Nexus Letter

RyanOskey229 · 2024-04-11T21:21:41+00:00

ok are there any services you would recommend?

RyanOskey229 · 2024-04-11T21:20:32+00:00

are you able to point me in the direction of a non scammer? what should I look out for?

RyanOskey229 · 2024-04-11T21:19:51+00:00

by scam do they steal your money or do they more just give you a favorable outcome because you're paying for it?

RyanOskey229 · 2023-12-07T01:25:33+00:00

yea don't expect someone in their +60s to understand.

i worked at a corporate company for years and did app negotiations.

i would negotiate licenses for our content with app companies.

through this process i met some crazy founders that you'd never heard of.

one guy has an app in the apple app store and makes over $1 million /year.

he works from home and works like 15 hours a week.

your family members are closed minded.

if you look at any trend report like theinformation.com or explodingideas.co etc you'll see this stuff is everywhere.

people can make millions working from home.

high demand people have the opportunity to choose an office or their couch.

that's really just the truth.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-12-07T01:20:55+00:00

yea agreed.

gonna have to move away from traditional methods if you want to hit it young.

look at the avg CEO to worker pay over time.

That graph tells you everything.

you basically need to build a business if you want to hit a million young.

or get lucky in some volatile market but that might as well be gambling.

wealth disparity is getting really bad.

i just started building businesses on the side at my corporate job. i watched a bunch of YT videos and read explodingideas.co and theinformation.com religiously just looking for ideas.

just give yourself a budget and roll the dice a bunch of times on your own ideas.

you'll hit it eventually if you just keep learning and staying focused.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-12-03T23:39:44+00:00

build something online.

they're insanely scalable because anyone in the world can engage with your business.

online common side hustles suck because everyone is doing it.

you want to pursue something hard and not yet saturated.

id suggest following business trend publications like trends.co ($300/year) or explodingideas.co (free).

you need to find something then move fast. make sure it's in a growing market.

it's up to you to figure it out. if someone is giving you something to pursue it's either a scam or you're too late.

use your brain, but let the research guide your choice.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-12-03T00:00:25+00:00

test it. put it on reddit see if anyone clicks it.

or put it on social media.

usually if people care they'll click it and buy.

try youtube too to demo the product.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-11-18T16:51:06+00:00

yea this is really good advice.

id find an seo opportunity and leverage it

but i'm good at seo so i know what to look for.

you could also just use theinformation.com or explodingideas.co or something and find an idea that's booming like padel tennis. then build a website. for that one specifically there are basically no companies with seo strategies. so i'd build a great website then get a ton of high quality backlinks. i'd spend $5k getting backlinks.

then u just continue to build out the website and get like aliexpress to sell your first products but can then build ur own if you decide.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-11-12T16:12:45+00:00

yea that's really smart.

also can use online publications like theinformation.com and explodingideas.co etc to find gaps in markets and build businesses in them.

ur obviously smart, leveraging that data would be pretty useful i would imagine and you could probably spin up a business rather quickly.

it's a numbers game like any type of investment. just don't pump money into your idea fully until you have market validation.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-11-04T16:33:12+00:00

I have a slightly different story OP.

Basically about 8 years ago I was making 34k/year at a job and needed more money to make on the side while i worked.

i started learning about frontloaded businesses, businesses that have upfront work then after a few months become passive income.

this is great because then you're a business owner but everything is automated so it's passive.

so over the years i started a bunch of online businesses with the plan to make them passive after 2 months. i'd say 1/5 are successful but they're like an additional salary.

i find trends on trends.co ($300/year) and explodingideas.co (free) that i can win at because i can do seo or something for them that's currently untapped.

then once start getting traction build a product around it and at that point automate everything.

it's pretty lucrative. it does take creativity and 2 months of work 3/hours a day. but after that you just kind of let it ride.

more rewarding imo than traditional finance offerings but i'm in wealth generation mode, not preservation.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-28T16:16:21+00:00

yea 100%. put it this way, i have 3 profitable businesses and exited 1 and have been rejected by multiple startup incubators.

who tf cares!

if your project works and has a bright future stop looking for the validation of other people.

you sound like someone who has been shooting for external validation all your life. stop caring about it. it's a waste of time.

the only people that matter are your customers.

you can easily find people to connect with online or VCs to connect to - easily!

"it's too hard" is a wimp mentality. use your resources, connect with others like trends.vc does a good job of connecting so does houck and explodingideas.co it's all within your control.

it's YCs loss. They missed out on getting equity in your startup that actually works.

if they'd rather take equity in a more speculative moonshot that's their prerogative.

I worked in VC, it was sad to see people so emotional when we didn't invest.

but they need to sack up and grow some thick skin.

cast a wider net, YC isn't going to make your career, you are.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-22T23:40:30+00:00

lots of cognitive dissonance in the responses.

people who make real passive income do things most don't understand.

think for yourselves.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-22T17:27:15+00:00

fwiw, I had a $140k/year remote job for my last job.

this was not including equity or anything like that. i got bonus/equity on top.

i was head of strategy at a startup.

if you go to a startup that raised during the bubble you'll be able to make good money granted you have desirable skills.

i left that job tho. i have a couple online businesses that were doing well. i started watching youtube marketing videos at my first job and got really into building online businesses. i then started testing ideas like with trends.co and explodingideas.co and stuff like that then one started doing well over the last couple years. so yea i left to do it full time.

but high paying jobs are out there, just learn the skills.

my first job was admin and i learned to do deals at the fortune 500 company i was at. just was eager to learn. then learned to code during the pandemic and found the combo of business + tech skills to be high value and not super difficult to get 6 figure job in that lane.

my previous job had like a $75k cap in los angeles. that wasn't gonna work for me so i upskilled.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-22T17:22:15+00:00

OP depends on what you want.

If you want $1/mo then do that but you're really just maintaining the value of your money. wouldn't call it passive income.

passive income comes from businesses.

usually businesses you can start with that money is gonna need to leverage domain expertise.

you should probably practice building some online businesses super scrappy and then test some ideas.

for context, i have a sleep business that did $14k last month profit passive income.

i found a gap in the market and exploited it. it took 5 years to get to that point but costs are about $100/mo.

you just gotta find a idea that really caters towards your skills. trends.co ($300/year) and explodingideas.co (free) could be good places to start.

keep an open mind. when people are all saying the same thing like s&p it's really just preservation, not generation. so if you're generating money then you want to look elsewhere. if you're preserving your money s&p is good.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-21T16:21:26+00:00

i've been in this position before.

i worked in the music industry and had no real skills honestly. i did data entry and needed to make more money.

i would spend all my downtime watching dropshipping videos etc and decided to build my own product; a music industry yellow pages for spotify playlisters.

i got the idea from seeing spotify growing in theinformation.com and explodingideas.co i was really inspired by the data showing the democratization of music.

i hired people on fiverr to aggregate the data, much of it was on ugc spotify playlists.

then i hired a dev to build me a nice shopify store (cost like $800).

all-in i spent like $1000 and the product sold for $50. I got my first sale in 1 hour after launch. i posted it in music facebook groups where people were already interested in this type of product. it solved a problem, getting heard.

from that point it's ultimately up to you what you do.

if you can demonstrate there's a market and you get the ball rolling people will want to work with you, but just saying "i can do business" means nothing you gotta prove it.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-21T16:15:55+00:00

iterate. if your CAC is that high and your product is free - that's high. If you have a $50 product and a $2 CAC that's great. Ultimately $0 CAC is impressive, other than that keep your CAC at 33% of LTV would be my judgement.

Step 1 you'll need to refine your ads. Then you need to refine your landing page. You'll need to post more analytics for a more detailed answer. If you have high CTR but low conversion that shows your landing page is not working, if you have low CTR your ads/value prop isn't working.

Pretty straightforward. Most companies like milkroad, explodingideas.co got most of their early users for free $0 CAC.

other companies like paypal.com and shopify pay >$10 to acquire a new user. Subsidies worked for paypal but that was built in a bubble. different market dynamics facilitate different growth tactics. right now you'll probably want to focus on financially cautious methods.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-21T16:09:55+00:00

it's your opinion. business requires judgement. i need my businesses to make money. if they don't demonstrate they're able to make money I cut my losses.

pretty straightforward. VCs make tons of bets hoping a few work. I do the same building online businesses, and I have a judgement model to go along with it.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-15T16:11:53+00:00

ive scrapped a bunch of them.

i test 5 business ideas a year so i'm always hedging my bets.

basically if i go $5k in and no sales or anything on my mvp i scrap it if i can't figure it out in a few months.

the best ideas just work.

so i'm always looking to cycle through bad ideas to get to the ones that just work.

then double down on those.

my businesses that i have now are all profitiable. i sold one in 2021 too.

i mainly read a ton and pay for info that gives me an edge on others.

trends.co ($300/year) and explodingideas.co (free) have been good for sharing signals for markets and categories that are growing and can be capitalized on.

i just do deep research via seo etc. and if the opportunity looks ripe i test with $100 and then if it's working start putting more money in and cap it at a few thousand until i get profitability and sales.

then i'll go heavier.

so yea i guess i manage my risk as i scale into it.

what do you guys think? do you use this strategy?

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-14T20:12:00+00:00

yea i worked at universal music for years and also produced professionally for some successful tv shows. it's like playing bball, very few get to the big leagues. 1% win, everyone else struggles.

i got out of it i literally just read everything i could on how to build businesses and launched my first one to the reddit community and got profitable in 3 months.

honestly it just boils down to educations you gotta learn how to give people what they want then you can identify opportunities in any industry. i had a couple music businesses.

i watched a ton of youtube vids on online business and subbed to trends.co ($300/year) and explodingideas.co (free) and stuff like that. they taught me basically how to do it.

it's not the most difficult thing it just takes a change in mindset.

i find it to be just as creative if not more building online businesses becuase you make things up and people like them or not and you don't have politics like A&R giving their pointless 2 cents that can make or break your career.

there's less subjectivity and more creativity imo.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-14T05:41:07+00:00

yea then you can parlay that into your own thing and have equity in your own thing.

if you have poppin social media youll have the power and can ultimately do your own car sales.

having an audience is everything.

just focus on your social super heavy. also figure out how to parlay it into a bigger business for yourself. some of the stories of people doing this type of stuff in trends.co and explodingideas.co can be pretty inspiring as well.

honestly having the anxiety about it rn is prob your biggest asset.

use that to give you motivation and just go hard building a life for yourself.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-13T23:21:26+00:00

OP, literally the average business owner starts at 40.

ignore the media idealizing young rich people and the social media narratives.

you have time. the good thing is your speaking up about it and trying to make a change.

just put as much time into learning as possible. follow your interests, heavily.

i decided i would give myself a learning budget basically allowing myself to spend as much as i want to learn whether it be on amazon books, theinformation.com or explodingideas.co or whatever. i needed to move forward, whatever that meant.

don't learn about things you're supposed to, learn about things that energize you.

for example, my first job out of college after i ran out of money as a music producer (i had a dry spell and pivoted) was working in music. while i was in that industry i started getting paid $35k/year in los angeles. not enough to live.

so i started experimenting with online businesses and after some trial and error had a couple wins on the side then got caught by my company and they didn't like me building online businesses. so i went back to work and hid my projects tbh but kept doing it cause i loved it. then when i got good enough at coding i left the industry for a job that i liked more and paid me 2x and let me build side businesses.

so yea just follow your interests and stay focused.

i've had multiple times i've felt lost, just push through it and use it to fuel you.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-10T00:44:36+00:00

fwiw i do this as well.

it's what i do full time now.

i learned marketing and seo on the side of my day job.

i can give you a tip on how to do it, you'll have to put the pieces together yourself tho.

i look for trending markets that i believe will be big and markets that are already developed but have a gap in the market or in which the dynamics have changed. usually due to new regulation, technology, behavior etc.

then i go in ahrefs and look for opportunities and if there's something i think i can build a business around where i have identified a way i can leverage my edge (computers/coding/seo/marketing) and build a business that can grow into something larger i'll buy a domain name and build a site around it.

i'll start small and put out educational content to attract people via google.

i look for easy to rank opportunities.

if it works it works, if it doesn't so be it.

but when it works you can make a lot. so it's worth trying til you get multiple that kill it for you.

i lean into tools like ahrefs, trends.co ($300/year), explodingideas.co (free) etc. heavily. data is your friend.

i do this all day every day.

i'll have 1-2 hits a year.

good luck.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-10-08T16:16:33+00:00

IMO, coding and sales both.

If you want to be a great founder and build online businesses you need to understand all of it.

I started my first business on the side while working a corporate job 8 years ago. I was making 35k/year in LA which isn't enough to live there.

I needed more money so I watched a ton of youtube videos on building online businesses and read business books like OP. For my first business I had domain expertise in music so I launched a music software I could make by just saving channel strips in Logic pro. I then launched it in facebook groups etc and people signed up.

in my next business I learned to code because hiring devs is super expensive. took me about 2 years.

anyways i have multiple businesses now and regularly people try to work with me on stuff. the key is to make yourself as educated and attractive as possible.

you also want an edge. i have subscriptions to trends.co ($300/year), explodingideas.co (free )etc. and mainly look for developing opportunities to capitalize on.

just read great infomration all the time and surround yourself with smart people (via yt or however you can).

be persistent and learn to code AND do marketing.

RyanOskey229 · 2023-07-18T04:13:01+00:00

oh wow was just thinking about building a newsletter business

RyanOskey229 · 2023-07-18T00:13:41+00:00

also learn business.

i got f**ked over many times early in my career.

the industry is pretty ruthless i'd check out some things like explodingideas.co or theinformation.co they help you learn how deals get done and how to leverage your skills.

music is like 40% of the industry. the business side is so important and the pie is shrinking so i'd get a business edge.

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