How The "CHINA Approach" Helped me Bank Over $2 million in 8 years as a biz owner. (29)
How The "CHINA Approach" Helped me Bank Over $2 million in 8 years as a biz owner.
How The "CHINA Approach" Helped me Bank Over 2 million in 8 years as an outsourcing biz owner.
This is my story about how a low profit margin, but huge volume can make you millions in ANY industry.
It all started as I gave up organizing raves, and decided in 2006 to revisit my internet past of affiliate marketing I first touched in the 90s when I was 15/16. Back then I used to push Cyber Thrill Casino, and make money by faking All Advantage (veterans remember these things I bet!)
During the years when I was 17 all the way to 22 I held a full time job just like many of you have right now or had in the past before going F/T; 2 1/2 years working as an inside sales rep at NetNation/Hostway and little over 2 years working in Advertising Sales at YellowPages and organizing raves part time in Vancouver, Canada - then Serbia, Europe after they banned legal licensed raves in Richmond,BC,Canada (wiping out profit margins big time making it not worthwhile).
Serbia didn't work out when it came to raves, first event I lost 60,000 euros, next one 30,000 euros, 3rd one with the girlfriend (now wife) helping keep shit organized (actually now that I think about it she took over and optimized the whole thing) we made 10k, but the amount of time invested worked out to be 0.5 euros per hour, and we were paying the janitors at the event 1 euro. Not good.
We had a big problem, what to do now - salaries in Serbia are like 350 euros a month ($500). NO way in hell I'd do that, but back then I had no clue about outsourcing, or making money online - so I thought to take her back to Canada, and go back and work for someone in the corporate world. She rejected, saying your buddy Konrad is making a lot of money online isn't he? Why don't you find out what he does? OK I said, and hopped on Google, and searched and searched and started finding what konrad does, and who he does it for. (He does programming, and owns his own products - very well established and known in the adult world at www.mechbunny.com for anyone who cares)
I was like damn, I can't do that - I am not logical, I am creative. What I did discover is a great forum, where people were talking about blogging and making tgps/mgps (those are adult sites with pics/videos). So I started getting involved, took action, made my own sites, and in the process I met a lot of people.
I am very good at identified a problem, and finding a solution [guess its my natural sales ability] - so as I was talking to people, and showing them the blogs I built, and sites I made they were asking who made it, who wrote the text - that is how I started my outsourcing company, first writing text for others. I was writing 12,000 words a day, it was great, I was earning $120 dollars per day - I charged 1 cent then and I still charge 1 cent per word for adult copywriting. Low margin, but huge volume.
The orders grew so fast I couldn't handle it myself, I hired my sister to write as well, then I hired another guy, then put an ad in the most expensive place here in Serbia you can advertise on, and hired 3 more people. Team was growing rapidly, orders were coming in very fast. From my sales past I knew customer service was important, so I gave up writing altogether at one time and focused on just sales, and talking to customers who were ordering text.
From further talking to them, I found out more problems they had - they didn't have time or know how to install wordpress, configure the plugins, setup a theme, upload blog posts, cut videos, cut thumbnails for tube sites, and the list goes on. So I developed services and packages - and then it happened - we became a full service outsourcing business, many of my copy writing clients turned into BIG clients, ones that ordered everything from my company.
I started offering consulting, designing networks of sites to print money (because back then SEO was easy, and many guys were banking hard on like a 50k investment, recouping it in 3 months) - my services were all cheap, cheaper than fiverrr, faster, better. Plus I was always available, when I didn't sleep they could talk to me, if we made a mistake, I stood behind it and fixed it ensuring high quality customer service and satisfaction at all times.
Fast forward to today - after 8 years has passed, and over 2 million dollars in PROFIT and my adult outsourcing company today has over 40 full time employees, systems to manage everything where I only spend 1 hour per DAY on it, and stable client base made up of some of the biggest players in the industry. And guess what, my price is still the same, 1c/word for text.
I modeled my outsourcing company after the Chinese, a culture I love very much and people I respect extremely for their hard work, and brilliant intellect. They do everything cheap, and specialize in doing volume, and it is working - they took over the world, and soon will become the #1 super power thanks to their low price, high volume method that I call the "CHINA APPROACH"
The $2 million dollars I made from my outsourcing business isn't all the profits I made online, I too was an affiliate doing SEO all those past years, but that is another story of its own.
The morale of the story is most of the times, less ROI and bigger volume is better in the long run, and this is how I approach media buying as well, focusing on volume at a steady 20-30% ROI and driving six figures in revenue a month at the moment. Lets rememeber ... I am still a relative newbie, who started media buys last year in August only.
China Approach FTW!
Originally Posted by iAmAttila
It reminded me of this quote: Wealth — Any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband. -H. L. Mencken
Fascinating story iAmAttila!
Very cool story mate! So where is the company at now? Are you guys still scaling the copywriting business?
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Originally Posted by iAmAttila
Warren Buffet became one of the top 5 wealthiest people in the world by "only" generating average annual returns of 20-22% over the past half a century.
2million$ / 8 years = 250k $ ebitda / year
Assume tax load of 40% = 150k personal profit / year
Which is also roughly the salary of a mid level engineer with 3-4y experience in san francisco, munich etc^^
Great story Atila - if you search the forums - that was the advice I gave the guy doing adult - $100 bucks a day making $300 in ROI and he asks how to make more.
I went nuts - didn't want to even give him the advice for free because it is so obvious he wouldn't appreciate it -- well make less ROI and fucking triple, make 5x the volume.
Good job Atila!
Originally Posted by _mcr_
Great story mate!
I have been doing AM for quite some time lately like this.
Work on low margins big volume. Gives you more power when negotiating and makes harder for people to compete.
Very inspiring story and I'm so happy that you achieved the success you have today + the fact that you started the whole business by yourself!
It reminds me of a story where a friend told me that his father's friend, bought a new Bentley (which is worth $1m USD) and started telling my friend that it's so cheap, value for money, and he should get 1 for himself too.
When I asked my friend what does that man do for a living, his answer blew me away....
"He has a listed company in HK and he has a factory in China that produces Chinese Sausage Skin (or wrap... whatever you call it) and distribute it in China - and the company makes BILLIONS every year!"
WAIT A MINUTE? CHINESE SAUSAGE SKIN? WTF IS THAT? - refer to the image below.
Can you believe that?
And it completely blew me away because I never knew that producing such a thing (how much does it cost for each one? $0.00001?) could make so much money!
Another perfect example on VOLUME > ROI!
Yeah, that's the thing about China. It is so big and growing so fast, that the scale is almost impossible to comprehend for anyone coming from Europe or even North America.
Very good share, liked much how you grow and build real buisiness around it
As someone said 2million in 8 years is average for programmer in us, but I guess it's a lot for someone that live in place where xxx dollar a month is average
Very inspiring story, will remember it for long time..
For me is much more inspiring how from article writer you build real business that is much more impressing than the volumes
As media buyer there is so many option which company to open and also volumes are much crazy
It's really interesting which new company you will have, hope you will able to maximize your skills,
Good luck with that
Originally Posted by steve from munich
The programmer after 8 years has no asset he has built up that can now be sold. What iAmAttila has built up is something with enterprise value. It is a company that i would assume can now be sold off if iAmAttila wanted to achieve an exit and generate capital gains.
The path to true wealth is not via income.
No one in the Forbes 100 became wealthy because of their annual income. Instead all of them did it through capital gains, by building companies and assets that appreciated significantly in enterprise value.
Great story
I offer you palinka or rakia depending if you are in budapest or belgrade 
Great share man, awesome stuff!
Originally Posted by steve from munich
attila achieved something worth celebrating:
- a real company with many employees
- guaranteed income for the foreseeable future
- 6 figure profit per year
- financial freedom, being his own boss
- enterprise value like cmdeal said
- most importantly, turned a nagging wife into a happy wife
since he is in Serbia, it further amplifies the sense of wealth, I'm sure $1M goes a lot further there than the US
and somehow I doubt atilla pays 40% tax
Great success story Atilla!
I've always admire the Chinese people, they have a lot of businesses in my country of every kind.
They made every local competitor go broke in little time and I always wondered how.
So, I used to eat at a local Chinese restaurant that was very cheap, but when I saw how many orders they were selling daily my question was answered.
I remember visiting a fancy golf course/winery/estate in the Karikari peninsula in Northland, NZ, right around the corner from a popular beach the locals go to.
I believe the property was owned by a US billionaire.
When I asked what he did, I was told he owned the company that was the largest global producer of the little sticks that make up cotton buds (Q-tips).
Wow.
The money is in sausage-shaped things guys.
Next example will probably be: the largest producer of dildos worldwide is a trillionaire.
Originally Posted by zeno
Awesome story Attila and very inspirational thread, saved as motivation for the bad days!
Originally Posted by iAmAttila
Originally Posted by cmdeal
I'm playing around with taboola and outbrain atm, and the rates im seeing are like 3-10c per word for engaging articles that are about everyday topics, if we'd get specialized this price could go sky high.
iAmAtilla - great story man! Keep scaling
Using the numbers above and barely working 1hr/day Atilla makes around $600/hour. Thats awesome!! Beats working as an engineer 9-5 lol
Thanks for everything guys, I am very happy you enjoyed reading my story
Originally Posted by _mcr_
attila achieved something worth celebrating:
- a real company with many employees
- guaranteed income for the foreseeable future
- 6 figure profit per year
- financial freedom, being his own boss
- enterprise value like cmdeal said
- most importantly, turned a nagging wife into a happy wife
since he is in Serbia, it further amplifies the sense of wealth, I'm sure $1M goes a lot further there than the US
and somehow I doubt atilla pays 40% tax
Some people think they're awesome b/c they ran paper route @ age of 5.
China Method... by a 5 year old
Warren Buffet became one of the top 5 wealthiest people in the world by "only" generating average annual returns of 20-22% over the past half a century.[/QUOTE]
cmdeal, you're making a HUGE calculation mistake.
Warren Buffet made his money by charing investors FEES !!! (like any business).
Imagine Buffet had $50,000 at the age of 20.
A huge sum!
22% compounding return after 50 years equivalents roughly to 1 Billion "only"
The other 40 Billion or so are ....FEES he takes from his investors.
It's the same for those hedge fund guys - they make their money primarily with fees from customers.
It's about 2% flat fee + 20% performance fee.
to put those numbers in perspective
let's say you run a 100 Million fund and make +50%
Fees for manager 2 Million + 10 Million performance fees = 12 Million for the fund manager
The business of investing made Buffet reach. First by being an awesome investor and then by being an awesome fund manager
Great story!
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