Why You Won't Get "Rich" Making Top 1% Income. Wealth Matters. No Magic Spells.
Level 1 - Normies NGMI
Welcome Avatar! It seems that excel sheets are not available in 2022. Instead, people prefer to fall for the latest get rich quick scam, “1% income to wealth” and of course diet pills to magically lose weight (combined with a healthy dose of cross fit injuries).
The main reason why you won’t get rich working for someone else is because the person you work for by definition earns money based on your effort.
Would you pay someone $100,000 a year if they caused you to lose money? No.
Would You give someone $100,000 if he gave you $200,000? Of course. That is exactly what a job is.
In order for you to pay someone $100,000 a year you have to make your “master” well over $100,000. Otherwise, he wouldn’t let you “report to him”.
This is what makes the Jungle a long-term project (we don’t earn a penny from any of the people operating in the jungle which is generating around $3,000,000 annually already with no ads/Opex in *year one*. (If you want a guess Jungle revenue will be $10,000,000 next year and no we don’t include anything we’re doing in that number).
Instead, the goal is to grow *traffic* together so that all members benefit. Hence the phrase “win and help win”. We have a long-term plan that will also allow for equity/liquidity upside but spilling all the beans would make little sense as competitors would come in and try to copy - we’ve been copied for years now and simply stopped caring (honestly though, they can’t since it would be an obvious fake at this point)
Part 1: Getting Rich Quick - Good Luck
The vast majority of people focus on “going viral” because this is the most publicly visible way to earn a lot of money quickly. Of course, this only makes one person rich (the person who went viral).
What they *don’t* tell you is that the LTV of those customers is near nothing. You go viral, your product isn’t great and your retention ratio is 10%. You have one massive year and are forgotten in about 18-24 months. This is extremely common. It even happens in the music industry with one hit wonders.
Instead, the better way to get rich is to build out based on your talent/skills. Coca-Cola will stand the test of time, the latest fashion fad will not.
Total Addressable Market (TAM): This is a common phrase on Wall Street. Easier definition? “What is your real market size - population”:
The biggest markets *for the masses* are: 1) diet, 2) skin, 3) gambling and 4) biz opps. The downside of going for the masses is that you’ll have high turnover, deal with lower quality customers and be forced to take advantage of a gullible audience (Liver King being the latest example - pretending to be natural which had a 0% shot of being true).
Before anyone gets “offended” by this, typically the higher paying clients complain the least. This is a well-known phenomenon by anyone who has run an SMB (small to medium sized business)
The other option is selling to the elite (our niche) where you have extremely high LTV. But. Your market is much smaller.
Accepting painful truths is something that only resonates with the elite since they are self-aware (focused on self evaluation and improvement). They know that life is easier if you’re attractive (source), they know they can’t replicate Usain Bolt genetics and go win the Gold Medal if they “train hard enough” and they know that they should follow what they are good at, not what they are “passionate” about. (Typically, passion just means you’re aware you’re not good at it and simply enjoy it anyway).
If you start at the Zero to Hero Post (paid subs) you will notice something. It is a standard and painful process.
The steps work but take *time and effort*. This is why no one wants to do it.
We’ll revamp this at the start of the year to point out more niches that will do well. And? Only 1% of people will bother since it requires *gasps* work. Instead, they’ll go back to thinking and analyzing instead of doing actual work.
Simple Formula: After you get your regular high paying career (Wall St, Tech or Sales) you have to immediately find what you’re good at: 1) are people going out of their way to tell you that you’re good at X? If so that’s a sign, 2) is that skill going to be of value in 5-10 years? If so, you already have the direction that you should go and 3) *bonus* if you don’t enjoy it that’s actually a *good* thing. You will optimize for business success not how you “feel” which ironically makes you harder to compete against…. You only make smart financial decisions.
Part 2: But Wait Can’t I Get Rich In a Career?
What is “rich”. If your answer to this is a million dollars or 50BTC or 900 ETH then that’s one thing. If your answer to this is top 1% in the USA that’s another thing. If your answer is hundreds of millions, then that’s yet.. another thing.
For the record we’re raising our bare minimum numbers. At this point if someone actually wants to obtain money with *limited* luck. We’d say $5,000,000 is a reasonable goal by age 35-40. Many will overshoot this. That said, the old idea of $1M in 10-years is probably stale. With tech + information on the internet, it’s now possible to increase all of those goals by at least 50-150%. Again. If you’re behind that’s also fine since the concept is the same. It’s easier to get wealthy now than it was 10 years ago and will be even *easier* in 2023 when the recession hits.
Per usual these are opinions from a cartoon anon.
Income vs. Wealth: For the purposes of this definition, we can simply look at the 1%. The biggest annoyance we have is the political focus on taxing income. If you’re smart, you will realize that taxing income actually *entrenches* the top 1% of wealth more. Anyone who is at the top of the wealth pyramid would love to see taxes go up on income.
Note: The top 1% wealth earns more in investment gains than the top 1% income on a post-tax basis (rough math). This means even if the top 1% income earner lives for free, he/she is still falling behind. Also. If you run a company and your employees have to pay higher taxes, you’re loving life. It means that they can never start a competitor since they won’t be able to save enough money!
We’re not going to argue with people over what “rich is”. During our monthly Q&As people constantly ask for opinions without disclosing their financial goals. If your goal is to get into the top 1% of wealth or become a millionaire, the paths are completely different. Life is about *probabilities*.
What are the chances of becoming a millionaire working a high paying career and simply showing up all the time (practically a layup). If your goal is to get to the top 1% of wealth while working for someone? Probabilities collapse.
Again. We’re not here to tell you what to do with your life. Your financial goals are your financial goals. That said, don’t delude yourself into thinking the easiest way to get into the top 1% *wealth* is through a career. It isn’t and if you simply call a wealth management firm they will tell you the same thing: Majority are small business owners (Real Estate considered small business as well)
As you can see, if you have a *perfect* career with 10% raises you still don’t make it to the top 1% by 50 years of age. It also assumes: 1) never get fired - many will learn this is almost impossible this year, 2) never have a down year, 3) never have an unexpected expense, 4) make ~$1M for a decade straight and 5) never stop to get an MBA, travel or do anything… In the end you get to about $6.7M. The probability of this is near *zero*.
Life is messy. You get laid off. You have a down year. The stock you got tanks. You get sick. A family member gets sick. Many get divorced. Many have higher childcare expenses vs expectations. So on and so forth.
If you want proof of this you can simply go to Wall Street and you’ll find that the majority never hit the “Ten and Two” goal ($10 million and two homes). The ones who typically do? They did so because of a $2-3M inheritance when a family member dies (or extreme success like Frank Quattrone).
Lucky for You… there is another way. Create a one-time event. It is not unreasonable to create a $1.5M business over eight years. In that case you could nearly double your long-term wealth. Double.
While you wouldn’t catch someone in the top 1% wealth what they *don’t* tell you in school is that once you succeed once in creating a company? The probability of succeeding again skyrockets.
The only reasonable way to play catch up in the wealth pyramid game is with ownership.
Numbers Don’t Lie
Since you know that a perfect career is less likely than being struck by lightning, you should then take a step back and think... How can you filter out for good information?
It isn’t too difficult.
Step 1: Find someone who has the income/wealth/life that you would like to have in about a 5-10 years. Look any further and you’ll get stale information that doesn’t work anymore (such as go into “Equity Capital Markets” or “Go into hardware technology” or “Go get a PHD/JD/Medical Degree”). ←- yes some of those still work here and there the point is the same probabilities are what matter.
For the laughs, this where most people stop. They just look and that’s it.
Step 2: Filter for which base they started on. If someone is a decade older than you but their parents handed them $2M and they simply worked in software collecting $400,000 a year. Probably not replicable. Unless your parents will also hand you $2M.
Step 3: Filter for replication. Lebron James came from nothing and became a billionaire. Are you as athletically gifted as Lebron? Probably best to move on.
Jersey Shore people are rich. Are you as attractive and entertaining as people who can get on Television Shows? If not, probably best to move on. So on and so forth.
Step 4: Find proof of replication. This is what we’re doing in public currently. Our current goal is to get at least five people into the $240,000 a year online camp with one well north of $350,000. Emphasis on the word *online*.
Will it be products like Toothpaste from Gator/Fawn or will it be something new that the Salesguys launch? No clue and not important.
(Okay we lied we do know of several background projects and just haven’t mentioned them - not related to these three accounts - upside down smiley face)
If there is no proof of replication (without being a supplicating employee) there is no reason to look at it. Hint: we’re already *not* the largest earners in the Jungle already and are 100% fine with it. The goal is still the same and most don’t get it still.
Step 5: Iterate. Iterate and check. It really isn’t too difficult to dig up information on how someone earned their money and if they received an inheritance. Most don’t even bother to look a single thing up (see step 1).
If you want to replicate people find people that had it harder than you. And. Somehow did better than you are currently doing.
Part 3: Conclusion - Life is About Probabilities
Two Can Be True: 1) practically everyone is talented at something - talent not passion and 2) most people are unwilling to do the heavy lifting to figure out what those talents are.
The faster you get to know yourself? The easier life will get. It also helps you decide what type of wealth you need to be happy. This is none of our business. There are people who happily live in the mountains off $50,000 a year and a pension. There are also people who wouldn’t be happy with less than $20,000 a month in spending power. None. Of. Our. Business.
The tricky part is really when people “stay in limbo”. Unable to make a decision. The same people who spend 30 minutes trying to decide “where to go out for dinner”
On that note, if you’re staying in for the holidays we’d recommend exactly that. Before joining the jungle you should decide “where do I want to be financially”. After that laser focus and don’t look back.
See you at the soup kitchen, anon.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce. We’re an advisor for Synapse Protocol and on the JPEG team.
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Company pays you $100k a year. They have a ton of additional expenses too - FICA, benefits, matches, etc. Even more reason your value to the company has to be a lot more than your actual salary.
Also, to keep with our brand - good time to mention warren buffet calling for an increase in the income tax and getting the masses to adore him for it, not realizing that warren makes no income and its all wealth and investments. Of course he wanted a higher income tax to limit competition.
Long time follower, but have never been clear on advice for selling to masses [1) diet, 2) skin, 3) gambling and 4) biz opps] - is it important that the product actually works? Believe you have mentioned that you should be selling a good product (and makes intuitive sense), but seems most diet/skin/gambling/biz pop products are scams/trash. Appreciate clarification, thanks!