switch. Airports are the easiest places in the world to get work done.
I’m an EU airline pilot.
If you really have all licenses you have already made an investment worth between £50k and £100k. Why are you not already flying?
Entry pay in most airlines is at least £2k per month. Nowadays there are a ridiculous amount of airlines hiring out of London airports and you can almost pick and choose if you are good.
For your previous e-commerce, as I understand it, it was a B2C physical product (diet or skincare or supplements or whatever), did you use Amazon (seller or FBA) as a sales channel?
Thank you for your help.
Merci.
As usual no comment, if you’ve read the blog you already know what we did
Currently at a top 10 US undergrad b-school. Buyside firms are increasingly recruiting us. I know you recommend m&a to keep options open, but is it worth it to go straight into PE/HF if the pay is higher(at least per hourly basis)?
No they underperform. You will more likely get fired and not see any of the upside, your best bet is still M&A for stability.
Hedge funds don’t generate alpha, hence why they shut down every year.
I may improve face-to-face sales skills through mastering body language. However, what do you suggest so I could improve my online sales skills? (for basic metrics such as click rate/engagement/conversion rate)
trial and error selling an actual product. It’s the only way
You mentioned investment is only meaningful once you hit a meaningful number like $500K. Though I am improving my skillsets for getting into high-paying positions, as a fresh graduate I can only save a limited amount of money.
With the limited amount of idle money what would you do if you have to start over again?
We just deleted a 7 paragraph rant.
Same answer. Start a business, investing is worthless unless you have $1M+
What’s the best job in sales I can get without a degree?
All I have is a highschool diploma and work experience in marekting / sales.
We don’t know as we haven’t worked in tech sales. We would follow the same path in efficiency and get started 1 year ago because you’re very far behind (this is the truth and no one else is going to say it).
I am in tech (sales/marketing and engineering), I’ll be honest. Most of those sales jobs don’t really require a degree. You just need a recommendation from someone inside. Most SDR jobs are shit for the first year or so. I am sure if you survive your lack of degree becomes negligible.
In year 2 (out of 3) undergrad business program (elite university). Bad decisions in Y1 led to a current 2.9 GPA, with no M&A internship offers at bulge brackets for next summer.
In light of this and:
1) your newest guidelines saying in the future you should only shoot for M&A at bulge brackets
2) BBs (seemingly) taking +90% of their full-time analysts through their own summer interns
Is it worth/realistic pursuing M&A (by aiming for lower-tier banks and “working my way up” later) – or should I switch paths entirely (i.e. Enterprise Sales)?
Trying to start working right after undergrad and avoid Masters/MBA.
Thank you for your time.
Go to sales, you have almost no shot at banking with that
According to your experience, what do you boys recommend to take for joint care & regeneration of the joints from years of wear & tear from heavy weight lifting? Thank you
Again nothing, we don’t take supplements
If we’re talking years of joint damage, you’re going to need more than supplements. Supplements will not help in terms of cellular regeneration, especially when we’re talking cartilage. Only thing that will do that is stem cell therapy.
Supplements will only help you maintain where you’re at now and help to prevent further degradation. Look into turmeric/curcumin, make sure your vitamin D levels are optimal, glucosamine/chondroitin, omega 3 fatty acids, PRP is a great option if you’re still young.
You want to decrease inflammation systemically so look into cryotherapy, heat therapy, etc. Analyze your diet: no sugar or refined carbs, only lean clean meat, lots of water, healthy fats, stay away from impact-type cardio such as running and opt for swimming, cycling, etc.
As a Personal Trainer I approve of WS’ reply. Was going to recommend exactly the same thing.
Any new cryptos you’ve added to your portfolio since triangle investing? Additionally any change to your outlook given the vol?
No change as usual
Hate Tech culture but love technology. Graduating this year with computer science degree and looking at software jobs at non-software (banks, healthcare, etc.) companies.
Is that a bad idea since these companies are focused on other things? I want to be close to the profits of the company, but I want to stay as far from silicon valley as possible.
Terrible idea, go where the money is
Plenty of engineers making 200k and above in finance. Look into that.
NYC tech is booming right now.
Google is your friend…
Plenty of engineers making 200k (or at least 170k-180k) out of undergrad. You can do better.
Question: How does one secure a spot as a “career associate?” I know you have said it’s an “awful idea,” but I’ve done 3 years as analyst and 4 years as associate in a niche group at a BB that has extremely lax hours, so it’s basically $160-200k to do nothing most of the time with significant work from home flexibility (sometime there are busy days/weeks). Could use a lot of that time for a side hustle but been lazy so far. That said, I’ve gotten vibes that there hasn’t been much “precedent” for a 4th year associate, etc…I’ve always thought Wall St was more of an “up and out” system but wouldn’t mind the chill life of a career associate (if it remains as it has been these past 8 years), and am not suited at all for the salesmanship of the VP+ level, so how would you advise maintaining this position (and hopefully I can start using the free time to start a biz per your system)?
We have no idea, if you’re well liked you can just negotiate that at your mid-year review or year-end review.
No clue why you would ever want to do that, if you can’t sell we can all but guarantee the business you start will also fail
Thanks for the response. So what did you mean by “Career Associate”? Is that something you’ve actually seen or have you only seen people “up or out”?
Referencing:
http://wallstreetplayboys.com/become-a-millionaire-on-wall-street/
http://wallstreetplayboys.com/wall-street-past-present-and-future/
Want to do it because, as mentioned, it’s a $200k+ comp package for a few hours of work a week (on average).
Yeah lots of career associates in the industry, they usually don’t end up being happy as they see everyone else surpass them and eventually drop contact with them.
Usually involves drug and alcohol abuse as well
When reaching out to influencers to get traffic to your SEO affiliate niche site; do you mean paying for a backlink from their blog content?
No it means they say “check this out or buy this” that’s really all you need. And of course the link
Interviewing with a very large tech company for a newly grad tech sales position (solutions engineer). Made it through the first 2 rounds by following your strategy, which is showing excitement about their product and having a good story. The final round is in 2 days (with a panel of 4 people) and it will be 90 minutes, along with a presentation to sell them on a product I have made or believe (i.e. I have built my own product before and have already mentioned in in my other interviews as well).
Any additional suggestions on what I should focus my presentation on and what else I should prepare?
No as we have never worked in tech sales… can’t help as it’s bad info
build a ppt deck (no more than 10 slides, text light 25 mins max – you can use this as a great base: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0)
send an email to make sure you can connect your laptop to their tvs bc you want to do a presentation – do they have lightning port etc
do research on everyone you’re interviewing beforehand!
for the interview/presentation: build a little rapport based on research you did pre demo, then set an agenda….could be as simple as today we’ll be going through a deck, q&a, product demo + questions during demo, then discussing next steps for a product evaluation (or dive further into questions you have about the company – how many reps, trajectory, % people hitting quota on team, what vertical you’d be in etc)
also – anytime you get asked a question, make sure you answer concisely, remember the WHY not just a rambling explanation of the technical details and ask a question back – ie “why is it important or would that be a dealbreaker or how do you do this now, etc etc”
get emails of everyone you interviewed with, ask if it makes sense to connect by a specific day with feedback on moving forward or not
send concise follow up emails with 1 personal point you learned from everyone in meeting + thank you
this is essentially a loose template of what an intro ae or qualifying sdr call/meeting looks like – interview should just be a model of that
Regarding your last post talking about going into services as a last resort
I have a skill that can be performed as a service for new homeowners, potential gain is between 2k per week up to 2% of the total property value per week
Downside is it’s not scalable and cannot be effectively performed by anyone else other than me because the learning curve is extremely steep
Would it be viable to continue with this while creating an info product about the skill, then training students to perform it and kind of forming an agency?
Yes this works. It’s only going to be a good idea if you can scale it with other people though
Staying with current employer for one more year may profit 70k usd. But incurs trip to dangerous area (health), 12-18 hr days, 9-10 months, no side hustle from summer 2019 to spring 2020
Would be a sizeable % net worth gain for me, gain skills 10 years building to get, and better contacts. But- i dont know if they will pay off or not. Do I burn the political capital and leave for new career before trip (conservative assume flat income/hours move), or do the trip and then leave employer after?
Impossible to answer. If there is a real health hazard (death) definitely no, if its just an awful living environment for a year but no real physical harm then go. You have to make that calculation yourself
Thanks for taking the time. All-in on equity/ownership as the end game, and I’m familiar with the precept in the books and on the blog about building a side business while maximizing career income until the inflection point when side business becomes full-time. But how would you suggest approaching things if the business idea, to be launched a few years down the road, is essentially doing what one is currently doing, except going into business for oneself?
Thats a terrible idea as it means you only have one skill which conflicts directly with the advice in the book. We wouldn’t do it.
Original Poster: I’m hoping to ask a quick follow-up, as I’m not sure that I fully follow (or maybe I didn’t articulate the question well in the first-place). I realize that it’s not a product-based business—the focus in Efficiency—but you feel that it’s a terrible model for wealth generation for, as an example, a high-performing real estate agent to open up his own brokerage and scale based on producing agents or for a skilled HF employee to raise his own fund?
Real estate is fine as you’re basically learning sales then transfering that skill to learn something else (leverage and management)
For the hedge fund side, yeah we’re gonna take the bet that no one reading here is starting a hedge fund themselves. They underperform every year. If you are actually a successful hedge fund manager, there would be no questions as you’d already be rich
Thanks for the clarification on your thinking; particularly, regarding the real estate example. It’s helpful.
1) Good time to DCA into crypto given bloodbath? If not, when?
2) Any change to coin recommendations mentioned in Triangle Investing?
Thank you
No not until hedge funds get out, it needs to get off the news before you can bother buying it again
No
Curious what are your thoughts on the dropshipping business model?
Thank you.
Never did it and don’t have any interest in it. Has come up in every Q&A thus far, won’t change our response as it isn’t worth our time to look at it.
Just read efficiency, and had a few questions off of it:
Selling one product to start off with or many products. When starting a business, is it okay to sell multiple products off that bat, if there is a certain niche that has multiple products?
Is $5 – 15 k in inventory okay, or is there an upper limit/lower limit you recommend?
Best to do one product. If you can’t succeed with one unlikely you sell with many. The only exception is basic items like t-shirts where it’s essentially one item.
I read Triangle investing, great book, very to the point.
My only concern and question is regarding your long-term confidence in averaging into the US stock market via index funds, and an average return of 7% or similar on that.
What makes you so confident this will remain the next 50 years the way it has worked out the past 50 years, specifically for the US?
I would feel more comfortable betting on the growth of the world economy, or a select few regions. From what I see happening globally, the US had a great time post WW1/2, rising to become the global superpower. This time is usually the time-frame used for calculating those average yearly returns.
But it won’t stay like this forever, obviously. Great nations rise and fall.
It appears for the next 20-30 years, SE Asia is much stronger on the rise. The US (and EU) are showing more signs of decline. Many news coming from EU and US are very worrying.
One being the massive unsustainable growing debt in US and EU – on that note I also do not understand your confidence in US government bonds as a safe long-term investment. Short-term ok, but past 10 years I am much less confident.
It has worked for 100+ years. People are irrational and will always try to beat the market (they won’t) so your returns will always be better than the average guy by dollar cost averaging. If you’re negative on the USA, you can always just buy a world market fund and call it a night
Thanks for the response.
I am more negative on the US correct.
My question was mainly WHY you are positive on the US by recommending US stocks and US government bonds as part of Triangle Investing? Not about the benefit of dollar cost averaging, I agree with those.
That the past 100 years have been great is correct, but not a good argument. There is plenty of evidence the next 50-100 years won’t be as rosy as the last 100 years for the US. I think nations move along very long time-frame cycles, many decades to centuries.
The US had a great bull market as a nation the last 100 years, it won’t go on forever, question is will it end in our lifetimes. I think it’s likely.
But I have to admit I do not know all the variables to make a fully informed decision, thus my question, as you might know some more factors I am not aware of. It’s a more detailed long question to answer, so if you don’t find the time that’s totally fine.
Maybe you recommend to invest long-term but if it looks quite bad in 2028 to pull out and put your money elsewhere? To be more flexible.
I would not trust US stocks or bonds as an investment with a 50 year time-frame locked down without ability to sell, just being able to receive price appreciation / dividend / interest. Would you?
From what I see:
– Totally unsustainable government debt
– Cultural shift from producing and long-term thinking to short-term thinking, entitlement, hedonism
– Decrease of birth rates and healthy stable families
– General shift to more Socialism, free stuff for all type politics that hurt the economy long-term
– Increased violent confrontation between Political Left and Right, little rational adult conversation
– Growing Corporatism, growing wealth inequality
– Increased international competition from countries much hungrier, harder-working and with better cultural attitudes for strong economic growth
we are based in the USA , the chances all US companies fail is essentially next to zero so seems like a big post with no real reason to worry. If the entire USA dies, we have bigger problems than a stupid stock chart with numbers on it
Read the Millionaire teacher, it goes into depth on index funds (basically the whole book). Essentially you’ll want a portfolio of consisting of both US & international index funds + a portion of bonds depending on your risk tolerance (a basic way is allocating the percentage of bonds to your age, aka if you’re 25 years old it’ll be 25% bonds and 75% index funds
In Efficency you say that: “If you develop an immense amount of will power which is a skill that can be improved upon you will find a way to succeed”
Also said: “Anyone can put in the work and reach the first percentile in will power… making intelligence the most malleable item in the world.”
Wondering if you could explain a little more or if you had action steps to increase will power.
Thank you!
No actionable steps, you just put yourself in situations that require tough decisions over and over and over again. Only real way to do this is by starting a biz as you’re forced to focus all your time on it or die with nothing.
Question on getting started in AM: Native, FB, IG, Other – is there a traffic source someone doing AM *purely* to hone online sales chops should prioritise learning (i.e. sending traffic to a landing page/offer and getting it to convert)?
And then once you can get a traffic/lander/offer funnel to convert you’d be confident enough to move on to building something legit?
If you can master google or Facebook you’re set.
What you’re selling determines the type of ad you need to get good at (general statement)
It’s Black Friday week for fricken stocks and crypto!
Have you guys expanded your investments into some additional currencies?
BAT, ZeroX, etc?
Or still sticking with the core ones you guys wrote about in Triangle Investing?
No hedge funds will sell and liquidate till end of year so we’ll look again then
Thank you for your previous advice, my financial situation has already done better in the last few months. Regarding your previous post about millennials, do you have any specific tips to get ahead for someone in university who comes from a family with money and contacts?
Same answers my man… hopefully the Q&A is not like this.
1) use contacts to get into one of the careers in efficiency
2) use contacts to boot strap a biz
Nothing else changes, never will
Triangle Investing Real Estate Section
Return Hurdle of monthly rent / Property value = x.x% – x.x%
Since the day Triangle Investing came out, I couldn’t find any property that was within the above-mentioned range.
Based on your recent tweet, wait until the RE market gets crushed?
Yes or look in other Geos. If the math doesnt work you never buy
Hi guys, bought efficiency but can’t find the transaction-ID sorry.
Just wanted to know your opinion on start-up accelerators/ incubators. Involved in one at (IB target) uni right now but am I right to think that no-one of any value would bother using one? Most of the start-ups are complex + bad business models and only a few of the teachers are worth listening to.
Is this just because it’s at university or are all incubators like this? Best to go alone?
We have no idea as we never went that route, most finance professionals have no skills to add to a start-up.
1.) From your experiences, what are best practices for making a private label nutra (supplement) product more defensible? Custom formulation, packing, etc.?
2.) When you were on the comeup, what was a typical weekend routine? Assume you only go out one night a week max.
Thanks as always. You guys might be able to save the millenials yet!
Never did nutra supplement and you know very well we’re not going to give out that much detail. Would be idiotic.
No difference than any other weekend, work out, friends, reading
Fair enough, thanks guys.
Nice try though lol!
2. Any advice for reaching out to online businesses? I’m selling a payment solution for online stores. Our clients are seeing increased conversions (due to more options). It costs the same to merchant as a credit card. Efficiency gave great info on sales but not sure how to adapt it for email & phone marketing.
Thanks again, guys.
Reach out to online business? This is the same as recruiting in the Q&A portion of blog, you have to offer something upfront otherwise no one will read it. So give them something of value and a reason to talk to you is the only advice we can really give.
Not sure what you mean by your question to be honest, who reaches out to online businesses?
Exploring best sales funnels right now. Solution can be put on any online cart to increase conversions and reduce chargebacks. Larger companies are an obvious target but are less tech-savvy, longer sales cycle, harder to reach, etc. So we are exploring general ecom companies and and are exploring how to reach them at scale.
Became financially independent within a year (one-event). Quickly outmatched long-term friends last year financially because of that. Can feel some distance and sometimes disgust to their civility + non-entrepreneurial mindset since then. What is the next step in the social realm?
Go out on weekdays as that’s the time when rich people go out. You’ll need new friends, time to move on as you need to associate with winners not losers who secretly want you to fail
Thanks for the truth.
Best skincare product?
Reference due to increased back breakouts from more workout frequency in the week.
Don’t use supplements so no recommendation
23 old making 105k + restricted stock awards worth 50-60k over 2-3 years at a very large public tech company, with student loan debt of 20-25k. Should I A) focus on paying off debt aggressively and getting rid of it ASAP or invest agressively and wait till stocks vest pay off all debt with stocks immediately?
Neither option matters. Results in same ROI. Just start a biz asap.
5% return or 7% return on 20K is absolutely nothing.
I’ve bought effiency and have been very close to achieving what your graph sets out. I’m 27 at 3.0x. However, unfortunately I’ve just received my inheritance of $12m and I really don’t know what to do. Shall I continue to work as if I didn’t receive my inheritance for self-fulfilment purposes ?
My father recently died too early. He didn’t leave a business. Just cash.
Thanks
You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t spend the principal. Only live off interest income/investment income and don’t do anything you don’t enjoy. You’re set
What’s something you guys are looking forward to in the next 3-6 months?
Looking forward to starting a new project. Continuing to get in better shape and generally spending less time worrying about increasing numbers on a screen
Do you feel that the softening housing market, plus companies like Realtyshares going under will have a larger effect on the economy?
RE shares is irrelevant, they just spent too much money erroneously the projects are still funded and work.
Rest of RE, yeah we think it’s over heated we wouldn’t buy a *first* home with leverage here
Mid-20’s engineer at startup.
Which path is better:
1. Pursue FAANG (pay, prestige, network) then work on side biz/project
2. Side biz/project
Same answer #1
Bought Efficiency and Triangle investing – best books I ever read.
30 yo. quit “Career”
1m in crypto (7m at peak) can hold till 2023
250k in stocks
100k cash
Moved to Asia to start AM biz.
Only need 5k a month to live.
Am I fucked, or keep trucking?
Sounds like you’re set but got way too greedy on the crypto side. Lesson learned just take your extra money you earn and fix your allocation
“Just take your extra money you earn”. Do you mean funnel profits from AM biz to diversify to RE, and sell more crypto on way up (if it happens again) to get a RE stream?
I’m 27 and I am currently at a large IT consultancy company. Started working way too late only at 26. Pay is shit and work as well. Thinking to go back to a fast tracked manager supply chain position where I studied Industrial Engineering for. It is either that or find a programmer position at a Tech firm.
What would you advice?
This is literally in the book. There are only 3 careers we recommend.
Clear, no exceptions
Working a career in enterprise sales selling software – currently a BDR. In my free time, practicing copywriting and getting ready to sell a product I sourced online…
Trying to offer freelance direct copy consulting… while also starting up my online store.
Am I being a juggler right now? If so, should I initially be focusing on sharpening my copywriting skills or just jumping into eCommerce?
Yes. Focus on one biz and your career that’s enough
Okay –
eCommerce > Consulting
Thanks.
I want to scale and become a good copywriter. I have no clients, nor testimonials.
Currently writing sales letters and articles that I plan to collect in a book and then hand out, for free, to potential clients at a big business conference I’m attending.
Do you agree with this approach? If no, why?
Sure that’s a way to do it, selling someone elses product is always a billion times better since it has results
Hi, I’m in a similar position as you – work in tech sales, and am looking at selling a product online.
Where did you source your product from, and did you spend much up front?
Anywhere particular you’re practicing your copywrighting?
I follow an outline from Ben Settle. Creating my own product. I’m writing a book with sales letters in my preferred niche – commercial real estate. My plan is to upload them on my homepage, then physically print the book, sell it on Amazon so that is has a tangible retail price – and give it away for free if people sign up to my email list.
Also do a daily podcast and I plan to read my sales letters on YouTube down the road. The plan is just to open as many traffic channels as possible.
What specific sectors/sub-sectors of the stock market interest you right now?
My own favorite sector right now: small, medium and large bank stocks. Yes we’re 10 years into a bull market. But. We’ve also (probably) got 10 years *until* the next credit crisis. Valuations are totally reasonable (forward P/E’s are 10-12x and some banks still trade at discounts to book value), you can still find really good dividend yields and future div growth, etc.
Already in triangle investing, our views are 10 year frames though we don’t care about a single year
When do you reach fi with a family of 3? Is it 3 mill in your opinion – could you elaborate?
What is there to elaborate on? That’s about $50k per person so livable for sure
How do you determine the quantity of product to purchase if it is a seasonal item(Christmas)?
Based on seasonality and the product, it’s usually the biggest month by 2-3x depending on category
Recently started IB after retiring from professional athletics – hate the inefficient hours (no wonder tech is surpassing finance) but love the money. Have a financial modeling biz in the works to generate some FCF, and right now it’s target market is need-to-succeed college students. I could, however, target a more professional (older) market and charge higher margins. Any thoughts on the optimal market to launch to? Any advice would help me save some much-needed time. Thank you!
We can’t help as we never did it. The real money is naturally the high end but then you’re competing with training the street.
Bought efficiency, and looking to start a business ASAP like you recomend. However, I don’t have the capital you recomend to test a business out (pay to drive traffic), or spend a huge amount on product development.
I don’t want to waste time on affiliate marketing as an alternative.
What do you recomend? Would starting a low cost business, based on white labelling be worth it?
(Apologies for the repeated submissions)
Get a job to get the capital, work 80 hours a week. Shouldn’t take more than a couple years, 99.99% won’t do it
1) What is more impressive / prestigious (in your mind and in normal people’s minds) – elite tier athlete (“pro” designation but not enough sport income to support yourself) in something like Triathlon or Crossfit, or a top 5 MBA?
2) Assuming a side business is not an option and one wants to pursue entrepreneurship full time – is it better to jump in as young as possible, or start full time entrepreneurship after financial independence is already achieved (around age 30-35)?
Thanks for the Q&A!
1) ridiculous question, probably pro designation. Any degree that require prestige to make it valuable by definition means there was no actual value.
2) younger the better
23 yo based in EU
Due to circumstances started studying 6 months ago (3 year bachelor here is about 10k). Got random telecom sales job to get something quick 1 month ago. No previous work experience. Very good with people.
Want to get into tech sales. Which option is more efficient?
Option A: Study (get bachelor around 26), do b2b sales on side and start online biz
Option B: Stop studying, do sales jobs until good record to pass tech sales and start online biz
We don’t know as we never went to tech sales