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Growing my investment skills and mindset - Any tips/thoughts?

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“Rich people work for assets. Poor people work for income”. A bold quote by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book. Once I read it, it sticked to my mind. Robert is a controversial author and investor that makes online content on the topic of financial education. This is a topic that few of us have gotten education on. Until now I have mostly learned how money works by practice. But I know that it’s not enough. Money is a tool that can be quite complex when it comes to building a business. There are various strategies and processes you can follow and focusing on the education is the first step towards this direction.

I started my day by scrolling on my Twitter feed. At some point I stumbled upon a tweet of Andrew Wilkinson. Andrew is one of my favourite internet entrepreneurs. 14 years ago, he founded his own design agency and he now owns more than 20 internet businesses. He started as a designer and evolved to an investor. How did he achieve that? What did he do differently than me? I also had my own agency 4 years ago but didn’t have the same financial success. I reached a point of making 120.000€ annual revenue but decided to quit and look for a job cause it wasn’t creative enough for me. I also don’t own any companies at this moment.

A few minutes later after reading the replies to Adnrew’s tweet I found Ryan Kulp. Ryan is a developer, designer, marketer and investor. He is focusing on buying small profitable digital services and e-shops. Once he buys them he focuses on growing them further and in the end he either keeps them and grows them even more or sells them for a profit. Ryan is an indie-hacker and investor. He is similar to Andrew, but with smaller budget.

The main point here is that both Andrew and Ryan are investors even though Ryan has a smaller budget and doesn’t buy companies that cost millions of euros.

This observation disrupted the way I think about business. I realised that I can become an investor whenever I want. The only thing I miss is knowledge and strategy. Not money.

I used to believe that “some day, if I ever become a millionaire, I will only then be able to become an investor and buy companies to make a profit without building everything on my own”. This turned out to be totally wrong. The whole problem lies on the “some day” mindset. I realised that this day is today. I can become an investor even with 0€ budget. If I find a great deal I can borrow money. What I trully miss are the skills and the know-how.

I asked myself: “How much time did I spend the last years reading about investing?” Zero. That’s what is truly blocking me. Investing is a skill I have to develop, not something I will magically have once I become a millionaire.

I saw that Ryan has created an online course on “Micro Acquisions”. He is teaching people like me, the basics of investing into small internet businesses. I immediately sent him an email and asked for more details.

“Financial education should be what I focus on. Finding a focused course on this topic is a great step forward. Well done!”, I thought.

A few hours later once I was done with my research I made a list of various websites (Indiemaker, Shopify exchange, Flippa, Transferlot) where people can sell or buy online businesses.

Having discovered all these, I also gave myself a new option for the future. The option of selling the products I build. If for any reason I don’t want to grow a product further, I can sell it. I don’t have to “get married” to my ideas forever. I can be flexible.

Note: This post is one of the chapters of my public journal called
"12 months to IndieHacking". - Every week I document and share what happens behind the scenes.


To discuss: What is your experience with buying/selling products? How do grow your investment skills and mindset?

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