Hello swapd community!
This post is going to be a bit different than the inspirational stories that can be seen here. But maybe you can find yourself along these lines, maybe you can see you also were like this, and maybe this will help me as well.
Honestly, I have no idea why I have decided just now to publish this, since I have never really shared this, but hey, isn’t it what makes us grow in the end?
When I was small, I was dating this girl, who happened to be a daughter of one of the richest men in our country. They had a big house, a swimming pool that was a size of the public pool we have in our city, minigolf course in the backyard (well, her father owns an actual golf course as well), basically everything you can imagine. But once, they were driving me home and I noticed that their center mirror showed a letter for the direction you were headed to. And this was the moment when I’ve realized: “hell, I got to get this rich.” Funny, isn’t it?
I’ve always wanted to do stuff in a way that I wanted, without someone telling me what to do. At school, I never did my homeworks, yet I was able to maintain all As through my whole education. I wouldn’t consider myself too smart, and I was never an expert in one field. I do have a very wide field of knowledge and I always have huge goals and dreams, which seem to be my biggest drawback. But more on this below.
I’ve started my first business when I was 9. It wasn’t a business at all, because I created a Facebook page with 3D modelled houses, that I downloaded from somewhere else. One day I got a request from a local real estate company to model about 30 houses for them and that’s the exact date when I deleted the page.
A year or so later, I’ve created a page about planes. Planes were (and maybe still are) a huge passion of mine. I’ve copied articles about them and published them on the page. I didn’t realize at the time, but those quite took off (pun intended). When I looked at the page couple years ago before it was deleted from the free hosting, it got about 10k visitors a month, without any SEO or anything (year 2011 or so). Only I was so little to realize that it could’ve been turned into a successful project.
After that I learnt how to code, but I never gave it enough to actually learn it and be able to implement it for other projects. I’ve learnt graphic design, but I was never confident enough to sell it to other people, although I did sold some logos etc.
I’ve also mined bitcoin in the year 2014. It is only to imagine where I could be today, had I kept it going or were mature enough to understand how to keep it or what it really is, having budget to buy equipment etc. (I was 12 at the time).
Years have passed, I’ve enrolled into a private school focused on leadership and entrepreneurship and I have few people, who helped me be who I am today. One of my classmates even introduced me to this social media stuff and taught me a lot in the beginning.
During school, it was a boom of dropshipping stores. That was my first thing, that took off and that I could tell myself I am proud. I’ve started building and selling dropshipping stores. I would create one shop in 10 hours and sell it for 1-2 grand (though this was 1-2 or month at most). And I was only able to keep this up for a year, before I burnt out.
With the budget I had, I’ve decided to get into reselling. I have always heard about people who resold clothes and sneakers and made a fortune. So I bought 1000 pieces of child’s clothing, which then were sitting in countless boxes under a shed in our garden. I’ve also tried to resell yeezys. Guess who picked the only one’s without a value and is wearing them right now. I have then managed to get rid of all the clothes at a tiny fraction of its original price and since I was lurking about buying an Instagram page, I spent all the money left on it.
I also built my own store with luxury canvas art, that has never made a single sale, yet I spent years on trying and learning all kinds of advertising.
The IG page was not a bad purchase, I was able to finally deal with people, it felt like something I enjoyed doing and I really found myself in it. That was about a time when I discovered swapd and almost within a week I almost managed to get kicked out for dealing off site. At that time (I was 17), I haven’t realized what of a gem this community is. Based on my previous failures, I didn’t have hope in serious businesses and I felt that everyone is trying to rip me off. Yet I have to thank the swapd for giving me a chance to stay.
With me being in the Instagram business, I learned a lot of new things. I was burnt out sometimes, I had a lot of going on at home or at school. But I felt that this was finally a thing that is moving, that I enjoy, that I feel like I can grow in, it fit exactly to my skill set.
Well, it wouldn’t be me if something did not ■■■■ up. I got involved in a car accident, which then led to me selling the page for the quickest offer, again much below the original price. I’ve always wanted to move to US and I was accepted to a Uni there, but couldn’t go because of covid and insufficient scholarship. I’ve stopped with everything, found myself a 9-5, well 7-3 office job and started living on my own. And yes, made another clothing mistake, so right know I have a full room at my flat of hoodies that I wasn’t able to sell.
2 years later - I slowed down, tried not to jump from one thing to another, looked back at each and every project I worked on and tried to come up with a plan to start again, with a clean state.
And here I am! I have contacted all the people I dealt with in the past and got myself on the road again.
I am far from successful, I would still consider myself at the very start. But I finally have the urge to create something. To accomplish things.
A huge thank you to each and everyone of this awesome community. I’ve read thousands of your posts, discussions, and it gave me so much.
To end this, I would like to share my couple of points, that you might have heard before, but I went through all of it personally:
- Success doesn’t come overnight. It does require lots and lots of hard work.
- Failures come much more than successes. I’ve always felt let down when something did not go as planned. But those are the times when you should stop and reflect, which will help you in the long term. Don’t be afraid to fail, as those are the times when you develop.
- Money shouldn’t be the main motivator. Of course we all dream of financial freedom, we need to eat, need somewhere to live, need to pay our bills. But most importantly, relationships are what brings in the success and eventually resources.
- Don’t be afraid to help someone for free. It will come back to you. It might not come from the same person, but someone else will help you. That’s the nature of things.
- Start today. Hell, I remember back in 2013, when I wanted to start working out. It might seem as a long path today, but the time does flow, it cannot be stopped. And eventually you will be in a time when you will look back and wished you had started.
- Put some money aside from every project you finish. Surprises will come and you don’t want to find yourself without resources to deal with them.
- Last but not least – don’t stop dreaming. Stay motivated. I often read success stories from other people and all I did was being sorry for myself. Telling myself they were lucky enough and that’s why they’re successful. No. It all starts and ends with you. Sure, there might be times where you get lucky, you get a good project. But most of the times, it would be you grinding and grinding. Making little steps. And that’s all that it is. Slowly but surely moving ahead, until eventually you will reach your goal. For some it may come sooner, for some later, but the less you keep standing and the more you keep going, the higher the chances are.
Thank you all!
, Good Luck with your life and new project u might do 
