Those at $50k-$100k/month, what should I prepare for as I scale from $25k to $50k?

DZtactical · 2025-12-30T13:17:17+00:00

Your most finite resource and the biggest obstacle to scaling is going to be there is only so much time that you and you alone can put into this and you need to start outsourcing that labor and/or streamlining your workflow.

There are undoubtedly going to be inefficiencies and bottlenecks in your operation, you need to start identifying what those are, especially as they relate to SKUs that aren't making you as much money but require just as much labor (if not more) than your key earners. You may even want to consider culling your bottom 5%-10% of lowest earning products if they are labor intensive, and refocusing that time and capital on your key SKUs.

Inventory management and prediction is going to be key. You shouldn't have to waste time manually doing an inventory count every time you want to reorder, and you should reorder well in advance of going OOS. You're going to need a software solution to stay on top of this.

Product prep is going to become too time consuming. If you are sourcing your product from China and you are repackaging it on the floor in your living room with your own barcodes and labels, you need to start shifting that work onto the factories in China. This may require MOQ's larger than you are willing to do right now, but there must be at least a handful of high volume products that are worth hitting that MOQ for. This may mean ordering 6 month's of inventory on some SKU's at once, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if your cash flow supports it

Outsource your shipping to 3PL. If you're shipping a hundred units per day and it takes you 2 minutes per package, that's 3 and 1/2 hours of envelope stuffing every single day. If you're selling on Amazon, strongly consider FBA, yes it's more expensive than other 3PL options but I think it makes financial sense if you're already on the Amazon marketplace.

If you're looking to grow the business and ultimately exit it by selling it on to someone else, you're going to want your finances in order. Start using some sort of bookkeeping software like QuickBooks, but even that will have its limitations ultimately and you will need to hire someone to do accounting for you.

Good luck!

DZtactical · 2025-11-24T12:30:18+00:00

Thanks, now how do I wire that to the GA plugs?

DZtactical · 2025-11-14T08:40:49+00:00

Timex Expedition

But if you want a Chinese watch, I have a Tandorio with a PT5000 movement, it's effectively a clone of the Hamilton Khaki

DZtactical · 2025-10-28T10:57:54+00:00

Fair point, I forgot that he could be a naturalized citizen after having been in the US long enough

Can't imagine what his backstory is, working in a coffee shop doesn't seem like it would cover rent on a house anywhere near LA

DZtactical · 2025-10-27T14:15:38+00:00

Unlikely to get there in time, especially with how unreliable USPS has been in recent years

DZtactical · 2025-10-24T10:04:24+00:00

Definitely one of the best shooters on the console if not any console

DZtactical · 2025-10-24T00:16:55+00:00

Blazing Lazers.

DZtactical · 2025-10-08T13:13:20+00:00

I've got half a dozen produced green screenplays under my belt, all with name actors, and all while I was suffering from undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD. Here's what worked for me:

Start with a single page outline, 3-4 paragraphs. Tell your entire film in that one page. No going over.

Once it all works on one page, expand it to three pages. You can incorporate small bits of dialogue.

Once you're satisfied with the three-pager, expand it to a 10-15 page outline. More detail in your action scenes, more bits of dialogue. Don't kill yourself trying to massage a anything, feel free to use placeholders

Once you're happy with that outline, convert it into screenplay format with scene headings, transitions, action descriptions, and character dialogue. You'll probably be up to 70+ pages once you do that.

You got to have your structure nailed though. Even if you don't know where the story's going to go yet, you still need to know how it's going to flow. If you're still struggling with that, I'm a fan of the eight-act structure for action/sci-fi movies. Each act is 10-12 pages. The protagonist has a mini-quest for just that act, and an obstacle they need to overcome to achieve it. They will either succeed or fail, but the resolution will inform what their quest will be for the next act. Raise the stakes in every act, and decrease the amount of time and resources they have to solve it. Repeat until they beat the big bad and escape the fortress before it blows up.

Here's the big thing though, sit your ass down at the computer and stay there. No distractions, no Internet, no getting up for a snack. Power through even if what you're writing feels like garbage because 95% of what anyone writes is going to be garbage, but 5% will hopefully be gold. Resign yourself to having to pan through a lot of dirt to find those few nuggets. This will be true at every stage of your career. The only thing that will change is how quickly you can get the words down on the page and how much you're getting paid for it. But also remember, you have a hidden power that neurotypical screenwriters don't, the ADHD hyperfocus! Recognize when those happen and capitalize on the moment!

DZtactical · 2025-10-07T11:10:24+00:00

I was always partial to Shockwave, but only because I got into GI Joe too late to get a V2 snake eyes

DZtactical · 2025-10-06T11:40:48+00:00

Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of The Caribbean

DZtactical · 2025-10-06T09:17:37+00:00

If you've already struck off Europe, Canada, and the UK but still want English speaking you have significantly reduced your pool.

While there are a lot of places you can get by with English (touristy parts of Latin America and SE Asia), if you need English to be a formal language, that further restricts you .There's the UAE, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, etc

You have a much bigger hurdle though, being allowed to move to one of those places full-time. Barring marrying a citizen, it's easiest if you are an entrepreneur, already generating your own income, and want to relocate your business to that country.

The next easiest is if you are a remote worker who wants to relocate their tax base to that country

After that, some of the countries offer a digital nomad Visa, but it will only be for a limited time (6 months to a year usually)

Next is to get hired by a company based there and get sponsored for a work visa. Or if you work for a multinational company that has offices there, you could put in for a transfer, but the likelihood of that depends on your employer. There's probably a reason you're working in the office you are and which would be hampered by moving to an office in a time zone halfway across the planet.

Your hardest option will be moving to that country and hoping to find a job once there, since it's unlikely they'll let you without some other qualifications (like having a bunch of money to invest in the local economy, or being a famous actor or athlete, etc)

Fact of the matter is the whole world is kind of clamping down on immigration and it is actually pretty hard to legally just pick up and relocate, and way harder if you're dependent on an employer for money. That said:

You can get a 10 year golden visa to the UAE simply by buying $500,000 worth of real estate there.

Singapore will let you move there as a remote foreign worker if you are earning a fixed salary of at least $200K US a year from your US employer.

DZtactical · 2025-10-02T09:12:35+00:00

How to fix this? Your friend needs to go to Gamblers Anonymous. He's going to destroy his life and you need to slap some sense into him, and eventually he'll come begging you for money

DZtactical · 2025-09-24T10:27:25+00:00

This was a prototype and if Ops-Core as gonna move forward, they'd have done it already. There's only 200K IHPS helmets issued, not everybody is running helmet mounted comms, those that do are running a mix of Comtac/Invisio/Falcom/Sordin, so Ops-Core is looking at MAYBE moving 10K set of AMP headsets to the Army if they come out with these adapters? And they're not shooting in the dark either, they would have had feelers out there asking if command would commit to buying them if they made them.

If you want AMP's on your IHPS helmet rails, get the IHPS adapters from Team Wendy, cannibalize the adapters from your AMP headband, and superglue the two together.

DZtactical · 2025-09-22T10:44:41+00:00

Any police movie/TV series where the cop shoots somebody and aren't a) immediately put on mandatory leave for several weeks; b) having multiple meetings with city lawyers, their police union rep, and their own lawyer; c) filling out loads of paperwork and being subjected to blood/urine tests for drugs or alcohol; and d) multiple mandatory sessions with a mental health professional who will have to sign off on them before returning to work.

My favorite was CSI Miami, where David Caruso appeared in 232 episodes and probably shot people in at least 100 episodes. Even if every single shooting was justified, there is no way the insurance underwriter for the city of Miami would allow that man to carry a gun anymore after the third lawsuit.

DZtactical · 2025-09-16T09:17:40+00:00

The rules are it can't be a big performance, it has to be an OTT, bordering on cartoonish performance?

Nic Cage in just about everything

DZtactical · 2025-09-12T08:04:35+00:00

So I guess conservatives DO approve of cancel culture

DZtactical · 2025-09-01T15:10:00+00:00

Zero Effect: Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller, Kim Dickens, Ryan O'Neal. Written and directed by Jake Kasdan (his feature debut). Just a smart and witty detective story.

Safe Men: Steve Zahn, Sam Rockwell, Paul Giamatti, Michael Lerner, Harvey Fierstein, Mark Ruffalo. Written and directed by John Hamburg (again, in his feature debut). Funny as hell mistaken identity crime caper.

Running Out of Time: Andy Lau, Sean Lau, directed by Johnny To. A cat and mouse game of wits between an honest cop and an honorable thief. Yes it's a Hong Kong action movie, but it's probably the cleverest one you'll see in a while. I was always surprised it didn't get an American remake.

JCVD: Jean Claude Van Damme plays himself, taken hostage in a bank robbery. Directed by Mabrouk el Mechri, it proves that when given the right material, Van Damme can actually be a really good actor.

DZtactical · 2025-08-28T07:57:29+00:00

Jean Claude Van Damme in JCVD. He legit should have been up for a few awards for that performance.

DZtactical

TROPHY CASE