millionairefailure.com~Fail your way to Sucess~

Change the World Ideas

It amazes me how many young people are trying to reinvent the wheel.  They are looking at changing the world with their “new” and fabulous Idea.  They take hours and hours away from actually making money when they could use a copied business model and begin making money quickly.

A Copied Business Model

Have you ever seen a company that you either have used their service or seen their service and said to yourself: “I could do that better”?  That is where the copied business model begins.  There have been many copied business models through out history, Take Coke and Pepsi?  It’s simply the same business with enough change to differentiate one from the other. How many national pizza chains are there?  Pizzahut, Domino’s, Papa John’s, Shakey’s to name a few, then think of all of the local mom & pop pizza shops.

My point is that if you want to make $250,000 a year which is in the top 5% in the US you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, simply take a market you want to know more about, or a market you already know more about and create an opportunity for some customers.

Go get ‘em!

The Junto Experience

The 2008 class of Junto has concluded this year, and what a great experience it has been.  Greg Warnock truly is a master entrepreneur and has great passion for being a successful entrepreneur.  the entire course was dedicated to developing the skills necessary to becoming and maintaining the success necessary to your make starting and creating business your full-time gig.  The entire course was used to push each of us to the next level, and for some to push them to the point they make a decision NOT to become an entrepreneur.

A Great Cause

One of the first things we did was to plan and execute a service project.  The group I was assigned to decided to do a fund raiser for the Primary Children’s Medical Center.  We opened a bank account at Wells Fargo and started raising money, we raised over $4000.00 in materials and cash.   It was a great experience and I learned alot about the purpose for making large sums of money, it gives you the ability to do great things.

This is where things start to get good. With great knowledge comes great responsibility.

Dan the Laptop Man is a Jedi Master!

As part of the Junto 2008 program we were asked to select an inspirational and local Entrepreneur to interview, while this task seems pretty basic, it is at its core quite a task. Knowing how much time an Entrepreneur really has available is quite slim, and for Dan he had to stop playing video game to talk to me, so it was quite a task. Having lived in Utah for quite a while you would have to have been living under a rock not to know who Dan is, his commercial have made us laugh with the sometimes absurdity and frequently laugh out loud attitude. So having seen his commercials and the multiple stores pop up, and the fact that 2 months ago I had my hard drive on my Sony Vaio basically die and having PC Laptops fix it for me, I had to try and interview him.

I contacted him through , and was doubtful he would respond, but within a few days I received a message to send him my phone number and he would call me when he was tired of playing video games. I waited with a kind of angst, as I tried to read all the questions that the Junto program had prepared and then last night at 11:20 PM Dan Calls, It was lucky as I had just finished working, so I was still in the office and had a pen and paper ready.

A Way Out!

Just as I started in with the questions, as Dan was making jokes and having a great time, we spoke about the beginning of his entrepreneurial career, selling t-shirts on Venice beach as he was too cool to sell stuff at the swap-meet, and the benefits was great money and hey “chicks” at the beach, what a cool business. He was making good money and was driving a BMW M3 and loving life, he then became involved in a gang and the “party life” and he openly expressed his experiences and the learn for them, he received a way out as he expressed it to move to Utah and live with his sister.

Using the Force

Dan was working for a computer company Silo and the business went under and he saw the opportunity and asked for the company database and his request was granted, he then contacted the customers and let them know he would be honoring their warranty and they would only have to pay for parts, the first year was difficult and lost about $20,000 but the subsequent year the business became more profitable and he changed the name to PC Laptops in 1994.

Jedi Wisdom

Dan openly is thankful to his mentors and shared some outrageous stories about the methodology behind their teachings. But by simply hearing a few of them I learned a lot. Dan believes in Karma, and wants to freely “give” of himself and of his resources, as one experience he shared is the feeling of letting his friends drive his Ferrari F430 Spyder, just to see the look on their faces! Dan truly has mastered the art of living for the right reason, he expressed the happiness he has simply by giving everything he does everything he has. Dan gave me some great advise and spent almost 2 full hours on the phone with me, I am truly grateful for his candor and his openness about some sensitive subjects and his willingness to help others.

Dan I want to become your Padawan, as you are truly a Jedi Master!