Could you name some (not commonly known ways to get fuck you money)? As a young tech guy doing stuff in startup spaces, I'm genuinely interested.
Of course, "no silver bullet", especially to make big money, but I'm curious, from the perspective of someone who'd place around 1.3 on the spectrum you described.
> Could you name some (not commonly known ways to get fuck you money)?
To clarify, I put “fuck you money” at about $10m-$20m. This amount enables a relatively comfortable life in perpetuity without touching the principal.
The ways are all commonly known, but they aren’t commonly followed.
tl;dr — it’s boring.
As a tech person:
1. Learn sales.
2. Learn business operations.
3. Solve business problems, possibly using tech.
A great way to scale into this is starting an agency. The agency can do programming, web development, ad tech… anything that direction.
It’s cash as you go, you get to learn while getting paid, you get a front row seat to business problems, and you can make useful contacts.
Once you have enough cash / cash flow, you can buy or joint venture with companies that have good product-market fit but weak operations, and you provide the part that they are weak at.
These businesses are everywhere at price points in the $10k to ~$500m range (at around $500m, the big boys start getting interested).
Many of the operational failures are in sales/marketing (all aspects thereof like pricing, channels, etc.), organization structure (too many bodies), misaligned incentives, etc.
Some of the easiest changes I’ve personally made is pricing changes. Specifically, changing a large irregular one-off payment to a much lower recurring payment (one that is preferred by the customers), and adding three-tier pricing with appropriate value add at each level. Imho, these decisions were not made by the original owners because either they were afraid of change or they didn’t talk to and listen to their customers (or both).
> The easiest way to get fuck you money is to reduce your consumption.
If you work at a very high paying job in finance or at a place like Google or FB, I might agree with this. Some people in those groups make a lot and spend a lot (sometimes more than they make).
For people with more modest salaries, I think that this is tragically wrong for fuck you money, but probably right for relatively modest “nest egg” money.
There is a limit to how much a person can gain by cutting, but that same person is essentially uncapped in earning potential.
The easiest way to get fuck you money is to start a business that solves business problems. Knowing sales, business operations, and tech is a relatively easy way to access this market. Not easy overall, but relatively easy compared to other options that lead to fuck you money.
Personally, I quit my job at a time I had $300/mo in income from my startup and lived in an old suv. Yes there is a bottom limit but it’s much lower than you might think. A big limitation many people have is their family, since if they aren’t onboard (mine was) then it cannot work out. But in that case it’s no longer fuck you money, since you’re trying to earn enough to maintain your family relationships first, an honorable decision to be sure.
Of course, "no silver bullet", especially to make big money, but I'm curious, from the perspective of someone who'd place around 1.3 on the spectrum you described.