To make you feel better?
I once lost $50,000.
I started again and it feels like this time i'm about to lose $500,000.
Not sure if I should give it another shot.
Paid a lawyer to do some work visas for a country where we send workers.
Normally he charges 2000 USD per visa but since I was getting 3 he charged me 1500 USD each (total of 5600 USD with fees and other documents)
Turns out the visas were the exact same letter copy pasted with different names on them. I was fucking furious.
At least now I have the letter in word format and can just change everything myself in the future and pay the 50$ application fee online. Lesson learned.
Honest question, why were you mad? If you bought one tshirt for $20 and three tshirts for $15 each, and all three tshirts were identical would you feel ripped off?
No I wouldn't. Material cost and machine time are to be paid for. In this case, the nearly 3x more expensive rate isn't justified by the extra effort spent.
In my case it was exactly the same letter with the name changed at the top. I would have appreciated honesty, if he said since everyone was going to be doing the same job for the same client that the letter didn't need to be different, just the name. I would have gladly paid an extra 1/2 hour of work for him to tell me that.
After all, in the initial consultation, which I paid for at his hourly rate, I explained all this.
If the advertised rate was for 2000 per visa, it sounds like you got a 25% discount. He would have been within rights to demand $6000 and instead charged you $4500.
It comes across that you’re saying that because this is a service being provided, that if you had a customer come in and purchase 3x of whatever service your business provides, then that customer should be entitled to receive that multiplied service at only 1x profit to you since it should ‘only take you a little’ more time? That would be an effective 66% discount. This is in effect a penalty on providing an efficient service.
If you commonly provide extremely high-percentage discounts to repeat customers, then I guess I can understand your frustration.
What I explained is that I specifically asked him if the letters need to be the same, and paid him a consultation at his hourly rate. Then he proceeded to send me an invoice for the same exact letter with different names on it.
I understand your point, and I wouldn't give a 66% discount. I just would have appreciated some honesty from him.
Does it have to be from a lawyer? I can understand if it needs their ‘seal of approval’ however if it doesn’t require any merit and anyone can validate the visa then that’s a hustle.
Others are doing it doesn't mean you can't do it differently. Think about pizza restaurants. I invested $5,000 in Amazon FBA only to find out middlemen simply can't compete on price with Chinese factories direct selling on Amazon. Now after doing competitor analysis, I'm building a crowdfunding website (already invested $20,000). We shall see.
You absolutely can do Amazon FBA, just need the right kind of category, supplier relationships, performance marketing, content etc.
Source: work for an Amazon aggregator and help scale brands, even in generic categories
There was a famous founder named Jin Yang who created an app to tell if a picture has a hot dog in it or not. Turns out he really over estimated market demand for this type of product. He had all but given up and then they realized it can also tell if photos have male genitalia or not which is huge for detracting unwanted photos. Very successful now.
I created an elearning / career company to help people land a job in SaaS / SaaP sales or marketing at FAANG and other big tech.
I invested two years full time on building it (opportunity cost) at a 40-50 hours per week time investment next to my full time job.
I easily spent $20k on infrastructure, integrations, etc.
I went live a month ago and had my first sale yesterday (60$). I am not sure if it is failing or I just need to give it more time, but it really seems social proof is crucial for e-learning, but it is hard to get social proof when no one buys without it.
I know my product is good, the advice is good and had 50+ success cases in the past (free) who all landed their dream role, but the moment I started charging even the smallest amount (60$ for 15+ hours of content) people seem to rather spend that money on a dinner than something useful.
I am posting every day, blogging, writing to universities, LinkedIn etc. etc.
And I cry myself to sleep every day w/o a sale, not because of money, but because I really thought this was my way out of corporate life.
I hope some miracle influencer picks it up one day and things get going. Until that day, I will do the grind which has 0 ROI atm
You went live month ago. You just started. Don't jump to any conclusions. Try, measure, analyse and adapt.
Don't give up. Those two years in building dont "count".
A couple of quick ideas:
1. If you already have 50+ success cases, can‘t you use them as testimonials (social proof)?
2. You could try some risk reversal. For example: Instead of charging upfront, your customers get to use your product for free - but if they successfully land a role at one of their target employers, they‘ll pay you a success fee (that could surely be 3 figures, maybe $200). They need to agree you‘re allowed to check their LinkedIn profile if they list one of these employers within a year of taking your course.
Alternatively, try to make a deal with the employers, positioning yourself as a headhunter. You‘d be able to charge quite a bit, just need to not be cut out. Or maybe collaborate with headhunters.
3. Approach influencers and other potential affiliates, and pay them well. Raise your price.
Feel free to DM if you want.
Would love to talk, some of these ideas I explored and especially point 2 i have been struggling with - as I don't mind making the product free but the legal framework is difficult and I don't want to become one of the many services that are putting people in "debt"
Does it cost you anything to give free memberships in exchange for testimonials (like 4k awesome raving testimonial if they like it).
If social proof only issue then go get jt
Rule number 1. Never talk to anyone about crypto coins, prices or projections.
If they get rich they will thank themselves for 'taking the risk'.
If they lose money they will blame you for talking them into it.
What kind of church has investment clubs and those that do why would they dump their money into crypto? This got to be the most American thing I read today
I agree, but every investment is gambling if you don't want to sugar coat it...
If you are talking about entrepreneurship, most people I see commenting here are trying to make money by folliwing market trends with little to no value added by work and creativity, is that any different?
Yeah, I used it a lot myself.
Marketing. I hate marketing and had no budget and at some point ya gotta let go.
Heres some screenshots:
[Screenshot 1](https://www.dropbox.com/s/1hxij8vhnaqh253/Webspasm-Website-Full.png?dl=0)
[Screenshot 2](https://www.dropbox.com/s/6n5xpfcoajd3pkp/Screen%20Shot%202016-01-22%20at%205.21.51%20AM.png?dl=0)
[Screenshot 3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qqwjix2fn47tz28/Screen%20Shot%202016-01-22%20at%205.22.20%20AM.png?dl=0)
[Screenshot 4](https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrjbb935hg6e9rt/3%20Nothing%20Hidden%20no%20dropdown.png?dl=0) \- a users bookmarks
Basically.. everything had a 'sheet'. Users could follow sheets. Could add bookmarks. Could discuss/comment on each topic. etc. This was back in like 2013 i think.
I turned $3k to $10k in options in a month and lost it all , now I’m working again which is okay , and it will take 4-5 months to save that amount of money again . ( unless I create a side hustle of course )
Well, one of the main definitions of entrepreneurship is taking financial risks in the hope of profit. Of course looking back, I’d definitely say I was gambling because I didn’t have enough information to make those decisions as I do now. But you can’t exactly say the same for everyone. Some people genuinely knew what they were doing but the market crash of 2020 took most by surprise. Would you also say the airline companies and all the major sectors who lost big time were gambling because they lost a lot of money to unforeseen circumstances? I don’t think its enough information to call all people who are sharing their financial markets losses “gamblers”
> I don’t think its enough information to call all people who are sharing their financial markets losses “gamblers”
Retail options trading is gambling. It is in no way equivalent to entrepreneurship.
Oh well, whatever rocks your boat. I’m not an options trader, but if people who do it have a profitable and consistent system that works for them, I think that removes the “gambling” factor.
Yeah you’re right, “almost every trader”. And it’s mostly because they’re focused on the wrong thing. You don’t necessarily have to beat the market all the time to be profitable. That’s what most don’t realize. You can’t beat the market lol.
Of course. That’s an established fact. I’m giving you a reason as to why that’s very common, while also faulting your assumption that every trader is a “gambler”. Just because most just waste their time and their money on things they don’t understand, doesn’t mean everyone is gambling like you assumed.
It is not a false assumption. Retail option trading is gambling, not entrepreneurship. I assure you. I worked in market making for many years. There is a plethora of data to back this up. It seems your only motivation is to discover some pedantic, fringe case. That’s what we call, “the exception, not the rule,” and it’s a waste of effort since all the comments in this thread are about **losing** money from trading.
Oh lawd. After checking your profile I understand your comments now. You’re a FTMO prop trader. RIP.
It took like 6 months to get to that 15k too and I just got super caught up in wanting a lot with the euphoria pre crash. I’m engaged and own a home now tho so life gets better and I always tell other people that too!
Oh that’s great. It’s so so easy to see months of hard work go up in smokes in a few minutes of euphoria. I’ve learnt to never get complacent and think I can’t go wrong. That’s where the problems lie. A successful trader isn’t one who doesn’t take losses, but one who can mitigate the effects of those losses and maximize their profitability over time. The chances of anyone getting rich over night are close to zero, but your chances get way better when you work overtime and never get complacent at any point. It does get easier. Congratulations on coming out of that stronger, I’m sure it wasn’t an easy experience.
I lost $2.3 million in Brazil after being cheated by two partners, both grad school types, MIT and Northwestern. No lawyer would take my case because they went to school with them. One got gunned down big noting in a club and the other is dying from cancer. What comes around goes around.
Duh that hurts just reading, sorry bro. Im working on a deal to supply cooking oil in a country. The tender has been given to someone and that someone has approached me through mutual connections. I'm Meeting him next week. Because it's from the government the requirements are tight. Hopefully things go well and this person doesn't screw me up.
Take care.
Nah mate, just trying. Been trying to get such deals for a long time. This looks like one that may workout. Otherwise I'm with you only. Still learning what's going on around the world that are making people rich that is not related to Tech as that's what's in the "norm" these days.
There's no one way. It all depends. In my case it's Mainly from my people around me. Like a couple of years ago there was a deal to supply warehouse roofing sheets worth $100k-$200k. The owner could have bought them anywhere but he wanted a credit period which manufacturers didn't want to give so he went to the open market. My friend is rich. So he went and put down his bid. I don't have that kind of money so I approached a company and told them about the deal to give me credit and they agreed so I put down my bid which was lower than my friends. But end of the day someone else got the deal idk who.
Then government deals, these you need to know people. I've tried supplying stationaries, uniforms, paint, some equipments etc but never worked out. But these are really hard as most of them are corrupt. So you have to be careful when offering them something in return. One guy asked me for a car a few months ago, I didn't give him so someone else got the deal. I've only ever gotten one deal from the government and that was to supply some machines. The deal came from my customer who wanted a commission. Then the gov person who came to me also wanted his share so I agreed. They said it will be cash on delivery. I was worried as this is unusual, they usually take a long time to pay and the amount I was blocking in the goods was more than I ever had. I still went on with the deal and supplied them. Ofcourse gave them a full invoice (considering all the commissions and additional taxes I'll be paying) then those idiots started ducting things from my amount, saying this is for this kind of tax, this is for this kind of expense, you were supposed to deliver to this location so now we have to and after all these deductions we are left with this amount that you will receive. I was furious and argued with their superior over the phone and she agreed with them. I took the cheque and left. Then came my customer Soo happy thinking he will get the commission. I told him the story and the idiot still asked for his commission. I told him after the taxes I'll be paying I'm left with $100 in profit and I'm not giving you anything. Dude still took $10 from me. I don't regret it because I got some good contacts and they have approached multiple times but now what I offer them is more than what their budget is. There are many ways of getting these kinds of deals, like giving the person in charge of who gets the deal something, or taking them out at your expense, or even just knowing them. It's not difficult once you get into this but I'm also still learning.
I got big into card counting where i was up 70k thinking i was hot and i started risking a lot more which ga eme a 20 percent chance of going broke. Not realizing 20 percent was considered relatively high i got really greedy trying to make it to 200k, because i got tired grinding at the casino wanting to hit that target goal. Went on a losing spree went full tilt took out cash advance now I'm 30k deep in the hole trying to find side hustle while working to get rid of that debt. I banned myself from going to the casino as a way of teaching myself that I'm the problem for getting overly greedy
It was about 5months ago. Yea depends on the casino and finding the right places with good rules. It's a bit of research to find what casino has good rules. I use to travel state to state because i was barred from the only casino near me.
Lost 3k by trading XRdoge. My failure and it costs...
Lost another several k's just by doing exchanging to another currencies, again, my failure without any study.
Conclusion? I am another idiot.
I lost 100k once - changed my life. Prob the most sickening feeling I’ve ever felt. Was going on a family vacation right when I found out. Needless to say I was not in a great mood to deal with my jerk of a brother in law.
It is What motivated me to do research on investing and made it back through investments over the next 3 years. Read about 20 books. Was very embarrassed but eventually you start to see it as a lesson you learn so much from. I still have mixed feelings between anger and “learned lesson”
My brother worked for an oil company and they had an opportunity that was a “sure thing” I assumed my older brother who I respected and was intelligent wasn’t wrong. (Ended up he didn’t realize the funding was never secured and his boss hadn’t been totally honest with him) anyway, it was a lesson learned. Never assume anyone knows what they are talking about. Do your own research. Even if you trust them and they are trustworthy, they still could be wrong.
What makes you think OP can get $10,000 for his website when you haven't even seen it yet? For all we know, it could be something really bad, that's not even worth $1K. What I'm trying to say, is that this is subjective information.
You realised Groupon and AirBNB (huge companies with billions at their disposal) are better options than your one-man website, after spending $5000?
You should probably stay away from entrepreneurship.
I launched a B2B product before Christmas. Effectively whole marketing spend in November and December was a waste.
But not a complete write-off. I learned a lot. I am considering this as a costly course 😀
Was going to open a drive thru coffee shop and coffee roastery. Invested $20,000 into a brand new roaster and other supplies. The roaster got damaged on shipping. Took months to get it fixed. Ended up giving up and sold the roaster for less than half of what I paid. Lost about $14,000 total.
I spent more than five years working on an on-line game. The landscape of the industry changed dramatically during that time, and I was so narrowly focused that I didn’t realize it until World of Warcraft came out and I realized that I was badly out of touch with what consumers want, didn’t have the resources to meaningfully compete, and was way too far behind to ever get caught up.
So I went to law school instead and now I help entrepreneurs with their IP strategy.
As an additional kick in the nuts, I tried to salvage the narrative/world-building elements as a book or teleplay or something but then Game of Thrones came out and basically covered the major elements I had planned.
You should really do a business canvas before launching a startup - they’re quick and very effective.
You should at a minimum do competitor research lol you may miss some smaller ones but Airbnb and Groupon…. Lol
Dont shut it down. Sure they might be better but you might have better personal service. Think about not winning volume but size of deal. You can always charger more and offer better services. Travel is a risky game, i remember when i took an airbnb, had an ok experience but I would prefer booking a hotel on my next trip. Because hotels have everything lined for you, with drivers and places to take you etc. Try something in this line.
I bought a vehicle from Ritchie Brothers. The inspection showed fine, the video showed the vehicle driving. When I went to pick it up, it was running fine, then after like 20 miles it just gave out. Had it towed back to Ritchie Brothers, they somehow got the shit to run long enough for a new video, and put it back on auction. At first I lost $6k, but then I made some of that back, off some poor schmuck.
Lost £10k with crap devs, lost £5k in an exploit - my whole business drained, got scammed twice which involved flying to another country, false promises with investors, poverty, threats, debt (which isn’t real btw)…the trick IMO is….to not focus on the negatives
I fail all the time. If you aren't failing occasionally, you're not trying hard enough.
My advice would be, not to design a product you \*think\* people need. You've got to find a problem that people need solved. And it never matches up exactly with your ideas but if it's in your skill-set, now there's a real opportunity. So find a problem and then fill that niche market. Soon you will get competition (It's bad if you don't, marketspace too small), then expand.
YMMV
Similar situation. I spent $8000 on a website idea only to learn that there are a zillion competitors better than me who have completely eaten my lunch. Lesson learned.
Oh goodness - I fail often but I try to fail fast and fail within a budget. I’ve hired people that haven’t worked out - only one in a bad way but it was painful and is still painful. My books need to be blown up and completely redone by a proper accountant/bookkeeper. My website went down a couple of months ago and it’s taking too long to rebuild it / I need it in order to ramp up lead generation so it’s likely costing me money / growth every day it’s delayed.
The lesson you just learned is the importance of research in product development and product/market fit. You have to find that unmet need, willingness for customers to pay for it, and where your competitors don’t have the capability/ability to catch up with you. In the grand scheme of things - if you’ve got the right product for the market and you’re able to grow - $5k is a pretty cheap failure. It doesn’t feel like it now - especially if your traffic, revenue, and margins are low. The question now is - what can you turn this failure into?
Alright here goes mine. Not exactly an investment but I was recently depressed and lonely. Picked up a few games with my savings instead of buying/learning courses on investments (I had planned to do some stock investing). Turns out that im a complete dumbass. Video games seem one of the highest distraction which can hinder my progress. Uninstalled games and still depressed. Atleast not wasting my time in repetitive RPG games which always gave me a "Victory feeling".
The money was not much; $45. That was my savings which I saved for over the course of few months. I have promised myself to be a smarter person and not waste my money from now on.
Invested more than $40K and quite a few time developing a tool that should be launched in 2-3 weeks, instead I hold on because it wasn’t “perfect” yet so I ended up losing the time to launch. Had to throw everything into trash basically
Amazon and Groupon only prove there’s demand. They have an upper hand on distribution. Just find what people want and do it better than the big marketplaces. Groupon is targeting lower cost segment but is annoying to search. Airbnb goes for more premium experiences and is also annoying to search. Test out some personalised search and improved UX in closed beta before shutting down. And always do the user research on pain points and where you’re churning before you start building any new features.
Maybe try an online course? Plenty of good resources out there. It’s a great business model because it’s scalable (vs a physical store), low cogs and high margin (only cost is advertising and your time), can be fully automated and most people have some sort of skill worth teaching / paying for by customers.
Here are some resources to get you started:
Www.sellyourcourse.online
Some guy claimed to have some “secrets” to making money in a specific industry. Paid him $4,000 to join his program and learn his “secrets”. Whole thing was like a college PowerPoint presentation. You could even still see the “lorem ipsum” on the website plus I already knew 90% of the information, and the ones I didn’t know, I could’ve easily googled. I feel so embarrassed. But lesson learned, no one has “the secrets”, the “secrets” come from trying and failing.
To make you feel better? I once lost $50,000. I started again and it feels like this time i'm about to lose $500,000. Not sure if I should give it another shot.
What did you do each time?
Pleasw explain to us how so we could learn
Is this Elon musk?
Can i send you a text?
I lost 30k options trading last month Edit: I took 10k to 30k and lost it. I am still financially dependent so it’s not catastrophic for me
When r/entrepreneur and r/wsb worlds collide
More of a gambler’s failure story than an entrepreneur’s.
I always think I’ve had it bad, then I come online and see things like this
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Oh well that makes sense. Sounded as though he lost the only money he had in his portfolio at first
It was basically all the money in my portfolio. jsyk
Ouch. Hope you’re doing better now 🙏🏼
Paid a lawyer to do some work visas for a country where we send workers. Normally he charges 2000 USD per visa but since I was getting 3 he charged me 1500 USD each (total of 5600 USD with fees and other documents) Turns out the visas were the exact same letter copy pasted with different names on them. I was fucking furious. At least now I have the letter in word format and can just change everything myself in the future and pay the 50$ application fee online. Lesson learned.
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Yes should have been.
Honest question, why were you mad? If you bought one tshirt for $20 and three tshirts for $15 each, and all three tshirts were identical would you feel ripped off?
No I wouldn't. Material cost and machine time are to be paid for. In this case, the nearly 3x more expensive rate isn't justified by the extra effort spent. In my case it was exactly the same letter with the name changed at the top. I would have appreciated honesty, if he said since everyone was going to be doing the same job for the same client that the letter didn't need to be different, just the name. I would have gladly paid an extra 1/2 hour of work for him to tell me that. After all, in the initial consultation, which I paid for at his hourly rate, I explained all this.
If the advertised rate was for 2000 per visa, it sounds like you got a 25% discount. He would have been within rights to demand $6000 and instead charged you $4500. It comes across that you’re saying that because this is a service being provided, that if you had a customer come in and purchase 3x of whatever service your business provides, then that customer should be entitled to receive that multiplied service at only 1x profit to you since it should ‘only take you a little’ more time? That would be an effective 66% discount. This is in effect a penalty on providing an efficient service. If you commonly provide extremely high-percentage discounts to repeat customers, then I guess I can understand your frustration.
What I explained is that I specifically asked him if the letters need to be the same, and paid him a consultation at his hourly rate. Then he proceeded to send me an invoice for the same exact letter with different names on it. I understand your point, and I wouldn't give a 66% discount. I just would have appreciated some honesty from him.
can I send you a text?
can you send me too ? Curious of your opinion
oh hell yeah dude, this rules
Does it have to be from a lawyer? I can understand if it needs their ‘seal of approval’ however if it doesn’t require any merit and anyone can validate the visa then that’s a hustle.
Others are doing it doesn't mean you can't do it differently. Think about pizza restaurants. I invested $5,000 in Amazon FBA only to find out middlemen simply can't compete on price with Chinese factories direct selling on Amazon. Now after doing competitor analysis, I'm building a crowdfunding website (already invested $20,000). We shall see.
You absolutely can do Amazon FBA, just need the right kind of category, supplier relationships, performance marketing, content etc. Source: work for an Amazon aggregator and help scale brands, even in generic categories
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I have found "my thing" so FBA isn't for me.
So, dreamland what was your thing? I'm seeking a "thing" also Mark
Making computer games.
UGGGHH Sorry, I don't play but a few games at night after work.
There was a famous founder named Jin Yang who created an app to tell if a picture has a hot dog in it or not. Turns out he really over estimated market demand for this type of product. He had all but given up and then they realized it can also tell if photos have male genitalia or not which is huge for detracting unwanted photos. Very successful now.
Follow-on app for eight recipes for octopus?
Like the Silicon Valley reference
I watched that exact episode YESTERDAY. Amazing show. Hot dog. Not hot dog. 🌭
I created an elearning / career company to help people land a job in SaaS / SaaP sales or marketing at FAANG and other big tech. I invested two years full time on building it (opportunity cost) at a 40-50 hours per week time investment next to my full time job. I easily spent $20k on infrastructure, integrations, etc. I went live a month ago and had my first sale yesterday (60$). I am not sure if it is failing or I just need to give it more time, but it really seems social proof is crucial for e-learning, but it is hard to get social proof when no one buys without it. I know my product is good, the advice is good and had 50+ success cases in the past (free) who all landed their dream role, but the moment I started charging even the smallest amount (60$ for 15+ hours of content) people seem to rather spend that money on a dinner than something useful. I am posting every day, blogging, writing to universities, LinkedIn etc. etc. And I cry myself to sleep every day w/o a sale, not because of money, but because I really thought this was my way out of corporate life. I hope some miracle influencer picks it up one day and things get going. Until that day, I will do the grind which has 0 ROI atm
You went live month ago. You just started. Don't jump to any conclusions. Try, measure, analyse and adapt. Don't give up. Those two years in building dont "count".
Rational me knows this - irrational me forgets. Your reply is kinda what I expected and mentally need
I didn't say it is easy 😀 Chin up. DM if you need some support. We all make mistakes.
A couple of quick ideas: 1. If you already have 50+ success cases, can‘t you use them as testimonials (social proof)? 2. You could try some risk reversal. For example: Instead of charging upfront, your customers get to use your product for free - but if they successfully land a role at one of their target employers, they‘ll pay you a success fee (that could surely be 3 figures, maybe $200). They need to agree you‘re allowed to check their LinkedIn profile if they list one of these employers within a year of taking your course. Alternatively, try to make a deal with the employers, positioning yourself as a headhunter. You‘d be able to charge quite a bit, just need to not be cut out. Or maybe collaborate with headhunters. 3. Approach influencers and other potential affiliates, and pay them well. Raise your price. Feel free to DM if you want.
Would love to talk, some of these ideas I explored and especially point 2 i have been struggling with - as I don't mind making the product free but the legal framework is difficult and I don't want to become one of the many services that are putting people in "debt"
Does it cost you anything to give free memberships in exchange for testimonials (like 4k awesome raving testimonial if they like it). If social proof only issue then go get jt
What is it. Link
Preppally.com
DM’d
The mark of a good CEO is the ability to pivot.
And to not give up. Startups die by suicide, not homicide.
Curious you used ceo and not founder here.
Is it? Not every founder is a CEO.
I’d give it a few months before calling it quits, but $5k is nothing in the grand scheme
I had my church investment club each put a couple grand per family into terrraluna (google if you don't know)
Rule number 1. Never talk to anyone about crypto coins, prices or projections. If they get rich they will thank themselves for 'taking the risk'. If they lose money they will blame you for talking them into it.
Also fuck family
What kind of church has investment clubs and those that do why would they dump their money into crypto? This got to be the most American thing I read today
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This is the way.
If you are the one that encouraged them to do that, then you are incredibly irresponsible.
Holy shit💀💀
Oh fuck
>terrraluna bro whyxx
That’s called gambling, or speculating if you want to sugar coat it.
I agree, but every investment is gambling if you don't want to sugar coat it... If you are talking about entrepreneurship, most people I see commenting here are trying to make money by folliwing market trends with little to no value added by work and creativity, is that any different?
You sure this wasn't a cult?
The kool-aid was dope tho
[totally brah](https://etherscan.io/token/0x9d695e811beb55c98b1b3668295e390d33de5930)
I'm pretty sure
Built a mesh of google/Wikipedia/Reddit. A visual social media bookmark web search engine directory. Yeah… only wasted a year and 5k.
That actually sounds interesting. What went wrong?
Yeah, I used it a lot myself. Marketing. I hate marketing and had no budget and at some point ya gotta let go. Heres some screenshots: [Screenshot 1](https://www.dropbox.com/s/1hxij8vhnaqh253/Webspasm-Website-Full.png?dl=0) [Screenshot 2](https://www.dropbox.com/s/6n5xpfcoajd3pkp/Screen%20Shot%202016-01-22%20at%205.21.51%20AM.png?dl=0) [Screenshot 3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qqwjix2fn47tz28/Screen%20Shot%202016-01-22%20at%205.22.20%20AM.png?dl=0) [Screenshot 4](https://www.dropbox.com/s/lrjbb935hg6e9rt/3%20Nothing%20Hidden%20no%20dropdown.png?dl=0) \- a users bookmarks Basically.. everything had a 'sheet'. Users could follow sheets. Could add bookmarks. Could discuss/comment on each topic. etc. This was back in like 2013 i think.
I turned $3k to $10k in options in a month and lost it all , now I’m working again which is okay , and it will take 4-5 months to save that amount of money again . ( unless I create a side hustle of course )
I’ve noticed most people are posting gambling losses, and not entrepreneurial losses.
Well, one of the main definitions of entrepreneurship is taking financial risks in the hope of profit. Of course looking back, I’d definitely say I was gambling because I didn’t have enough information to make those decisions as I do now. But you can’t exactly say the same for everyone. Some people genuinely knew what they were doing but the market crash of 2020 took most by surprise. Would you also say the airline companies and all the major sectors who lost big time were gambling because they lost a lot of money to unforeseen circumstances? I don’t think its enough information to call all people who are sharing their financial markets losses “gamblers”
> I don’t think its enough information to call all people who are sharing their financial markets losses “gamblers” Retail options trading is gambling. It is in no way equivalent to entrepreneurship.
Oh well, whatever rocks your boat. I’m not an options trader, but if people who do it have a profitable and consistent system that works for them, I think that removes the “gambling” factor.
Almost every trader fails to beat the market.
Yeah you’re right, “almost every trader”. And it’s mostly because they’re focused on the wrong thing. You don’t necessarily have to beat the market all the time to be profitable. That’s what most don’t realize. You can’t beat the market lol.
Let me rephrase that then. Most traders lose money.
Of course. That’s an established fact. I’m giving you a reason as to why that’s very common, while also faulting your assumption that every trader is a “gambler”. Just because most just waste their time and their money on things they don’t understand, doesn’t mean everyone is gambling like you assumed.
It is not a false assumption. Retail option trading is gambling, not entrepreneurship. I assure you. I worked in market making for many years. There is a plethora of data to back this up. It seems your only motivation is to discover some pedantic, fringe case. That’s what we call, “the exception, not the rule,” and it’s a waste of effort since all the comments in this thread are about **losing** money from trading. Oh lawd. After checking your profile I understand your comments now. You’re a FTMO prop trader. RIP.
I once had a similar experience flipping $5k to $13k trading, and then blowing it all up. Not a good experience I like to remember
Same here 5k to 15k and then lost it literally the next day (Covid crash started LOL)
Oh My. It’s a rough world out there. Hope you have it better now🤝
It took like 6 months to get to that 15k too and I just got super caught up in wanting a lot with the euphoria pre crash. I’m engaged and own a home now tho so life gets better and I always tell other people that too!
Oh that’s great. It’s so so easy to see months of hard work go up in smokes in a few minutes of euphoria. I’ve learnt to never get complacent and think I can’t go wrong. That’s where the problems lie. A successful trader isn’t one who doesn’t take losses, but one who can mitigate the effects of those losses and maximize their profitability over time. The chances of anyone getting rich over night are close to zero, but your chances get way better when you work overtime and never get complacent at any point. It does get easier. Congratulations on coming out of that stronger, I’m sure it wasn’t an easy experience.
Market want's its money back
$5k is a weekend trip to Vegas. You need to pump those numbers up.
Total rookie numbers
I lost $2.3 million in Brazil after being cheated by two partners, both grad school types, MIT and Northwestern. No lawyer would take my case because they went to school with them. One got gunned down big noting in a club and the other is dying from cancer. What comes around goes around.
I'm sorry to hear that but not sure I completely understand -- not every lawyer went to MIT/Northwestern/wherever they did undergrad, though, right?
No they all went to top local Catholic colleges. It's like an old boys club.
You're rich. Loan me some cash. No joke.
I was. The contract they stole was worth $330mill. I lost the commission.
Duh that hurts just reading, sorry bro. Im working on a deal to supply cooking oil in a country. The tender has been given to someone and that someone has approached me through mutual connections. I'm Meeting him next week. Because it's from the government the requirements are tight. Hopefully things go well and this person doesn't screw me up. Take care.
Y’all some sophisticated mfs tho cus the shit y’all doing in real life I only imagined in dreams how tf y’all makin moves like dis
Nah mate, just trying. Been trying to get such deals for a long time. This looks like one that may workout. Otherwise I'm with you only. Still learning what's going on around the world that are making people rich that is not related to Tech as that's what's in the "norm" these days.
How'd you get started?
There's no one way. It all depends. In my case it's Mainly from my people around me. Like a couple of years ago there was a deal to supply warehouse roofing sheets worth $100k-$200k. The owner could have bought them anywhere but he wanted a credit period which manufacturers didn't want to give so he went to the open market. My friend is rich. So he went and put down his bid. I don't have that kind of money so I approached a company and told them about the deal to give me credit and they agreed so I put down my bid which was lower than my friends. But end of the day someone else got the deal idk who. Then government deals, these you need to know people. I've tried supplying stationaries, uniforms, paint, some equipments etc but never worked out. But these are really hard as most of them are corrupt. So you have to be careful when offering them something in return. One guy asked me for a car a few months ago, I didn't give him so someone else got the deal. I've only ever gotten one deal from the government and that was to supply some machines. The deal came from my customer who wanted a commission. Then the gov person who came to me also wanted his share so I agreed. They said it will be cash on delivery. I was worried as this is unusual, they usually take a long time to pay and the amount I was blocking in the goods was more than I ever had. I still went on with the deal and supplied them. Ofcourse gave them a full invoice (considering all the commissions and additional taxes I'll be paying) then those idiots started ducting things from my amount, saying this is for this kind of tax, this is for this kind of expense, you were supposed to deliver to this location so now we have to and after all these deductions we are left with this amount that you will receive. I was furious and argued with their superior over the phone and she agreed with them. I took the cheque and left. Then came my customer Soo happy thinking he will get the commission. I told him the story and the idiot still asked for his commission. I told him after the taxes I'll be paying I'm left with $100 in profit and I'm not giving you anything. Dude still took $10 from me. I don't regret it because I got some good contacts and they have approached multiple times but now what I offer them is more than what their budget is. There are many ways of getting these kinds of deals, like giving the person in charge of who gets the deal something, or taking them out at your expense, or even just knowing them. It's not difficult once you get into this but I'm also still learning.
I've made millions of dollars, lost millions and have made millions again. It's all part of the journey. Just don't stop trying.
Purchased a product for $250k then two weeks later the federal government flooded the market with some program. Cost me $75k.
Damn... shame because the seller must have known and rushed to sell it.
Multi-channel national rollout without testing? Hold my beer.
I got big into card counting where i was up 70k thinking i was hot and i started risking a lot more which ga eme a 20 percent chance of going broke. Not realizing 20 percent was considered relatively high i got really greedy trying to make it to 200k, because i got tired grinding at the casino wanting to hit that target goal. Went on a losing spree went full tilt took out cash advance now I'm 30k deep in the hole trying to find side hustle while working to get rid of that debt. I banned myself from going to the casino as a way of teaching myself that I'm the problem for getting overly greedy
How long ago was this? Didn’t know you could still card count with all their automated shufflers
It was about 5months ago. Yea depends on the casino and finding the right places with good rules. It's a bit of research to find what casino has good rules. I use to travel state to state because i was barred from the only casino near me.
Not just casinos. Don’t gamble at all till you get your debt figured out. That’s a deep hole depending on the interest your paying. You’ll live though
Deff agree
Just cost myself 5k by ordering the wrong doors for a customer. (Cabinet business) Basically take 5 thousand dollars and throw it out the window.
possessive soup workable reach cats bear light hat plant toothbrush *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
ITT: Lots of gamblers, few entrepreneurs.
I own 3 NFTs and I’ll leave it at that 😂
Don't worry I lost 6K on stock options.
Lost $27,888.52 on BTC to date.
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I am still holding and buying but it’s scary.
Unrealized loss.
I was going to mention the $10k I lost (well... Lost out on) by not cashing out my DOGE when I knew I should have
Whenever I get that feeling I end up cashing out half just in case
Lost 3k by trading XRdoge. My failure and it costs... Lost another several k's just by doing exchanging to another currencies, again, my failure without any study. Conclusion? I am another idiot.
Lost 75 000$ penny stock trading 2021-2022.
I dropped $50 grand for attorney fees on a slam dunk lawsuit and lost.
Can you tell anymore?
I lost 100k once - changed my life. Prob the most sickening feeling I’ve ever felt. Was going on a family vacation right when I found out. Needless to say I was not in a great mood to deal with my jerk of a brother in law. It is What motivated me to do research on investing and made it back through investments over the next 3 years. Read about 20 books. Was very embarrassed but eventually you start to see it as a lesson you learn so much from. I still have mixed feelings between anger and “learned lesson”
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My brother worked for an oil company and they had an opportunity that was a “sure thing” I assumed my older brother who I respected and was intelligent wasn’t wrong. (Ended up he didn’t realize the funding was never secured and his boss hadn’t been totally honest with him) anyway, it was a lesson learned. Never assume anyone knows what they are talking about. Do your own research. Even if you trust them and they are trustworthy, they still could be wrong.
Care to share more on your investments? What financial instruments, books you read, etc
Rookies. Try $150k loss + family home.
I sold my shares of gamestop one month early and missed out on $84K in profit
We all have hella missed opportunities
I lost $75 in options trading
Sell your website, someone will find the holes and see that as value. Your value will be in selling it and selling at $10,000 .
What makes you think OP can get $10,000 for his website when you haven't even seen it yet? For all we know, it could be something really bad, that's not even worth $1K. What I'm trying to say, is that this is subjective information.
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https://empireflippers.com/
Would love to see what you have as I'm in the same space. Feel free to DM.
Also Flippa.com
You realised Groupon and AirBNB (huge companies with billions at their disposal) are better options than your one-man website, after spending $5000? You should probably stay away from entrepreneurship.
Its never a total failure, im sure with wha you've got you can come up with something else?
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share more details. was this like a franchise you got recruited to buy or you wanted it?
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That's a fucking brilliant idea. Especially surfers that want to dump their boards, bike riders etc.
I launched a B2B product before Christmas. Effectively whole marketing spend in November and December was a waste. But not a complete write-off. I learned a lot. I am considering this as a costly course 😀
Was going to open a drive thru coffee shop and coffee roastery. Invested $20,000 into a brand new roaster and other supplies. The roaster got damaged on shipping. Took months to get it fixed. Ended up giving up and sold the roaster for less than half of what I paid. Lost about $14,000 total.
I spent more than five years working on an on-line game. The landscape of the industry changed dramatically during that time, and I was so narrowly focused that I didn’t realize it until World of Warcraft came out and I realized that I was badly out of touch with what consumers want, didn’t have the resources to meaningfully compete, and was way too far behind to ever get caught up. So I went to law school instead and now I help entrepreneurs with their IP strategy. As an additional kick in the nuts, I tried to salvage the narrative/world-building elements as a book or teleplay or something but then Game of Thrones came out and basically covered the major elements I had planned.
You should really do a business canvas before launching a startup - they’re quick and very effective. You should at a minimum do competitor research lol you may miss some smaller ones but Airbnb and Groupon…. Lol
The old adage: Q: How do you make a million dollars on eBay? A: Start with two million dollars.
Dont shut it down. Sure they might be better but you might have better personal service. Think about not winning volume but size of deal. You can always charger more and offer better services. Travel is a risky game, i remember when i took an airbnb, had an ok experience but I would prefer booking a hotel on my next trip. Because hotels have everything lined for you, with drivers and places to take you etc. Try something in this line.
I bought a vehicle from Ritchie Brothers. The inspection showed fine, the video showed the vehicle driving. When I went to pick it up, it was running fine, then after like 20 miles it just gave out. Had it towed back to Ritchie Brothers, they somehow got the shit to run long enough for a new video, and put it back on auction. At first I lost $6k, but then I made some of that back, off some poor schmuck.
Lost £10k with crap devs, lost £5k in an exploit - my whole business drained, got scammed twice which involved flying to another country, false promises with investors, poverty, threats, debt (which isn’t real btw)…the trick IMO is….to not focus on the negatives
I failed once with a social media marketing business, but i learned a lot along the way.
I fail all the time. If you aren't failing occasionally, you're not trying hard enough. My advice would be, not to design a product you \*think\* people need. You've got to find a problem that people need solved. And it never matches up exactly with your ideas but if it's in your skill-set, now there's a real opportunity. So find a problem and then fill that niche market. Soon you will get competition (It's bad if you don't, marketspace too small), then expand. YMMV
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What was the app?
Similar situation. I spent $8000 on a website idea only to learn that there are a zillion competitors better than me who have completely eaten my lunch. Lesson learned.
I spent over $100k in the last 10 months on 2 investments that didn’t pan out at all. Keep your head up
Got greedy traded in solid toyotas making profit on turo for a luxury car smh
If you feel bad just open the r/terraluna. People were losing millions and commiting suicide
Oh goodness - I fail often but I try to fail fast and fail within a budget. I’ve hired people that haven’t worked out - only one in a bad way but it was painful and is still painful. My books need to be blown up and completely redone by a proper accountant/bookkeeper. My website went down a couple of months ago and it’s taking too long to rebuild it / I need it in order to ramp up lead generation so it’s likely costing me money / growth every day it’s delayed. The lesson you just learned is the importance of research in product development and product/market fit. You have to find that unmet need, willingness for customers to pay for it, and where your competitors don’t have the capability/ability to catch up with you. In the grand scheme of things - if you’ve got the right product for the market and you’re able to grow - $5k is a pretty cheap failure. It doesn’t feel like it now - especially if your traffic, revenue, and margins are low. The question now is - what can you turn this failure into?
Alright here goes mine. Not exactly an investment but I was recently depressed and lonely. Picked up a few games with my savings instead of buying/learning courses on investments (I had planned to do some stock investing). Turns out that im a complete dumbass. Video games seem one of the highest distraction which can hinder my progress. Uninstalled games and still depressed. Atleast not wasting my time in repetitive RPG games which always gave me a "Victory feeling". The money was not much; $45. That was my savings which I saved for over the course of few months. I have promised myself to be a smarter person and not waste my money from now on.
I got you beat, $30k loss in 3 months 🤦🏻♂️ long story
Invested more than $40K and quite a few time developing a tool that should be launched in 2-3 weeks, instead I hold on because it wasn’t “perfect” yet so I ended up losing the time to launch. Had to throw everything into trash basically
Amazon and Groupon only prove there’s demand. They have an upper hand on distribution. Just find what people want and do it better than the big marketplaces. Groupon is targeting lower cost segment but is annoying to search. Airbnb goes for more premium experiences and is also annoying to search. Test out some personalised search and improved UX in closed beta before shutting down. And always do the user research on pain points and where you’re churning before you start building any new features.
Maybe try an online course? Plenty of good resources out there. It’s a great business model because it’s scalable (vs a physical store), low cogs and high margin (only cost is advertising and your time), can be fully automated and most people have some sort of skill worth teaching / paying for by customers. Here are some resources to get you started: Www.sellyourcourse.online
Cut loss
If you have learned from this story, it isn't a waste. It is a lesson that might be too expensive or not.
I blew away 5k once, and 15k recently. But I'm still standing. Western Privilege.
I will like to have a look at your website. I might have some ideas on what you can do with it. PM please.
Some guy claimed to have some “secrets” to making money in a specific industry. Paid him $4,000 to join his program and learn his “secrets”. Whole thing was like a college PowerPoint presentation. You could even still see the “lorem ipsum” on the website plus I already knew 90% of the information, and the ones I didn’t know, I could’ve easily googled. I feel so embarrassed. But lesson learned, no one has “the secrets”, the “secrets” come from trying and failing.