Hi,
I’m Wayne, 48 years old and an entrepreneur who lives in the United Kingdom.
I have been a software developer and product designer for 30+ years and my fascination with computers started at a very young age.
When I was just 13, disassembling early computer games (Sinclair ZX81, Spectrum and Commodore 64) was a hobby. This produced a taste and a flare for understanding computers, I guess I just had that "it" whatever "it" is that you need to be able to make computers do what you want them to do.
At the age of 18, having self taught programming to a reasonable level, I applied for an assistant's job in the IT dept of a local Steel Company. This was a very bold move as it was around the time that the office environment was getting IBM PC's and were becoming a strong asset to the working world.
Still using MS DOS, I quickly became part of the IT dept and wrote many useful tools such as Bonus Systems and Quotation Systems for the company. I was there five years before everyone was made redundant due to bad management decisions higher up than my influence.
By this time, I had been supporting five companies around the UK and so myself and my manager at the time, decided to combine strengths and form our own company. At the age of 23, I became self employed and a director of my own software company. This new company developed many different software apps for all sorts of businesses, from Time and Attendance to Traceability Systems for the Fresh Fruit Industry.
Five years into the new company, one of our clients offered a deal for us to quit the company and go and work for the client. This was appealing for my business partner, but I declined and bought out my partners shares in the business and continued on my own. This is where the real entrepreneur bug started to take hold. Having worked for myself for 5 years and now 28 years old, I knew at this stage in my life that I wasn’t for the corporate world and finding my own destiny was by far and away more important.
Five more years past with myself at the helm of the company. Things were going well, I bought my first house, had a BMW sports car, all good (back in 1998/9)….until, I made my first managerial mistake…..I put my faith back into the corporate world.
I was offered a great deal and package to work on a very exciting project (which for now, the name of which, I will keep to myself). It was great pay, I was still self employed, had a fantastic 7 figure exit plan, but, it was to take most of my time and so I had to decide to take it and retire in 2-3 years, or carry on as I was.
Of course, the entrepreneur in me wanted it and so I had no choice but to slim down my current business and move some of the clients to other people that could look after them. The new business was of course fantastic for about 12 months, until that faithful day I was told that the project had been cancelled.
It was that moment that I knew I had made a big mistake. My successful business that was, was no more as I had moved 80% of my clients to make way for this 1 big potential gamble.
So, my point here, is that I had put my faith AGAIN, in the hands of someone else and it backfired to such an extent that I had to close my business of 10 years and go back to work in the 9-5 world.
I did eventually end up working for the company that now employed my ex business partner, but of course, my original deal was no longer on the table and so I took a fair wage, but compared to what I was earning before, it sucked!!!
About 3 years into this job, I started to see cracks within the business and feared that it was time to look elsewhere. I applied for a managerial job at a new startup and after being grilled and narrowed down to three people, I did get the job. Incidentally, 12 months after I left, the previous company went insolvent and was closed.
So, new job, new opportunities…yes, you would think so. The thing was is that I had a 2 hour commute every day (and that was if the traffic was kind), I was expected to do long hours and although at the start it was fun, it started to become very groundhog day. Get up, sit in traffic, work, stay late, sit in traffic, get home, go to bed….etc etc..
I was now doing 60 hour weeks, no holidays, my current relationship was failing, the house I was in (that had a big mortgage), was losing money due to the economy and to top it all I moved away from the marital home and now had rent to contend with.
You can see now, that 1 decision I made had a knock on effect that lasted almost 10 years.
I remember it well, my 40th birthday, waking up in a new place, on my own, hardly any furniture, hardly any money, but I can remember feeling good about myself. Life begins at 40 and I’m telling you that is so true. I took positives out of all the negatives and said I know I can drag myself back and beyond anything I had before.
I lasted until 2012 working in the corporate world once more. I remember one morning, waking up and not being able to straighten my leg. To make a very long story that little bit longer ;) and after numerous trips to hospital, I had a medial meniscus tear in my knee and it required an operation.
So, I’ve had my operation and I’m lying on the sofa watching the Olympics when I realise I have not had the correct amount of pay for the month. I contact my boss and he said, “You have been on the sick” and so he only paid for the times I was at work.
Yes, you can imagine, 60 hour+ weeks, no holidays etc….so I thought about it for an hour or so and wrote an email stating my resignation.
Yes, it didn’t go down too well, the air was blue, but I thought to myself, this is the time to get back my life and to prevent other people having a say on where I should be, whether I get paid, whether I can have time off etc etc.
So, I turned my attention to the world of the Internet. I used my already gained knowledge to my advantage and built some tools and biz ops that went well, but it was still difficult to see and believe what was real and what was complete BS. I have to admit, I wasted a lot of time and money in those early years and times quickly reversed themselves to once again tough.
I had an idea many many years ago to build an opportunity that was fun, was free to join but had a small investment if you wanted to make money. It had no merchant requirements, so no one to decide one day to shut us down and used a very large company to backend any payments people won....yes won. The system had been in my head for over 16 years and in 2014 I had finally built it and launched it to the public. It was based around the UK lottery instant scratch cards and it took off like a steemit train (pun intended). I had finally put myself on the map and put the Internet Marketing niche on its head...well at least for 12 months. If you would like to check it and learn more click here
So, after 1 success comes another? hmm....
I will keep what happened next short. Due to the success of what we called 'UL', I was approached by 'A Professional' to build a network marketing opportunity around his business. It all sounded great and on paper we were set to make another mark and a nice few quid (money) in the process. This turned out to be one of the most damming and stressful times of my career.
What should of taken about 12 months to build turned into almost 2 years, had used up all my savings and in between it all very nearly bankrupt me. If it wasnt for family and in particular my parents, helping me with things like rent etc, I would have easily gone down with the ship.
The sad thing that will haunt me forever, is that my dad passed away during the building of this opportunity and he never saw it launch. This was now one of the worse times for me as I had a vision, nobody really could see it like I could see it, but it was pulling me down, no money to keep servers and systems alive and to top it all, my dad dies during the whole thing.
So, feeling kind of "is it all worth it", I had to carry on. It turned out that my dad had left me some money and I used it to survive, pay business costs, living costs etc, but I did purchase something for myself just so that everytime I look at it, I can think "My dad bought me that" .. It was an Apple Watch.
So, eventually we launched the opportunity in Feb 2016. It did ok for about 2 months, but due to circumstances beyond my control, the 'Professional Data', was not so professional and the membership soon dwindled and 2 years of stress, money and development was gone.
So, what to do? I took a good look in the mirror and thought have I gone through all this pain to just walk away and go back to the corporate world.....Hell no, money was scarce, but time was in abundance and so I used that time wisely which brings me to the now.
So, I hope your still with me at this point. My story, with its ups and downs (and the downs were really bad times), is so that you don’t have to go through the agony and pain that I did.
Since that time, things have moved up and up, I now live with my wife to be (who incidentally is a family friend that I knew 25 years ago). We live in a great place in the country and we have a daughter who is great.
Regarding work and online?
Yes, having explored so many things, been there bought the tee shirt for eg, I now live the life I knew I would when I woke up in that house on my 40th birthday. Yes, it took me 7 years to get it, but that determination is what sets me and YOU apart from everyone else. I say YOU because you are still with me reading this text and I know its resonating with you.
I have not had a boss now for 5 years, the last 2 years were really cracking the code to what works and what doesn’t and I can tell you with confidence, you want to avoid my 10 year slog!
I continued to develop systems, use my experience in what works and what doesn't to build out a software system combined with the marketing genius of my new 6 and 7 figure earner friends to create our finest work to date.
We certainly have cracked the code and we can install this knowledge into anyone.
I guess the moral of the story, struggle (if you have strength), can shape you to success. A true entrepreneur looks at failures as being 1 step closer to my goals. I have learnt from them and my duty is to use that knowledge to help others.
You want it, you deserve it, its now here and available, just follow the link below if you would like to know more.
My life now is super awesome and yours can be too. It took me 10 years, it can take you 10 mins if you want to know how.
Speak soon, I appreciate you reading my story and if this is all you do and you don’t click the link, then I know your life must be awesome already.
Click Here To Find Out What I Am Doing Now
Many thanks,
Wayne
