Hello,
My name is Samuel Cole and over the next few months I intend to introduce you to my current journey trying to become 'successful'. I may be a little different to some as I don't call 'success' a huge amount of money but the journey and your happiness also. It will be a blog of my business life trying to get it really going! However as any usual younger person you will know with no particular wealth from your background it can be difficult to get going. I plan to use this blog as a method of explaining how I'm getting on, what I've tried that's worked and what I could do better to help others and to help me also! Im mainly focused on things that are lower risk as I don't have any particular capital and can't afford to risk large amounts of cash. But first let me set the scene of our tale (This may be a little dull as I will gloss over juicy bits to come)Also methods with Bitcoin & Investing too:
I've always been a wheeler-dealer, trying to buy and sell, constantly trying to get more cash together to start something a little more serious. Going back to when I was 16 I was into music greatly and so decided to have a little play DJ'ing. I had a computer program and went from there, Using tutorials online etc to help me along. I got good after a few months and actually starting creating music and putting them up on Youtube with Adsense to try and make something, which I did. Only a small amount of views meant not a lot of money was created however I had a new plan. I started a company doing mobile discos, I managed to save around £100 I went on eBay and purchased a set of speakers with disco lights. So it began, I started with doing smaller gigs using a shitty laptop someone in my family didn't use and downloaded music to play (which I Learned wasn't the best thing to do). However simply advertising on selling pages on Facebook in the surrounding areas and asking my parents for a lift for a bit of cash with the little equipment I actually started earning and quickly payed off my start up costs and got fully registered etc. I mainly did children's parties and older birthdays. I then got offered a small investment from my girlfriend's dad whilst he saw the potential. We planned to quickly earn enough to buy a van and to duplicate the company offering DJ business in a box. With the rest I earned and the small investment bought some more and better equipment, website etc! Everything was going good, had quite a lot of bookings, house parties and even a couple of weddings which payed really well.
But this is also where it went a little wrong after a few months, I found doing bigger gigs had more pressure, more cost, more time AND I had to constantly deal with drunk people... Not my thing. Moreover, in the local area there was ALOT of competition and one company started undercutting everyone, doing gigs for silly money. I got asked to do a wedding which usually I charged £500 ish and this guy did the job for 100, for 12HRS of gig never mind all the time behind the scenes getting music, packing the kit etc. So after paying back the investment and extra kit I earned a little more to re-invest into something else and quit it all. I make sure I never loose money on anything always covering what my costs to make sure I can try something new!
Next on the horizon, as I'm a huge car nut, I thought I would try doing something to with the motortrade. I had recently turned 17 and got my first car, 1990 MK2 polo saloon!
I loved keeping it clean and was always tinkering, I learned how to properly machine polish to bring the paint back up as it was a little pink, all self taught again using videos for guidance, and got on with it. I managed to get really into it and shortly friends were having their cars polished, waxed and cleaned by me. I sadly quite enjoy the precision and techniques included in 'detailing' so soon learned how to do the A-Z of professional car cleaning.
As you may guess my next step was to register a company and run a valet service for the local area with website etc just as I had done before, but BETTER. I earned some money doing little jobs on friends cars but as I was at school still money wasn't exactly flowing to say the least, especially with a new car, insurance etc! So I used what equipment and materials I had from doing my car and friends and just started there. It was very quiet for a very long time but after doing my friends cars and building a portfolio I was having a couple of cars a month for a 'full detail' which was £100 (very very under priced for the 8 - 10hr work involved) But I understood I will take time to grow so I could charge more. I also went to local garages in a suit with folder to go in and ask if they needed machine polishing/cleaning done on any of their cars before they went for sale. I always go on the premise of 'If you don't ask you don't get'.
I had again a few jobs from this but at a cut price, however after a while I managed to build up enough to purchase proper equipment and materials totaling around £500. GREAT! website done shortly after and It was going rather well. Problems began after a few months however, in 6th form (before uni) it was closing in on our final exams (Yes I was doing this on the side of a pre-university course), I studied the IB which if any of you know is ridiculous! So I started to slow down the detailing to focus on the exams and business slowly died down. After the Exams came winter (not really when people want their cars cleaning) and I couldn't afford to just do a few cars a month now, So I got a job! - gotta pay your bills right?
Where not quite up-to-date with my past business wise but nearly, There is a lot more interesting stuff ahead with my new business that I run now and what I'm trying to do to really get it going and all the good bits between trying to fund a larger business, Bitcoin & investing.
Join me on my journey (as soon as I catch up in history) And we can help each-other out!
That's the whole point right?