Entrepreneurship Archives

Interview With Sarah Wood, Co-Founder Of Unruly Media On Advertising, Entrepreneurship, London

Updated: 02/15/2021 by Financial Samurai 6 Comments

As I’m off to London this summer for business and Wimbledon, I thought it would be a good idea to interview Sarah Wood, Co-Founder of Unruly Media, a social video advertising platform based in London. Sarah has been voted UK Female Entrepreneur of the Year by the Growing Business Awards, one of 15 Women to Watch in Tech by Inc., one of 10 London-Based Entrepreneurs to Watch by Forbes, Digital Woman of the Year by RED Magazine, and a Rising Star in Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK IT. Rock star!

Sarah is kind enough to take us out to dinner and host us at their corporate apartment somewhere north of Canary Wharf while we are there. If you happen to be in London from June 20 to June 30th, I’m happy to get a drink at your local pub.

I first worked with Unruly Media a couple years ago on a couple car campaigns for BMW and Jeep (video for Veteran’s Day). I was introduced by Courtnay, who used to work at another advertising platform in San Francisco and who now works at Unruly. The world is small, so it’s always good to maintain good relationships over time. Everybody will eventually know everybody.

London is truly one of the world’s great international cities. The last time I was there was in 2011 and I chronicled how much I spent on food, transportation, and shelter. London makes Manhattan look cheap, and San Francisco feel like a developing nation in terms of costs.

Without further ado, here’s my interview with Sarah on entrepreneurship, advertising, video, and London!

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From Debtor To Millionaire: How A Windfall Changed My Life

Updated: 02/09/2021 by Financial Samurai 47 Comments

From Debtor To Millionaire is a guest post from J.D. Roth, who founded the blog Get Rich Slowly in 2006 and is the author of Your Money: The Missing Manual. I first met JD in 2010 for lunch up in Portland when I was still working.

By that time, J.D. was already a mini-celebrity in the personal finance world through his story telling abilities and topical focus of paying down debt and living a more frugal lifestyle. We came from opposite ends of the financial and topical spectrum, but as fate would have it, we’re in pretty similar boats now.

I admire J.D. because he is a “blogging purist” – someone who writes for the love of writing first, community second, and income a distant third. This is th way I’ve sought to write all my posts on Financial Samurai since 2009.

Instead of an interview, I asked J.D. to share his story of how he went from debtor living paycheck-to-paycheck to financially free in just a few short years.

In The Beginning – A Debtor

I’m a lucky man, and I know it. But for a long time, it sure didn’t seem that way.

When I was a boy, my family was poor. We lived in a single-wide trailer house in rural Oregon. My father was often out of work. When he was unemployed, things were rough. We never went hungry, but sometimes we came close. More than once, we were bailed out by the kindness of other families in our church.

We didn’t always struggle. Sometimes my parents had money, at least for a little while. You see, my father was a serial entrepreneur. He was always starting businesses. Even when he had a job selling boxes or staplers or candy bars, he had something going on the side. Most of his businesses failed, but some succeeded.

In 1977, my father sold one business for $300,000. He was supposed to receive $5000 per month for fifteen years, which seemed like a lot of money at the time. To celebrate, he went out and bought an airplane, a sailboat, and a Kenwood stereo. Life was good — until the buyer went bankrupt. Because he hadn’t saved anything from the few payments, Dad was broke again. And unemployed. And a debtor. We were right back where we’d started.

This “famine or feast” pattern continued throughout my entire childhood. Most of the time, it was famine — not feast.

In the late 1980s, I went away to college. Because I knew my parents couldn’t help me pay for school, I took care of things myself. I was a good student with a lot of extracurricular activities: president of the computer club, national competitor in Future Business Leaders of America, editor of the school literary magazine, and so on. Plus I had terrific scores on the the PSAT and SAT. As a result, I earned a full-ride scholarship. I worked two or three or five jobs to pay for housing and to earn spending money.

During college, I developed a spending habit. In order to keep up with my friends, many of whom seemed to be rich (as I defined it at the time), I used credit cards. I began to carry debt. At first, I only owed a few hundred dollars, but by the time I graduated with a psychology degree, I had a few thousand dollars in credit-card debt.

After college, my debts continued to mount. I bought a new car. When I had money, I spent it. When I didn’t have money, I still spent it. By the middle of 1995, just four years after I’d graduated, I’d accumulated over $20,000 in credit-card debt. It got worse. In 2004, my consumer debt topped $35,000. I felt like I was drowning as a debtor.

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Don’t Confuse Revenue With Profits When Growing A Business

Updated: 08/17/2021 by Financial Samurai 45 Comments

Don’t confuse revenue with profits. When you see someone online claim they are generating huge revenue, that doesn’t mean how much they keep. You could generate $1 million a year in revenue, but if you spent $1 million a year in advertising, is that really that impressive? It’s not.

Silly Revenue Bragging

“I generated $100,000 from home in my underwear!” reads the headline. Immediately, you go ahead and click to see how, hopefully for free. But if not, maybe there’s some type of infoproduct you can buy for $99.

Revenue is sexy no doubt. Large headline numbers are used to suck you in. They trigger a “Me too wow!” emotion, and most of us fall for it. For growth companies, top line revenue is important to show the investor the company is heading in the right direction. However, for the consumer, revenue is a gimmick if you don’t highlight the net profit.

One of the greatest tricks in selling is to make something look so easy that any knucklehead can do it. Offer a 30 day money back guarantee, with processing fee of course, and a product that takes 100 days to complete to see results! By the time the consumer figures out what you’re selling is difficult to achieve or a piece of crap, you’ll have already taken their money and bought a nice trip to Maui thank you very much!

If your job is to sell the dream of making money online and following your glorious digital nomad lifestyle blogger, do us all a favor and be more transparent.

Don’t Confuse Revenue With Profits Please

There’s an old saying that it’s not how much you make, it’s what you keep. It’s easy to be lured into the fact that being an online entrepreneur is easy. The fact of the matter is, after you deduct costs and pay taxes, you’re often left with less than a third of what you started with!

In any business, a 33% net profit margin is a fantastic return. In fact, a 33% net profit margin blows doors off of great companies such as Google and Apple. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to generate profits.

As a business owner, don’t lull yourself into stupid mode when you have a nice jump in revenue because you’ve got to watch your expenses. Cash flow is tantamount.

As a consumer don’t be mesmerized by proclamations of huge revenue figures, especially when costs are not reported. Your dignity is paramount.

To lifestyle bloggers, if you are writing about how everyone should quit their jobs and follow your path, great! Just highlight what your revenue, costs, operating profits, and net profits after tax are so readers can decide for themselves whether your journey is right for them. We must compare your operating profits before taxes to our day job incomes before taxes.

Generating $60,000 online a year is solid, but if you’re only taking home $25,000 before taxes and saving no money, you might just misleading your readers and ruining their lives. Practically every full-time job in America pays $25,000 or more a year, and they come with healthcare benefits!

Open Your Eyes To Business Reality

It’s important not to fall for gimmicks. Gimmicks make you confuse revenue with profits. When people try selling you the dream, know that you are already awake. Question everything before you do anything drastic such as spending $299 on an info-product, or quitting your job just because someone says so. The worst is when someone makes you feel bad about having a job, and rubbing it in your face how good their lives are online.

On Untemplater, I pen a fiery post entitled, “Quit Your Job And Die Alone”. You’ll learn about four examples of online entrepreneurs who are relatively popular in their respective niches who still can’t save enough for their family, get a mortgage to buy a house, or quit their jobs even though that’s what they’re advocating.

If they can’t do it, what chance do you have? Bust open some popcorn and grab a drink, because the post is a long one. If you’ve ever had aspirations of quitting your job to be an entrepreneur online, you won’t want to miss this one!

Why You Need To Start Your Own Site Today

Why Blogging Is The Best Business In The World

Start Your Own Site

I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai enable me to quit my job three years later. Today, I’m still writing and the site generates more than I did at my banking job with a lot more fun.

If you enjoy writing, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog like mine in 20 minutes. It’s cheap and easy to start.

Given low overhead and status costs, blogging is a high margin business. However, you can always spend a lot of money boosting revenue as well through advertising.

Blogging For A Living Income Example: $300,000+ — A real income statement example from a blogger. Click the chart to learn how to start your own.

For further suggestions on saving money and growing wealth, check out my Top Financial Products page.

In addition, if you enjoyed this article and want to get more personal finance insights and tips, please sign up for the free Financial Samurai newsletter. You’ll get access to exclusive content only available to subscribers.

Don’t Confuse Revenue With Profits is a Financial Samurai original post.

A Day Job Is So Much Easier Than Entrepreneurship

Updated: 05/03/2021 by Financial Samurai 81 Comments

You know what’s easier than entrepreneurship? A day job. I say this with emphasis after not having a day job since 2012! But let’s go back to September 2012, three months after I left banking for good.

No sooner had I announced my retirement did e-mails and phone calls start flooding in from competitors who wanted to meet. Some were curious why I had retired, while the majority of them were basically trying to see if I would be a good fit to work with them. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the carrots that used to be delicious are not as orange anymore. Still, getting offered big bucks to work in a new environment, with a growing product is an exciting proposition!

The main reason why I retired from corporate America at the age of 34 was so that I can see what I can do entirely on my own. With all the work experience, education, and moonlighting, I’m curious to know if I can create a sustainable and fun business that can grow long after I’m gone. What I lacked was enough of my own time to make it happen.

Up until now, I’ve just been a hobbyist, writing online and not focusing much on the business aspect of things. I enjoy doing things for fun because I get impatient with boring activities the older I get. However, what I’m quickly discovering is how enjoyable it is to learn about business online no matter how slow the progress is! I just need more patience.

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Getting Fired Might Not Be So Bad For Your Life

Updated: 03/09/2021 by Financial Samurai 14 Comments

Getting fired sucks. You won’t be able to collect unemployment benefits. But it might not be so bad for your life in the long run.

On Yakezie.com, I wrote a post about what I’d do if I got laid off tomorrow. Go check it out. I am the perennial optimist and try to see the good in everything.

However, black clouds are coming, and they are going to start throwing lightning bolts very soon! I’ve seen this movie before in 1997-1998, 2000-2005, 2008-2009, and now 2011-X. Things never end well in booms and busts.

On the flip side, I interview my friend Jun Loayza from RewardMe on Untemplater.com to understand the joys and tribulations of entrepreneurship.

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Family Business: The Pros and Cons Of Hiring Relatives

Updated: 02/11/2020 by Financial Samurai 15 Comments

If you run a small or medium sized business, do you employ any family members? Currently, more than a fifth of small business surveyed (21%) do so. What’s more interesting is that a staggering 94% of SMEs employing family members felt that their business had benefited as a result.

I’ve always believed hiring a family member can be a double-edged sword. Mainly, what if they start taking advantage of your relationship and not doing what their job entails? Your Uncle Bobby might think that because he took you to all those ball games growing up, it’s payback time, and he shouldn’t have to work as hard as other employees. On the flip side, there’s no better joy than to hire a family member who is need of employment.

LET’S TALK FAMILY

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Real Entrepreneurs Are Successful, Don’t Kid Yourself

Updated: 03/30/2021 by Financial Samurai 61 Comments

Enjoying the lifestyle of an online entrepreneur in Hawaii

Are you a real entrepreneur? Because frankly, real entrepreneurs are successful. If you can’t generate enough business income to live, then you probably are not a real entrepreneur. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just don’t kid yourself into thinking you are.

According to the dictionary, “entrepreneur” is a term applied to a person who is willing to launch a new venture or enterprise and accept full responsibility for the outcome. What the hell does that mean? We all start things and accept responsibility for the outcomes, unless of course we don’t because we expect handouts if things don’t work out.

As far as I can tell, many of us want to be entrepreneurs because it sounds so sexy. We dream of starting the next multi-million dollar company, get recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine, and earn a fortune in the process. Yet, this type of success is unlikely for many of us. We don’t have a great business plan, we run out of capital, we don’t have charisma, and we lack the perseverance to keep on going.

The Real Entrepreneur Dilemma

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Deep Thoughts On Twitter: $10,000 Income or 10,000 Followers

Updated: 03/02/2021 by Financial Samurai 30 Comments

Here are my deep thoughts on Twitter. I’m a shareholder and a user. I think Twitter is fun and can be useful for helping grow your brand and platform. Today I have about 35,000 Twitter followers. This post was first written in 2010 and I’ve updated it.

As a relative shrimp on Twitter with only ~1,300 followers, I am always amazed by some of the people I follow with thousands and thousands of followers. One woman I know has 9,000 followers, and another guy has 7,500 followers. Wow!

Neither are famous and if I visit their blogs, there isn’t particularly a lot of activity either which is strange. If only 10% of your 9,000 followers visited your blog everyday, you’d have 900 regular readers alone not to mention potentially hundreds of other readers who don’t have Twitter!

Deep Thoughts On Twitter

What I’ve also noticed is that there are plenty of “Social Media Consultants” who earn a living by helping you gain followers by employing strategic social media moves.

After all, the more followers you have, the larger your authority and income potential, right? Maybe not. So I posed the following two versions of the same question on Twitterland:

Would you rather have 10,000 Twitter followers & make $2,000/month online or have 2,000 followers and make $10,000/m online?
Which is harder, making $10,000/month or getting to 10,000 Twitter followers?

Here are the following answers:

* Show me the M O N E Y prestige is for losers! @BigCajunMan

* If I make $10,000/m online, I don’t mind have if I zero followers :) @SunFinancial

* 10,000 followers is harder; there are many ways to make money, only so many to increase twitter followers. @AmateurFinance

* Dude – twitter followers are worth $0. 10,000 followers = $0. @MoneySmartsBlog

Answering my own questions:

I would much rather make $10,000 a month online and have just 2,000 followers than make $2,000 online and have 10,000 followers. That’s a NO BRAINER because as far as I can tell, 99.9% of Twitter users out there aren’t getting paid to Tweet, which means there’s no way to make money from Twitter directly. Twitter is for fun and a means to an end!

To answer the second question, ironically, I think it’s MUCH harder to gain 10,000 Twitter followers than to make $10,000 a month online. I’ve been on Twitter for a year now, and I only have 13% of 10,000 followers currently.

Meanwhile, the % of $10,000 is much greater than 13%, and could be even more than 100%, who knows. And, I’m sure many of you are the same way.

I find it unfathomable as to why anybody really cares about the quantity of Twitter followers they have. Why are people paying Twitter & Social Media consultants to gain more Twitter followers? Why are people paying programs to gain them Twitter followers?

What’s more important is the quality of relationships online. I’m not sure exactly how many quality relationships one can really have over Twitter, but my guess is somewhere around 200-500.

In my opinion, it’s much better to start your own blog and own your own platform. Invest in Twitter to potentially make money. But own your own blog that can’t be shut down if you want to accumulate real money!

Not a day goes by where I’m not thankful for starting Financial Samurai in 2009. The site is fun, intellectual, and makes enough to provide for a family of four in San Francisco.

Would you rather have 10,000 Twitter followers or $10,000/month online? How do some people manage to gain thousands and thousands of followers? Why is there a mismatch between blog traffic and Twitter followers for some?

Subscribe to the Financial Samurai newsletter by clicking here.

If You Plan To Speak Forever, You Can Blog Forever

Updated: 07/13/2020 by Financial Samurai 57 Comments

You can make a lot of money blogging for a living. However, a lot of people don’t start a blog because they are too afraid of the work involved. I just want to say that if you plan to speak forever, you can blog forever.

One of the best things about running your own blog is that you can write whatever you want, whenever you want. There’s really no pressure to do anything really, and I don’t understand why some would feel otherwise. Several blogging buddies have gone straight up cold turkey, not writing anything for months.

They tell me they can’t keep up with the schedule of writing great content. Who says content has to be great? They say new jobs lead them to not have the time. Are you working 100 hours a week? I’m sad because I miss their posts and our interactions.

You Can Blog Forever

Blogging shouldn’t be a chore, it should be easy. Blogging is writing, and writing is like speaking, which comes as naturally as breathing. Surely you speak everyday to people, whether in a fun or work setting no? If so, why is it so hard to put some words together on paper and press publish? Oh yes, we’re afraid of what people will think of our writing.

Yes, it’s sometimes a debilitating feeling. We feel we should always try and write something meaningful and profound. Gimme a break. We’re bloggers for goodness sake, not the authors of Crime & Punishment and The Invisible Man!

Look around the blogosphere. There’s hundreds of non profound posts out there. There are posts about doing this and that when the author has no clue. Boring makes up an extraordinary majority of articles on the internet, so don’t worry one bit if your post has the personality of a waxed figurine.

Although we’re only a small micro fraction of the web, I’m pretty confident that someone will find us interesting. Don’t believe me? Try putting the worst piece of crap on Craigslist, and I guarantee you tons of people will ping you to pick it up.

If you speak at all, you can write. And if you plan on speaking forever, you can write forever! Come back blogging buddies, come back.

Starting A Money Making Blog Forever

It’s been over 10 years since I started Financial Samurai and I’m actually earning a good passive income stream online. The top 1% of all posts on Financial Samurai generates 31% of all traffic. The average age of the top 1% posts is 2.3 years old. In other words, after putting in the hours to write some very meaty content over two years ago, 10 posts consistently generate a monthly recurring income stream that’s completely passive.

I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. It’s cheap and easy to start!

Regards,

Sam @ Financial Samurai – “Slicing Through Money’s Mysteries”

The Samurai Mask: An Interview With The CEO of BULLDOG Gin

Updated: 02/19/2020 by Financial Samurai 18 Comments

I’m pleased to highlight a new series of articles focused on understanding the thoughts of successful entrepreneurs. For our inaugural series, entitled, “The Samurai Mask,” I speak with the CEO and Founder of BULLDOG Gin, Mr. Anshuman Vohra, 31. “Shu” was once a JP Morgan Banker who gave up his lucrative career to start BULLDOG Gin three years ago. I was very inspired after watching his story about overcoming rejection on Donny Deutsche’s “The Big Idea” and I’m pleased he’s here with us today. This is his story about finding entrepreneurial success, and going against the odds. I invested $61,700 in BULLDOG Gin in 2007.

INTRODUCTION

FS: Shu, thanks for taking the time to speak. First of all, tell us about BULLDOG Gin, and why it is such a hot product?

Shu: It’s good to speak to you and it’s an honor to be the inaugural interviewee for your new series. BULLDOG Gin is a quadruple distilled, ultra premium gin with dragon eye and other distinctive botanicals. This is not your old folks gin, but a younger, brazen breed of gin that you can imagine Steve McQueen and James Bond drinking.

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