Thread by @mywifequit

How I Started Two 7 Figure Businesses While Working Full Time With 2 Kids (and only $630)

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Background:

2007.

My wife and I were stuck:

1- Wake up
2-Go to work
3-Return home
4-Dinner
5-Watch TV in bed until we crashed
6-Wake up
7-Repeat

Our lives just seemed so aimless.

To make things worse

My wife really HATED her job

Every morning after breakfast she would approach me with a long face and say

"Honey...I'm off to the hell hole I call my job" 😢

Needless to say it hurt me to see my wife suffer like this.

Until one day a major event hit us.

My wife got pregnant with our first child.

We immediately set 3 big goals

1) Get our act together
2) Earn a ton of money
3) Build a lifestyle that allowed my wife to be a stay at home mom

We faced 2 major problems
❌My wife had a 6 figure salary we had to replace
and

❌Silicon valley's high cost of living

Since we both had 6 figure salaries, we had developed a certain kind of lifestyle we didn't want to give up.

Finally...

After a friend showed me a successful online store he built with ZERO prior web experience whatsoever....

We decided to start an e-com business...

Why E-com?
✔You can build a fully functional store without any coding experience
✔You have a store that's opened 24/7
✔You don't even need to carry inventory if you dropship

Our total startup cost?

$630.

The crazy part?

Today this business is worth 7 figures (Go to bumblebeelinens(dot)com to check it out)

It's crazy to think we started in 2007 selling wedding handkerchiefs

But with hard work and patience we've managed to quit our jobs and support our family with our online businesses.

That first business led to some great wins for us:
> We made 100k profit in our first year
> My wife quit her job for good
> She now earns more while being a stay at home mom

So how did we come up with the idea of selling wedding handkerchiefs?
👇👇

How to find a profitable niche:

💰The best way to find a niche is to find a problem you're already facing and solve it💰

In our case it was finding a quality handkerchief for our wedding.

After searching EVERYWHERE we could only find one wholesale manufacturer in China.

Seeing as the min. order was for 240 hankies we decided to bite our finger and pull the trigger.

We ended up using a few of them and sold the rest on Ebay.

The fact that these sold like hotcakes validated our idea.

So when it came time to build Bumblebee Linens...

We went back to our vendor and formed an agreement to sell his hankies on our website.

After our first business took off

I started getting a ton of questions from friends about starting an online business.

Instead of answering the same questions over and over again...

I decided to launch my blog (mywifequitherjob.com)

This blog did not get off to a good start:
❌I had no readers (not even my mom lol)
❌It made no money

It took 2 years before it started to become profitable.

But I did notice one pattern...

My readers kept sending me...

questions about e-commerce.

These questions led me to launch my first course 🤯 in March 2011.

The crazy part is I didn't even have any content lol. I just wanted to see if there was any demand.

I'm grateful that 35 students put their faith in me and today...

we have over 3500 students enrolled and 100+ hours of video content.

This course has turned my blog into a 7 figure business.

And led me to create my next business... The annual "sellers summit"

The funny thing about the summit is I had no intention of turning it into a biz...

The idea was born because my followers kept asking me about having an in-person meet up.

I'm happy to report that the summit is now 5 years old and we've sold out every single year.

Why did I tell you this long story about my business experience?

Because I want you to...

understand that starting a small business does not have to be hard.

So let's dispel the biggest myths right now:

❌You don't have to start the next big thing

Entrepreneurship is not about starting the next Amazon.

I started selling handkerchiefs. Think about that...

❌You don't have to hit a home run
It's more about starting with a base hit and generating some momentum

❌You don't have to spend a ton of money
We started with just $630
That was enough to get a computer, a camera, web hosting and initial inventory.

Next myth...

❌You don't need a lot of technical skills
Everything is open source these days. I started my business with zero coding experience.

❌It takes a ton of time
I built 3x businesses while having a wife, 2 kids and working my full time job as an engineering director

I also...

have a blog, 2x courses, a podcast, a Youtube channel and an annual conference.

and I STILL have time to spend with my family.

My advice?

Adopt the slow and steady mindset.

Set aside 1-2 hours a day just for your business.

It might not seem like much but those small wins.

will become big victories as they have for me.

I want to leave you with some important takeaways:

>You will never make life changing money working for someone else
> The only way to make life changing money is to have equity in a business
> Aim to be your own boss

Also...

Final Pro Tip: Get a cushy job and use your extra time on the job to build your own business!

This may seem counter-intuitive but this approach allows you to pay your own bills while building your own business on the side.

Final thought 👇👇

If you enjoyed this thread, please share by RT the first tweet of this thread.

I hope my story inspires more people to quit their job and start their own businesses.

Finally, if you enjoy my content please consider giving me a Follow.

Thanks for reading!