First time poster, nearly there

[IanDavid]

Hi Everyone.

I picked up 4HWW about eight months ago when I was in Barnes & Noble and flipped through a few pages because, like most others I'm sure, the title totally appealed to me! It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I bought the book for real and read it cover to cover... which I've since done a few more times!

Creating my muse was pretty easy, because I have a strong interest in private aviation (I've been a licensed pilot since I was 17) and a lot of my career to date has been focused on SEM (until recently, I worked at a certain company whose name starts with Y!) So, I combined my vocation with my profession, and found a small number of high-margin pilot-oriented products from manufacturers on ThomasNet, which I first tested on eBay for interest, and then put my professional experience into action.

The results were almost instantaneous. Within a week of putting up my site and some strategic keyword purchases, I had grossed $9k and had built up an opt-in mailing list of over 800 people. I'm now grossing $30-50k a week (netting $15-25k) and have a mailing list of over 9,000 pilots around the world. I initially spent about five hours a day on the business, but with streamlining and outsourcing run of the mill tasks, and (like Tim says) putting trust in my network to solve decisions that really aren't that urgent, I'm down to about 12-15 hours a week and am putting in place additional plans to halve that number.

And now I'm planning my first mini-retirement! Four weeks in Japan, followed by another four in Australia!

IT CAN BE DONE! This book totally changed my life and I just want to let everyone else know that they can do it too, if they just apply the principles in the book, use the resources that Tim outlines (and find more of their own!), and stay positive!

Having worked in the internet world for some years, I was never one to go on forums or message boards, but I couldn't pass by the opportunity to share my story!

[kamakiri]

Thanks for the story. When will you be in Japan and where were you planning to visit? The rainy season is coming up, so you might want to take that into consideration.

[IanDavid]

I'm targeting August for the Japan leg.

[nghs22]

Inspiring for sure! Thanks

[maxpr]

Great story. Always good to hear about someone who has made it happen!

Would you say that your direct experience in aviation gave you the ideas for specific products or were they products you thought would be good and you just tried out?

I am always curious to know when people jump into things how intimately they intially know the product(s).

Best of luck!

[IanDavid]

Hey guys, thanks for the encouraging comments! As nice as it is to prove people wrong sometimes -- and I had my share of doubters! -- I'll take positive reinforcement any day!

My experience as a private pilot DEFINITELY guided me to products that I at least thought would sell well. I had three main categories of things: items that I had a hard time finding myself to buy online; things that were recurring purchases for pilots and, therefore, would have a consistent market for sales; and, finally, things that have at LEAST a 50% markup over wholesale.

I think if you can apply those criteria to pretty much any marketable category of products, you'll be in great shape.