Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi!
I found SuN through a link on digital point forums yesterday and signed up after reading for hours!
I`m so inspired! I have gained the confidence to proceed with my ideas now after reading the inspiring stories of success!

I live in metropolitan Adelaide in Australia,24(3 days to my 25th birthday!).
I`ve been going through an emotional rollercoaster lately. The main emotions and feelings are that of feeling like a failure and wasting the last 8 years since i graduated high school.
I`ve done lots of volunteer work and held a part time job in retail briefly until a year ago.

Around the time work was drying up I began to analyse what i could do with my skills and interests and decided to become a web designer and web entrepreneur.
I spend alot of time online..so i figured why not capitilise on it and make money of out my time?? ! LOL

I guess I feel like I`m in a failure in my family`s eyes becuase I haven`t accomplished what they think is a "success".I have learned heaps about myself not only the skills but emotionally as well in the volunteer jobs and my 1 year part time gig as a sales assistant in a big department store chain. Everything I`m doing even what may seem irrelevant is building skills for when i do open for business.

The toughest part is pushing forward through the hurdles my immediate family are putting  on me. I know that once i make that first online sale I know I will be successful in anything I set my mind to.The one thing I`m finding difficulty with is the 1 worktool i need(desktop pc) I have to timeshare it with my family.Yes i still live at home.I`m making plans however,to move out next year. Anyway,my laptop is pretty slow these days,it needs a upgrade.So in meantime I have to use desktop which is hard when I`m being told to get off it,and no one thinks I can make money online...*sigh* I`ve tried explaining,it seems like they don`t take me seriously.

I had big dreams of running a business long before i finished high school. Without going into specifics I was poor at the time of graduating and couldn`t go to uni or even tafe.
I saved up some money and since end of 2005 I`ve been studying certificate in Retail Operations which has now progressed into the Diploma of Retail Management.

I can remember reading business books for the fun of it ever since i was about 13!
Fast forward to this year,and with all research I can find I reckon I could make a decent amount of money online. I`m lucky in the fact that my overheads are extremely low,and with recent changes to superannuation/tax laws for self employed saving for retirement is even better! (provided I interpreted it correctly/I have yet to seek prof. advice).

So now I have about 10 or so web projects in mind.Which I`ll be designing and lauching over the next 3 months.The beauty about these projects is the minimal investment of money(mostly time),so that any flop I can just flip the sites!

I have been mulling around for awhile now i particular niche and only recently have i actually started to refine the ideas. A good friend at tafe is also interested in this particular niche and we may partner. I`m so excited!
It`s a retail and service business. Actually could be broken down into smaller businesses,which is what i have to figure out. i.e. legal structure,growth strategy.

I can`t decide whether to make a proprietry company(pty ltd)the umbrella company and have smaller companies underneath focussing on either the retail or service ..
 
I`ve pretty much figured out expansion plans down the track.It`s the initial structure of what products to focus on and when to bring in the particular services.
I`ve started a feasibility assessment for the mortar and bricks idea! Not so for the online freelance. My online money making plan is mapped out in my head. I`ll write it down as i need to. Mainly becuase to begin with all i need is time +creativity+photoshop.=templates.

ok i`m rambling..
I`ll be sure to ask advice ..I`ve got a few things bugging me.

Are there any aussies here?

I think i`ve covered mostly everything..
thanks for listening.

take care,
ark :)

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My Email
web entrepreneur and web designer

Welcome to SuN - not an aussie but just wanted to say hello.................. Have fun exploring the boards........ This is your life and you are in charge of making the decisions of how it will go - your family wants the best for you but you also need to follow your dreams and goals. Congratulations on your business and best wishes on your new website.


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http://www.solutionshealthnwellness.com

Thankyou for the warm welcome besthealth!




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My Email
web entrepreneur and web designer

Hi there, Ark :-)
Probably the reason you`ve had such a rollercoaster in your life is because you`re living upside down. Nah...just kidding.

Actually, though, you`ll want to get to a place in your mind where what your family defines as success isn`t relevant to what you`re wanting from your own life. You`re letting others define who you are, instead of taking control of your own peronality, life, style, and humor.

You mention you`ve done a lot of volunteer work, and that`s taught you a whole lot about yourself and life in general. How can you bring to the Web development business, the principles at work in the volunteer organizations?

I don`t at all mean volunteer free design!! Instead, I mean that you`ve been strongly impacted by your past eight years of experience. You`re not unique, and there are countless other people your age going through the same struggle. So if you were influenced to such a degree, what you`ve learned could be beneficial to all those who`ve yet to reach your "event horizon" for want of a better term.

How did you learn all this about yourself? What particularly happened in the context of this volunteer work? If you can answer those questions, then perhaps you`ll see a way to create a very different type of business that includes the same benefits.

The point being that you`re passionate about the time you spent "wasting away" for eight years. Of course you didn`t waste it---nothing ever is wasted. You spent that time because it met deep and powerful needs within yourself. So too, other people have similar needs to resolve. You now have "something" because you went through it and you`re at the next step.

We`ve just had a community member put together a site all about how she went from welfare to work. The inspiration AND the consolidation of resources forms the foundation for a new business venture. Of the ten projects you envision, which one includes (no matter how seemingly little) some aspects of the journey you`ve been taking toward self development?

Hi Craig!

You have given me much to ponder and think about,and look at things in a different way.
Some of what you have said mirrors my own philosophies. :)

Could you point me to the website of this member you mentioned?

Thanks,
ark



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My Email
web entrepreneur and web designer

The site about welfare to work, is from Raya.

Apropos ongoing volunteering, I`d tend to disagree with Winston. Since you`re now feeling a strong sense of "waste" and wanting to move on, it indicates that your original needs and desires have been completed.

Silly as it may sound, there`s a lot of validity in doing "what seems like the best idea at the time." :-D

Y`know how we look back over life, telling stories about THE most ridiculous things we`ve gotten into trouble over? Invariably, someone will ask why the hell we did that....what were we thinking! And we`ll say, "I dunno...it seemed like a good idea at the time." LOL!

Hey...it makes for good stories, but if you dig a little deeper, you`ll often find that those stories speak volumes about formative events and ideologies in our lives. So right now, the best idea seems to be this Web design business concept.

To that end, I`d say....go with it.

Hello Ark,

We are glad that you have found the SuN community and we welcome you. It is great to hear inspiring story from you. You have made a faithful decision in making business online and that is the right thing to do if you want to earn big. Hope your doing great in your work and wishing you good luck on your business.



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thanks for the link Craig :)

Thanks for the welcomes and advice. I`m soaking up everything I`m reading.

I`ve got some sort of a strategic plan (although it`s not written down) for my business ideas.
Back when I left highschool i wanted to get to Point D..but i had no idea what Point A was.
My biz idea for point D got more elaborate and refined and knew there was a market,but at that point I had no idea how to enter the field.
During the last 8 years I`ve been doing the volunteer thing(not my choice-If i wanted to continue to recieve government benefits I had to..but i was nice to placement people and got to pick the type of volunteer job to a point).
The amount of motivational and goal setting and job related courses i`ve been put on-I might end up writing a book or start a how to website! LOL.
.anyway during this time I played around in my head variations on the original business idea,making it smaller, a Point C..but still didn`t know how i was going to get there.
Lack of confidence mostly on my part.
I have always believed and continue to believe everything happens for a reason,whether you can see it at the time or not.
I decided towards end of 2005 that I either get a job or study in something and get a qualification behind me. I decided after having worked in 2 non profit thrift stores that retail was  pretty easy and loved serving all the interesting characters that came through the doors.
3 months into studying my certificate 3 in retail operations(its aussie vocational training Qualification) I got a job in a well known retail chain here in oz.

sorry for making this long winded..

anyway it`s just over 2 years since i made the decision to study retail and 1 year on since I made the decision to earn money through web design and the internet.
It`s been about 3 or 4 weeks since my mindblowing business idea struck me.

And now i can see the path to Point D(that i mentioned earlier).
Point A: web design + various internet  projects>
Point B: Physical retail and service business in specific niche with my tafe(college)classmate and friend + possibly website prior to starting the physical aspect>
Point C:Expansion of Point B into a retail first for australia(provided gov or big guns don`t beat me to it/and no it`s not got anything to do with my original plans for the smaller version of point d)>
Point D: (uniquely presented)alternative health retreat centre (I don`t mind sharing that becuase i have mentioned it on various other forums where i have been met with enthusiam for my ideas..including people wanting to be my staff and customers already!!) with what i have in mind,no one could possibly do better.lol

I think the learning i`ll gain from going from point A..will give me the real skills i`ll need to run and operate point D.(each will also help fund the next too )

Probably sounds like a long way round,but I would rather own more than 50% and not owe money.

ok i`ll leave it there before i really start to waffle on LOL
Hope that wasn`t confusing..sorry for any typos.

take care,
ark :)







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My Email
web entrepreneur and web designer

Y`know those 3D pictures---the ones that look like a bunch of mish-mash, but if you cross your eyes, you`re supposed to see something? :-)

I tried those for years, never seeing anything except mish-mash. Then, one night when I was looking for something else, I ran across some images and tried it again. Suddenly, there it was! I saw the embedded 3D image.

Ideas are like that. Except for a very few people, most of the time we see the mish-mash of a sorta-kinda, very confused possibility. If we work at it, thinking and imagining, the idea begins to take on shape. Who knows how long it`ll take, but eventually, it begins to clarify.

Then, at some point, given life and time, the idea suddenly snaps into shape and we see it. It`d be great if we could immediately think of a question, come up with an idea, see the entire idea perfectly, then proceed to make it happen.

But that`s part of life---living through it. :-) What matters is to keep messin` with it, trying things, inventing, and avoiding the laziness of "good enough." Sounds like you`ve had that epiphany....that "snap" of seeing the whole idea come into shape. That sure does help, where it comes to making it happen---the next step.