Today I want to share with you my journey to creating an online business. I want those of you just getting started to understand that no matter who you are and where you came from, it’s possible for you to start making money online today.
I always had an entrepreneurial streak in me. When I was a kid I used to sell stuff to my classmates. When I was in grade school, I’d sell things like pencils and trinkets from those 25 cent gumball machines. When I got to middle school, I sold baseball and basketball trading cards. Entrepreneurship was a necessity for a kid who grew up poor and often on the wrong side of the tracks.
There were times in my youth where we were so broke that we ended up sleeping in our car. I’ll never understand how my mom pulled through these times as a single mother with two boys. It made my brother and I grow up young. My side hustle with the sports trading cards enabled me to help out by buying my clothes when I was about 12 or 13 years old.
After high school, my entrepreneurship was put on pause. The Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked during my senior year. The pain and anger of that day drove my career choice. After graduation, I enlisted in the Air National Guard, which is a reserve component of the Air Force. During my enlisted time, I went to college with the intent to make national defense work my lifelong profession.
In December of 2007, I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in political science and several weeks later I was on a nighttime C-130 transport flight into a war zone. As we entered the combat airspace of Afghanistan, the mostly empty flight blacked out its lights to avoid being fired upon by the enemy. I remember sitting in the mesh cargo net seating and just thinking, “How did I get here?”
I’m proud of my service in Afghanistan, but those six months were the longest of my life. During that deployment, I was nearly killed. A stray 9mm round from the negligent discharge of a Beretta M9 almost took me out. Fortunately for me (and the idiot with the M9), I got lucky that day when the bullet missed my head by inches. I think that’s when I first started rethinking what my life should look like. I saluted a lot of coffins in Afghanistan that were making that long journey home and it made me realize how short life can be.
In 2010, I commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. By this time I was working full-time for the Air Guard. I was a “national guard technician”, which means that your full-time position is dependent on your part-time military status as a national guardsman. This stipulation would come back to haunt me later on.
By 2013, my career was starting to go off the rails. I was working for what I would say was my first truly bad boss. We butted heads constantly and the workplace began to feel toxic. It was around this time that my co-worker and friend Peter Martucci introduced me to the writings of Robert Kiyosaki. My mind was blown and my thinking was about to change forever.
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad had an incredible impact on my life. After reading that book, my entrepreneurial drive was reignited. Peter was just getting started on his options trading journey around this time and little did we know that a few years later we would be writing together at JPCashFlow.com. Our conversations at the time were about how we could achieve more financial control and independence in our life. Those topics eventually inspired us to start a financial education website together.
2013 brought some career turbulence to our professional lives. Peter and I were furloughed twice that year. First, we had to take an unpaid day of leave every week. Later that year, we would be caught up in a full-scale government shutdown. To make matters worse, we found out that our unit was being “re-aligned” and our positions eliminated. We weren’t sure we would still have jobs by the following year. I started making use of the unpaid downtime to investigate how I could start making money online and consider what I would do if I was laid off.
I started small online. I knew people sold stuff on eBay and Peter told me some stories about someone he knew that made a lot of money doing it. A World War II veteran neighbor I was friends with would often go to the town dump’s “take it or leave it” to see what free items were available. I tagged along and found that some fine china teacups were being left there. After researching the markings on the cups, I found out that people who had missing cups in their sets were looking for these items.
Selling teacups made me some money, but when the supply dried up, so did that business model. A fellow lieutenant, Michelle, mentioned to me that she sold her college textbooks on Amazon. I didn’t know that an individual could sell on Amazon prior to this. I signed up for a seller account and started thinking about what I could sell.
I knew I needed something with a fairly steady supply. While browsing Craigslist one day, I noticed people were constantly trying to give away entire lots of vinyl record albums. I responded to one of those ads and went to an older gentleman’s house who had literally boxes of old records. The records were in great condition and I took all the boxes that I could fit in my car.
Selling vinyl records was tough. First of all, I often had to build the Amazon listings from scratch. Second, I didn’t know that Amazon probably wasn’t the best platform for used goods. Third, shipping such delicate items is really challenging. I continued doing this business until some unexpected happy news came my way.
The National Guard Association ran a scholarship contest for young officers interested in pursuing graduate studies. They were offering a full ride through the program of your choice at the University of Phoenix online. Given my newfound interest in entrepreneurship, I thought an MBA would be a surefire way to give me the skills I would need to run a business.
I wrote three essays for this competition and was floored when I was selected as one of three officers nationwide to win this honor. I started on a two year MBA program with a focus on marketing. I put all my off-duty focus on doing well in this program and put my online side hustles aside.
Getting a $30,000 education for free was an amazing gift. I still appreciate it to this day. What I didn’t realize going into the program though was that MBAs don’t really teach you how to run a business. There were useful things I learned, but I mainly got the impression that the program was more interested in training employees. After graduating, I felt like I was still starting from square one.
Things at work settled a bit and I was placed in a new position so that they wouldn’t have to let me go. That whole experience made me more determined than ever to develop other sources of income outside of my job. I wasn’t going back to selling record albums, so I had to find something else to sell. It was around this time I discovered that people would buy items at stores and then resell them for a profit on Amazon. I listened to a podcast from a guy named Jordan Malik, who taught this strategy and I also attended a local e-commerce group where they discussed the topic.
This business model worked better than anything else I had tried up to this point. By 2015, I had published books, sold services on Fiverr, and tried affiliate marketing. Flipping products (also known as retail arbitrage) and having Amazon ship them through their FBA program was eye-opening. I was leveraging the Amazon fulfillment network to save time and grow.
The problem with retail arbitrage is that it can be inconsistent. It’s not your Amazon listing (anyone can undercut you) and you usually don’t have a steady supply of merchandise. I decided to invest $800 in a program that was going to teach me how to source and launch my own private label product. I chose to import 1,000 hairbrushes from overseas and spent around $2,000 getting this product off the ground. It sold some, but generally, I’d call it a flop. Coincidently, I’m still selling the few remaining units that I have left.
By 2017, I was making some money, but I was frustrated. I was doubting myself. I was starting to give up hope that I could create a real business with consistent income. It was that same year that my job was threatened again. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and this was a potentially disqualifying condition for military service. As I mentioned earlier, if I lost my military affiliation, I would lose my full-time job. I was stressed and worried constantly.
In the summer of 2017, I heard Chris Green on Jim Cockrum’s podcast talking about a program called Merch by Amazon. Merch is a print-on-demand program where people upload designs and Amazon prints the designs on apparel when a customer orders them. When you got a sale, you got a royalty. You didn’t have to carry inventory and there was no “race to bottom” pricing like there was in product flipping. I loved the idea and applied for an account. I was accepted into the program in late autumn of 2017.
In 2018, despite not being a graphic designer, I learned how to sell apparel. Every month my income started to go up. Meanwhile, at work, my job was converted to a civilian position and I took an early retirement from military service. On September 1st, I wore the uniform for the last time and retired as a Captain. Leaving the military meant a loss of about $600 a month of income. Fortunately, still having my full-time job and my multiple streams of income ensured that this was not a major hardship. The extra time I have now is fully invested in continuing to grow my online business.
Looking back at the past six years seems like a blur. I went from not knowing anything about selling online to consistently making money every month. I don’t make a full-time income yet, but in the coming years I know I will. I think the biggest transformation that came from becoming an online entrepreneur was my personal life. I don’t feel trapped anymore. I have an abundance mindset. I finally realized that there is a ton of money in the world and there is enough opportunity for everyone. I finally got rid of that poverty mindset that haunted me from childhood.
Another great thing is that I have many new friends. Some of the best people I have met are fellow online entrepreneurs. I’ve been to four seller conferences and participate in a local mastermind. I’ve rubbed elbows with some of the biggest names in the business and have spent time with multi-millionaires. They say that “you are who you hang out with” and I understand why now. People who set their own course and create their own destiny are inspiring. These relationships are driving me to work harder on my business and are giving me a happier outlook on life.
If you are thinking about jumping into making money online, I would caution to you to exercise patience. It won’t happen overnight. There will be frustration and problems; it’s inevitable. If you persist and adapt, then you will eventually find success. Online entrepreneurship is about more than just making money. It’s about making a life that you love.
Leave a Reply