when I was 22 I had built a successful
a business that I sold for 650
000 and I lost most of it I'll give you
the full story and why I was able to
succeed but first of all, let me give you
some context that is really important to
understand all of this
after finishing high school in Germany i
spent a year in Australia to travel and
work there eventually I met an
Australian girl in Sydney
fell in love met her family and felt at
home until the inevitable happened
and my visa expired so I had to leave i
promised her I would find her way back
but
there were no visa options for me unless
I built a business that makes money
online so I can come back on a tourist
visa
but building a business seemed
impossible at the time I was 20 years
old
I had no clue about anything but it was
my only option
because in my mind it was very clear if
I don't make it back to Australia and
get a visa
I'll never be happy and I gave myself
one year to make it happen or else
my girlfriend might just meet someone
else but the first days back in Germany
were just
brutal I miss my girlfriend and I didn't
know if I would ever see her again
immediately got into a fight with my
the family left to the nearest city and i
ended up staying with these two girls
that I went to school with
and just slept on their carpet first i
had to figure out what business I could
actually, get into my first idea came
from a course that a buddy had given me
access to where they teach
you to basically sell a premium service
for
500 to 3 000 cheaply outsource it to
third world countries so you can make a
profit and my idea
book cover designs and so
butterflybookcovers.com was born
and after weeks of going through the
course designing a nice website and
creating a fancy logo I realized this is
never going to work
you can't just get cheap designers from
India to make a worth book cover
a thousand dollars that anyone would pay
for
and it would never make enough money for
me to actually sustain myself
a few weeks were wasted and to make
things worse by that time I had moved in
with
five other people into this tiny
apartment and the walls were really thin
and next to me was this really buff guy
who always had this girl over and they
were getting it on
so loudly and I was just lying in my bed
staring at the ceiling
hearing her moan super loud just
thinking again about
how potentially my girlfriend is
currently seeing someone else because
when I left we had agreed to keep the
relationship open because we didn't know
if we'd ever see each other again and i
was here trying to start this
the dumb business idea just feeling like the
the biggest loser on the planet
but in all this turmoil and uncertainty
there's one thing that kept me going
I started the daily practice of
visualizing myself
at the end of the year coming out of the
airplane passing the immigration
officers and hearing them say
Welcome to Australia and my vision
became so strong that I would literally
go to bed at night and
dream about being back in Australia
literally had tears of joy in my
dream and then waking up with actual
tears on my face realizing
that I wasn't there yet but then a weird
coincidence happened
I met this guy at a bar who had just
started a business
and we became friends instantly and he
told me about this business model
where you find products on amazon that
sell really well and then once you rank
on Amazon, they're just gonna sell on
autopilot and you could work
from anywhere doing that this is exactly
what I've been looking for I went all-in
I devoured
everything I could find about the topic
I started researching products on amazon
that had a high sales ranking that i
could also compete with by making a
better product
until I eventually found the niche in
the baby category that was promising but
this was not an easy business to start
I would need at least a few thousand
euros to buy my first inventory which i
didn't have
I took all the leftover money that I had
from working all these odd jobs in
Australia
sold a bunch of old video games that i
had that were near and dear to my heart
but they had to go
and then even took a job as a bartender
at this super shady nightclub my
the girlfriend told me that she was able to
come to Europe in June so we could
travel for a bit so by then there were
two products I had found that i
had to launch before she was coming so i
could actually afford to travel with her
and also not miss the opportunity
before someone else got in so I analyzed
the competition and brainstormed how i
could make these products better than
anything already available i
would contact multiple suppliers went
back and forth with them making really
sure that they could customize the
product the way I wanted it to be
and I literally drew the product designs
in paint, so I could somehow communicate
to these Chinese suppliers
what I really wanted and then I finally
ordered the first few customized samples
that already cost me hundreds of dollars
I'd already seen a couple of more
competitors coming into the market but i
took the leap and made
the biggest payment of my life at that
the point which was a few thousand euros in
one
single wire transfer just hoping that i
wasn't getting ripped off and about two
months later
the shipment for the first product
arrived even though the
the packaging looked really cheap the
products were fine
and they worked so I sent them off to
amazon's warehouse and soon after that
there they were after months of
sleepless nights and hard work
they were ready for sale online but the
real work was only beginning
I asked anyone I could friends and
family to buy it
and write a review for it and soon after
that organic sales started coming in as
well it seemed like I was doing well
enough to
travel once my girlfriend comes over
soon but that excitement didn't last
very long
the same month that I had launched my
products there were five other
competitors with similar products
and it got really competitive some of
they even wrote a one-star review on my
product which just
killed the rating but I still had the
second product as a second chance to put
myself above the competition I'd already
ordered a few samples for it but this
product
cost six times as much per unit as the
first product
and I was out of money but to make it
work I found more of my personal
belongings that I could sell
kept working as a bartender to save up
more money cut back on the spending and
I wouldn't recommend it even borrowed
money from my dad who
as I found out later also actually
didn't have the money he just thought it
was okay to go in debt for a while
because he
trusted me and thought I would pay him
back on time
oopsie and I placed the order for the
second product just hoping it will work
out
but of course, these weren't enough
obstacles yet
see I was so stressed all these
competitors coming in my girlfriend
coming soon and just
hoping it would all work out and I was
sitting at Starbucks emailing the
suppliers and also texting my girlfriend
when all of a sudden I get this
text from her it was this very
the sexual meme that was completely out of
context
my heart just dropped because I knew
that text wasn't for me at that moment
my throat just
tightened up struggling to breathe and
had to ask her straight up was that text
for me
she had met someone a few months ago who
was just a friend at the time but
eventually, she developed feelings for
him I knew it was a difficult situation
and were open and all that but
my entire world just crumbled she was
gonna come over in just a few weeks but
I just told her
you know what just cancel your flight
and I just took my stuff and
just walked for hours
just thinking about everything you know
is there's
still, a reason for me to pursue this
goal making it back to Australia
was this all for nothing what am I going
to do now but after a lot of
thinking I was able to understand her
position I mean
we were both just afraid and terrified
of
the other person meeting someone else
and we just wanted to keep our options
open
both of us it was not just her so i
decided to let her come and
yeah I got back to work although I was
very unproductive because my mind was
still
racing it was hard to focus I was able
to launch the second product and
it worked well and the great thing was
that when I launched the second product
the sales of the first product increased
as well because these products were
going hand in hand
and people bought them together so that
just shows you how important it is to
actually, pick a niche and stay within it
and then in June, she arrived at the
frankfurt airport I took the cheapest
long-distance bus
I could get to pick her up and we were
able to travel on a
very small budget to Amsterdam Austria
and Prague
this was definitely by far the happiest
month and really the only month that i
was happy it was uh
it was amazing it's exactly what i
needed through it
yeah after all this but eventually it
had to end
and uh we were once again at an airport
saying goodbye to each other not knowing
if we would see each other again
but this time I told her I'm going to
make it back by December
even though with the money that I was
making at the time and where things were
going
this was definitely not possible I would
have at least needed another year
I ended up stumbling upon this podcast
episode and this guy laid out this
journaling exercise
that completely changed my trajectory
you take your current goal
multiply it by 10 and then figure out an
action plan from there on how to achieve
it by asking yourself very strategic
questions I'll make a video on it in
more detail at some point
for me, my initial goal was to make 3 000
euros per month in profit by the end of
the year but what if instead
my goal would be to make 30 000 euros in
profit
by the end of the year, this just seemed
completely impossible and ridiculous
it was just six months away and how
would I just grow it that quickly but i
went through the exercise
and after 20 minutes or so of just
brainstorming I realized
this was totally achievable see i
figured out that there were
three products that I knew about that
would be able to
be successful and make enough money to
actually, reach that goal but only if i
were able to launch these three products
in the next three months and to do that
I needed
more money but if I was able to sell
more of my stuff
like my electric guitars as well and all
that other stuff lowered my product
prices to get my investment back quicker
cut
more of my spending and just got more
the money together then I could make it work
so there it was with more responsibility
and more pressure
still not knowing if this whole thing is
going to work out the long term the samples
of
all three products that I was about to
the launch was great everything went
according to plan
the last quarter of the year approached
but then
things took a turn it got so competitive
that amazon started tightening the rules
we saw people losing reviews on their
products or
randomly having their store terminated
for minor things that
everyone was doing I had just finally
booked a flight to Australia which was
just
surreal because it was happening and
recently placed the down payment for the
order of all these three products which
was
just huge and then I get an email
it was an email from a lawyer with a
document attached to it
that was accusing me of tens of
thousands of euros in damage
and threatening me with lawsuits unless
I cease and desist
they said the issue was that okay to
To make it short one of my competitors had
hired him to make up some small thing
that had to do with these flyers that
were inside the packaging of each
product
you can pause the video here to know the
details
but the gist of it was he was trying to
drain my bank account and
get rid of me that way as a result I had
to take
back all my products from the amazon
warehouse open up
the packages of thousands of units
myself to
take out the flyer and repackage it and
then send it back
so during that time, I wasn't able to
sell wasn't making any money the
suppliers were waiting for my payment
and I was
losing my rankings on amazon while all
this competition piled in and I just
thought
now that I'm so close to it is this
where it ends
and after days of unpacking these things
I was able to get it back online
started slowly selling again and somehow
was able to pay these bills and
make it back online and eventually as i
launched the new products
it literally blew up my business a month
later
near the end of the year, I did not reach
my goal of making 30 000 euros in profit
that month but I made
22 000 euros in profit
so in December, I packed my bags and
after stopping over in Austin for the
first time in my life to attend an event
here
I was arriving in Australia and just
seeing it
from the airplane from above was just
so surreal to have that be real life and
not just
my visualization my imagination which
I'd done all this time
but what people don't know is that
Australia is arguably
stricter than us when it comes to
immigration I had just left
Australia as a backpacker only a year
ago and now I was coming back which i
read online was
already very suspicious of them because
they think you might end up staying
there illegally because that's actually
something people do
and on top of that, I read multiple
stories online on forums of
these people who told the immigration
officers that they were there to visit
their
girlfriend or boyfriend and then was
rejected because of that
and as I got out of the airplane walking
towards the immigration offices
I was so incredibly nervous
I was trying so hard not to look
suspicious
already sweating like crazy just hoping
that, please
after all this suffering please don't
let it end here
I had my documents ready I knew what i
was about to say if they asked me any
questions
and then it was my turn to come to the
counter so I gave him the passport
he looked at it asked me a few questions
I was shaking from nervousness my voice
was cracking
and then he looked at me checked
something on his computer
looked at me again and said welcome to
Australia
and there I was exactly where I had
envisioned me to be and in that
the moment when I stepped outside the
airport
it was just a flood of emotions that
I could not hold back a year earlier
I had no idea if this was possible and
here I was
back in Australia having a successful
business just being a completely
the different person I had grown so much and
we were reunited
and I was back in paradise where we
happily ever after
no, I still need to tell you how I ended
up actually selling the business and
then
losing a lot of the money when I went to
a lawyer to see if I could get any
long-term visas he told me that we're
now eligible for
a partner visa which meant that we had
to move in share bank accounts we had to
send them pictures and screenshots of
text messages to prove that we had been
together for all this time
but it would take 18 to 30 months for
them to actually
go through the application and make a
the decision whether I would get the visa or
not and until then I would only be on a
bridging visa but for now, I was
living in Australia I was living in
paradise this was the first time that i
really realized that no matter what goal
you achieve
it won't make you happy in fact I had no
friends I was
extremely lonely and it was really hard
to meet like-minded people they were
as young as me and also ambitious and
all of a sudden the only person that
I was really spending time with my
girlfriend her and I were starting to
have fights
which never happened before I was
working by myself all day my business
was a mess I was
constantly running out of stock the
numbers were up and down and I just
hated
every single second of it so I decided
that i
was going to sell the business so then i
had to turn it into an attractive asset
that someone was willing to pay a lot of
money for I started building systems so
we never run out of stock again hired
someone for supply chain management
someone for PPC and admin work and i
prepared more products that we would
launch so it had more of a future
potential which made it more interesting
for investors, the numbers were still
very volatile one month I'd be making 33
000 euros in profit
another one just 18 then down to 12 000
euros
back up to 24 000 euros again and of
course this is bad for investors they
want something stable and
trustworthy and keep in mind the fear of
getting my account shut down was
still, present all this time because
amazon was just
unpredictable but all I could do was put
in the work and hope for the best
when finally someone was interested and
we set up our first meeting a 22 year
old
an international business broker and two
investors on a call at that point I had
already done a lot to make it really
interesting for them but the offer they
gave me was really low so I had to
decline just hoping that
there was going to come to a better offer
in the future and by then
the numbers were on a downward
trajectory again and I was just
freaking out weeks later another offer
came in I still had the guts to decline
but then their final offer came in and
I was satisfied so on February 6, 2018
I signed a contract to sell my business
and all the inventory that was involved
for a total
of over 650 000 is this
At the end of the story trust me I wish i
would only get paid the full amount
once the transfer and handover of the
the business was successful and if I lost my
account or the transfer failed I was
done
and of course, it took them months to set
up the company that would end up
buying my business which they were
setting up in malta a European tax haven
while I was just praying that
nothing went wrong but then they
realized malta
is the only country in Europe that can't
use
amazon's fulfillment service so after
months had gone by
nothing happened this was torture I was
so close
to finally getting paid out all the
money that I'd made which at that point
I had just
reinvested because I only took out two
grand a month to pay for my own bills so
they decided to set up the company in
Cyprus instead which is also a tax haven
which would again
take months meanwhile the numbers were
volatile the competition was vicious and
I was
just on my knees praying that nothing
would go wrong and due this time of
stress
in my relationship, we ended up having
fights every weekend
and I knew that if it kept going like
this the relationship would end
and then I'd have to leave the country
again but Australia felt like
my home at that time I had finally made
a lot of friends
and I had even practiced my Australian
accent because
I thought this is going to be my home
forever so I want to fit in but of
course she was worried that I was just
staying with her because of the visa and
over 300 days later
of having the contract signed to buy my
business the investor's company was
finally set up we sent the first
inventory to them
and they made their first sale which
meant that my payment
was due
[Music]
I was so happy
for like 20 minutes I think the story
ends here
think again I still have to tell you how
I lost the money my girlfriend and i
kept fighting every weekend
and we tried to go to counseling to see
if that would
make things work but in about six months
or so I would finally
get my visa but it just wasn't working
I broke up with her I had 28 days to
leave the country and
I'd say goodbye to my friends her family
which was like my family and
this country that I thought was going to
be my home so after two years in
Australia
I found myself back where I started in
Germany
lonely heartbroken depressed and
hopeless but
with hundreds of thousands of dollars in
my bank account which would be cut in
half
by taxes soon I strongly believe that
every obstacle is there to
teach us something or become a stepping
stone for something much better to come
if I could go back and take away any of
the struggles that I went through
I wouldn't take away any of it I was
glad I went through it all but there's
one regret
I had throughout all of this I wish i
would have allowed me to be happier
while
achieving all this I wish I would have
focused more on surrounding myself with
people that I loved and
enjoying the journey with them which is
why I'm so passionate about now building
this
the community here for people that don't fit
in because we're crazy ambitious and
we want to live a life without regrets
we don't want to end up as lone wolves
which most of us are but it doesn't have
to be that way
and fast forward although I ended up
here in Austin because i
later on, invested in a new company that
I'm starting here which is where i
dumped most of my money into to get an
investor visa so I could start this
thing
it took me a long time to figure out
what I was actually passionate about and
what I wanted in my life
which is where I actually ended up
wasting most of the money I talk about
this is in this video here so if you're
struggling to find your path in life
then go check it out it'll really help
me so
I hope it does the same for you thanks
for watching and I'll see you there
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