Quote: (06-12-2017 01:39 AM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Haha.

Yeah, I admire someone who's played the game of life and won.

Do you admire someone who is a liar?

DeMarco writes in his book that he is only writing the book because he wants to. He says that he doesn't need or care about the money. Then why sell the book at all? Why not give it away?

Of course, the book is priced very attractively. $5.99 for the Kindle version.

The paid-subscription on his forum is not, however. It is a re-occurring payment. $60 for 3 months, $120 for 1 year.

This is well above "barrier to entry" pricing. This pricing is designed to earn someone a lot of money, not keep the riff-raff out.

Clearly, DeMarco does need the money, which makes his claims to not care about earning any more money because he is set a lie.

Does this mean that he has nothing of value to offer? No, but it reeks of standard fare self-marketing.

There's absolutely nothing on the Internet that backs his claims about success.

Also, he's running a sales funnel. Get people to invest mentally with the purchase of a $5.99 e-book and then get $20 out of them on a monthly subscription basis and then sell them on the BIG ONE ($1000+).

Although he tries to sell his book and forum as just a hobby he enjoys doing in his free time since he's financially independent, he's clearly in this for the money.

Sorry, Mr. "Paid Shrill" stefpdt, I don't need a guy with one alleged home run as my guru. He's clearly running the forum fulltime because he desperately needs the money.

Guys who read my posts know that I have preached the value of The China Law Blog and The Wallstreet Playboy/I]. Both blogs offer great value, real executable life advice and all for free too. If either started a forum for entrepreneurs, I'd happily pay $20 a month for membership because both blogs are totally legit.

DeMarco, on the other hand, offers no real executable value in his book and while I've seen him post thoughtful material of legitimate value on his forum, the insights are paper thin and mostly commonsense.

The best part of his forum are a few of the members who routinely drop wisdom. Most of the membership just talks about what they [I]are going to do, but post nothing that indicates that they have established a clear path forward.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:39 AM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Aren't you a teacher though?

I'm a business owner.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:39 AM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Haha.

Yeah, I admire someone who's played the game of life and won.

Hopefully you've sold a company for a few million too. Since that's just about the only way that your comments of him would be relevant.

Aren't you a teacher though?

I too admire someone who has played the game of life and won. I'm fortunate enough to have someone who has done this as my mentor in real life, and he doesn't want a penny from me. I pass advice to those younger than me, help them in ways that I wish I'd been helped when I was their age, and don't try to extort money out of them despite not being a millionaire yet.

I'm with Suits on this one. The internet is full of people cut from DeMarco's mould. If this was 1870 his followers might be buying snake oil instead.

Quote: (11-22-2014 01:46 PM)oilbreh Wrote:  

been on that forum for a while, mostly lurking. Never paid for membership. I never really read the book, just the summary here:

http://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-Mill...by-DeMarco

Key is to find something that actually will genuinely help people, then execute it in a scalable, flexible manner. It seems like a common sense book to me, good for a reality check if you get too carried away with something that might be a loosing battle.

That's a very thorough set of notes, and well worth a read for anyone thinking of setting up shop on their own. Good find.

Suits, the reason why I'll go to bat for most self-made killers is because that's the group of people who I most closely align with.

"There are two camps of people in life. The haters, and the hated."

Right now, it seems to me like you fall into the camp of haters, because calling MJ DeMarco a liar is an extremely subjective viewpoint.

Quote:Quote:

DeMarco writes in his book that he is only writing the book because he wants to. He says that he doesn't need or care about the money. Then why sell the book at all? Why not give it away?

Probably because effective entrepreneurs know that you have to detach yourself from outcomes in order to successfully sell products. Very similar to running game

I don't see why it's so hard to believe that someone who successfully exited a company for millions of dollars doesn't *need* to sell books? Books are a notoriously tough product to sell.

Quote:Quote:

Of course, the book is priced very attractively. $5.99 for the Kindle version.

The paid-subscription on his forum is not, however. It is a re-occurring payment. $60 for 3 months, $120 for 1 year.

This is well above "barrier to entry" pricing. This pricing is designed to earn someone a lot of money, not keep the riff-raff out.

Clearly, DeMarco does need the money, which makes his claims to not care about earning any more money because he is set a lie.

Does this mean that he has nothing of value to offer? No, but it reeks of standard fare self-marketing.

You seem to believe that there's some kind of correlation between making a lot of money and needing to make a lot of money.

Ironically, the people who make the most money often don't need the money.

Ever heard of the phrase "the rich get richer"?

My assumption is that he genuinely doesn't need the money, but continues to profit via free market capitalism.

Quote:Quote:

Sorry, Mr. "Paid Shrill" stefpdt, I don't need a guy with one alleged home run as my guru. He's clearly running the forum fulltime because he desperately needs the money.

That's all good with me "Scarcity" suits! You can continue projecting limiting beliefs onto other people if you want to. Your loss.

Quote:Quote:

Guys who read my posts know that I have preached the value of The China Law Blog and The Wallstreet Playboy/I]. Both blogs offer great value, real executable life advice and all for free too. If either started a forum for entrepreneurs, I'd happily pay $20 a month for membership because both blogs are totally legit.

Wall Street Playboys is a great blog. I've found equal or even more actionable advice on The Fastlane Forum as well. 100% free of charge.

Overall I think Rich Dad Poor Dad and Think and Grow Rich are better.

I read this book, enjoyed it but wouldn't say it's one of my favorite business books. I'm not a huge car guy so maybe too much car references for me but I did think it had some great messages. There's a site that has some great chapter summaries, if you wanna see what the book is like before reading or it just skip reading it altogether you can get the jist of it from these summaries.

Not criticizing it for this fact just pointing it out for people who are looking for more in the trenches practical stuff, this book is more big picture ideas than a, b, c to starting a business. Personally I'm a bigger fan of the $100 startup and 4 hour work week as opposed to this one.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Right now, it seems to me like you fall into the camp of haters, because calling MJ DeMarco a liar is an extremely subjective viewpoint.

...

That's all good with me "Scarcity" suits! You can continue projecting limiting beliefs onto other people if you want to. Your loss.

All of that sounds like a rationalisation hamster spinning really fast... Obviously you don't want to be a hater or have a scarcity mindset/limiting beliefs, but at some point you'll want to be rational and think things through...

Think about it the other way. If MJ WAS a scammer, what would he do differently compared to what he does now?

Quote: (06-12-2017 03:29 PM)The Catalyst Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Right now, it seems to me like you fall into the camp of haters, because calling MJ DeMarco a liar is an extremely subjective viewpoint.

...

That's all good with me "Scarcity" suits! You can continue projecting limiting beliefs onto other people if you want to. Your loss.

All of that sounds like a rationalisation hamster spinning really fast... Obviously you don't want to be a hater or have a scarcity mindset/limiting beliefs, but at some point you'll want to be rational and think things through...

Think about it the other way. If MJ WAS a scammer, what would he do differently compared to what he does now?

I'm too lazy to read the previous banter but why is MJ a scammer? While there are plenty of scammers out there in the how to be an entrepreneur realm, I don't really see MJ as being one of them. Really anyone who has success ie Tai Lopez, GaryVee really anyone in that space is going to have people call them a scammer.

I personally really liked how MJ even called out in the book, if someone is making money selling courses rather than doing what they actually claim to teach you, you may want to think twice about listening to them.

There are far too many guys selling $5,000 courses on how to do Shopify or how to do Amazon FBA. That's a ridiculous price to pay for a course and if the person "really was killing it on FBA" they wouldn't need to pitch the course. I find when people do stuff like that they are people who at one time had success in that space, however got washed out with competition and there last method of keeping income comming in, instead of changing with the tides and getting better at the origional idea is to pitch people the stale ideas that worked for them for the past two years but which no longer work.

I'm not saying there's no value in buying courses or education but at a reasonable expense. $47 for a course even $199 for a course okay great it helps me cut down the learning curve I'll buy it but at 5k I think you would be better served just starting yourslef ordering some FBA inventory and learning through trial and error.

I guess what this rant brings me back to is simply I dont see how MJ is camming. He runs the fast lane forum and probably makes some affiliate and ad money off that and he writes books.

^I was just reading Suits' posts and think he made really good points. I don't know MJ so I don't really have a dog in the fight, but him trying to really profit off the forum seems suspect. Likewise if his book is subpar.

Quote: (06-12-2017 12:45 AM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Suits you normally seem like a great contributor, so I'm surprised to see that you have a scarcity mindset.

Your critique of someone charging an appropriate amount of money for a monthly membership fee is a limiting belief.

Why don't you believe that people deserve to be appropriately compensated for their work?

Also, MJ DeMarco sold limos.com twice (sold, re-purchased, sold again), and has likely worked a number of private deals like most HNW men do.

Gotta admit, you've got the lingo down.

Charging money is now equated to being a scammer? I guess we all are scammers. It doesn't matter if the dude doesn't need money. He should get paid for his time. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't value their time. Even worst is they don't value the time of others.

It appears that Suits is being reprogrammed by wealth seminar cult. I hope they don't serve Kool Aid at the break.

It's been so long since I read that book. From recollection, it was more about getting people to look at how to build wealth.

Some people and institutions talk about working for 30 years and putting money into a retirement account.

Nothing wrong with that but it is difficult to become wealthy with that method.

While he was advocating a faster approach by creating businesses that sell to a large audience. Even if you waste a decade on this you would probably be farther ahead than the saver when you hit some success.

Again, I haven't read the book in awhile so I am paraphrasing here.

He is right and for a lot of people this will be an eye opener. Especially when you consider that we are told to get a good job and save, save, save... It is advice that is ingrained into our subconcious from an early age.

If you are past the beginning stages then I can see how it would be disspointment. At that point, you were not the intended audience.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Quote:Quote:

DeMarco writes in his book that he is only writing the book because he wants to. He says that he doesn't need or care about the money. Then why sell the book at all? Why not give it away?

Probably because effective entrepreneurs know that you have to detach yourself from outcomes in order to successfully sell products. Very similar to running game

He literally writes that he is so rich that he doesn't care about the money.

This isn't the same as being mentally outcome independent.

It's pretty obvious from the sales funnel he's constructed that he does in fact, very much, need the money.

The other side of the coin is that any actual multimillionaire wouldn't be selling products like these. A legitimate multimillionaire, which DeMarco claims to be, but clearly isn't, would be focused on actual high end deals that would generate far more wealth than $20 a month forum subscriptions.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

I don't see why it's so hard to believe that someone who successfully exited a company for millions of dollars doesn't *need* to sell books? Books are a notoriously tough product to sell.

The only person claiming that he made millions for his sale of a Limos.com is DeMarco. I did some searches online and there's absolutely no evidence that he ever made any money.

There's also no evidence that he didn't blow any cash he earned on cars, bad investments and other unnecessary expenditures.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Quote:Quote:

Of course, the book is priced very attractively. $5.99 for the Kindle version.

The paid-subscription on his forum is not, however. It is a re-occurring payment. $60 for 3 months, $120 for 1 year.

This is well above "barrier to entry" pricing. This pricing is designed to earn someone a lot of money, not keep the riff-raff out.

Clearly, DeMarco does need the money, which makes his claims to not care about earning any more money because he is set a lie.

Does this mean that he has nothing of value to offer? No, but it reeks of standard fare self-marketing.

You seem to believe that there's some kind of correlation between making a lot of money and needing to make a lot of money.

Ironically, the people who make the most money often don't need the money.

Ever heard of the phrase "the rich get richer"?

My assumption is that he genuinely doesn't need the money, but continues to profit via free market capitalism.

I have no problem with rich people making money.

What I find suspicious is when someone who claims to be an expert at creating wealth works fulltime on choosing to focus 100% on....selling a product about how to get wealthy.

Out of all the dozens of industries and options for wealth generation, the best idea was apparently to teach other people how to make money. That was the best product he could think of.

That suggests to me that he's really not that great at generating money at all and his advice isn't that valuable, because he believed his best shot at earning more money for himself was to prey on a vulnerable group of people -- those desperate to make themselves millionaires.

This would be like Donald Trump selling his hotels and then focusing full-time on selling a book about how to become wealthy. He wouldn't do it, because making money from forum subscriptions/ebook sales is something only people who don't have millions in the bank would be doing.

Donald Trump has written some books, but I'm confident that he didn't do that for the money. He did it for the ego. He probably used a ghost writer for most of the writing itself and he DIDN'T follow the books up by personally running and moderating a forum.

Anyone with real millions would be involved in actually high level deals.

One could argue that DeMarco just does this as a fun side project, but he's clearly running his forum and writing his silly books full-time, so it's clear that he doesn't have any time allotted for the high level deals that any actual multimillionaire would be focused on.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Quote:Quote:

Sorry, Mr. "Paid Shrill" stefpdt, I don't need a guy with one alleged home run as my guru. He's clearly running the forum fulltime because he desperately needs the money.

That's all good with me "Scarcity" suits! You can continue projecting limiting beliefs onto other people if you want to. Your loss.

Guys like you who are paid by guys like DeMarco to talk up his products will claim that anyone who doesn't find value in a particular product selling a dream is therefore a doubter with a scarcity mindset.

You've simplified the world to a single binary possibility. You either like DeMarco's book and think it's the best thing ever OR you are a doubter with a scarcity mindset.

The reality, of course, is that it is entirely possible for someone to NOT like DeMarco's products and also NOT have a scarcity mindset.

But you aren't interested in a reasonable discussion about matters such as these, because honest reviews of a product you are trying to sell do not benefit you.

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Quote:Quote:

Guys who read my posts know that I have preached the value of The China Law Blog and The Wallstreet Playboy/I]. Both blogs offer great value, real executable life advice and all for free too. If either started a forum for entrepreneurs, I'd happily pay $20 a month for membership because both blogs are totally legit.

Wall Street Playboys is a great blog. I've found equal or even more actionable advice on The Fastlane Forum as well. 100% free of charge.

There's a lot of value on The Fastlane Forum. DeMarco's 5 Commandments are a great resource for anyone starting out as an entrepreneur.

I've never written that DeMarco offers no value at all. I've simply said that his book was poorly written, needed an editor, had too much fluff and not enough actual value. The guy tried to stretch a 20 page primer (which would have certainly been a good read) into a 100 page book.

Fail.

I've also pointed out the unlikelihood of DeMarco being anywhere as rich as he claims to be.

I'm not a pretend millionaire like DeMarco, but I'm absolutely confident that I could write a much better book about wealth acquisition.

I feel like there could be a master thread of all the wannabe rich guys who write books in the vain attempt to become rich.

Quote: (06-12-2017 09:04 PM)Suits Wrote:  

The other side of the coin is that any actual multimillionaire wouldn't be selling products like these. A legitimate multimillionaire, which DeMarco claims to be, but clearly isn't, would be focused on actual high end deals that would generate far more wealth than $20 a month forum subscriptions.

You don't know what you're talking about Suits.

You are giving out a lot of advice yet haven't even sold anything yet. I could be wrong but that is the gist I am getting from your posts in the entreprenuer thread.

DeMarco just wrote another book It's called Unscripted. It's for people who feel like they are caught in The Matrix.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:21 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

You don't know what you're talking about Suits.

You are giving out a lot of advice yet haven't even sold anything yet. I could be wrong but that is the gist I am getting from your posts in the entreprenuer thread.

Incorrect. My business activities generate about $60K of profit annually.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:46 PM)Suits Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:21 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

You don't know what you're talking about Suits.

You are giving out a lot of advice yet haven't even sold anything yet. I could be wrong but that is the gist I am getting from your posts in the entreprenuer thread.

Incorrect. My business activities generate about $60K of profit annually.

Teaching students or selling your teaching product?

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:46 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:46 PM)Suits Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:21 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

You don't know what you're talking about Suits.

You are giving out a lot of advice yet haven't even sold anything yet. I could be wrong but that is the gist I am getting from your posts in the entreprenuer thread.

Incorrect. My business activities generate about $60K of profit annually.

Teaching students or selling your teaching product?

Consulting.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:50 PM)Suits Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:46 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:46 PM)Suits Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:21 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

You don't know what you're talking about Suits.

You are giving out a lot of advice yet haven't even sold anything yet. I could be wrong but that is the gist I am getting from your posts in the entreprenuer thread.

Incorrect. My business activities generate about $60K of profit annually.

Teaching students or selling your teaching product?

Consulting.

Ok, I'm trying to understand where you are coming from because a lot of what you are saying is incorrect from my experience.

I don't know if Demarco is still rich or not. Him making money on stuff doesn't mean he isn't rich. Him selling $20 a month to parts of his forum doesn't mean he isn't rich. You could also say if he isn't maximizing his revenue he might not need too because he is rich.

Now, let's say he isn't rich and you see him selling $20 a month forum access. You say he can't be rich if he is selling small ticket items. You really don't know what he is selling to those people purchasing his books and forum memberships.

He could be selling 10k consulting gigs. Or selling group coaching for 5k a piece. Scott Adams was making a ton of money from speaking gigs.

I said this before, but you serve a big market that buys a lot of stuff. His market is big and they buy.

I still buy stuff for new ideas. If I can get on idea it is typically worth it even if we are talking thousands of dollars.

The guy that created Plenty of Fish, which was free, made millions off of ads and then sold for 575 million later. Most people wouldn't believe he was making millions on that site just by looking at it.

You are making a lot of bad assumptions, imo.

Quote: (06-12-2017 03:37 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 03:29 PM)The Catalyst Wrote:  

Quote: (06-12-2017 01:32 PM)stefpdt Wrote:  

Right now, it seems to me like you fall into the camp of haters, because calling MJ DeMarco a liar is an extremely subjective viewpoint.

...

That's all good with me "Scarcity" suits! You can continue projecting limiting beliefs onto other people if you want to. Your loss.

All of that sounds like a rationalisation hamster spinning really fast... Obviously you don't want to be a hater or have a scarcity mindset/limiting beliefs, but at some point you'll want to be rational and think things through...

Think about it the other way. If MJ WAS a scammer, what would he do differently compared to what he does now?

I'm too lazy to read the previous banter but why is MJ a scammer? While there are plenty of scammers out there in the how to be an entrepreneur realm, I don't really see MJ as being one of them.

I guess what this rant brings me back to is simply I dont see how MJ is scamming. He runs the fast lane forum and probably makes some affiliate and ad money off that and he writes books.

I don't believe that I've specifically called him a scammer. I've argued that he's misrepresenting his success.

This is clear from the number of ads he's placed on his forum. The space is literally so crowded with various advertisements and affiliate links that it is sometimes a struggle to navigate the website.

I can understand charging a premium to access the "INSIDERS" area to ensure a high quality membership. Perhaps even someone with no need or desire for money would do that.

But choking the entire forum design with ads and links? Only someone with a desperate need to squeeze every penny out of his efforts would do that.

Remember, I'm not saying that DeMarco offers no value or that he is a scammer. I'm saying that he's lying about certain aspects of his success and that his book was a shoddy collection of truisms, state-the-obvious, and overplayed metaphors. Just bad writing.

I've also said that some of his posts on his forum are very on the mark. In fact, they've been helpful to me personally.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:55 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Ok, I'm trying to understand where you are coming from because a lot of what you are saying is incorrect from my experience.

I don't know if Demarco is still rich or not. Him making money on stuff doesn't mean he isn't rich. Him selling $20 a month to parts of his forum doesn't mean he isn't rich. You could also say if he isn't maximizing his revenue he might not need too because he is rich.

The fact that he's clearing doing this full-time is a clear indication that he isn't worth millions.

$20 x 12 = $240 per year per subscriber
(Let's adjust this to an average $180 / year, as some subscribers may choose the cheaper $10 per month option by paying a year upfront).

500 subscribers x $180 = $90,000
(I'm assuming that he actually has that many subscribers. My best guess is that he doesn't have anything close to that number).

Not a bad income for a little guy who started with nothing. However, for a guy who claims to be worth millions, this type of money is pocket change.

DeMarco claims to have received offers as high as 7.9 M when he sold Limos.com.

$7,900,000 x 0.15 (Annual ROI) = $1,185,000
$7,900,000 x 0.07 (Annual ROI) = $553,000

Anyone who knows about investing will know that anything in the range of 7-15% annual return on investment is totally within the reasonable (and even expected) range.

Why the fuck is someone with millions working fulltime running a forum that at best earns him $100K per year, when he could be earning 5 times that easily with legitimate business investments?

The obvious argument is that he is doing it out of the goodness of his heart because he wants to help people out.

So then, why his forum pasted full of a ridiculous number of unsightly advertisements and affiliate links?

Because he isn't worth millions and he desperately needs every penny he can squeeze out of his forum.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:55 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Now, let's say he isn't rich and you see him selling $20 a month forum access. You say he can't be rich if he is selling small ticket items. You really don't know what he is selling to those people purchasing his books and forum memberships.

I could see someone rich investing in a business that sells $20 monthly subscriptions. What I cannot believe is that someone worth millions would be spending hours a day running the day-to-day activities of a forum.

Someone worth millions would be too busy overseeing several different investments to have time to deal with the nitty-gritty of such a time intensive proposition.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:55 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

He could be selling 10k consulting gigs. Or selling group coaching for 5k a piece. Scott Adams was making a ton of money from speaking gigs.

No, he's running his forum full-time because it's all he's got. People with 10k consulting gigs on their plate do not spend hours every day working as a moderator on a forum. Their time is too valuable.

Quote: (06-12-2017 11:55 PM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

The guy that created Plenty of Fish, which was free, made millions off of ads and then sold for 575 million later. Most people wouldn't believe he was making millions on that site just by looking at it.

Plenty of Fish is a totally legit play. However, if you had millions in the bank, you wouldn't be putting in the grunt work to build something from scratch. You'd be the guy who owns a chunk of the investment firm that buys Plenty of Fish from the determined coder who put in all the grunt work.

People with millions look for ways to leverage their massive amount money. They are less likely to focus 100% of their efforts into building one brand from the ground up.

They invest in a basket of different opportunities that need seed money (and are willing to give up a big piece of equity just to survive) in order to diversify their risks and fully leverage their money.

We don't know if he is making money off of investments while running his forum. I also don't know how much time he spends on the forum. Maybe you do... How do you know how much time he spends on the forum?

I do know you can get mods for basically free when you build a community like his. This forum is another example and I have done something similar to help my customers.

I don't want to go through all of your assumptions but will comment on a few items

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:27 AM)Suits Wrote:  

Plenty of Fish is a totally legit play. However, if you had millions in the bank, you wouldn't be putting in the grunt work to build something from scratch. You'd be the guy who owns a chunk of the investment firm that buys Plenty of Fish from the determined coder who put in all the grunt work.

That is what entreprenuers do Suits. They build stuff. They love building stuff. It's in our blood. That doesn't go away because you are rich.

Quote:Quote:

People with millions look for ways to leverage their massive amount money. They are less likely to focus 100% of their efforts into building one brand from the ground up.

They invest in a basket of different opportunities that need seed money (and are willing to give up a big piece of equity just to survive) in order to diversify their risks and fully leverage their money.

I agree on wanting to leverage your current cash. That doesn't mean the love of building businesses goes away.

Sitting around worrying about maximizing my investments would be a unhappy existance for me. I'd prefer building up a new business to be honest.

Again, this is more assumptions on your part. We don't know how the guy is invested or if he hired an expert like Bill Gates did.

People build businesses all the time to help others. Just because they get paid doesn't mean they don't want to help. I wouldn't sell something that didn't help someone else. I suspect you are the same way as well.

Anyway, I have nothing else to add. I just think this type of thinking will hinder you more than help. You will learn a lot when you start selling your training program. Especially selling on the internet. I do hope you kick ass with it and invest in my 20 startups I plan to start next week.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

We don't know if he is making money off of investments while running his forum. I also don't know how much time he spends on the forum. Maybe you do... How do you know how much time he spends on the forum?

Yes, we do.

Anyone who has the money he pretends to have would be generating enough cash annually that he wouldn't bother to flood his forum with a wall of advertisements and affiliate links.

His other investments are either non-existent or minimal.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

I do know you can get mods for basically free when you build a community like his. This forum is another example and I have done something similar to help my customers.

I don't want to go through all of your assumptions but will comment on a few items

He posts far to much for someone who is supposedly "busy with other things." Book writing takes time, so given the amount of posting he does on his forum (often very detailed posts that would take time to create) and the fact that he followed up his first books with a second in reasonable time, it's perfectly obvious that he's into the venture fulltime.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:27 AM)Suits Wrote:  

Plenty of Fish is a totally legit play. However, if you had millions in the bank, you wouldn't be putting in the grunt work to build something from scratch. You'd be the guy who owns a chunk of the investment firm that buys Plenty of Fish from the determined coder who put in all the grunt work.

That is what entreprenuers do Suits. They build stuff. They love building stuff. It's in our blood. That doesn't go away because you are rich.

If a successful entrepreneur with millions in the bank wanted to create a new online dating venue, they don't do the grunt work coding when they could hire a team to do it faster and probably better.

A successful entrepreneur with millions in the bank wouldn't be in the business of writing e-books and running a forum fulltime. He'd leverage his cash to create a team and hire ghost writers to write books far less shoddy than his first book, which is one of the worst written books I've ever read.

Even if the entrepreneur in question preferred to do his own writing, if he was really the impressive, he'd have the good sense of recognizing that he's a bad writer and he'd hire an editor. Even great writers do this.

The reason he didn't do this is because he is more self-promoter than businessman/entrepreneur.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Quote:Quote:

People with millions look for ways to leverage their massive amount money. They are less likely to focus 100% of their efforts into building one brand from the ground up.

They invest in a basket of different opportunities that need seed money (and are willing to give up a big piece of equity just to survive) in order to diversify their risks and fully leverage their money.

I agree on wanting to leverage your current cash. That doesn't mean the love of building businesses goes away.

Sitting around worrying about maximizing my investments would be a unhappy existance for me. I'd prefer building up a new business to be honest.

Again, this is more assumptions on your part. We don't know how the guy is invested or if he hired an expert like Bill Gates did.

We know from the number of ads and affiliate links on his forum that he is pretty much broke.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

People build businesses all the time to help others. Just because they get paid doesn't mean they don't want to help. I wouldn't sell something that didn't help someone else. I suspect you are the same way as well.

Still doesn't explain the wall of affiliate links and advertisements on his forum.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

Anyway, I have nothing else to add.

Fair enough.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

I just think this type of thinking will hinder you more than help.

This type of critical thinking has led me on the path of searching for good advice and better books than the one he wrote. Very valuable to be able to think for yourself than to fall for lies like, "If you don't trust every claim DeMarco has made, you have a scarcity mindset!"

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

You will learn a lot when you start selling your training program. Especially selling on the internet.

I'm absolutely looking forward to it. Will keep the forum updated on my progress.

Quote: (06-13-2017 12:46 AM)worldwidetraveler Wrote:  

I do hope you kick ass with it and invest in my 20 startups I plan to start next week.

Nope, because I'm a firm supporter of DeMarco's Commandment of Control, which means I'd never invest in a business that I didn't own at least 51% of.

Plus, I'm an entrepreneur, so I prefer to build new things from the ground up. That is what we do.