Bought all three books. I know this is addressed in efficiency, but is there any downside to setting up and anonymous LLC in New Mexico to avoid the Finra outside business rule? I’d rather have everything in my name then go through a friend/family member.
Unless you live there not really, you’d have to still pay tax in your state
But viable for anonymity sake, even if paying tax in NY right?
Yes
I’m currently 23 and an inside sales rep in healthcare selling telehealth. Should I focus all of my time on becoming an AE before worrying about a side business or start one now?
Depends on how much you make. If under $100K, they you need to do anything (including a secondary income stream trading time for money) and do that along with your job. You’re 23, working 70-80 hours a week is easy
Recommendations on where to find designers? Both logo and tech pack for clothing.
Go to conferences. You could actually benefit from this pandemic as they will likely have these conferences online. Search for designers for whatever specific task you want them to do.
What is your view on The Fourth Turning / Strauss–Howe generational theory?
Have no idea what it is so cannot comment
Private Question
Yes this is common, the biggest cure is triple checking the niche. The concern is actually valid if you’re simply going into a niche without any sort of angle that isn’t good. You need to find something that’s in the same are with a new spin. So what you do is “test the spin”, ie. make sure the ads work or the content works and you’ll feel a lot more confident.
Can you guys share how you deal with actually securing your crypto?
Specifically when it comes to recovery seeds for hardware wallets.
Been reading about ways to store these, but it seems like there’s substantial risk no matter where you store them. Safety deposit box (government/legal risk), lawyer (third party risk), safe in house (theft risk), etc. I know you mentioned something similar about having to figure out a way to store physical gold. Do you just accept that there will always be some risk of losing your coins?
Also, your 4800 tweet helped my already high ROI on buying all 3 books skyrocket! Insane value you guys bring.
1) buy a trezor or ledger (any hardware wallet)
2) have the seed engraved on steel hide it
2 years out of college, $3B local bank in Dallas.
Company is offering to pay for an MBA. Would still be working full time.
Good use of time? Or better spent building side income. Already own home/have built cash reserves.
yeah take it, if you can go to a top rated school its worth the time.
Same old though, need a real business or else will never make it big
School is easy (unless in something taxing like engineering, MBA is just hand shaking)
Thanks!
Also appreciate the pet food tips in triangle investing. Just sold a +80% chewy position.
Lol yeah that was easy call
dallas SMU?
I have friend doing it. Huge time suck, really don’t think it will equate to much for him.
He works 40 hr weeks. mon-tues-thurs he does 6-9:30 class.
He’s misreable
I have $105,000 invested into crypto. Based on your estimates, what do you think is future value in 5 years? Enough to sit pretty or should I add more.
Assuming I should add more. My crypto portfolio is heavily invested in the assets you suggested in Triangle Investing. Most held in BTC and ETH. If I were to add another $50,000 to $100,00 to my crypto portfolio, what is your suggested allocation to your top suggested currencies (percentage wise?)
A property in prime location is coming up for sale in the area in which I live (DFW Texas). Due to Coronavirus, funds held in Roth accounts are not subject to 10% for early withdrawal until the end of 2020 (only capital gains). I have a stock that has significant returns held in both a taxable and Roth account. Given the circumstances, is taking profit out of the Roth without penalty the way to go here? Or better from the taxable account? My gut says this is a unique opportunity to take some chips off the table from assets previously illiquid and convert to equity in a property.
Yep, 3 books, but this is the 4th of 6 transaction ID’s. Bought some copies for friends and a random commenter on this blog.
Is this the recession you’ve all be talking about would come or is there more in store in 2021?
1) Depends on how much you understand it, it either goes up 4x in value or so around $30-40K or declines rapidly. It’s about percent of net worth. If you don’t know what you’re doing then 5% is more than enough. So its about your knowledge. If you’re asking us that is a bad sign as it means you don’t know what to buy
2) No real change, you’re probably best off staying with BTC since most still don’t know what this stuff is. But agian, don’t put tons of money in there if you can’t afford to lose it
3) Probably better to take it out of the tax free account. IF you did the 5-year roll over set up, then you’re in great shape to pull it out and have it be a tax free event (into your hands). What you do with it = ??? as our view is the biggest and best market is still online with no close second (not even within spitting distance)
4) Yes it is, came a bit early. Feel free to check receipts, same old prediction, 2,200 was the low, at 2,650 we stopped buying again so we’re back to only buying coins and adding cash.
Side note: great! Glad things are going well for you. Since you’re a millionaire one suggestion is future portfolio stuff, just state your percentage mix of assets. That means more than dollar numbers. as $100K is nothing to $10M net worth, but it is a lot to someone with only a million.
Edit
For you then around 10% is max exposure (opinion) stick with the main ones
If you’re right you make a ton, if it blows up you’re not hiding under your desk
When working a career *in finance* there are extremely strict rules on OBI’s and selling away.
Most bulge brackets will never even consider accepting an OBI unless you have clout or it was pre-existing to hire.
(Can’t even have an outside brokerage account)
When building a side business the only logical option is not reporting and going internet and anonymity route. Am I correct?.. Or am I missing something.
Would love if you could elaborate. Thanks in advance.
Same old, use a family member. Then give them a kick back for letting you use their info.
No issue setting up as anonymous. That’s easy. Are you saying use family members with income as well?
Yeah again this is just basic life skills. If you trust someone you’re set so not sure what all the huss and fuss is about.
You see a trend that lots of people with Aspergers make it to the top?
For sure many do, the people who hyper fixate and compete aggressively on one thing have a higher chance of making it to the top
Be careful though some of those guys end up being ultra weird, like 90% of PHD people
This is sort of a fun question. I’ll ask more serious questions later. Can you tell us more about things you are buying during the downturn? Not only assets but lifestyle and leisure items. Maybe alternative assets (wine was mentioned). You spoke about luggage and suits. Could you be more specific with brands and stores? How about things like watches, shoes, home furnishings, flex items for now or later?
Bought the following: travel gear, some new suits, purchased from small businesses – catering and things like that to help them out and stock piling on some frozen meats etc in case there is a food issue later
What is your view on the Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow model?
Just another chart.
Hello WSPS, been a great last month, you’ve been killing it out here.
Question: Where do you see SP500 and crypto going in the next few months? I know you posted about where to put your money, but do you see another significant downturn, or do you think (at least for crypto), that the bottom is in?
Thanks!
Same answers see older posts. We’re still buying coins/cash that’s it. Unless S&P goes down at least below 2,500
BTC likely up until halving before going down temporarily again
Hope you are doing well during these times, and thanks for all the content you put out on the website.
Unfortunately I only came across your website a few months ago and did not end up in one of your 3 recommended career paths out of college mentioned in Efficiency – currently 24 working at an mid-sized asset management firm.
Total all-in comp is around 100k (~70/30 split), with decent hours (45-50) and pretty good political standing within the firm. Will also be taking the CFA level 3 exam in December as well.
Given that the first income stream from my career is tracking materially below the recommended tech/IB/enterprise sales career paths, I was wondering whether it is more worth it in terms of ROI to prioritize a job move/lateral in the short-run over building a second income for the additional 25-30% pay bump? Or is it simply more optimal to just preserve that goodwill/hours despite the lower income and put all my efforts into creating a second income stream?
No same answer. Have to start second stream now. Making $100K is enough to get started.
1. Have you noticed any trends in home life or parenting that results in the children becoming successful?
2. Any tips or product recommendations for whitening teeth? I have tried a few products without much success
3. What are your top things to consider when choosing a health insurance plan from your employer?
1) no clue don’t have kids
2) professional cleaning is best – ask a dentist
3) don’t think about this much either, if you’re young just choose the cheap one and only covers you in disasters to save money. If you’re well off choose the best one to reduce your risk
In Spending you mention learning complex topics to become a quasi expert in the field and the tangential benefit in lie detection. What are a few topics that you would recommend as especially high value and interesting?
Thank you for your continued contributions! Always enlightening and entertaining.
Make a list of all industries where the median person in the space earns around $100K. That’s valuable to society so there you go.
Assuming a SaaS app is equally marketable for both B2C and B2B purposes, which side would be best to focus on out the gate?
With current levels of ad/consumer spend likely to remain low for the next year or so, do you think any of the FAANG companies are likely to experience a significant correction?
Currently working as an FO quant at a BB. Is it worth staying into 2021 to see how the job market evolves? Or would it make more sense to leave the industry ASAP (for the right bump in pay of course) given secular decline in banking?
1) probably B2B since you need high end sales skills
2) No clue, we already gave our market prediction (bought at 2200, stopped adding at 2650, no longer buying unless we go down). Could go down but will take 4-6 months since unemployment needs to have negative impacts. Right now unemployment is positive as 70% making more unemployed vs. employed
3) No, would leave if you can. If you can’t that’s also fine, start a business now. Our guess is you won’t get any leads for a while due to virus, so get to building
If you’re really an quant, banking doesn’t matter, you should be in high demand by prop trading and hedge funds where the real money is at. If you’re a good programmer, go for quant dev at these firms but if you’re good at statistics go for the pure quant role. Quant Dev is easier to get but quant has much better progression. Hopefully you’re an exception but for 90% of quants/programmers in banking they make 2x their comp jumping to buyside and 3-5x a few years in.
Junior CS major @ Big 10 school.I found many students in the major have little to no social skills. If I have a mixture of both social skills and CS skills would it be advisable to go into SaaS sales out of school (or sales engineering role) Or just focus on getting CS degree and pivot to a product management role in big tech?
No real change, just stick with software engineering/highest paying position. Then start you side biz. Careers are just temporary stepping stones for anyone who makes it
Hahaha (see my separate comment since I am probably qualified for this).
If you have good social skills focus 100% on engineering manager, I assume you would have gone business degree if you wanted to all in on pure sales. Product manager is more social than engineer but your performance is not really tied to your social skills slash leadership, it’s much more tied to understanding of markets, trends – kind of like an Equity Research analyst.
Have 2 retirement plan I participate in and will for another 3 years. One is a plan the employer pays into and is typical “managed” plan. I have no control of the money in or how it’s invested.
The other is a 401k where I have $500k. Options are typical j Hancock plan funds: 500 index, pimco bond, small cap, tech, gold fund, health fund, energy, money mkt etc.
What do you suggest for the 401k where I have some control of dollars invested? 1. Where would you invest current dollars ($500k). 2. Would you add any additional dollars?
Can’t “leave” for 3 more years as part of contract when biz was sold. Don’t go into office etc. Have other income streams.
Thanks…
Not enough info if you need it then just put it in a forever portfolio. Which is roughly
25% stocks, 25% gold/silver/bitcoin etc, 3) 25% in cash/bonds – must be positive yield and 4) 25% international stocks/bonds
Given Corona, how do you see the next 1,2,3 years for NYC? I live in Manhattan.
Don’t see recovery till 2022. So would say its hurting for at least 12-18 months as small businesses shut down
25 with total net worth of $10K after student debt. Running an ecomm biz that I’ve grown to around $5k/month profit (before corp tax). Expect to grow it to around $10k/mo profit by Dec 2020.
It is capital intensive and I’ve been fueling it by working a relaxed part-time consulting gig at a university where I get paid $2.2K per month after tax, I get to work on my own business most of the time at this job and it is super chill and the nature of the work actually somewhat overlaps with ecomm – somewhat enjoyable at most times. I effectively work at most 10 hours per week although my official hours I’m paid for are more. I like that I can dedicate my remaining time at work to the business.
My (relatively supportive) boss has been trying to get this position turned into a full-time role – and I expect that I’d be effectively working about 25 hours per week for an after-tax pay of $4.1K/mo. I’m wondering if I should keep this steady salaried gig while I grow my ecom biz because it provides cashflow to take risks and peace of mind (since I’m not depending on biz for living costs). My concern is that the full time role will take more time away from growing the biz and slowdown the rate of growth. Less important factor, being 25 I hate the lifestyle where I live (cold winters, horrible dating scene) and wanted to go location independent once financially feasible – and spend winter months in a tropical country I’ve lived in and enjoyed before – taking this FT role will make that impossible although I can suck it up for a year or two to grow the biz if needed while maybe taking short holidays.
Would appreciate your thoughts on what would you do in this situation, and at what point should I leave this salaried role to pursue my location-independent dreams (goal is to be location independent for least for a few years, learn 1-2 languages, sow the oats etc etc and then finally settle down in one place and start executing more ambitious business ideas around 30).
You’re in an envious position, so don’t give up too early. Give it about 2 maybe even 3 years of doing both. You’ll save a ton. It won’t be fun but look at how bad the market is right now (broadly).
We’d suck it up and if you really need to have some fun schedule a few incredibly fun vacations and do it that way. When you’re 28-32 is usually the range to think more about lifestyle. For now you have a chance to be rich, don’t blow it for a few fun drinks at some low quality bar with women who have hooked up with 50 other dudes the last 6 weeks.
I recently sold a “1-on-1” live ecomm coaching sessions package to a mid-career professional who heard about me from an acquaintance. I’m not the best at sales but it did fall into my lap and I spent a few hours putting together a decent proposal (plus showed bonafides and performance of current ecomm biz) and he paid me the quoted $4K for it. It is a comprehensive training session will take me about 50 hours in total to teach him, plus ~20 hours of “accountability calls” to ensure he is on track afterwards and “live help” if he gets stuck anywhere. It was a nice cash boost but obviously it’s not very scalable and is still trading time for money. I’m half way through the coaching with him and he has found it valuable so far.
I’ve thought about turning this into some sort of course with video lessons on-demand but still keeping the “accountability call” and “live help” parts as is (so will only be 20 hours per sale for maybe a slightly lower price – I can possibly also bring on someone else to outsource these tasks to scale further). If successful this could be another “basket” of income that is very high margin, and would diversify risk…. but I’m hesitant because:
1) building this course and especially marketing it is a large endeavor and will take significant time way from ecomm biz (I’m still just at $4k/mo profit) – I’m already split a bit thin between ecom biz and the salaried job
2) there’s a TON of ecomm gurus out there (80-90% of these courses are bullshit, I’ve taken a look at many of them) and it will be an effort to get noticed in the crowded space.
Should I start executing on this type of “ecom biz course” now or wait until I’m closer to that magical milestone of $10K/mo profit in my actual ecom biz? And is splitting my time thin between ecom biz + ecom course + salaried job too much to bite off?
Thanks!
This was just a ramble shorten your question to something reasonable.
– I sold a live 1-on-1 ecom coaching sessions package, 70 hours in total (50h lessons, 20h support/accountability calls) buyer paid $4K.
– Wondering if I should turn this into a video-on-demand “course” + 20h of support calls
– Hesitant to execute on this because:
1) building course and especially marketing it is time-heavy endeavor and will take significant time way from my actual ecomm biz (I’m still just at $5k/mo profit) – time is already split a bit thin between ecom biz and the salaried job
2) Lots of ecomm gurus out there (although 85% of these courses are bullshit from seeing whats inside), will be an effort to get noticed in the crowded space
Should I start executing on this type of “how to do ecom course” now or wait until I’m closer to that magical milestone of $10K/mo profit in my actual ecommerce biz? And is splitting my time thin between ecom biz + ecom course + salaried job too much to bite off?
This is way too complicated to answer honestly can’t even help.
Based on how long this took to explain to us we’d go ahead and go with the least complicated route. If it was something that you thought you could execute reasonably it wold have been a 3-5 sentence question…
So go with the easier option
I have a mobile app that generates a few hundred dollars a month and for the first time decided to run ads to drive traffic. I spent $2,500 this month on Facebook ads and it looks like sales are $2,500 after the additional traffic. All in all, break-even profit after running the ads.
Do you recommend increasing the ad spend (up to 5k) or reducing it?
If there is economies of scale (customer retention that makes you money) keep spending and increase.
If there is no economy of scale, and its simply a break even, need to work on the ads (you can easily turn that into ROI positive if you’re that close)
1. You’ve reccomended the min. bankroll to sell own products and advertise=50k.
How much to sell high-ticket affiliate products?
2. What simple questions should I ask businesses to scan for red flags and tell if they may go belly-up within 1 year before I partner with them?
Thanks!
1) about the same, if you’re not making your own product all you need is around $25K. $50K is a number for any product made by you, separate options
2) Already a failed experiment, if you don’t know what to look for you can’t fix it and you’re not adding any value. All bad
Would you guys ever be interested in investing in or purchase a profitable small bootstrapped Saas from one of your readers?
Depends on what it looks like, we usually just look at empire flippers and flippa
Happy to take a look, add me up Skype: adeoluwa.adejumo
1. My networth is currently 20% ETF, 20% inventory and 60% cash.
For the cash portion, I plan on putting 40% back in inventory. What allocation of other investments do you suggest for the remaining 60% (stocks, crypto, REITs etc) and should I DCA into them over something like 4 months or stretch it longer? 1 yr etc
2. Original plan was to quit the day job this year. Easy but annoying and time consuming job with middle class pay. My side biz is making 4x the day job now, the platform is on Amazon so there is chance they can 100% shut me down. Not sure what will happen afterwards, due to the uncertainty do you think I should keep my plan to quit this year or stay at the day job a bit longer?
Thanks for all your great articles. I’m amazed at how the side hustle has grown, it’s a much better path than the corp ladder for the 5-20% corporate raise /yr.
1) Only gold/silver/crypto for the stuff not going into inventory.
2) Keep it unless you need the time for the biz. Sounds like you don’t? So not sure why you’d quit, just do the minimum especially if you’re making money at home during the lock down. The negotiate to work from home forever, allowing you to further kill your hours
Thanks, for #2 my job actually requires me to go in the office (outdated company) and it takes about 25-30 hrs a week of work (hard to reduce since my help has been cut now) I think I can make more $$ with that time but idk what state the economy is in after covid so who knows my new ventures may lose money instead
Currently in sales. Have an information product directed at sales people. In order to scale, I’d have to get exposure on LinkedIn. But that would shine on me in current company and no idea how they’d respond.
Product would help other reps sell more and could be seen as a threat to own selling motion as few people are doing it and I’m leveraging a lot of learnings I’ve made while at current company (although only to do with specific way of selling). Don’t want to lower my internal standing.
Would you
a) Go through with it and take the risk
b) Put in time for 1to1 pitching and try to sell
c) Go entirely new route and find different product
Thanks
Would do 2 and 3 if possible.
Sounds like a poor idea directly competing against your own company while on their own time. You will get axed fast with no brand and no customer base
– hows the journal looking these days?
– are you guys still planning on doing something with mental health (mentioned in spending)
1) same as usual, just more wins in there in 2020 since this was what we were waiting for
2) Unclear for now, still a maybe
37 year old male, $40K saved, bachelors degree in CS, brief experience as real estate agent while attending college, was a professional actor for a while.
1.) I’m not a great programmer plus my skills have atrophied from being out of school for 10 years.
I like dealing with people more than code.
1.) Should I move to NYC or the Bay area sometime this year and try to get an Enterprise Sales role OR wait till the second wave of coronavirus ends in Feb. 2021 according to your earlier predictions?
OR
2.) Should I stay in South Jersey, near Philadelphia and try to find a local sales job to build experience? (Currently saving money by living at home right now so I wouldn’t have to pay for housing as I would if I relocated.) There seems to be limited SaaS sales companies local, except for maybe a startup, reseller, or SAP.
3.) Big name brand company or startup for an Enterprise Sales role? I’m leaning big for brand name recognition and possibly a better sales training program.
Thanks! Been following you guys for many years; time for me to start taking action and making some better decision.
You should just apply at all times to all regions until you land a good role. Be location agnostic and care more about the Company/product you’re selling.
Once you’re in, don’t bother trying to switch and start side business which is more than 1,000x more important than any useless career
In terms of timing we’re guessing you won’t get into anything until 2021 due to COVID, but doesn’t hurt to try
Hey boys…whats your current hair regimen now that you boys are in your early 40s? thank you
No change, nothing has actually happened hair just thins out a bit
Self-isolating has been great for my finances as I’ve been able to cut spending down to next to nothing. I could completely get out of debt right now but it would cut my emergency cash runway in half (from 6 months to 3 months). Does it make sense to do this now or wait until things are more stable?
$150K as a software engineer but the company is luxury fashion and getting hit hard (not sure it will survive this). Still confident I could get another job if necessary. Started an online business (porn site) in the past couple months that is starting to ramp up (over $1K/month in profit)
1) your call, probably better to pay it off at end of year since likely stuck in this remote set up for the rest of the year in many areas.
2) In that case then same old, don’t pay it off till you are stable in job. Maybe pay off half of it now so you made progress keep saving money and building side income. Appears no questions here as you’re doing things right
In this market, you could probably hit 250-300k by jumping ship while working a similar number of hours as you are now. It doesn’t sound like much but consider that it might increase the amount of day job cash you invest by 2-4x.
1.Any concerns of water shortages in the next few months?
2.Currently building out a professional education/development site for college students, wondering how much it makes sense to build for an increasingly mobile first world (e.g. 50/50 split investment into website vs. mobile application development) given my audience?
3.What fear/insecurity would you target for college students (type A high performers).
1) no as you should have stock piled a few months worth
2) Would bet website is more important as people more likely to use that on a PC vs. smartphone. But your call
3) anything related to job performance after college, there are tons of scammy financial modeling classes sold to people who get jobs in IB.
What do you think about joining a website brokerage business franchise as a way to get into the online web/business game to learn like this one below?
No clue never used it
Aside from Efficiency, what are the best legit resources to get into white hat affiliate marketing? Would like to try selling established products before launching own.
Is an S corp worth it in NYC if you’re clearing $80-120K net? You can save on the 15.3% SE tax on a portion.. but theres corp taxes of about 8.85% I believe. Saves less than $3K if it’s $40K shareholder salary.. but I imagine accounting fees / complexity will add up.
How likely do you guys think S&P500 will go back to 2200 or lower sometime this year? Seems like we haven’t had a full bear market cycle yet.
1) Nothing, the major categories are in the book. Don’t try to fight reality.
2) probably not, too small of income stream. If it’s “close” it’s not worth it. When it’s worth it we’ll see you in florida/nevada/texas or whatever tax free area you choose
3) we think it goes down in 6 months or so unclear how low
Thanks! In this case, my business operates in NYC (RE sales) so I don’t think I could do the tax free areas..
Assuming that you’ve heard of hbr’s guide to buying a small business, what’s your view on focusing on ib first say first 5 years of your career and then go out to become an ‘entrepreneur through acquisition’?
No clue what that is
– How do you build performance benchmark for skills which usually don’t have numerical KPI (ex: design, art, sport, etc…
– How do you keep yourself honest when evaluate yourself to said performance benchmark and figure out when to quit
1) you offer services at a price and begin raising price as demand increases. With no demand it means you were not good.
2) when you realize you cannot get anything out of it anymore. That’s a life skill you learn if you’re mature and can see your own flaws
I’ve been stalled out in a formerly great oilfield sales career for a few years now after sacrificing a lot through my 20s. I think this sector is done and we never make up the margins lost since 2014. Which big ticket industrial sales markets would be a good pivot and have strong growth coming?
Not sure as we never went down that path, try to find other industrial grade equipment to sell into an area unrelated to oil
Thank you for sharing valuable information. I’m 22 and started reading the blog at 19. I am in high earning corporate job and own a digital consulting company. Needless to say consulting sucks and margins suck as mentioned in Efficiency. I found myself in a situation where I have $10,000 to invest.
I am looking to break into E-Commerce but lack knowledge on what will sell well online and how to (reading copywriting books right now). I work in tech and I am debating whether to pursue creating software to license (better margins), try my hand at drop shipping or private labeling, or start teaching tech online. How would you advise?
Thanks,
Lou
Choose the one with highest chance of success based on your current skills. Then after you get reasonable savings (should quickly go to $100K) look at the other options. We don’t know your skills
Ever sued anyone? I have my old employer on wrongful dismissal and defamation but (while I could afford it) I’d much prefer to get them to make me a settlement offer.
How long should I keep looking for a job in VC / Tech before starting fresh in an SDR Role? I have a decent resume despite only working at tiny IB and PE shops. Just thought I would have found something after a month of applying. (been working on side income also but nothing live yet)
1) No talk to a lawyer
2) Take anything and everything if unemployed don’t want to be cash flow negative
Freshman CS student at college. Following the college plan and am on track to finish this year with a 4.0 GPA. Taking summer classes so I can graduate a year early (4 years instead of 5 – I’m at a co-op school).
1. You previously recommended accounting as one of the few useful college classes. Are there any others you recommend? Statistics? More math? Intro finance?
2. Are minors or accelerated CS master’s degrees worth pursuing? This means taking the full 5 years at school instead of graduating a year early.
3. Any updates for the college game plan other than 3.7+ GPA and internships?
1) No school was largely a waste of time for real world success. You should spend all your time getting internships as GPAs don’t matter after 3.5-3.7 or so
2) No. Unless paid for then go for it
3) No.
I work in the industry. If you’re interested in FANG, the only classes you should care about are data structures, algo, and competitive programming.
They’ll land you your job. Then you learn on the job
There are four ways to make money in tech as an employee: product manager, people manager, math/ML/quant, systems engineer.
Only care about your classes if you are going to the last two options because they will save you lots of time and let you get that type of work/scale early on, making you earn way more money way faster.
GPA does not matter at all for tech recruiting as long as you are above 3 in my experience. Saw many people clear 300-400k offers with 50-150k signing with either 3.0 at top school or 3.3 at school just below.
Hello, I’m 25, have spent the last year in commercial banking. Throughout my time there, the bank has conducted two rounds of layoffs, and as a result my workload has increased 50% – I find myself working weekends and late into the nights. And, I don’t like my coworkers… My salary is still $70k.
My family invests in real estate, and has a cash flow of $40k-$60k per month. They’ve told me that they want me to take over the portfolio someday and they have $1 MM for me to invest as they don’t have the interest to invest anymore. Should I transition and just focus on real estate and forget banking and grad school?
Would transition, $70K is nothing after taxes so may as well leave
new grad. quant finance or a gov software job where you do little work? worried because I don’t think I have the creativity to start a business
What is your question? Just go into software and then you HAVE to start a business eventually. Otherwise you’ll never make it period. Gotta get over your own insecurities at some point
Cutting people out of your life to grow is great advice to follow.
But how would you deal with a sibling who is narcissistic and jealous toward you? Want to have a relationship with my brother, but seems unlikely now due to his behavior. Being related by blood makes it a bit more difficult for me to navigate.
New crypto currency known as Block X launching in 1 week, that integrates with major credit card Visa. Interested in purchasing mining equipment to start mining. Cost of about 0.8 cents per coin as of today.
Is it smarter to stay invested in BTC and ETH or explore this new coin for long term wealth / HODL purposes?
As always, you guys are the older brother I never had. Thank you sincerely,
1) yeah you cut them off. You don’t have to hate them but if they are dragging you down it’s time to leave if really that bad
2) Don’t know anything about it. If you’re skilled generally, buying and holding is better than mining since you lose time setting everything up that could have been spent making more money doing something else. Its the time loss issue.
The social circle thing you’re talking about should happen by default if you’re trying to get somewhere. If you want IB and you’re a freshman you find a new grad of 2nd year IB analyst and copy him.
By forcing yourself to be around these people and copying them, you end up meeting a lot more people like them and conversely not spending time around people who aren’t in the mold, simply because your time is better spent on people who fit the mold.
1. Favorite online/in person source to buy physical gold?
2. Looking to spend more on a premium theme for health affiliate site, don’t have resources or capabilities to program a custom one on my own like I’ve seen the top players do. Currently running a theme from StudioPress. Got any themes you guys can recommend?
3. Looking into generating more traffic organically during this down turn – any sources regarding SEO you guys recommend?
1) local dealer cash
2) We’re not aware of the latest ones so we’d just find a few you think are well done and figure out which theme they are using. Easy to copy from there
3) Right now we’re actually not spending, everything is down 50% since we know we don’t need to spend to keep profits up. When economy reopens we’ll spend again. SEO is largely meaningless compared to ads
Thanks. Much better off writing ads instead.
1.) What books / resources do you recommend for getting better at design, aesthetics, color matching, etc.?
2.) What are the highest leverage parts of an ecom flow/funnel to increase LTV (ad, presell page, offer page, backend, etc)
3.) What are some other “must read” books/resources for generally running a successful online biz (already read most of the ones in efficiency!)
Many thanks gents. Have a great weekend wherever you are!
1) Do not know ours is outsourced
2) Ads always win. Since a good ad = high conversion = money maker for life
3) Nothing, you should have enough. Rest of knowledge obtained by industry conferences for your sector
I know you covered commercial real estate but I didn’t see much on residential. Do you think there will be many REO (bank) owned residential properties due to default in the next 12-24 months?
Yes there will be blow ups in about 6 months. Rough time frame, stay patient
Are you guys going to give up all your shit and praise God too
Nope.
After 1.5 yrs at a Top 3 consulting firm in Western Europe (my background: mechanical engineering PhD, no, I am not a numerics fanatic), I am thinking of how to best move „from Year 1 to Year 2“. Given my background as well the current circumstances, would you recommend any particular approach? Or simply screening the market for opportunities in big items sales („Caterpillar“, 6-digits category..)
Thank you!
Do not see a question here. You have to spin your current job into one of the three highest paying careers. In the mean time you have to start an online biz. These answers will never ever ever ever ever ever change
Bought SoCal based restaurant/hotel service business Dec 2019. Quit day job Jan 31 w/ 1 year severance. Business revenue dropped to almost zero w/ Corona.
1) Do I stick it out in hopes volume comes back or take loss and write off against severance pay? FYI – there are 5 employees I am continuing to pay for the time being.
2) Looking to start online biz in a growing market but do not have unique product. Would you suggest buying a proven product in bulk and reselling or go affiliate route?
1) we have no idea honestly, that’s a stoke of terrible bad luck. Never been in that position
2) affiliate route is always lower risk, would start there
I used to work in the restaurant business. It is taking the mohter of all beatings right now. Chalk it up as a loss.
I still talk to the people I worked with, there’s talks about whether brick and mortar is still a viable option.
If I ever were to go that route I have certain things I would do as I have insider knowledge. Doesn’t have to be B2C, can do B2B.
Thanks for all the great content, best time to be alive.
What’s your thought process on deciding how much to lever up to expand real estate holdings within the next 24 months?
– 24, work in Fintech (non-technical)
-Have 275K equity in existing rental + ~50K cash earmarked for property purchases
-Have full access to complete trade stack (from structural to major trade tickets) therefore able to do >85% all rehab work via close contacts
Appreciate your thoughts.
Not possible to know without your cash flows, you can lever up to a point where you’re certain you can take a 50% hit and have no issues.
Grinded face off selling insurance and bartending current after tax earnings 75k
My cost of living 7,000k pr yr at 27rs old.
Question: Keep current situation and get into RE?
looks good. We prefer online businesses but your call.
Do you still recommend going into robotics, AI and deep learning? Personally I have been going into it, but a lot of people give up and leave for traditional software engineering because it is a lot harder to get an AI job and requires more credentials (Masters/PhD as opposed to just High school/Bachelors).
Also the field is currently dominated by PhDs and professors making startups. And there seems to be high interest and competition for the jobs.
Although I guess the alternative is to skip getting a job and straight away make a startup, but that is quite a financial drain. And it seems harder to compete for software engineering jobs as a backup plan against people who focus on traditional software engineering without the AI background.
So as usual do whatever you are good at. Same three career paths and none of them matter compared to starting your own business by a factor of 25-40x.
Yes everyone wants to go into AI but it’s a terrible idea because there are 15 year olds who make deep learning tutorials. You can see my other comment for my credentials, math/quant/AI jobs do not have even remotely the same interviews as software engineering jobs.
The shortcut is to do the ML interviews and see if they are easier for you than the software interviews. Your background can get you both jobs.
1. I’m a community college student transferring to a upper tier UC (not cal or ucla), top 35 ranked in a business hub. I’m majoring in political science (I know not the best major) and maybe will add on a business economics degree for a double major. My gpa is in the correct range for investment banking but I was wondering do you think it would be better to pursue tech sales or Investment banking coming from a non target in California?
2. I currently trade options and I have made a decent amount from trading but had some gains wiped out from pure greed. Do you think it is better to focus on building 2-3 online business at 20 years old or continuing trading?
3. What skills should a 20 year old learn to maximize wealth in the future?
You’re better off going into tech sales, or enterprise sales. Or perhaps software/coding.
Finance is near dead now, only M&A left and will primarily recruit only from top schools.
Mean time = start online biz already covered in book
Bought all three books. I know this is addressed in efficiency, but is there any downside to setting up and anonymous LLC in New Mexico to avoid the Finra outside business rule? I’d rather have everything in my name then go through a friend/family member.
Unless you live there not really, you’d have to still pay tax in your state
But viable for anonymity sake, even if paying tax in NY right?
Yes
I’m currently 23 and an inside sales rep in healthcare selling telehealth. Should I focus all of my time on becoming an AE before worrying about a side business or start one now?
Depends on how much you make. If under $100K, they you need to do anything (including a secondary income stream trading time for money) and do that along with your job. You’re 23, working 70-80 hours a week is easy
Recommendations on where to find designers? Both logo and tech pack for clothing.
Go to conferences. You could actually benefit from this pandemic as they will likely have these conferences online. Search for designers for whatever specific task you want them to do.
What is your view on The Fourth Turning / Strauss–Howe generational theory?
Have no idea what it is so cannot comment
Private Question
Yes this is common, the biggest cure is triple checking the niche. The concern is actually valid if you’re simply going into a niche without any sort of angle that isn’t good. You need to find something that’s in the same are with a new spin. So what you do is “test the spin”, ie. make sure the ads work or the content works and you’ll feel a lot more confident.
Can you guys share how you deal with actually securing your crypto?
Specifically when it comes to recovery seeds for hardware wallets.
Been reading about ways to store these, but it seems like there’s substantial risk no matter where you store them. Safety deposit box (government/legal risk), lawyer (third party risk), safe in house (theft risk), etc. I know you mentioned something similar about having to figure out a way to store physical gold. Do you just accept that there will always be some risk of losing your coins?
Also, your 4800 tweet helped my already high ROI on buying all 3 books skyrocket! Insane value you guys bring.
1) buy a trezor or ledger (any hardware wallet)
2) have the seed engraved on steel hide it
2 years out of college, $3B local bank in Dallas.
Company is offering to pay for an MBA. Would still be working full time.
Good use of time? Or better spent building side income. Already own home/have built cash reserves.
yeah take it, if you can go to a top rated school its worth the time.
Same old though, need a real business or else will never make it big
School is easy (unless in something taxing like engineering, MBA is just hand shaking)
Thanks!
Also appreciate the pet food tips in triangle investing. Just sold a +80% chewy position.
Lol yeah that was easy call
dallas SMU?
I have friend doing it. Huge time suck, really don’t think it will equate to much for him.
He works 40 hr weeks. mon-tues-thurs he does 6-9:30 class.
He’s misreable
I have $105,000 invested into crypto. Based on your estimates, what do you think is future value in 5 years? Enough to sit pretty or should I add more.
Assuming I should add more. My crypto portfolio is heavily invested in the assets you suggested in Triangle Investing. Most held in BTC and ETH. If I were to add another $50,000 to $100,00 to my crypto portfolio, what is your suggested allocation to your top suggested currencies (percentage wise?)
A property in prime location is coming up for sale in the area in which I live (DFW Texas). Due to Coronavirus, funds held in Roth accounts are not subject to 10% for early withdrawal until the end of 2020 (only capital gains). I have a stock that has significant returns held in both a taxable and Roth account. Given the circumstances, is taking profit out of the Roth without penalty the way to go here? Or better from the taxable account? My gut says this is a unique opportunity to take some chips off the table from assets previously illiquid and convert to equity in a property.
Yep, 3 books, but this is the 4th of 6 transaction ID’s. Bought some copies for friends and a random commenter on this blog.
Is this the recession you’ve all be talking about would come or is there more in store in 2021?
1) Depends on how much you understand it, it either goes up 4x in value or so around $30-40K or declines rapidly. It’s about percent of net worth. If you don’t know what you’re doing then 5% is more than enough. So its about your knowledge. If you’re asking us that is a bad sign as it means you don’t know what to buy
2) No real change, you’re probably best off staying with BTC since most still don’t know what this stuff is. But agian, don’t put tons of money in there if you can’t afford to lose it
3) Probably better to take it out of the tax free account. IF you did the 5-year roll over set up, then you’re in great shape to pull it out and have it be a tax free event (into your hands). What you do with it = ??? as our view is the biggest and best market is still online with no close second (not even within spitting distance)
4) Yes it is, came a bit early. Feel free to check receipts, same old prediction, 2,200 was the low, at 2,650 we stopped buying again so we’re back to only buying coins and adding cash.
Side note: great! Glad things are going well for you. Since you’re a millionaire one suggestion is future portfolio stuff, just state your percentage mix of assets. That means more than dollar numbers. as $100K is nothing to $10M net worth, but it is a lot to someone with only a million.
Edit
For you then around 10% is max exposure (opinion) stick with the main ones
If you’re right you make a ton, if it blows up you’re not hiding under your desk
When working a career *in finance* there are extremely strict rules on OBI’s and selling away.
Most bulge brackets will never even consider accepting an OBI unless you have clout or it was pre-existing to hire.
(Can’t even have an outside brokerage account)
When building a side business the only logical option is not reporting and going internet and anonymity route. Am I correct?.. Or am I missing something.
Would love if you could elaborate. Thanks in advance.
Same old, use a family member. Then give them a kick back for letting you use their info.
No issue setting up as anonymous. That’s easy. Are you saying use family members with income as well?
Yeah again this is just basic life skills. If you trust someone you’re set so not sure what all the huss and fuss is about.
You see a trend that lots of people with Aspergers make it to the top?
For sure many do, the people who hyper fixate and compete aggressively on one thing have a higher chance of making it to the top
Be careful though some of those guys end up being ultra weird, like 90% of PHD people
This is sort of a fun question. I’ll ask more serious questions later. Can you tell us more about things you are buying during the downturn? Not only assets but lifestyle and leisure items. Maybe alternative assets (wine was mentioned). You spoke about luggage and suits. Could you be more specific with brands and stores? How about things like watches, shoes, home furnishings, flex items for now or later?
Bought the following: travel gear, some new suits, purchased from small businesses – catering and things like that to help them out and stock piling on some frozen meats etc in case there is a food issue later
What is your view on the Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow model?
Just another chart.
Hello WSPS, been a great last month, you’ve been killing it out here.
Question: Where do you see SP500 and crypto going in the next few months? I know you posted about where to put your money, but do you see another significant downturn, or do you think (at least for crypto), that the bottom is in?
Thanks!
Same answers see older posts. We’re still buying coins/cash that’s it. Unless S&P goes down at least below 2,500
BTC likely up until halving before going down temporarily again
Hope you are doing well during these times, and thanks for all the content you put out on the website.
Unfortunately I only came across your website a few months ago and did not end up in one of your 3 recommended career paths out of college mentioned in Efficiency – currently 24 working at an mid-sized asset management firm.
Total all-in comp is around 100k (~70/30 split), with decent hours (45-50) and pretty good political standing within the firm. Will also be taking the CFA level 3 exam in December as well.
Given that the first income stream from my career is tracking materially below the recommended tech/IB/enterprise sales career paths, I was wondering whether it is more worth it in terms of ROI to prioritize a job move/lateral in the short-run over building a second income for the additional 25-30% pay bump? Or is it simply more optimal to just preserve that goodwill/hours despite the lower income and put all my efforts into creating a second income stream?
No same answer. Have to start second stream now. Making $100K is enough to get started.
1. Have you noticed any trends in home life or parenting that results in the children becoming successful?
2. Any tips or product recommendations for whitening teeth? I have tried a few products without much success
3. What are your top things to consider when choosing a health insurance plan from your employer?
1) no clue don’t have kids
2) professional cleaning is best – ask a dentist
3) don’t think about this much either, if you’re young just choose the cheap one and only covers you in disasters to save money. If you’re well off choose the best one to reduce your risk
In Spending you mention learning complex topics to become a quasi expert in the field and the tangential benefit in lie detection. What are a few topics that you would recommend as especially high value and interesting?
Thank you for your continued contributions! Always enlightening and entertaining.
Make a list of all industries where the median person in the space earns around $100K. That’s valuable to society so there you go.
Assuming a SaaS app is equally marketable for both B2C and B2B purposes, which side would be best to focus on out the gate?
With current levels of ad/consumer spend likely to remain low for the next year or so, do you think any of the FAANG companies are likely to experience a significant correction?
Currently working as an FO quant at a BB. Is it worth staying into 2021 to see how the job market evolves? Or would it make more sense to leave the industry ASAP (for the right bump in pay of course) given secular decline in banking?
1) probably B2B since you need high end sales skills
2) No clue, we already gave our market prediction (bought at 2200, stopped adding at 2650, no longer buying unless we go down). Could go down but will take 4-6 months since unemployment needs to have negative impacts. Right now unemployment is positive as 70% making more unemployed vs. employed
3) No, would leave if you can. If you can’t that’s also fine, start a business now. Our guess is you won’t get any leads for a while due to virus, so get to building
If you’re really an quant, banking doesn’t matter, you should be in high demand by prop trading and hedge funds where the real money is at. If you’re a good programmer, go for quant dev at these firms but if you’re good at statistics go for the pure quant role. Quant Dev is easier to get but quant has much better progression. Hopefully you’re an exception but for 90% of quants/programmers in banking they make 2x their comp jumping to buyside and 3-5x a few years in.
Junior CS major @ Big 10 school.I found many students in the major have little to no social skills. If I have a mixture of both social skills and CS skills would it be advisable to go into SaaS sales out of school (or sales engineering role) Or just focus on getting CS degree and pivot to a product management role in big tech?
No real change, just stick with software engineering/highest paying position. Then start you side biz. Careers are just temporary stepping stones for anyone who makes it
Hahaha (see my separate comment since I am probably qualified for this).
If you have good social skills focus 100% on engineering manager, I assume you would have gone business degree if you wanted to all in on pure sales. Product manager is more social than engineer but your performance is not really tied to your social skills slash leadership, it’s much more tied to understanding of markets, trends – kind of like an Equity Research analyst.
Have 2 retirement plan I participate in and will for another 3 years. One is a plan the employer pays into and is typical “managed” plan. I have no control of the money in or how it’s invested.
The other is a 401k where I have $500k. Options are typical j Hancock plan funds: 500 index, pimco bond, small cap, tech, gold fund, health fund, energy, money mkt etc.
What do you suggest for the 401k where I have some control of dollars invested? 1. Where would you invest current dollars ($500k). 2. Would you add any additional dollars?
Can’t “leave” for 3 more years as part of contract when biz was sold. Don’t go into office etc. Have other income streams.
Thanks…
Not enough info if you need it then just put it in a forever portfolio. Which is roughly
25% stocks, 25% gold/silver/bitcoin etc, 3) 25% in cash/bonds – must be positive yield and 4) 25% international stocks/bonds
Given Corona, how do you see the next 1,2,3 years for NYC? I live in Manhattan.
Don’t see recovery till 2022. So would say its hurting for at least 12-18 months as small businesses shut down
25 with total net worth of $10K after student debt. Running an ecomm biz that I’ve grown to around $5k/month profit (before corp tax). Expect to grow it to around $10k/mo profit by Dec 2020.
It is capital intensive and I’ve been fueling it by working a relaxed part-time consulting gig at a university where I get paid $2.2K per month after tax, I get to work on my own business most of the time at this job and it is super chill and the nature of the work actually somewhat overlaps with ecomm – somewhat enjoyable at most times. I effectively work at most 10 hours per week although my official hours I’m paid for are more. I like that I can dedicate my remaining time at work to the business.
My (relatively supportive) boss has been trying to get this position turned into a full-time role – and I expect that I’d be effectively working about 25 hours per week for an after-tax pay of $4.1K/mo. I’m wondering if I should keep this steady salaried gig while I grow my ecom biz because it provides cashflow to take risks and peace of mind (since I’m not depending on biz for living costs). My concern is that the full time role will take more time away from growing the biz and slowdown the rate of growth. Less important factor, being 25 I hate the lifestyle where I live (cold winters, horrible dating scene) and wanted to go location independent once financially feasible – and spend winter months in a tropical country I’ve lived in and enjoyed before – taking this FT role will make that impossible although I can suck it up for a year or two to grow the biz if needed while maybe taking short holidays.
Would appreciate your thoughts on what would you do in this situation, and at what point should I leave this salaried role to pursue my location-independent dreams (goal is to be location independent for least for a few years, learn 1-2 languages, sow the oats etc etc and then finally settle down in one place and start executing more ambitious business ideas around 30).
You’re in an envious position, so don’t give up too early. Give it about 2 maybe even 3 years of doing both. You’ll save a ton. It won’t be fun but look at how bad the market is right now (broadly).
We’d suck it up and if you really need to have some fun schedule a few incredibly fun vacations and do it that way. When you’re 28-32 is usually the range to think more about lifestyle. For now you have a chance to be rich, don’t blow it for a few fun drinks at some low quality bar with women who have hooked up with 50 other dudes the last 6 weeks.
I recently sold a “1-on-1” live ecomm coaching sessions package to a mid-career professional who heard about me from an acquaintance. I’m not the best at sales but it did fall into my lap and I spent a few hours putting together a decent proposal (plus showed bonafides and performance of current ecomm biz) and he paid me the quoted $4K for it. It is a comprehensive training session will take me about 50 hours in total to teach him, plus ~20 hours of “accountability calls” to ensure he is on track afterwards and “live help” if he gets stuck anywhere. It was a nice cash boost but obviously it’s not very scalable and is still trading time for money. I’m half way through the coaching with him and he has found it valuable so far.
I’ve thought about turning this into some sort of course with video lessons on-demand but still keeping the “accountability call” and “live help” parts as is (so will only be 20 hours per sale for maybe a slightly lower price – I can possibly also bring on someone else to outsource these tasks to scale further). If successful this could be another “basket” of income that is very high margin, and would diversify risk…. but I’m hesitant because:
1) building this course and especially marketing it is a large endeavor and will take significant time way from ecomm biz (I’m still just at $4k/mo profit) – I’m already split a bit thin between ecom biz and the salaried job
2) there’s a TON of ecomm gurus out there (80-90% of these courses are bullshit, I’ve taken a look at many of them) and it will be an effort to get noticed in the crowded space.
Should I start executing on this type of “ecom biz course” now or wait until I’m closer to that magical milestone of $10K/mo profit in my actual ecom biz? And is splitting my time thin between ecom biz + ecom course + salaried job too much to bite off?
Thanks!
This was just a ramble shorten your question to something reasonable.
– I sold a live 1-on-1 ecom coaching sessions package, 70 hours in total (50h lessons, 20h support/accountability calls) buyer paid $4K.
– Wondering if I should turn this into a video-on-demand “course” + 20h of support calls
– Hesitant to execute on this because:
1) building course and especially marketing it is time-heavy endeavor and will take significant time way from my actual ecomm biz (I’m still just at $5k/mo profit) – time is already split a bit thin between ecom biz and the salaried job
2) Lots of ecomm gurus out there (although 85% of these courses are bullshit from seeing whats inside), will be an effort to get noticed in the crowded space
Should I start executing on this type of “how to do ecom course” now or wait until I’m closer to that magical milestone of $10K/mo profit in my actual ecommerce biz? And is splitting my time thin between ecom biz + ecom course + salaried job too much to bite off?
This is way too complicated to answer honestly can’t even help.
Based on how long this took to explain to us we’d go ahead and go with the least complicated route. If it was something that you thought you could execute reasonably it wold have been a 3-5 sentence question…
So go with the easier option
I have a mobile app that generates a few hundred dollars a month and for the first time decided to run ads to drive traffic. I spent $2,500 this month on Facebook ads and it looks like sales are $2,500 after the additional traffic. All in all, break-even profit after running the ads.
Do you recommend increasing the ad spend (up to 5k) or reducing it?
If there is economies of scale (customer retention that makes you money) keep spending and increase.
If there is no economy of scale, and its simply a break even, need to work on the ads (you can easily turn that into ROI positive if you’re that close)
1. You’ve reccomended the min. bankroll to sell own products and advertise=50k.
How much to sell high-ticket affiliate products?
2. What simple questions should I ask businesses to scan for red flags and tell if they may go belly-up within 1 year before I partner with them?
Thanks!
1) about the same, if you’re not making your own product all you need is around $25K. $50K is a number for any product made by you, separate options
2) Already a failed experiment, if you don’t know what to look for you can’t fix it and you’re not adding any value. All bad
Would you guys ever be interested in investing in or purchase a profitable small bootstrapped Saas from one of your readers?
Depends on what it looks like, we usually just look at empire flippers and flippa
Happy to take a look, add me up Skype: adeoluwa.adejumo
1. My networth is currently 20% ETF, 20% inventory and 60% cash.
For the cash portion, I plan on putting 40% back in inventory. What allocation of other investments do you suggest for the remaining 60% (stocks, crypto, REITs etc) and should I DCA into them over something like 4 months or stretch it longer? 1 yr etc
2. Original plan was to quit the day job this year. Easy but annoying and time consuming job with middle class pay. My side biz is making 4x the day job now, the platform is on Amazon so there is chance they can 100% shut me down. Not sure what will happen afterwards, due to the uncertainty do you think I should keep my plan to quit this year or stay at the day job a bit longer?
Thanks for all your great articles. I’m amazed at how the side hustle has grown, it’s a much better path than the corp ladder for the 5-20% corporate raise /yr.
1) Only gold/silver/crypto for the stuff not going into inventory.
2) Keep it unless you need the time for the biz. Sounds like you don’t? So not sure why you’d quit, just do the minimum especially if you’re making money at home during the lock down. The negotiate to work from home forever, allowing you to further kill your hours
Thanks, for #2 my job actually requires me to go in the office (outdated company) and it takes about 25-30 hrs a week of work (hard to reduce since my help has been cut now) I think I can make more $$ with that time but idk what state the economy is in after covid so who knows my new ventures may lose money instead
Currently in sales. Have an information product directed at sales people. In order to scale, I’d have to get exposure on LinkedIn. But that would shine on me in current company and no idea how they’d respond.
Product would help other reps sell more and could be seen as a threat to own selling motion as few people are doing it and I’m leveraging a lot of learnings I’ve made while at current company (although only to do with specific way of selling). Don’t want to lower my internal standing.
Would you
a) Go through with it and take the risk
b) Put in time for 1to1 pitching and try to sell
c) Go entirely new route and find different product
Thanks
Would do 2 and 3 if possible.
Sounds like a poor idea directly competing against your own company while on their own time. You will get axed fast with no brand and no customer base
– hows the journal looking these days?
– are you guys still planning on doing something with mental health (mentioned in spending)
1) same as usual, just more wins in there in 2020 since this was what we were waiting for
2) Unclear for now, still a maybe
37 year old male, $40K saved, bachelors degree in CS, brief experience as real estate agent while attending college, was a professional actor for a while.
1.) I’m not a great programmer plus my skills have atrophied from being out of school for 10 years.
I like dealing with people more than code.
1.) Should I move to NYC or the Bay area sometime this year and try to get an Enterprise Sales role OR wait till the second wave of coronavirus ends in Feb. 2021 according to your earlier predictions?
OR
2.) Should I stay in South Jersey, near Philadelphia and try to find a local sales job to build experience? (Currently saving money by living at home right now so I wouldn’t have to pay for housing as I would if I relocated.) There seems to be limited SaaS sales companies local, except for maybe a startup, reseller, or SAP.
3.) Big name brand company or startup for an Enterprise Sales role? I’m leaning big for brand name recognition and possibly a better sales training program.
Thanks! Been following you guys for many years; time for me to start taking action and making some better decision.
You should just apply at all times to all regions until you land a good role. Be location agnostic and care more about the Company/product you’re selling.
Once you’re in, don’t bother trying to switch and start side business which is more than 1,000x more important than any useless career
In terms of timing we’re guessing you won’t get into anything until 2021 due to COVID, but doesn’t hurt to try
Hey boys…whats your current hair regimen now that you boys are in your early 40s? thank you
No change, nothing has actually happened hair just thins out a bit
Self-isolating has been great for my finances as I’ve been able to cut spending down to next to nothing. I could completely get out of debt right now but it would cut my emergency cash runway in half (from 6 months to 3 months). Does it make sense to do this now or wait until things are more stable?
$150K as a software engineer but the company is luxury fashion and getting hit hard (not sure it will survive this). Still confident I could get another job if necessary. Started an online business (porn site) in the past couple months that is starting to ramp up (over $1K/month in profit)
1) your call, probably better to pay it off at end of year since likely stuck in this remote set up for the rest of the year in many areas.
2) In that case then same old, don’t pay it off till you are stable in job. Maybe pay off half of it now so you made progress keep saving money and building side income. Appears no questions here as you’re doing things right
In this market, you could probably hit 250-300k by jumping ship while working a similar number of hours as you are now. It doesn’t sound like much but consider that it might increase the amount of day job cash you invest by 2-4x.
1.Any concerns of water shortages in the next few months?
2.Currently building out a professional education/development site for college students, wondering how much it makes sense to build for an increasingly mobile first world (e.g. 50/50 split investment into website vs. mobile application development) given my audience?
3.What fear/insecurity would you target for college students (type A high performers).
1) no as you should have stock piled a few months worth
2) Would bet website is more important as people more likely to use that on a PC vs. smartphone. But your call
3) anything related to job performance after college, there are tons of scammy financial modeling classes sold to people who get jobs in IB.
What do you think about joining a website brokerage business franchise as a way to get into the online web/business game to learn like this one below?
No clue never used it
Aside from Efficiency, what are the best legit resources to get into white hat affiliate marketing? Would like to try selling established products before launching own.
Is an S corp worth it in NYC if you’re clearing $80-120K net? You can save on the 15.3% SE tax on a portion.. but theres corp taxes of about 8.85% I believe. Saves less than $3K if it’s $40K shareholder salary.. but I imagine accounting fees / complexity will add up.
How likely do you guys think S&P500 will go back to 2200 or lower sometime this year? Seems like we haven’t had a full bear market cycle yet.
1) Nothing, the major categories are in the book. Don’t try to fight reality.
2) probably not, too small of income stream. If it’s “close” it’s not worth it. When it’s worth it we’ll see you in florida/nevada/texas or whatever tax free area you choose
3) we think it goes down in 6 months or so unclear how low
Thanks! In this case, my business operates in NYC (RE sales) so I don’t think I could do the tax free areas..
Assuming that you’ve heard of hbr’s guide to buying a small business, what’s your view on focusing on ib first say first 5 years of your career and then go out to become an ‘entrepreneur through acquisition’?
No clue what that is
– How do you build performance benchmark for skills which usually don’t have numerical KPI (ex: design, art, sport, etc…
– How do you keep yourself honest when evaluate yourself to said performance benchmark and figure out when to quit
1) you offer services at a price and begin raising price as demand increases. With no demand it means you were not good.
2) when you realize you cannot get anything out of it anymore. That’s a life skill you learn if you’re mature and can see your own flaws
I’ve been stalled out in a formerly great oilfield sales career for a few years now after sacrificing a lot through my 20s. I think this sector is done and we never make up the margins lost since 2014. Which big ticket industrial sales markets would be a good pivot and have strong growth coming?
Not sure as we never went down that path, try to find other industrial grade equipment to sell into an area unrelated to oil
Thank you for sharing valuable information. I’m 22 and started reading the blog at 19. I am in high earning corporate job and own a digital consulting company. Needless to say consulting sucks and margins suck as mentioned in Efficiency. I found myself in a situation where I have $10,000 to invest.
I am looking to break into E-Commerce but lack knowledge on what will sell well online and how to (reading copywriting books right now). I work in tech and I am debating whether to pursue creating software to license (better margins), try my hand at drop shipping or private labeling, or start teaching tech online. How would you advise?
Thanks,
Lou
Choose the one with highest chance of success based on your current skills. Then after you get reasonable savings (should quickly go to $100K) look at the other options. We don’t know your skills
Ever sued anyone? I have my old employer on wrongful dismissal and defamation but (while I could afford it) I’d much prefer to get them to make me a settlement offer.
How long should I keep looking for a job in VC / Tech before starting fresh in an SDR Role? I have a decent resume despite only working at tiny IB and PE shops. Just thought I would have found something after a month of applying. (been working on side income also but nothing live yet)
1) No talk to a lawyer
2) Take anything and everything if unemployed don’t want to be cash flow negative
Freshman CS student at college. Following the college plan and am on track to finish this year with a 4.0 GPA. Taking summer classes so I can graduate a year early (4 years instead of 5 – I’m at a co-op school).
1. You previously recommended accounting as one of the few useful college classes. Are there any others you recommend? Statistics? More math? Intro finance?
2. Are minors or accelerated CS master’s degrees worth pursuing? This means taking the full 5 years at school instead of graduating a year early.
3. Any updates for the college game plan other than 3.7+ GPA and internships?
1) No school was largely a waste of time for real world success. You should spend all your time getting internships as GPAs don’t matter after 3.5-3.7 or so
2) No. Unless paid for then go for it
3) No.
I work in the industry. If you’re interested in FANG, the only classes you should care about are data structures, algo, and competitive programming.
They’ll land you your job. Then you learn on the job
There are four ways to make money in tech as an employee: product manager, people manager, math/ML/quant, systems engineer.
Only care about your classes if you are going to the last two options because they will save you lots of time and let you get that type of work/scale early on, making you earn way more money way faster.
GPA does not matter at all for tech recruiting as long as you are above 3 in my experience. Saw many people clear 300-400k offers with 50-150k signing with either 3.0 at top school or 3.3 at school just below.
Hello, I’m 25, have spent the last year in commercial banking. Throughout my time there, the bank has conducted two rounds of layoffs, and as a result my workload has increased 50% – I find myself working weekends and late into the nights. And, I don’t like my coworkers… My salary is still $70k.
My family invests in real estate, and has a cash flow of $40k-$60k per month. They’ve told me that they want me to take over the portfolio someday and they have $1 MM for me to invest as they don’t have the interest to invest anymore. Should I transition and just focus on real estate and forget banking and grad school?
Would transition, $70K is nothing after taxes so may as well leave
new grad. quant finance or a gov software job where you do little work? worried because I don’t think I have the creativity to start a business
What is your question? Just go into software and then you HAVE to start a business eventually. Otherwise you’ll never make it period. Gotta get over your own insecurities at some point
Cutting people out of your life to grow is great advice to follow.
But how would you deal with a sibling who is narcissistic and jealous toward you? Want to have a relationship with my brother, but seems unlikely now due to his behavior. Being related by blood makes it a bit more difficult for me to navigate.
New crypto currency known as Block X launching in 1 week, that integrates with major credit card Visa. Interested in purchasing mining equipment to start mining. Cost of about 0.8 cents per coin as of today.
Is it smarter to stay invested in BTC and ETH or explore this new coin for long term wealth / HODL purposes?
As always, you guys are the older brother I never had. Thank you sincerely,
1) yeah you cut them off. You don’t have to hate them but if they are dragging you down it’s time to leave if really that bad
2) Don’t know anything about it. If you’re skilled generally, buying and holding is better than mining since you lose time setting everything up that could have been spent making more money doing something else. Its the time loss issue.
The social circle thing you’re talking about should happen by default if you’re trying to get somewhere. If you want IB and you’re a freshman you find a new grad of 2nd year IB analyst and copy him.
By forcing yourself to be around these people and copying them, you end up meeting a lot more people like them and conversely not spending time around people who aren’t in the mold, simply because your time is better spent on people who fit the mold.
1. Favorite online/in person source to buy physical gold?
2. Looking to spend more on a premium theme for health affiliate site, don’t have resources or capabilities to program a custom one on my own like I’ve seen the top players do. Currently running a theme from StudioPress. Got any themes you guys can recommend?
3. Looking into generating more traffic organically during this down turn – any sources regarding SEO you guys recommend?
1) local dealer cash
2) We’re not aware of the latest ones so we’d just find a few you think are well done and figure out which theme they are using. Easy to copy from there
3) Right now we’re actually not spending, everything is down 50% since we know we don’t need to spend to keep profits up. When economy reopens we’ll spend again. SEO is largely meaningless compared to ads
Thanks. Much better off writing ads instead.
1.) What books / resources do you recommend for getting better at design, aesthetics, color matching, etc.?
2.) What are the highest leverage parts of an ecom flow/funnel to increase LTV (ad, presell page, offer page, backend, etc)
3.) What are some other “must read” books/resources for generally running a successful online biz (already read most of the ones in efficiency!)
Many thanks gents. Have a great weekend wherever you are!
1) Do not know ours is outsourced
2) Ads always win. Since a good ad = high conversion = money maker for life
3) Nothing, you should have enough. Rest of knowledge obtained by industry conferences for your sector
I know you covered commercial real estate but I didn’t see much on residential. Do you think there will be many REO (bank) owned residential properties due to default in the next 12-24 months?
Yes there will be blow ups in about 6 months. Rough time frame, stay patient
Are you guys going to give up all your shit and praise God too
Nope.
After 1.5 yrs at a Top 3 consulting firm in Western Europe (my background: mechanical engineering PhD, no, I am not a numerics fanatic), I am thinking of how to best move „from Year 1 to Year 2“. Given my background as well the current circumstances, would you recommend any particular approach? Or simply screening the market for opportunities in big items sales („Caterpillar“, 6-digits category..)
Thank you!
Do not see a question here. You have to spin your current job into one of the three highest paying careers. In the mean time you have to start an online biz. These answers will never ever ever ever ever ever change
Bought SoCal based restaurant/hotel service business Dec 2019. Quit day job Jan 31 w/ 1 year severance. Business revenue dropped to almost zero w/ Corona.
1) Do I stick it out in hopes volume comes back or take loss and write off against severance pay? FYI – there are 5 employees I am continuing to pay for the time being.
2) Looking to start online biz in a growing market but do not have unique product. Would you suggest buying a proven product in bulk and reselling or go affiliate route?
1) we have no idea honestly, that’s a stoke of terrible bad luck. Never been in that position
2) affiliate route is always lower risk, would start there
I used to work in the restaurant business. It is taking the mohter of all beatings right now. Chalk it up as a loss.
I still talk to the people I worked with, there’s talks about whether brick and mortar is still a viable option.
If I ever were to go that route I have certain things I would do as I have insider knowledge. Doesn’t have to be B2C, can do B2B.
Thanks for all the great content, best time to be alive.
What’s your thought process on deciding how much to lever up to expand real estate holdings within the next 24 months?
– 24, work in Fintech (non-technical)
-Have 275K equity in existing rental + ~50K cash earmarked for property purchases
-Have full access to complete trade stack (from structural to major trade tickets) therefore able to do >85% all rehab work via close contacts
Appreciate your thoughts.
Not possible to know without your cash flows, you can lever up to a point where you’re certain you can take a 50% hit and have no issues.
Grinded face off selling insurance and bartending current after tax earnings 75k
My cost of living 7,000k pr yr at 27rs old.
Question: Keep current situation and get into RE?
looks good. We prefer online businesses but your call.
Do you still recommend going into robotics, AI and deep learning? Personally I have been going into it, but a lot of people give up and leave for traditional software engineering because it is a lot harder to get an AI job and requires more credentials (Masters/PhD as opposed to just High school/Bachelors).
Also the field is currently dominated by PhDs and professors making startups. And there seems to be high interest and competition for the jobs.
Although I guess the alternative is to skip getting a job and straight away make a startup, but that is quite a financial drain. And it seems harder to compete for software engineering jobs as a backup plan against people who focus on traditional software engineering without the AI background.
So as usual do whatever you are good at. Same three career paths and none of them matter compared to starting your own business by a factor of 25-40x.
Yes everyone wants to go into AI but it’s a terrible idea because there are 15 year olds who make deep learning tutorials. You can see my other comment for my credentials, math/quant/AI jobs do not have even remotely the same interviews as software engineering jobs.
The shortcut is to do the ML interviews and see if they are easier for you than the software interviews. Your background can get you both jobs.
1. I’m a community college student transferring to a upper tier UC (not cal or ucla), top 35 ranked in a business hub. I’m majoring in political science (I know not the best major) and maybe will add on a business economics degree for a double major. My gpa is in the correct range for investment banking but I was wondering do you think it would be better to pursue tech sales or Investment banking coming from a non target in California?
2. I currently trade options and I have made a decent amount from trading but had some gains wiped out from pure greed. Do you think it is better to focus on building 2-3 online business at 20 years old or continuing trading?
3. What skills should a 20 year old learn to maximize wealth in the future?
You’re better off going into tech sales, or enterprise sales. Or perhaps software/coding.
Finance is near dead now, only M&A left and will primarily recruit only from top schools.
Mean time = start online biz already covered in book