[Journey] Launching a Tech Startup

Hey everybody, thanks for checking out my thread. This will follow my journey to launch a tech startup that will develop services and commit to projects that work to counter poverty, inequality and lack of access to formal education. I’ll keep this updated until I secure my first round of funding, but no less than 6 months.


JOURNEY

The overall plan is to spend the next 12 months executing a variety of projects related to adult entertainment, marijuana and fitness. During this first year I expect to utilize a lot of what I’ve learned here on the forum to build self-sustaining businesses around the themes mentioned above.

There’s clearly a lot more to be said (I have a full blown plan to build a company and grow it into one of the world’s next major conglomerates), but since I’m only committing to maintaining this thread during my first year of work; I’ll just provide details as people ask meaningful questions.



GOALS

>$10,000 monthly revenue

Secure pre-seed funding from angel investor or startup incubator.


BACKGROUND

I first stumbled across BHW a few years back while in college. It was the middle of the Great Recession and my friends and I were trying to come up with ‘million-dollar ideas’. One of them jokingly suggested we make a porn site. The idea made me question how porn sites make money and after searching online I came across several methods here on BHW that perked my interest, the rest is history. My interest in programming, computer science and entrepreneurship was sparked and grew from there.


EXPERIENCE

I’ve always been a math and science nerd. Studied structural engineering in college before dropping out and started self-learning computer programming. I’ve attempted a multitude of small projects to varying degrees of success sparked by stuff I’ve learned on BHW, with focus on adult journeys, botting, social media and dropshipping.



WHAT TO EXPECT

Please read everything and other appropriate threads before you ask a question, I don’t want this thread to get bloated with useless posts. With that said; ASK QUESTIONS, I have no intention of writing a chapter every evening on what I’m doing and thinking. If you want to understand more about my methods, approach, ideas, etc… ASK; it’ll add value to the thread. I’ll provide an update once daily with what I accomplished that day, any significant happenings, and the day's earnings. I’ll also answer any QUALITY questions asked by members of the BHW community. By ‘quality’ I mean good, useful questions that provide value to the thread and the people following it. I'll respond to poor quality and noob questions as well, but only in a bulk manner and to point you in the right direction to increase your knowledge.


CLOSING

I’m doing this journey because I gained real knowledge on BHW and believe such communities are intrinsically valuable to future innovation. I’m hoping to give back, network and inspire others to start busting their asses on their own projects. My hope is that most people will be able to find something of value in this thread, regardless if they’re a Newbie or Executive VIP. Thanks for following!

Hi man
Good luck on the journey, I am closely following it. As I am also getting into adult niches per say.

Sounds nice, hope it will be well.
Good luck! , following.

DAY 1 (6/13/17) RE-CAP

Yesterday was significant, less-so for what was accomplished, and more for the realizations I reached as a hopeful business founder.

For several months now, I've felt that I know everything I need to know in order to execute the plans I've put together. The remaining gaps between where I am and will be are the results of aspects of my personal characteristics that I need to address. I've been doing just that but the reality is, change is difficult. Being aware of and actively tackling areas you know need alteration is certainly a great start, but even then, the work and dedication has to be put in.

This has been a particular struggle of mine and I feel that I am now getting a much better understanding of its origin.

The most encompassing and succinct way to put this is, I naturally have an engineer's brain, rather than a primarily business-oriented one.

With a little thought, it becomes apparent how this could become an issue. Engineer's are typically thought of as 'problem-solvers' and I guess you could think of business-men/women as 'do-ers'. This represents my constant internal struggle perfectly.

I'm a problem solver down to my bones. I view most instances of my existence from an analytical perspective; although not in an overbearing and direct way. It's almost as if half my brain is very literally a computer that's constantly doing calculations in the background of everyday life (technically your brain is doing just that, but hopefully you get my point). I'm typically the one who believes anything is possible, with the understanding that the pieces just need to be gathered and put together correctly.

So here's the issue..

I LOVE solving the problem, strategizing solutions, building out the core product/project, and overseeing execution.
I HATE all the tedious things that don't involve solving the actual problem, including having to make the case for solutions anymore than once or twice, the 'circus' involved with asking formal entities for $$$, all the time and energy required to build 'relationships' with other business entities for the CHANCE to work together, and anything that doesn't happen in real-time and isn't concrete in terms of results (sending emails, cold calling, paperwork, etc).

In short form, I think it's most accurate to say that I am naturally the strategizer, problem-solver, overseer and delegator; but not the executioner.

Honestly, after I solve a problem, my interest rapidly evaporates and my brain just moves on to the next thing. In fact, even with a lot of my early internet marketing projects, success was typically determined by my ability to force myself to execute the tedious things required after I'd put together a solid plan. Finances was a big factor as well, primarily b/c of how much more work is involved when you have to bootstrap entire projects vs. having the cash to purchase the proper tools.

So now what?...

Reaching this assessment of myself is something I've been striving towards for months now. I've known and expressed for years that I have an engineer's brain vs a solely business-oriented one, but I hadn't reached such a level of understanding of those implications in regards to many other aspects of my life until yesterday. The computer half of my brain spent several hours last night making sense of many occurrences of the past few years once this understanding was reached.

Some of the most significant realizations include:

1. Although I'm a firm believer of strengthening your weaknesses, I will need to maintain a healthy network of business-oriented and 'realistic' minds who will bring my grandiose ideals down to earth without diluting their effect; as well as take joy in 'dotting the i's and crossing the t's'.
2. I have to become more disciplined. I was far more disciplined in high school, thinking it would get me where I was aiming. But then my mother didn't accept me for my sexuality and I couldn't afford to go to the college I wanted because of the recession (and because I come from poverty). This devastated my belief in 'putting the work in before seeing results', as well as my entire sense of discipline. I was so devastated by these occurrences, that I began protecting my happiness above all; even if that meant something as simple as sleeping in.
3. I must actively work to focus on one thing at a time (at least until I have the bankroll to begin hiring/delegating other projects once the ball is rolling). This has been something that has held me back from success as well. 4 years in, I'm still very new to programming, IM, etc.. so it's very easy to be amazed by all the things that are possible, but fail to give full focus and energy on any one thing.
4. It's time to move past treating the activities I'm initiating as 'projects' and give them the high-level attention required of a 'business'. This is a piece of advice I've seen countless times on this forum and I'm definitely ready to focus on following the advice. You can't expect different results from the same actions; you should always be striving to improve.

..I have a few more things to add, but I've been meaning to send this update out for a few days now. I've been busy with a few other things including preparing for a 13-hour drive to my sisters, from where I'll be working on everything described in my opening post, for the next couple months. I'm literally about to head out and begin the drive now.

I'll give updates on what I accomplished during Days 2, 3 and 4 (today) late this evening. Thanks again for following!

DAYS 2-17 RECAP (6/14-6/29)

*I know it's less common to reveal such personal detail when posting here on BHW, but I strongly believe people should give a raw and accurate reflection of their journey because it makes it more real and relatable for those who follow. People have a tendency to not give enough detail or only speak on the fruitful aspects and gloss over the dead ends. I think this only makes it harder to inspire followers.*

The past 2.5 weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster (hence the hiatus). As mentioned in my last post, I traveled to my sister's home for the summer; what I didn't mention is that this was partly a move to try and bring some stability to her household. She's on the verge of divorce from a nearly 2 decade marriage that encompasses 3 kids who are still minors. That in itself is a lot to absorb, however I wasn't remotely aware of how bad the situation really is. A significant aspect is that she seems to be suffering from some sort of mood/emotional disorder. She's also letting her life fall apart around her; and considering she has a moderately-large house and 2.5 acres of land.. this has caused a lot of my time to be consumed by cleaning, dealing with incidents, trying to bring some positivity around, and general upkeep. I think I've finally got a relative handle on the situation, so I hope to start posting daily.

Since my last post I have:

• finished reviewing all the UBot Studio tutorials
• pulled together most of the software and hardware I required
• checked in with the owners of an adult-focused company (whom I've been slowly building a relationship with) to ensure my business plan isn't loosely circulating
• set up a meeting to speak with my new affiliate manager at a private media buying network to discuss my goals and projects for the next 2-3 months
• streamlined my plans so I'm attempting projects in a staggered manner, rather than all at once
• organized my online infrastructure in preparation for website-building

My first 2 projects will include:

• an array of adult-focused streaming sites that provide a better experience for consumers and improves content monetization for adult businesses
• a fitness-focused blog geared mainly towards men who want to build muscle and/or lose fat

Today my goal is to:

• get the basic functionality of one of the adult streaming sites and the fitness blog online
• have a phone meeting with my new affiliate manager

The ubot tutorial videos are terrible!

Hey

Great fortunes on the journey, I am firmly tailing it. As I am additionally getting into grown-up specialties per say.

randybishop said:

The ubot tutorial videos are terrible!

Click to expand...

This tutorial is better than the videos in my opinion: http://network.ubotstudio.com/learn