5 ms·

Are you in fact a millionaire?

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly how to ask this without sounding snarky, but I do think it's a valid point. If you're not, or if you are but didn't make it in three years, I still think the info you offer is valuable, but it doesn't come from the same well of experience as someone who has done it.
vaksel 16y ago
don't think so. I know he has a social network for families with Mark Bao and an app store for business apps. But at most those are 10-50K a year businesses...at least in the foreseeable future.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  He has a couple more past businesses too. I'm not sure it matters though; he knows how to make money. The only real difference is volume.
  - chc 16y ago
    Anybody with a minimum-wage job knows how to make money. Volume is a pretty big difference.
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      They are earning, which is a completely different thing. If it is easier to parse replace money with wealth in my original post.
  - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
    In the context of "how to make a lot of money in a short time period", volume is pretty much the key differentiator.
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      Thats exactly what I mean. Jason may or may not have a million - but he understands how to make wealth. This is possible to scale to meet the timeline as required.
      - runT1ME 16y ago
        what? It means everything. Selling lemonade from a stand can be profitable, but the skills required for that to be successful in no way transfer to running a company that sells to every grocery store in america.
        ErrantX 16y ago
        Those are just the two extremes; the effort required to scale from one to the other is probably a bit too steep in that case. But if you read the post a lot of the same skills are there.
        Sukotto 16y ago
        Interesting you should mention that. In this talk[1], Gary Vaynerchuk describes how he started a Lemonade business, hired all his friends to run the stands, and used the skills he developed doing that (and selling trading cards at the mall) to build his family's little liquor store into "WineLibrary.com" a 60M/yr business. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447500 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447500
schlichtm 16y ago
This is great information either way.
edw519 16y ago
Excellent point. On the other hand, I know plenty of millionaires who never could have made a post like Jason's. Why? Because of how they became millionaires. Either they inherited, joined a family business, climbed the corporate ladder, held onto or flipped real estate, grew a conventional business in the perfect climate, or just got plain lucky. Better: Have you earned a million dollars through your own start-up > once?
- jseliger 16y ago
  Most people don't become millionaires through inheritance, extreme income, and so forth; they become millionaires because they save more than they spend, usually by a substantial amount, invest widely, buy a house and keep it, and marry and don't get divorced. Stanley and Danko's book The Millionaire Next Door describes this phenomenon: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/dp/0671015206/ref=thstsst-20 http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/d... and what wealth in America actually looks like.
  - kiba 16y ago
    That's a slow way of becoming a millionaire. People want to become millionaire the fast way. It's still hard work though. However, you can probably combine the advice in that book and speed up the process of becoming a millionaire. Once you get to that, I think you can live off a 3 percent interest. That's 30,000 dollars. I am pretty sure you can manage that if you live like a college student.
    - GFischer 16y ago
      30.000 dollars is enough for middle-class living in the Third world :) I'd spend part of the capital though, or invest on something with a better interest rate (like living off real-estate rent - my grandparents do that).
  - dabent 16y ago
    As good as that book was, I liked Stanley's "The Millionaire Mind" even more: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Mind-Thomas-J-Stanley/dp/0740718584/ http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Mind-Thomas-J-Stanley/dp/0... There were two groups that stood out in the book: 1. Professionals who did well and invested wisely. He noted that most professionals who do well, spend all of their income and often even more. 2. Business owners. Both groups became millionaires through one means: business ownership - through stocks in case 1 and directly through case two. I know several people who've done very well and it's because of their businesses. A junkyard owner, an owner of an electrician company, an owner of a used tire business are among those who have little or no post-high-school education. They all have far more in the bank than I do. Note that all of these are all what the blog post calls "unsexy" businesses. They provide a product or service and charge for it. The first million didn't happen for them in 3 years. But it did happen and for at least two of them (I lost touch with the junk yard owner) the money just keeps coming in.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lkozma 16y ago
One could argue that the advice is better if he isn't. Otherwise it would be just hindsight bias. Of course it would be interesting to see his status 3 years from now.
- mikeklaas 16y ago
  If you had a rare disease would you prefer a doctor who hasn't treated it before because of the potential for hindsight bias?

Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly how to ask this without sounding snarky, but I do think it's a valid point. If you're not, or if you are but didn't make it in three years, I still think the info you offer is valuable, but it doesn't come from the same well of experience as someone who has done it.

vaksel 16y ago

don't think so. I know he has a social network for families with Mark Bao and an app store for business apps. But at most those are 10-50K a year businesses...at least in the foreseeable future.

ErrantX 16y ago
He has a couple more past businesses too. I'm not sure it matters though; he knows how to make money. The only real difference is volume.
- chc 16y ago
  Anybody with a minimum-wage job knows how to make money. Volume is a pretty big difference.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    They are earning, which is a completely different thing. If it is easier to parse replace money with wealth in my original post.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  In the context of "how to make a lot of money in a short time period", volume is pretty much the key differentiator.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    Thats exactly what I mean. Jason may or may not have a million - but he understands how to make wealth. This is possible to scale to meet the timeline as required.
    - runT1ME 16y ago
      what? It means everything. Selling lemonade from a stand can be profitable, but the skills required for that to be successful in no way transfer to running a company that sells to every grocery store in america.
      - ErrantX 16y ago
        Those are just the two extremes; the effort required to scale from one to the other is probably a bit too steep in that case. But if you read the post a lot of the same skills are there.
      - Sukotto 16y ago
        Interesting you should mention that. In this talk[1], Gary Vaynerchuk describes how he started a Lemonade business, hired all his friends to run the stands, and used the skills he developed doing that (and selling trading cards at the mall) to build his family's little liquor store into "WineLibrary.com" a 60M/yr business. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447500 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447500

schlichtm 16y ago

This is great information either way.

edw519 16y ago

Excellent point. On the other hand, I know plenty of millionaires who never could have made a post like Jason's. Why? Because of how they became millionaires. Either they inherited, joined a family business, climbed the corporate ladder, held onto or flipped real estate, grew a conventional business in the perfect climate, or just got plain lucky. Better: Have you earned a million dollars through your own start-up > once?

jseliger 16y ago
Most people don't become millionaires through inheritance, extreme income, and so forth; they become millionaires because they save more than they spend, usually by a substantial amount, invest widely, buy a house and keep it, and marry and don't get divorced. Stanley and Danko's book The Millionaire Next Door describes this phenomenon: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/dp/0671015206/ref=thstsst-20 http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/d... and what wealth in America actually looks like.
- kiba 16y ago
  That's a slow way of becoming a millionaire. People want to become millionaire the fast way. It's still hard work though. However, you can probably combine the advice in that book and speed up the process of becoming a millionaire. Once you get to that, I think you can live off a 3 percent interest. That's 30,000 dollars. I am pretty sure you can manage that if you live like a college student.
  - GFischer 16y ago
    30.000 dollars is enough for middle-class living in the Third world :) I'd spend part of the capital though, or invest on something with a better interest rate (like living off real-estate rent - my grandparents do that).
- dabent 16y ago
  As good as that book was, I liked Stanley's "The Millionaire Mind" even more: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Mind-Thomas-J-Stanley/dp/0740718584/ http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Mind-Thomas-J-Stanley/dp/0... There were two groups that stood out in the book: 1. Professionals who did well and invested wisely. He noted that most professionals who do well, spend all of their income and often even more. 2. Business owners. Both groups became millionaires through one means: business ownership - through stocks in case 1 and directly through case two. I know several people who've done very well and it's because of their businesses. A junkyard owner, an owner of an electrician company, an owner of a used tire business are among those who have little or no post-high-school education. They all have far more in the bank than I do. Note that all of these are all what the blog post calls "unsexy" businesses. They provide a product or service and charge for it. The first million didn't happen for them in 3 years. But it did happen and for at least two of them (I lost touch with the junk yard owner) the money just keeps coming in.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

lkozma 16y ago

One could argue that the advice is better if he isn't. Otherwise it would be just hindsight bias. Of course it would be interesting to see his status 3 years from now.

mikeklaas 16y ago
If you had a rare disease would you prefer a doctor who hasn't treated it before because of the potential for hindsight bias?