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111 COMMENTS

  1. Currently executing the guide on making money online and I’m stuck at Step 5 – the Quick Hustle. What are some good ways to drive traffic to the website for beauty service (photography)? I’ve tried classified and facebook (classified ads did not work at all) and am currently trying instagram marketing.

    1. Photography? Honestly no idea that’s not a product so we don’t even know where we’d start.

      Just do the same old, copy a competitor’s ads.

      That business model isn’t one we recommend since photos are not recurring business models.

      1. Yeah I’m just following the guide. Time for money exchange until I have the skills and client base to push products

  3. Thank you for hosting the Q&A and still finding the time to post given your hectic year! Really appreciate the help that you have given!

    1. I have lost close to 40 pounds but have really plateaued around 14-15% bf and cannot seem to go lower. I have even counted calories, added HIIT training, tried fasting but have not tried yet the zero carb road that you mention in Efficiency. How would you go further from here, is the zero carb option the best one? Google gives pretty good idea about it but if the zero carb route is the best one, I would appreciate any advice that you might have for it.

    2. I have experienced pain in the right elbow during especially incline bench press and military press. How would you deal with this?

  4. Will try and keep this is as brief as possible.

    Currently work in a job but it’s teaching me a specialised skill that will enable me to go out alone eventually. Have a business idea related to job (which appears to have demand following some testing) but am also currently finishing a masters degree in spare time in order to gain professional accreditation in my industry, which will be a prerequisite for expansion of said business later down the line.

    Just have a 15,000 word thesis to write (due mid-August) and then I’m finished and can start biz. That being said, I’ve grown tired of thesis (all theoretical bs, has no real world application etc) and am considering outsourcing it (have had quotes in region of ~£2.5k) so I can start business now. Only issue is that I don’t have that much spare cash (made some terrible financial decisions but have since seen sense) so will need to take out a loan in order to outsource the thesis (biz doesn’t require any startup capital)- I’ve looked and including interest will cost ~£3.1k.

    So, question is, do I take out loan and outsource thesis so I can start business now, or suck it up, grind out the thesis and then start business a month later?

      2. Lol I’m a recent high stakes pro but had enough money and found something better so quit to spend my time investing, traveling and playing runescape

        HMU if you want to go over any hands for free

        Cheers

  5. Working in SaaS sales – really good at presentations & public speaking – a lot of people have asked if I’m a public speaker or asked me to train them.

    In sales I don’t get to make that many presentations, most of my time is spent negotiating prices and asking questions.

    How can I use my skill/talent to make more money career or business-wise?

    I’d love to find a career that allows me to be more in my element of public speaking, unfortunately this kind of talent is very limited. Only useful when combined with another talent. And becoming a motivational speaker is definitely out of the question for me – the market is dead and reading your post on motivation has jaded me to the idea.

    1. There is no question here as well. What is your question?

      If you’re a good presenter you should go into sales. You already work in SaaS sales. So all they are saying is they are planning on promoting you.

      Ignore all that and just start a business on the side.

  6. 23, a degree in financial economics and almost about to complete my MSc in data science. Hate technical stuff. Parents self employed and do property development and retail.
    Career wise parents are willing to set me up an estate agency once I get experience since they have properties or do I try and pivot a career into private equity/finance and if so do I persuade them that having technical know how is better than just knowing finance

    1. Not even sure what your question is here?

      Choose sales or M&A banking and move on.

      All we learned from this post is you don’t think you can do tech. So that leaves going into M&A or sales… so just choose which one is better. Neither make a difference at all because without a business they net out to the same income over 20 years.

  7. 1) Broke student at semitarget: should I focus all my efforts into breaking into IB right now or also follow starting biz steps in efficiency/post on no talent to 6 figs?

    feel free to delete this 2nd Q but I did buy both books

    2) Is levfin a good product group to go into?(I know youve said to go into M&A but just wanted to see if you had any levfin insights)

    1. 1) If your plan is wall street then yes get into M&A. if you have time then learn online sales now. You’re not doing anything in college anyway please don’t try to lie to us and say you’re busy. College was incredibly easy and required 1 week of studying before exams as maximum. So do both.

      2) already a post on leveraged finance. Wouldn’t do it stick to M&A.

  8. For some reason I cannot buy the book, is there some other way directly?

    If so, my question would be how do I know I have the talent to get a career as a software engineer? Is joining a coding ~160 hour course and seeing how well I do in comparison to others a good idea? I have around 200 hours of coding practice with the free time I had but wasn’t able to determine where I fall on the talent scale.

      1. Can you make an exception? I would gladly pay with a my card but other methods will be out of reach for me by the time this q.a ends and I will lose a lot of time till the next one

      2. No because we’ve never done it before so we can’t tell you if you’re going to be a good coder, with that type of post/question

        Ask an engineer (we’re not from that background)

    2. Do an internship or contribute to open source projects.

      You should be able to blow through all your introductory college courses too.

    3. Yep can cosign the Anon. you should be breezing through introductory programming classes. HTML/CSS doesn’t count.

      Another useful proxy is how good you are at math. Did you find calculus easy? Doable with a bit of studying? Difficult? Impossible?

      If you elaborate on the type of coding practice you have, I can help further.

    4. Just build something yourself. Getting an internship is not the best way to check this unless you get an internship at a big tech company. Learn iOS/Android/Web Development for free (please don’t pay – it’s better to learn with the free material or $19.99 material at best than $2000 Udacity courses) online and build an app. If you can do this in under a month and with some reasonable threshold of quality, you’ll be pretty good. Otherwise, no reason to pick something you can’t be top 1% in.

      Next step: learn to market. If you can do that and figure out how to create products yourself – you’re going to be pretty fucking rich.

      I’m a Software Engineer at a big tech co, just graduated from University and pretty sure just about no one my level except the folks at Jane Street or HRT is making the same or more than me. I’m learning to market and testing a bunch of ideas to see what I should work on. Creating a business is the best way to make a ton of money super fast. If you can do that before getting a full-time job, hats off. By the way, even with a full-time job and working hard enough to get the highest performance ratings possible, this is totally doable.

    1. When you get rich you cannot relate to regular people anymore. Similarly, you’ll notice our old “fans” who are still not anywhere after 5-7 years of trying (making $150K max a year) suddenly turned into haters. Since they didn’t make it they can’t believe anyone else did.

      So you lose touch with reality as no rich person would ever want to spend lots of time with poor people making $150-200K a year.

      1. What makes these ”old fans” fail to make more than 150k-200k after 5 to 7 years? Effort?

  10. Thanks again for doing this!!

    Assume I have 3 websites (blogs in different niches i.e. garden, sport, fashion) with great SEO ranking. Traffic comes mainly from organic search. In addition, I have a decent size email list for each, generated from giving a FREE ebook as a lead magnet. How would you monetize it?

    *I often see website on empire flippers with great organic traffic that earn moneys from affiliate. How are they generating that much profit?

    1. You have to sell a product. Just choose a product? doesn’t seem to be a hard decision.

      We don’t know the websites but if you have subscribers all you have to do is sell them what they want. Email ask what they want. Make and sell it. done and done!

  11. Any protocol for falling asleep quickly and sleeping 7 hours minimum? I’ve been sleeping 5-6 hours for a decade.
    I’m currently using melatonin and ZMA but still not satisfied with my sleep quality.

      1. Blueblockers once in for the night. The redder the better. Test them by looking at blue and green icons on phone screen. If the blues and greens turn nearly black (as opposed to being tinted red) the glasses are good. Wear when you’re in for the night. Then, large sleep mask once ready for actual sleep.

  12. In Efficiency, you state that, for someone who is good at all three careers, you would recommend Technology followed by Sales followed by M+A in Wall Street. What is the reason for this ordering?

    Thanks for taking the time

      1. for non-US readers, this is less true. Tech is much lower paid in Europe vs in USA, when compared to finance. If you have tech skills in Europe, best bet is actually to do HF tech (e.g. a HFT shop) and face off to the market – if you want a salaried/bonus career.

  13. 1. My idea (weight-loss pills), his money ($50k). What’s my stake? I have done more work as of now and have celebrity connections for ads (free/discount) for the future.

    2. Moral stance on Forex get rich quick trading? Diet pills can be somewhat effective and everyone knows the dangers of drinking alcohol (2 examples from book), but aren’t you a scammer and a liar if selling Forex signals that show 4000% returns per week, for example? This can be easily done by showing the masses an equity curve of an overfit backtest.

    1. 1) No clue what your question is, never work with a single partner on anything this has been discussed over 1000 times on the blog. If it’s just $50K you need you should do it yourself

      2) This is a moral question. Will it sell? probably. Your call.

      1. 1. I’m a college student, I don’t have $50k to throw at a business idea. I would need years to save up $50k.

  14. #1.
    Brief context/#’s on initial affiliate venture-
    1. CPC on facebook ads = ~.4-.5 cents
    2. Conversion rate on landing page = 5%
    3. Conversion rate on affiliate product page = 4%
    4. Commission ~30% on a ~100$ product

    Running in the red with those #s, should primary focus here be on the ads/new campaigns + LPs, or website buildout to generate more organic traffic?

    #2.
    How do you guys feel about scaling products internationally? What makes it hard currently and do you think this will become more of an opportunity with global currencies in the next decade?

    1. 1) Not really clear, if you’re converting 4% of all clicks that should be in the green otherwise the offer sucks. 3-5% success is very good. If you’re saying it is 4% times 5%… that’s horrendous.
      2) Not really an issue with the internet, you just change shipping addresses? Not sure what you mean here.

  15. How do you decide whether you can really trust someone? Obviously, knowing someone for a long time (many years) is crucial, but do you know any “tests” to check someone’s trustworthiness quicker (similar to those in the “Intellectual Efficiency” chapter)?

    For example, I have found that when shit hits the fan over an important issue with an acquaintance, they sometimes tend to reveal a shittier part of their true characters by how they (re)act (unreliable, backstabbing, etc.). Whereas you don’t notice any of that while all is rosy.

    Thanks for your time!

  16. 31 year old male from Southern Europe. Studied Industrial Engineering. No work experience. Dabbled into Internet Marketing instead. Sold ebooks and coaching. Not enough money to cover living expenses.

    Want to go into Career mode. 2 options: working as a Sales Engineer or Learn Java or work as a Software Developer.

    Which one would you choose and why?

    Thanks a ton. Amazing content you guys provide.

    Alex

  17. How did you arrive at a point of fearlessness? It seems like so much of success is the mental game and overcoming any and all self doubt.

    1. It’s a rigged game. You just take lots of risk if dead broke. After that once rich there is no risk to taking more risk… so you just take more risk.

      There is a post called “rigged games in life” read that.

  18. 1. Why do you think ppl afraid to pick up a phone and do cold calls? (per your last post). And can you recommend techniques for overcoming this? I can do cold calls but sometimes i dread this task more than anything.

    2. You guys advocating for creating an asset that yields a cash flow (love the idea). Such as Real Estate, Internet Asset, Private Business, Financial Portfolio. How do you choose the one to start? (obviously depends on the person’s ability and situation but looking for a good framework).

    Thank you and thank god for this website.

    1. 1) you don’t you just do it. Some people are lazy and don’t want to succeed others do. The people “too scared” to do it are just people who will end up as lifes losers.
      2) Already answered in book.

  19. What can I do to find fast growing or “hot” saas companies where the industry is growing and deals are flowing in like crazy?

    2. This is basic stuff man. Look up breakoutlist or look at Tech Twitter.

      Here I’ll give you some: Flexport, Brex, Slack, Zoom…

      2 of them recently IPO’d too – living under a rock?

  22. If you want to buy a Single Family or Apt property to rent out to tenants, how many months of expenses should be one hand to deal with issues? Sources like Bigger Pockets say 5 months+ but that seems like a lot and the money could be reinvested into new properties or other assets instead of waiting in a bank account

    1. Real estate was a 3rd/4th form of income here so we agree with Bigger Pockets. Depends on how much time you’re going to invest in it. The more time you invest the less money you need for issues since you’re going to be more careful with every cent.

  23. Got an idea for a supplement product (powder mix) that doesn’t exist yet. I’m also not sure if the science is sound. I’ve got marketing experience but zero nutritional/science background.

    Advice on finding someone who can test the science and then create the formula? Trade shows?

    1. Yes all you have to do is go to a conference/show for the product and then figure out how they market.

      Then once you figure out how they market track down the source that verified the claims

  24. Thanks for the efficiency book, I have had good results particularly with your advice in the food section.

    I’m struggling to mentally overcome the fact that I can earn good money online (even replicate my salary). I have tried

    -Building a couple of tiny projects that earned a couple hundred bucks each (incl. having a lucky $100/day camp with paid traffic affiliate arbitrage. I shut all projects down due to bad biz model or shitty market)
    -Doing exercises from books related to mental game (incl. some of those you recommend)
    -Freelancing online and earned couple of thousands/month

    For overcoming this mental challenge, what seems like to best move in your experience:

    A) buy an online biz that earns like $1k/month profit to see if that will trigger something OR
    B) just be patient and focus 100% on writing more for my content site (have no traffic but have manually verified niche and currently tweaking audience) OR
    C) do B + drop the same as in a) but on ads for the site to kickstart traffic OR
    D) do both A and B

    My guess is C based on the book, curious if I understand it correctly

    Thanks again

    1. B since it’s not even making $1K a month it means the content is terrible or you’re not working hard enough.

      Making $1K a month can be done in less than 3 months if someone was serious and had legitimate niche info in almost any sector.

      Would not do tiny projects (multiple) that’s a horrible waste of time and goes against the book entirely.

      1. Lol perfect timing- just came to the conclusion that I might be reading too much instead of working. Gonna double down on your advice. Thanks again

  25. If you get to choose one career path in sales, what would you choose?

    Given an engineer specialised in building material seeing a flattened growth in the near future (industry and earning potential wise)

    1) headhunter working crazy hours with good commission potential, literally everyone could do it, exit options relatively fewer

    2)software sales rep with good products to offer with growing demand, entry barrier slightly higher, more exit options

  26. Hi
    Would be the best way for a 24 year old to invest 25k in the next year or so taking into account your claims on coming recession and crypto being at one of the highest prices so far?

    2. 25 y/o, please buy a savings acct of 30k, not just because it’s a buffer but because it stops you from being 100% irrational with normal investments. You need to hold through the 50% drops _and_ be aggressive and it’s very much impossible to do either if you’re worried you won’t have enough cash on hand. Once you beat the buffer then at some point you’ll just buy what you’re buying already.

  27. 19 yo college student.

    Read your book and started getting my life in order. Seen huge progress getting out of my comfort zone everyday. Just wanted to thank you.

    How do you stop the feeling that I’m wasting my time on a venture? I just started affiliate marketing (content based) putting in 20-25 hours a week for quite some time, but haven’t seen good results yet. I don’t want to give up at all, but I’m very scared of wasting my time. I’ve been telling myself that I should just double down and acquire and refine some online sales skills, but I really want to make solid money before I graduate. Is wasting time just part of the process? Should I change to something else?

  28. What is the financial reality behind influencers on social media? A lot claim to make thousands of dollars a post but it seems really all influencers ever get are free clothes which are of laughably low quality. Is having a career as an influencer and making money all just a mirage?

      1. I’d be willing to bet that the majority girls who are making money are probably escorts or have a wealthy BF or Sugar Daddy bankrolling their lifestyle.

  29. What advice do you have for overly logical numeric types to become better at sales? I find it especially tough while selling not to fall back on trusty ‘ole logic.

  30. Advice for managing people not money motivated? Promoted from IC to manager in real estate tech sales, can’t fire the reps that aren’t money motivated until hiring pipeline catches up with growth.

    Realizing I miss being able to control my destiny and not have to rely on weaker people below me, but learning how to delegate and making much more money so not a loss.

    1. You have to find what motivates them. There is no real solution here. You have to figure this out yourself.

      If the person isn’t motivated by anything, then you make them as profitable as possible or get rid of them and replace them if money losing.

  31. Still working career and getting ready to take a stab on the side with AM. When I was an individual contributor I was able to sneak in much more time on the side during work day that could be utilized for this, but now I’m managing a team and seems like every day I need to be “on” throughout the workday and into the night. What’s the best way to carve out the focus needed to attack an AM side biz from a time management perspective?

  32. I want to start with the affiliate market what should i do ? make a landing page or a niche site , which is the best?

  33. No question, just a big thank you. No need to post in Q&A if you don’t want it to be.

    Just did a successful, product launch of my own brand recently and for the first time after trying for 2+ year can I say I now have an online business as a second stream of income.

    What helped me the most was Efficiency section about branding, as well as the copy writing book you recommenced about branding.

    Didn’t follow your advice of trying to sell other people’s product first and wasted a year figuring out stuff. But had a good stream of income from my restaurant business to back me up to allow me to learn and progress (aka imitate successful brands).

    THANK YOU!!

  34. Would like to ask about your most recent crypto post:

    1) Why are you looking into Zcash? Based on the explanation in Triangle Investing, seems like Monero was superior. What has changed?

    2) You guys mentioned you were looking into Blockstacks. Is this still an attractive price at the current 0.30 USD per token?

    Thanks.

    1. We’re researching more privacy tokens and that one has come up a lot. We are not ready to recommend it at all but we’ve been researching it. Lots of developers are joining that network

      We’ve already entered that one so if one didn’t get in on the initial offering probably isnt worth it.

  36. What kind of sales roles with a decent earning potential would you recommend for a CFA level 1 candidate? (with no prior financial background)

    1. CFA isn’t useful for sales at all this has been covered in the past. So the answer unfortunately is nothing.

      Skip all that and try to go into enterprise tech sales if you’re not already in an M&A role on wall street.

      1. The *vast* majority of tech sales jobs are in SF, where the cost of living is extremely high.

        Would you recommend someone starting out to just scrape by there (at least for first few years)?

        Or look into a lower CoL city like Austin where losing a job may mean waiting a bit to find another (whereas in SF you can find another one almost same day).

        I grew up in the bay area and now live in Austin. Wondering whether to suck it up and make the move back or stay here.

        Any thoughts on the value of being in the “”right” city or area?

  37. You guys recommend 2 sources if income (typically career then biz) before getting into investments.

    The world of investing makes absolutely no sense to me – it very much is not my strength.

    Should I just focus on biz income sources or is it essential for me to continue delving deeper into trading eventually?

    1. Your question is already answered on the blog and books? Just get rich first and all you your extra money dollar cost average into the items in triangle investing. Nothing has changed and never will.

      Worst case you can do it with the S&P 500. Having all cash (if you succeed) is just not going to work.

    2. Felt like answering this because I think it’s a good ‘mentality’ question.

      Everyone who makes money has to become an investor eventually so may as well learn about it now. Could save you valuable time. For instance, if you understand real estate, you could realize that buying a set of properties cash flowing 10k+ a month (factoring in vacancy) could be faster to acquire than an amount of cash in the bank. Obviously if you have sufficient cash buying the properties is a joke but when there is a shortcut why not take it. Replace real estate with a stake in a cash flowing business and it’s the same.

      Also, tax avoidance. Aka what the most successful investors know best.

  38. 1. What is the best way to gamble large amounts of money online or otherwise on sports matches? (Over 10k-100k on a single outcome)

    I am asking because my bets have been limited on my betting account (bets limited to 4k on a single outcome).

    2. Would there be any instance that you would recommend $GBTC (btc trust) over directly investing in Bitcoin itself?

    Thanks!

    1. 1) You have to find a private bookie, there are large networks like this. Also find an international bookie and have a friend place your bet. Lots of ways to do it, just go to vegas and ask around

      2) No.

  39. Already in finance, but have always had goal to join military special forces for a few years as a personal challenge. This goal looks achievable in near future.

    What is the WSPs view on such a goal? (considering inherent danger in military, forgone income / career progression, loss of freedom since need to be on call for deployment etc.)

  40. Hi WSPs

    Thanks for this Q & A.

    With the declining trend of advertising ROI and platform dependence, do you still consider organic growth by content marketing as a waste of time ?

    Merci

  41. The big changes in performance of different asset classes are often easily explained in hindsight.
    For example: Fed and ECB lowered interest rates over the past 10 years -> bonds become unattractive -> boom in stocks and RE.
    Now they want to lower the interest rates even more, while governments build up debt. I’m not sure if this can go on like this for a long time.

    Where will the money flow to if there’s a big stock market correction? What do you think would have been a wise investment decision when living in 2024 and looking back to 2019?

  42. I have a successful business that I cannot further reinvest profits into quickly enough. I have built up a cash pile of approx $1m and am currently dripping approx $25k a month from cashflows into stocks/bonds. I currently have approx $400k in my portfolio of said investments so the $1m cash pile is large compared to the current portfolio

    My question is this, should I continue on the drip-feed, or should I start investing much larger chunks? I am afraid of my cash pile being eroded by inflation but I am also scared the bull market is about to end after over a decade.

    (Also, you can assume that it is likely my business will still continue to bring in cashflows in excess of the $25k month I am investing. So my cash balance is not currently decreasing each month with the investments).

    1. Just keep investing, you should stop and spend some time looking into 1-2 larger sized investments. You built too large of a cash position so you’re going to have to find something bigger to take up a chunk of it. Ideally a long-term position like a private equity deal with someone you trust.

      That or you’re stuck with the same strategy you’re doing now. Your call, a good problem to have though!