Welcome
Welcome to On the Golden Road, where I will be sharing my personal stories about entrepreneurship and growth. I am still on the path myself and learning as I go, and what better way to remain accountable than to share the experience as it unfolds. In this first post, I will take the opportunity to introduce myself and tell you about my journey so far.
About a year ago, I was a software engineer working at a fairly big software company and I had just transitioned to a product management role. I had hoped to be able to help the team become more successful while learning a new set of skills which I could transfer to other companies. I really wanted to find a position I enjoyed that I enjoyed doing, but still paid well, and challenged me so that I could get out of software, which, at 40, I did not see as being a great long term play for me.
The product management path seemed perfect because it would allow me to try something new and challenging while still maintaining the comforts of pay and time that I was used to.
The thing is my success in the role of Product Manager was being tied to the engineering team delivering the product. The problem was that I was not the engineering manager, was not in charge of the team, and had no power to make changes to ensure that the team could deliver. In addition to that, we kept losing good people. These people had gotten tired of working their asses off and feeling like others were not doing the same. So I was stuck in a situation where I could not move forward in my job because of external factors and I had no way to affect those factors. Kind of like being in an auto race where someone else has control of the gas and brakes!
To make things worse, the company I was working for was large, and rife with internal politics. While the company had a lot of great people working at it, I also saw a place where the worst kind of people were able to rise up in the ranks. Some of the people who moved up the ranks were not the best at what they did, but were those who could best navigate the political landscape and tell people what they wanted to hear. This kind of thing has never been my strength. I’ve always been the kind of guy that says the things that need to be said, even when it may not be so pleasant to hear. That meant I wasn’t able to get much done without hitting a lot of resistance from people who would rather advance their own career than solve problems for our users.
I’m sure all of you have had the experience of working with difficult people and you know this can be extremely taxing. I felt like I had to watch what I said in meetings or over email for fear that I would upset the wrong person, who would then lash out by giving negative feedback about me to my superiors or sabotaging my career in some other way. With each passing day I felt an increasing melancholy coming into the office each morning. My levels of stress and dissatisfaction began to rise.
Over time, I started to feel like every day I was spending my time in an environment I did not enjoy and having to interact with people who could not be trusted. What made things worse was I knew I had more potential, but the job was draining my desire to do well and be the best I could be. I felt like I was stuck and my excitement and enjoyment for doing a good job was fading.
Then, one day, something happened…
I had been feeling the desire for a break from my day to day. At a time when I most needed it, some friends of mine got together and planned a weekend long party in the Joshua Tree desert (a kind of mini Burning Man with just our group of close friends). I figured it would give me the chance to recharge my batteries and I would be able to go back to work with a new sense of excitement. On the first morning after getting there, after a long night of partying, I had woken up earlier than everyone else, and decided to sit outside and simply look out at the desert. I had a glass of white wine and was simply enjoying nature, listening to the birds chirping and the other animals scurrying around. I was in the moment. It was then that I realized I had not been this happy in years. The weekend continued, but something had changed within me. I had made a realization that I was not yet aware of. This realization crystalised the moment I stepped into my office after returning from Joshua Tree. The sense of dread was back. Nothing was different. My batteries were not recharged. I knew then and there that I had to leave. Within 3 days I had given my notice.
The realization I came to was that I had not been living the life I was intended to live. The financial comfort of the job had kept me stuck somewhere that was draining me, and kept me from taking the necessary steps that I needed to take in order to grow.
It was now crystal clear to me that I needed to craft a life that was in line with my values and personality, because, even though I knew I would have to struggle for a while, I also knew in the end I would be a happier better person and my life would change and grow in ways that would not have been possible had I stayed at my previous job.
I also learned that no matter how risky the unknown seems, it is always better to take that risk than to rot away in a situation that is eating at you from the inside. Most of the time, meeting the obstacles in life head-on is what you need in order to achieve your full potential.
As a result, I found myself with a new enjoyment of life, I was fitter and healthier, now that I had reduced my stress and I had time to work out more frequently, and I really started working on and for myself, rather than for others. I researched various entrepreneurial paths, decided to enroll in an Amazon FBA course, and started started to work on my business.
Suddenly, I was Learning a lot, putting what I learned into action, working on my own business, and creating systems for that business.
That’s when I realized that the secret to my happiness was in exploring new things. I challenged myself to go out on my own and build a business from the ground up.
One of my main passions is wine. Opening a winery has been a dream of mine for many years. The feeling of having a glass of wine on a warm sunny day, in an area designed just for that experience is like nothing else in the world. I set out to figure out how I was going to achieve this dream.
I created a plan to grow my Amazon FBA business over the next four years to where I would be making $1M in yearly profit, could sell the business for $3M (a conservative 3x estimate) and use that money to fulfill my lifelong dream of opening a winery. I went all in on the Amazon FBA business.
I researched hundreds of products, eventually settling on two that had a good potential to beat the competition and which I could make improvements to that would differentiate me from the competition. These would get me started, but I would be adding new products on a monthly basis to grow the business.
I communicated with suppliers, ordered samples, tested them, decided on two suppliers, and placed my orders. I was set to start making money and growing the business!
But there was still a problem…
I was excited to start a potentially profitable business, but now I was stuck in a waiting game. It would be 45 days for production, and an additional 25–45 days to ship the products. At this point, I had been without a job for 3 months, living off my savings, and it would be another 2–3 months before the products were live on Amazon and I could start seeing how the market reacted to them. I started to worry about how long it would take to actually start being able to draw money from the business. In addition to that, I came to the realization that there are a few things that are not ideal about the Amazon FBA model. First, with the current trade dispute with China, I could not be sure that producing in China would remain profitable. Secondly, Amazon could cancel your listing or store at any moment for random reasons (this can and does happen regularly). Third, and most importantly, you do not own your traffic, Amazon does. What makes a business is a customer list, building one in an Amazon FBA business can be done, but it takes some extra effort.
I started to realize that I needed to diversify my business ideas. Amazon FBA was a good start, and I will continue to work on and grow that business, but I also wanted to place additional bets out there. The ideal product or service should be fast to produce, and allow me to own my own traffic.
It was these worries that led me to enter my second phase in the entrepreneurship journey, and start to learn the parts of business that I was not so familiar with, but which are key to any businesses success: adding value to the customer through your offer, and crafting a truly powerful sales message. I signed up for some additional courses, and have been consistently honing these skills.
I realized that if I could learn the principles which all successful businesses are built around, I would understand how people can seemingly make money out of thin air!
I am now on my way to building a couple of businesses employing the strategies and tactics I have been learning.
I have started to focus on understanding how to create true value for the customer, and I now feel that I am on a path to learning how to consistently, and reproducibly, create money by understanding people and thinking of a business not in terms of what product or service you sell, but how you can deliver the greatest possible value to the customer. I’ve also stopped worrying about how I am going to make the salary I had been making as a software engineer, and I have started expanding my goals and thinking about when I will hit the 7 or 8 figure mark. When you understand the principles that create success as a rule, the sky is the limit.
In the end, all of this means I’m now able to concentrate on growing myself and my business and eventually I know I will have the financial freedom to be able to do all the things I’ve wanted to do.
This is all still a journey and I am sure I will hit a number of snags as I navigate through it, but I am extremely excited about being on this path. I look forward to any obstacles in this path because each obstacle represents an opportunity to grow.
