AI Tips + Entrepreneur’s Insights for Wealth Creation
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In the US, the median income in 2021 was $5,809 per month. Yet, only 8.8% were millionaires, and 95% of all millionaires in the US have a net worth of between $1 and $10 million. While a high net worth usually correlates with a high income, this is not always the case, and many people have most of their paper assets tied to their home and/or other illiquid assets.
With the recent surge in popularity of using AI to do almost anything, I thought of asking a 28 year old man from ChatGPT to come up with a plan to become a millionaire within 10 years, 5,000 per month Earn dollars, and build your own business. I went with the age of 28 because that was just a little older than the 10-year time frame when I started my business, and because I wanted to see how creative AI could be with a shorter time frame. Here is the exact prompt that I used:
Achieving a liquid net worth of $1,000,000 is very difficult with those metrics. When you earn $5,000 a month you’ll “only” be able to liquidate $600,000 after 10 years, so unless you invest the money and get a little lucky, you won’t be able to cash out of your pocket.
But if you’re looking at a paper net worth (including assets you can’t liquidate immediately), things get more realistic. If you had invested $500 in the S&P 500 every month 10 years ago, you would be sitting on $116,000 now. If you had invested $2,000 in Tesla in 2011, you would now be sitting on $231,742. But building your own business is often the best way to grow your net worth without relying too much on luck, so let’s look at how to do that.
Note: The “Entrepreneurship Plan” part is based on 6 different parts generated by ChatGPT. Each part begins with AI tips (in quotes), and then I add my own insights based on my experience as an entrepreneur and business owner.
1. Identify your strengths and passions
“Start by figuring out what you are good at and what you enjoy doing. This will help you identify potential business ideas that you are really passionate about.”
It took me years to start working on my blog and commit to it because I couldn’t pick one thing out of all my interests. Before I started writing online, I tried dozens of other things:
Creating a T-shirt business – Failed selling art on Instagram – Failed selling trading algorithms – Failed selling hand painted skateboards – Failed website coding/flipping – Failed
At least I was trying, which was a great start. But I never committed to any of the ideas mentioned above for more than 6 months. i needed to change my perspective
2. Research the market
“Once you’ve identified potential business ideas, research the market to determine if there’s a demand for your product or service. Look at your competitors and see what they’re doing well, and market Where can there be shortcomings in me.
About 3 years ago, I decided that I needed to try my hand at something and then let it take me more than 6 months before giving up. To identify the area where I had the most potential to be successful, I looked at everything I tried so far and realized that many of these markets were saturated and/or requested a large upfront investment Did.
A real t-shirt business requires an inventory, which I didn’t have money for (dropshipping doesn’t require inventory, but ads require a lot of money) Creating social media requires a lot of time, and I’ve never been into social media. I couldn’t send messages to 100 people a day to promote my art. There were many people better than me at website coding, so my market was limited.
Eventually, I realized that I had been writing my whole life, I loved it, and it was a great business because although I wasn’t a talented writer, not many people were willing to put in the work. Writing one article per day is tough, especially when you have to do it at 6 in the morning before leaving for work. I learned early on that hard work without talent beats talent without effort, and so I chose writing as my next business idea.
3. Start Small
“Consider starting your business as a side hustle while you are still working your full-time job. This will allow you to test the market and refine your business model without taking on too much risk. “
Within 1 year of starting my business, I was making money faster than I thought I could, but not enough to quit my job. In my situation, it wasn’t an issue because I love my job, and as AI recommends, it’s always better to feel things out before taking a big risk.
“Starting small” is often one of the biggest obstacles people have to overcome, especially because they don’t see the big picture. They either want to be successful and make a lot of money right away, or they are willing to put in the effort, but find it impossible to travel the distance between where they are and where they want to be.
As trite as it sounds, Apple started out in a garage before becoming the most valuable company in the world, and Warren Buffet started investing at age 14. Ben & Jerry’s started out in the back of an ice cream truck, and it’s now worth $100 billion. Steady wins the race, so don’t be afraid to start small.
These 2 guys started with a truck and built a $100 billion brand (Toby Talbot/AP) — source 4. develop a business plan
“Once you have a solid business idea, develop a business plan that outlines your target audience, products or services, and revenue model.”
I didn’t develop a business plan until a year after I started. That’s when I started making real money, and so I considered my options to maximize my chances for success. I decided to form a one-person company, set up a bank account for it, and not pay myself until I started making serious money. Everything I spent from this account was to be a development investment, and everyone else would sit there and figure out what to do with it.
I also came up with hard goals to hit within 1 year and with check-ins after 6 months. I got this idea from a company I was working for, and it is based on the OKR (Objective Key Results) strategy, which is made up of 2 main components:
Objective: This states where you want to go, and what the desired end result is. Once one objective is completed, another objective will replace the current objective. The objectives in an OKR strategy are not technical, are not measured, and usually do not contain numbers. They should be as easy as possible to understand. Key Results: Unlike the objective, key results should be as precise, technical and measurable as possible. It is used as an indicator of whether the objective is being worked out or not. Key results should be time bound, often quarterly or annually.
The key to strategy is that it focuses on the short-term goals, minute details, and tasks needed to reach larger overarching goals rather than on daily tasks that can seem boring, disjointed, and sometimes unrealistic. Here are some target examples that I set for my blog.
Objective A
Optimize my marketing funnel to increase my conversion rate from people reading my articles to becoming newsletter subscribers.
main result a
Revamp the sign up landing page to make it more engaging, and write clear bottom text CTAs.
Objective B
Release 50-Interview Productivity Guide By Year’s End
Main Result B
Reach out to 100 people, select the best 50 to interview and put together the guide
Objective C
Make money with my own digital products
Main Result C
release a premium version of my interview guide (with 75 interviews instead of 50) and promote it on my website right after people download the free version
5. Leverage Technology
“Use online platforms to market your business and connect with potential customers. Set up social media accounts, build a website, and consider investing in search engine optimization (SEO) to help your business appear in search results.
Especially as an online writer, it has always been paramount to invest in technology that can help me expand my reach. I’m not on social media much so I stay away from it, and I’ve used paid Google ads before without much success. In general, I find that the tools I get the most value from are either cheap or free, and the highest return on investment I get is almost always the hard work. For example, I wrote a Google top-ranking article on TickTick, which gets me thousands of visits to my website every month. Some of those visits convert into sales.
Here’s a quick overview of some of my favorite tools I use and how much they cost per year:
Mailchimp – $2,000 (Email Marketing) Zapier – $712 (Automation Tool) Revolut – $330 (Bank Account) Sendowl – $230 (Digital Product Sales) Elementor – $100 (Website Building Platform) 6. reinvest profits
“Instead of taking all of your profits out of the business, consider plowing them back into the business to fuel growth. This could include investing in marketing, hiring employees, or developing new products or services.” .
Even after 2 years of starting my business, I have not yet given myself a single penny as salary or bonus. Sure I’ve spent on gear, stuff I love, and that’s rewarding too, but I’ve never taken cash out of the account.
Here’s another advantage to keeping your job for the first few years: Any money you make from your business is a bonus, and so even a few hundred dollars per month can add up very quickly. Even though I sometimes spend a lot of money on new gear and/or equipment, I rarely spend more than what I spend each month on:
Cashflow of my business in 2022
At the end of the day, even if you can build a business that generates $100K a year for 10 consecutive years, you won’t get $1 million in cash after taxes and expenses. Then why include the $5,000 salary metric? Because again, keeping a job on the side will allow you to keep business money in the business account, and reinvest it in growth.
The truth is that a business is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and lucky for us entrepreneurs, investors invented an indicator to predict how much they’re worth for any business in any industry. How much are you willing to pay for. It’s called EBITDA, and it’s awesome.
“EBITDA is an acronym that stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. EBITDA is an indicator often used by investors or potential buyers to measure the financial performance of a business. – Source
When looking to put a price on a business, potential buyers look at EBITDA and multiply it by a number based on the industry your company fits into. Here are some examples:
Some Examples of Industry Multiples – Source
A blog/writing business would fit into the “online services” category, which has a multiplier of 15.88. Based on that number, here’s the business value based on how much it makes:
This means that if your business can make $8,333 per month ($100K per year), if you find the right people to sell to, and you’re good at showing value, you could technically sell for $1 million+. Can