So your parents are doctors? That means you do indeed have wealthy parents. How much did you get from them as initial capital? How much did their connections come into play when finding your first few clients?
Let me try and clarify some things
1. Yes they are doctors
2. No that does not mean they are inherently wealthy, literally explained this. They did well later in their life (when they were in their 40s). Doctors don't make any significant amount of capital until they build a strong practice (ask any doctor). The privilege I had (as mentioned) was the fact that I could take risks because I didn't have to put food on the table, pay rent etc etc. They are doing well now at the end of their career (they're both retired).
3. My parents did not give me any initial capital besides buying me a computer. I started a services business, fortunately it did not require capital. This is why most people choose businesses in the services space. It's less capital intensive but typically more competitive in nature because there's a lower barrier to entry.
4. They are doctors, I was in media there is virtually no crossover. I made my own connections and built my own clients.
How did I do that?
1. I built a company in the very beginning called The Gamers Cottage, we slowly built a reputation creating content in the video game space and turned it into a small cash-flowing asset. Did a few thousand dollars every month at the time.
2. The learnings from this was transferred into two jobs I took on. One for a company called ReadMe and then another gig where we tried a bunch of stuff with this person I met in a gaming event (Richard Veloch) who later become Surge's first investor.
This is a video i did for readme, I charged 80k/mo to do a few videos and I was making about 40k/mo with richard.
3. With TheGamersCottage being shut down, I had the opportunity to pivot into a media consultancy/Social Media business with the relationships we built with ReadMe. First big client was Hutch, that relationship was built by the work we did.
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The only reason I can raise the amount of capital I can now is purely because of the track record we've built over the years.
1. My YouTube channel helped me set up TheGamersCottage ($0 cash needed)
2. The Gamers Cottage helped me set up my relationship with ReadMe ($0 cash needed)
3. This eventually led to Surge, we asked for $20K from Richard. He didn't trust us so agreed to pay us $1,000/mo for 20 months as the first investment. (We later bought him out).
4. Surge ended up making small amounts of cash, we spent about ($10-20K over the years building Simplebooks.com)
5. Simplebooks today has close to 100M LKR revenue and nearly 100K subs on YouTube.
6. Started a company with my friend Dave Chesson called PublisherRocket.com (Now generates $1M/yr)
7. Got Tavistock to invest in Surge at a ~$1M valuation
8. TEDxTalk, Forbes 30 under 30, Got appointed as the director at ICTA + lots of things to build on the credibility
9. Surge is worth $10-20M which adds to the credibility
10. Rooster raised at $5M valuation + Second estate is currently raising.
When you look at it from the outside it looks like one or two things went really well. People invest in people, it's a slow moving machine that has been slowly been built over the last decade and now we have random people on forums shitting on being a trust fund baby haha.
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Post added on Jan 14, 2022 at 3:39 PM
