I've always been interested in business as the majority of my family has at one point or another owned a business. I've seen many people grow rich and take control of their lives through owning their own business. My entry/addiction to being an entrepreneur started all the way back when I was 6 years old. All I wanted to do was start a business and it would drive me crazy that I could never be the big businessman that I wanted to be. By the age of 7 my brother and I were selling various bits and pieces at local markets with varying amounts of success. It was a good start and earning $30 for a day's work was pretty cool at the age of 7. Eventually my brother lost interest and my parents were less keen to ferry us around to various markets (I don't blame them) so we shut up shop.
Since that day all I ever wanted to do was get back into business, it took quite a few years before I started another business. By the age of 11 I was repairing iPhones, I had never owned an apple product and I only started in the business as someone one day asked me to fix their phone. Over the space of a year I made a nice amount and brought myself a few nice treats. Eventually some commercial businesses in the local area started fixing phones and I wasn't able to put the time into marketing the business and there was always the thought of "what if I break someone's phone?". I slowly wound up business but still fix the occasional device for friends and family.
Around the time I was 14 I got my first part time job which I still have to this day. I felt at the time I had sold out my dreams of being an entrepreneur to the daily grind but quickly realised that if anything I was building capital for future businesses. I was earning a pretty solid income just from working on the weekends which has allowed me to have more in the bank than what a lot of people in their 20's would have which I'm really proud of. One of my main hobbies has always been computers and electronics in general. At the age of 10 I was building computers and connecting them to my servers, setting up roaming profiles and anything else I could figure out.
A few years back I wanted to work out how I could make some money out of my hobby and interests. Programming seemed like the obvious choice as there was constant success stories of people making iPhone apps. I dedicated a heap of time to learning how to program in languages such as Python and a few web languages. These were my entry into programming although weren't directly involved with my goal of making iOS apps. I decided to read as many iOS programming books I could get my hands on and practically begged my parents to get a MacBook. They said no originally but kept reading as much as I could until I got a MacBook in 2013. I honestly thought it'd be easy to make an app from there, but it took me 18 months before I was comfortable as a developer to dive into a project and build something from the ground up. That's for a completely different post though.
I've since built a few apps, none that have got to a publishing stage as of yet although I've learnt heaps. At this point making a total of $0 from my new skill. Things have started to look up in the last 2 months though. I've started collaborating on a project and also freelancing as an iOS dev. The project is really exciting and I'm learning heaps from the developer I'm working with. I've currently got one client that I'm contracting to and getting work weekly. Being an entrepreneur is hard work though, I'm constantly drained from working part time and trying to juggle freelancing along with my own personal projects.
It's really starting to take a toll on my life but I just love the hustle, I'm starting to make some really serious money and it's constantly getting better but every other aspect of my life is suffering. My social life basically doesn't exist, my head just hurts from constant thinking and still can't get girls aha
How do you manage your life outside of being an entrepreneur? I'm really satisfied with where I've got to in life, all by myself. Wooo & sorry for long post.