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Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

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Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#21

Post by adbge »

ZombieCoaster wrote: post #17
grandalf wrote: post #10

In parts of Africa you can set up a artesanal diamond mine with a shovel and a strainer. Spend a few weeks there finding diamonds, then smuggle them back to the US and sell them. Document this whole process on video, then sell the rights to a documentary and do a book deal when you get back. Estimated time to completion: 4 months.

how do you not get arrested after publicly admitting you did something illegal?

You move to a country that doesn't extradite to the USA. I hear Myanmar is nice this time of year.

Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#22

Post by petercooper »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #5

I'm going to go and replace 3 years with a "short time frame". Some things to focus on: - Market opportunity- a million dollars isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely…

Love this post, but I'm going to argue against one of your points:

If it's a "trend", it's too late

I disagree. In fact, if something is a trend, it's a guarantee that a market (of some kind) exists and it can save you a lot of time and research. Most big markets have large numbers of high value competitors and they're not all pioneers. Indeed, most companies with significant turnover were not pioneers in their field - they came in with "me too" products that merely improved upon the existing popular ones before they became too entrenched.

The trick is to get in when something becomes a trend but before the masses realize it's a trend and you have hundreds of competitors making similar improvements to the core products and services as quickly as you are. As well as being my belief, it's one of the core tenets of Michael Masterson's tackily-named (but a great read nonetheless) "Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat."

With your reference to the App Store, I suspect you might agree with this, but have a different idea of what a "trend" is. I consider the App Store and developing iPhone apps to have been a trend in late 2008, not long after the earliest developers were starting to share revenue/sales figures, but before the masses had figured out it was going to be a giant cashcow. Now developing iPhone apps is just "what you do" rather than a trend, IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#23

Post by [deleted] »

lisper wrote: post #18

My advice: forget the deadline. Imposing a deadline on a result that is largely beyond your control will serve no constructive purpose. You should only set deadlines on things that are within your power to control, e.g. I will finish X by time Y. But putting a deadline on the market to respond is just silly. If you want to be a millionaire, here's the procedure: 1. Pick an activity that you think will make you a mill…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#25

Post by alexar »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #5

I'm going to go and replace 3 years with a "short time frame". Some things to focus on: - Market opportunity- a million dollars isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely…

All very true. I have to add being lucky, which I also strongly believe will be enhanced if you are positive and smart by putting yourself in situations and through experiences where luck will find you.

Choosing the right macro is easier then spending 3 years on the wrong macro, especially building up an organization depending on the next round of VC, which I did, realized and tried changing industry (from it-startups to commodity trading, yes I'm in China and happened to meet alot of powerful people while fund-raising asking me for iron ore, crude, just because I look like a foreigner, etc.). It got me off my field for a year, very educational though, did not need to raise more VC for my company and sitting on these buyer requests gave me reasons to climb higher in my social network and I ended up in Libya with the sons of the leader doing one deal, made about that amount.

However now I'm back working on what I'm good at, what I can control, tech-startups, I've had the time and money possibility to take as much time off and do what I want, I decided to study and become very good at php/mysql. Commodity trading depends too much on other people (closing is like winning the lottery).

So I guess, you also have to be lucky!

Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#27

Post by jasonlbaptiste »

petercooper wrote: post #22
jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #5

I'm going to go and replace 3 years with a "short time frame". Some things to focus on: - Market opportunity- a million dollars isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely…

Love this post, but I'm going to argue against one of your points: If it's a "trend", it's too late I disagree. In fact, if something is a trend, it's a guarantee that a market (of some kind) exists and it can save you a lot of time and research. Most big markets have large numbers of high value competitors and they're not all pioneers. Indeed, most companies with significant turnover were not pioneers in their field…

That point could really be a post all by itself and it certainly varies situation to situation. Semantics + defining "what's a trend" also play into it. There's mass market everybody knows about it trends and then there's emerging trends. The mass market trends ones are the ones to avoid like you said.

The good thing is what you said: market exists. There's money there, just make sure it isn't all taken up already.

Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#28

Post by megablast »

lisper wrote: post #18

My advice: forget the deadline. Imposing a deadline on a result that is largely beyond your control will serve no constructive purpose. You should only set deadlines on things that are within your power to control, e.g. I will finish X by time Y. But putting a deadline on the market to respond is just silly. If you want to be a millionaire, here's the procedure: 1. Pick an activity that you think will make you a mill…

Yes, but picking a deadline means that you put a time limit on the effort, and have a good guide on when you should just give up. If it is not working for you, you should give up and try something new, but when you are involved heavily in something, it can seem like the payout is just around the corner.

Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?

#29

Post by henryw »

gotta love the ambition. here's a possible plan:

1) develop a skill, ie code a lot

2) try out a bunch of ideas quickly and find one that can make you rich. ideally, you want to find out if an idea will or will not work asap, ie 1 to 4 weeks. expect this to take many trials, like 10+. it doesn't matter when one don't work, you'd gained experience. the key is to find out quickly and not waste your whole 3 years on it.

3) when you find that one that works, juice it like no other.

4) get rich or [keep] trying

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