Rags To Riches Success Stories

#1 (permalink)

Hey guys and girls, friends - fellow webmasters, ecommerce nuts, advertising gurus... it's been a month or so of my coming here regularly, and so I thought I should share something with you that's just happened on this front - of my business and my life.

I have been working cautiously and carefully, building up a powerful ecommerce tool to help launch me to riches asap. I even, in recent days, unofficially named part of it the "Qassam 10,000". Not that I support rocket attacks, but it's nice to fight power with power, money with money.

Anyway, that's all changed. Months of careful, moderate work, is over. I am going into 10,000th gear tonight. Into total overdrive.

I found out the woman I love is safe and well, and may indeed hate me (she's not saying, specifically), because when the shoe was on the other foot and I was the object of affection and she was the one with passion - I was a total arse. I failed. Tragically. I didn't care, I didn't appreciate, I didn't do what was the right thing. To my credit, I was ignorant and it would not have worked out if I had done "the right thing" then. But now is now, then was then.

So this is my new position: I am going to Jerusalem (where she is, safe and sound, thank god), and I am setting my business up there. I will do it inside of 90 days of right now. I have no choice. My heart will become stoney and cold and I will become a terrible tyrant and hateful man if I don't do what I HAVE to do right now.

What this means at 9.50pm on Tuesday, in London, is that instead of going to bed, as i was about to do, I'm going to do a chrishirst and just work like a mofo for the next few hours, plus all the gates on my ecommerce tool that I was leaving for later to open - cautiously building up as much power as possible before launching a proactive advertising campaign, will be opened. I will open them tonight. As for the rest that I have to build - well, I'll do that in overdrive mode too.

I just wanted to share this with you lot. Hmm. This started out as a "general" post but I think I'll put it in the inspiration section!


I feel so afraid: I have so much work to do, so much money to make, and failure is not an acceptable outcome. I'm scared too of moving to a new country, living a new life - but again - love requires me to be all that I want to be, and what I want to be is someone in Jerusalem!

I shall keep you lasses and lads informed about my progress - I give myself till the last day of March. After that I MUST be ready to go to Jerusalem and create my business there, no doubt stirring the imagination of so many messiah-worshippers out here! But seriously. I have to go. And to do that, I have to now switch to slave-labourer mode (easy with my indo pakistani roots).

Wish me luck. Say a prayer for me, or whatever you believe in. Use a bit of the force. Bounce a hobbit up and down. Whatever it is that brings you luck. I'm going to unleash the power of Shams now! See ya on the other side. I have two options tonight - let go of love, drive it from me using only the most extreme nazi tactics with myself, force myself to wipe out all feelings of devotion and joy and replace them with what most people feel better accompanies the power to make millions. OR I can win the race. Launch my qassams tonight, and build more in the morning. And then I'll be in Jerusalem before the winter sun sets.

I shall now work until I am too tired to keep my eyes open, and then sleep until I accidentally open them, and then work until I can't keep em open, and then sleep until I accidentally open them, and then work until...

you get the picture. I was working at this moderately and cautiously, but now it's time for blitzkrieg. I shall take my lead from the Israeli army - there will be no mercy. The money is all coming to ME! I look forward to reading all your comments when I take my first break in a few hours!

#2 (permalink)

Great story, good luck with your journey.

You sound jewish already! lol.

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#3 (permalink)

Thank you madman. With a name like that, you have the same kind of soul as me!

I have switched on "Dirty Day" by U2 very loud* and shall be cycling it all night and pumping my online tool really hard - and that's no reference to porn surfing. Tonight I become a captain of industry - but for whom? London or Jerusalem - the dividing line has become so grey for me suddenly. I have to have an operational london business pumping 2k per month (a requirement i set for myself since the last post) - then i can put my feet up in Jerusalem (East Jerusalem? Are there lots of muslims in West Jerusalem? I don't know where she is yet. Of course I'll make sure I know before I rent myself a nice flat there).

And now - that bunch of hours. The spreadsheet's open, the deck is clear, the cup of tea is getting lukewarm - all the perfect conditions for a HUGE bout of work. (except for perl programming, which requires the tea to be hot).

* the soul of this song lies in this chorus...
"days, days, days run away like horses over the hill"

Don't wait, little ones, go get what's yours right now. What am I saying? you'll do what I did. You'll throw it all away and have to fight to the death to get it back. Do or die, they say. Well I'm still breathing.

#4 (permalink)

No idea if this is pure chance or karma, but my music changed from a very slow stanza to a fiery rock out/solo right as you started to "pick up steam" in your post. I hope that the song is a statement that your new life/(career/site) will be a thrilling success!

Best wishes to you mate!

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#5 (permalink)

Just been working since the previous post. Many gates are opened. And I think I probably need some caffeine, rather than the reverse. The next cup of tea will be a hot one. I'm **** knackered after just a few hours of labour. Still, it's the end of the day, and I even had dental work done in the afternoon. (Gotta take care of everything before I go).

I'll still be at it in several hours. I've entered such a dark place. I mean, there's a lot of money and power all around my raggedy self, money even turning up already, but not from the work i just started - just residual stuff. And yet, I think there's one fact on this page which makes it obvious that I can only live in fear of even trying to sleep. The don't call me Tyler Durden for nothing. In fact, they don't call me Tyler Durden at all.

(One does chat a lot of nonsense as it passes 1am, eh?)

I'm on target, my associates, don't you worry, and since I'm bound to go the whole hog and not chicken out (pigs and chickens TOGETHER I hear you question) I shall call loads of you in to be part of Ra Ra El - a technology corporation which will change the face of... well, a few people's lives. Maybe more.

Back to the grind. Back on the chain gang. At least, unlike the many times I've wrestled with demons like this under similar moons, I've got a place where my private quiet discourse is more of a blog, where I can still feel a part of the world even though it's blatant that until I have got my cash, I'm on the run from it.

"You can't even remember what I'm trying to forget," he sings. Trying to forget. Work is a synonym of trying to forget. It's a lie that you drink to forget - you drink to remember, to remember more generously than fact would ordinarily allow you, moreover. To forget, people just work. They bury themelves in their work and are consumed by it and rot there, imprisoned. I can't let that happen to anyone I love. So I let it happen to me instead... and where you aim you just might hit.

Back into the mole hole. See you in another 3 hours!

#6 (permalink)

Still going strong, and planning to carry on another couple of hours, driven by overpowering insomnia, but I reckon when I've finished the job I'll just go to Jerusalem for a holiday, for now! Moving there, if it is ever called for, can be done in a more organised and reasonable way!

But I have a certain date with fate, very probably in Jerusalem. And I have to finish this ecommerce job before that can happen - so it's still the same desperate quest, but just the 1 unreasonable thing removed. Which is good. It's like a chess game where you're 32 not 22.

I'll leave you folk in peace for now. The work bug is infectious. I may not feel all is lost, at times I may feel confident all can be won, but at all times I can see the importance of pushing the money counter ever upwards, hard and fast.

I was near to 25 when I first learned how to do this, I think... but I guess you have to do it a few times before you really make it work. I have no t&c preventing me showing you my moneycounter when the battle is won! And I will do so, right here on this thread... and you'll have seen it happen... right here!

As for "one last kiss in time" that bono sings about in Dirty Day... if I can save myself from becoming that evil loveless tyrant I've seen in so many, I'm pretty sure it'll be deep deeeeep undercover, as the guy says in Beverley Hills Cop II. Do you remember the police chief in the film "So I married an axe murderer?" - isn't he one of the best fictional characters in all of existence. That film was a real landmark. Shame myers made so much crap outside that film.

Well... onwards. Wherever it leads. Heaven or Hell. We don't decide. We just fight the battle. If we could choose who wins, it wouldn't be a battle, it'd be a show.

#7 (permalink)

Looks like I did manage to grab 4 hours of sleep after all, but the moment I regain consciousness I just feel that evil pain - you know, where you want to die because you feel you have nothing to live for.

So I'm back on my machine. There's only one thing I can do, and that's more work. Kids, don't mess up with the girls and guys who like you - when THEY hate you that's when you no longer can stand ANY pain any more.

How painful is it, when the one you love HAS to see you face to face to undo throwing you into a world of misery, and to get to her you have to get a visa for israel!?? Do i get all the bad luck or what?

As many of you know - this month I finally got to where most webmasters, most people, want to be - my business "came of age" and became something that can fully sustain and grow itself into greatness.

And to be honest my health is going well - not only have I quit smoking, even my oral hygiene is approaching its peak, the dentist is well pleased at me... generally, all my material life is changing 'for the better'.

And yet here I am, in total utter agony, feeling the worst pain of my whole life. Sorry to moan. But I just don't have any other outlet for all this pain. Better to release it and get on with my work than let it drive me to hurt myself and take all my success away from myself again, through just abandoning myself and my dreams.

I'm glad I've come here. I am a man who believes in openness. Even if I have had many faults, and still have many more - no one can charge me with bigotry on that front. I'm pretty **** open. And on this little thread-thing I have nailed my colours to the mast of my ship.

If this ship is going to sink, even on the ocean of love when it has already crossed out of the stormy waters of poverty and into the stability of a better day, then god dammit, you'll find me down there at the bottom with the rest of the ship. I'll sail to my end wherever that may be. And for all these many years I've only learned one thing - which is to do this stuff on the web. That's all I am, and all I have. As you can see I've lost all my faith and confidence. I'm just a shadow. Just the darth vader factor.

I'll tell you one thing, though - music never sounds as potent as when your whole life hangs in the balance. Music is MADE by people with their lives hanging int he balance. It's the expression of the soul. Thank god for the blues brothers, thank god for all soulful music, for rock, for ska, for blues and bluegrass and hip hop and acid jazz and dnb and breakbeat and funk and gospel and even pop, even U2.

I wonder. Maybe people get pain that they don't deserve. Maybe I didn't deserve this. But you know - this is what I got, this is my life, I have to choose. Like in this chess game i'm playing - I've lost my queen. But I've taken all my other pieces and I'm trying to make a go of it - trying to find a way to beat that opponent. The opponent is fierce. He'll break my 100% win record if I fail. Still, I've only played 3 games so far!

Here's a song for the morning... "Cares of the past are behind, nowhere to go but I'll find, just where the trail will wind, drifting along with the tumbling tumble weeds, I know when night has gone there's a new world born at dawn: I'll be rolling along, deep in my heart is a song, here on the range I belong...

(after it is St Elmo's fire and Eye of the tiger... what? You think I'll go down without a fight. I'll still be throwing those punches even as I take my last breath.)

take it easy guys. I'm going to post my moneycount on this thread in a few weeks, it's going to demonstrate a highly inspiring rags to riches tale! But if you asked me to bet all my money that I will be with the one I love... I'd have to bow out of that bet. Something very different to the way I felt last week. But I'll "rise up to the challenge of our rival".

I wrote a poem about the eye of the tiger - I wonder if I can find it. I should post it here and be done with w-t for a bit. After all, I'm not here for mechanized cash growth. This just happens to be the one forum on the web where I fit in because a lot of people do all the things I do and know all the places I'm coming from.

This is our poem, people. This is for the ones, who through no real fault of our own, watch our whole life "slide out of view" (and dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing left to do) - and i say this from a home mostly on 12 degrees, with the heating on (celsius), deep in the heart of english midwinter. I don't have anything. Just my soul. Now watch it go. Watch how powerful that weapon really is. You don't need money. You don't need material strength. You can fight for what is yours with only your soul. 106 miles to chicago, half a tank of gas, it's dark, the nun hates me (what's new?) and my spectacles turn into shades under the sunlight. and i don't smoke any more. how about it? one last run for good old jake. once more unto the breach... ah, mixing the old shakespeare and modern rnb film extravaganza. Only a madman or someone infused with all the pain int he world can think of things like that. As a poet, my pain is my currency. I should drop the internet work and go write a book! But I won't. I'm not stupid. I'll either get my true love AND billions, or, sadly, I'll just get the billions.

Enjoy the rest of the week. I've systematically switched off comms to all my friends - I'm one gate away from going into that solitude a man needs when he has to fight with lions, when he has to bring down whole empires, when he has to be the miracle that overcomes even the most unbelievable odds. So you won't hear any more of my rubbish until I turn up with some tasty money statistics! I've got nothing to lose from showing you. And no doubt more of you can see what this sector is capable of making and will help me turn OUR sector into the ruling commercial class of society. And maybe then, with our somewhat different morality, something i've always called "palestine" - because many of us here are "freaks", outsiders, pushed to the side and not allowed anything, because we're not "cool enough", because we're just geeks, we think life is about being clever, about always trying to think about things - so maybe with our morality, all we need is enough cash and we can save the world?

I used to think Google would help do this - but look at them. They are greedy darth vaders if ever i saw one.

Pax Vobiscum my romans. Don't do anything I would do! So at this precise moment, don't listen to Eminem's "sing for the moment"!

(I have such a complex memory that I realized I hadn't posted the poem only when I was downstairs just now doing my dishes. I think I may one day even come up with cold fusion and faster-than-light travel, whilst doing the dishes. The nora batty effect, I call it).

Here's my poem. Our poem. The poem of the strong. The poem of the tiger:

#8 (permalink)

When this is over, she's gonna look across the media channels at me, she'll look at me on cnn, on the bbc, on the guardian, she'll look at me and say "I forgive you". And wherever I am, my heart will live again. Until then, the person you met all these weeks is sooo dead. So not me. And to top it all off the sun hasn't shone on my part of London ALL morning. Just clouds cloud clouds! But the work is going REALLY well. Pain is so good for getting rich. That's why over-capitalist society leads to so much S&M! Given how much I've managed this morning I seriously look forward to seeing how much I've achieved by midnight!

I am not ashamed to say all this in my name, because you can't fault a sinner for repenting.

(when they said REPENT, I wonder what they meant...) (me and leonard both)

Here's another anthem of anyone in any kind of gaza.
(the office i built my business in, for 3 good years, i labelled "my on private gaza" and i named the cat which spent all its time there Arafat the cat)...

(the machine is bound to censor a lot out, but you can imagine the gaps easily)...
Sing for the moment, M.M. (eminem - marshall mathers)

This song was blaring out of a ghetto kid's headphones the day I found out she actually hates me. Between then and now I was in some pretty serious denials. But like he says in the film, love and hate are two horns on the same goat!

#9 (permalink)

Congrats. The world belongs to brave men and all entrepreneurs are brave. Especially when you start an ecommerce venture right amidst turmoil both financial or otherwise, kudos to you.

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#10 (permalink)

Cheers.

Whoever does own the world, I hope they give it back to everyone as a collective. Most people are in trouble worldwide. Most people are starting to be pursued by trouble of one sort or another. The minority globally who feed off 80% of all the world's power and money seem to not want to get together and see sense. Surely they CAN do that. Maybe one day I can start targeting how much of the whole world to own. My first target will of course be 1%. But I won't set that until next year.

#11 (permalink)

"Kids, don't mess up with the girls and guys who like you - when THEY hate you that's when you no longer can stand ANY pain any more."

That line describes the last month of my groups of friends drama. Now if only i could get them to read this...

Anyway, man I didn't really know you but i really do wish you the best of luck with this and I hope that you don't end up hurt like what I've seen happen. Honestly, best wishes man and keep your head above water, or come back to WT and rant, we will be here for ya.

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#12 (permalink)

Thank you decaf. I guess this thread is turning into my sign-in-form timesheet type thing! I can't sleep at all any more. Barely. But on the plus side when I first made a fortune on the web, or what comparatively, was a fortune, I was often (this is really not an exaggeration) working for 2 days and 3 days nonstop with no sleep, just building my productfinder - long ago.

I got loads of money, blew it all, later found that i should have used it to consolidate and firm up the business, carried on drinking, smoking, living it up and being a fool.

So the lack of sleep can't do me wrong. Besides, it's so edwardnorton-come-bradpitt!

And the pain of being on hold, in love, is still not as bad as if i somehow knew for sure that she won't forgive me! But i don't know that. My default setting is optimism.

re your friends - i look back and i remember the point in our lives (me and her) where she started to be distant. I know why now, but at the time i was far too unwilling to actually look at myself and what was wrong with me. i was more inclined to think something was wrong with her for taking that attitude. but the past is the past. If she's my love, my "one and only true love", then facing the rest of my punishment is the only way to get "home". i may be taking a far too gender-biased view but i suspect with your friends that THEY GUY IS IN THE WRONG, NOT THE GIRL.

so back to my punishment - onwards with the qassam 10,000! Oh the hell of it. The pain of it. I snatch a few moments of dreamy loving thoughts for the few seconds between when I get into bed exhausted out of my mind and when i all asleep. Other than that, I appear to be turning into a (financial) war machine. Don't worry, I'm a fighter. And I'm much gladder to come and rant than go and bottle up my pain completely. have a good day - with or without ordinary comfort, i shall have a good one. Inside i feel stronger than murdoch, more loveable than Branson, more powerful than Brown and more Militarily empowered than Obama.

but enough of my rhetoric! I've said my hail marys, I've had my cod liver oil, my work is on the other screen and i'm about to do it, and i'll walk 500 miles and 500 more, and every last penny is hers, and every cell in my body is too, even all the brain cells.

what more can a guy do to atone for his sins? if there is anything, let me know - i'll make sure I do it!

(addendum: I stopped first to make a clay model! It's my new hobby and my main way of relieving stress since i quit things like booze and smoking - I make little tetrahedron statues, my favourite shape... okay, so I'm a maths geek, what can I do, I was born that way - still it's good to have an outlet, some kind of art, somewhere to store my passion until time lets me deliver it where it belongs - but it's okay because out of me and her, one of us is definitely a timelord)

(hey decaf, i recognize your tone as concern, human care, which i deeply appreciate, so i thought i'd share something really funny with you - i have a close confidante to whom i pour out my unpublishable thoughts, and i said to that lad, i said... "so what if a guy threw a shoe at me?" - it seems to be my new motto. what do you think!? it's good isn't it? i like it. it makes me laugh. i look at my predicament, i look at the trouble i feel i'm facing, i give it the laugh of insanity {insanity laughs under pressure, why don't we give ourselves...} and i say "so what if i a guy threw a shoe at me?" - it works for me).

(addendum3 - groundhog day factor - i realised that i have to actually make right ALL the wrongs i've done - i have to learn to apologize and undo the wrongs to everyone i've wronged, the whole rest of the film has to happen first, and only then can i get to plot point 2...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=b8LECmO9SeM

"Three cheeseburgers, two large fries, two chocolate shakes and one large coke.
And some flapjacks!
Too early for flapjacks?")

oh well. 4.30, time for milking.

and you know - sonny and cher's "i got u babe" has played every day since i entered this groundhog day that never ends until i find the island. speak of the devil - the ub40-pretenders version has just begun in my mp3-player headphones (can't keep the neighbours awake with my movitavional music, not if i truly "mean" my repentance).

#13 (permalink)

I won't have em saying I didn't have the cajones to state my mind and stand up for what I believe.

But for the record, I like records, unlike the "old school" where murdoch and branson grew up, in a world where cheating and lying was about what you don't keep on record rather than, as it is in our world, about what you do.

I have by happenstance got round to the only Abba song I allow in these business premises: Money Money Money.

What did I achieve? In whatever time has elapsed between posts I DID hit the jackpot, but I learned to drop the labour intensive desperate pursuit of free traffic - essentially trading my physical health for a lot of money.

I just did my homework. The real changes in business are bits of homework done - calculations and strategies and adoptions of plans or sources.

What did I concretely do in my homework? I opened my mind to the fact that I just need to stand firm, by as robust and assertive as I can about getting a FAIR PRICE from google on hits - I can easily buy hits for 1p a head if I just sit down and face the task as rigorously as I possibly can. When I tried before I eventually adopted 24p as the standard. I just didn't use the fullest measure of cajones there either (although hell god dammit I bought hits from google at 12p, 100s of times, and sold em back to google straight away for about a quid a shot, and then carried on even as they phased me out with each passing day... some cajones exist here).

So there it is. I did what I had to do. And it worked. You can't do better than what I did. It takes a lot to understand what is or isn't success, from the outside, but so what? So what about the shoes? I SELL shoes, I don't care who throws them.

Now I can get to my a.i. work, amongst other things:
(although of COURSE my primary next big development is my new Affiliate Network, being built and launched THIS YEAR - since I'll easily have 100k somewhere inside it now - which of course means that I'm not going to hide in the caribbean and become an escapee from the world... no in fact I have to do the opposite - I have to surround myself with as many objects of profit as I can in 365 days, like a well guarded king on a big chess game. Instead of taking it easy as a result of my gain I now have to go totally the other way - so I WILL need that holiday first! I'll be buggered if I do all this ****e any more without a well deserved 4 week tranquility break by blue seas and in warm climates with good music, lots of pleasant ambience and friendliness {so probably not israel/palestine, eh?})

this is the essence of the work I was talking about, btw (from thread on coding):
I was right about the island. By default we DO go back to that one at the end, no matter what.

When I get there, I'll stop by at a cybercafe and post you guys a photo on the beaches, a picture of where you can all go, if you keep working until the light shines and the answer clicks into place. And god dammit, it's not even 9am here yet. All this and before 9am. I retired before 9am. Maybe I'll ring Obama and say "*****," (since he's my ***** now) "sell me wisconsin. I want to buy wisconsin. How much for the little girl? How much for the cheeeldren? I want to buy your women, how much for the women?" and so on.


[SO in short it took 3 days from finding out exactly where she was and that she's fine, to becoming completely financially repaired and accelerating at about 1000 times what 6 months labour would have enabled me to crawl to. 3 days isn't bad. That's motivation for you. Ah, passion].

I'm leaving here (the computer and the forums) today, therefore, since it's all about the money now. I've saved post 420 for that promised moneycounter report. My name will fade from google's caches any my new Irish alias will hopefully be sufficiently anonymous to obscure me back into the void of being a nobody.

Anyone who gets the illness of becoming addicted to any particular site or sites when stuck online for months, use a feature on firefox like blocksite - this enables you to vaguely control your urge to visit such sites. I don't think it could POSSIBLY work for porn, because it's only really for blocking a few specific regularly visited sites out, if you ask me. I mean forums, social networks, video sharing sites - the stuff you waste your time on instead of enjoying the blue blue caribbean sea.

Alternatively, find the obvious solution to internet usage overload by reducing necessary usage time to a few minutes a month and then stay away from your whole computer. Maybe put it in storage and just go to an internet cafe for those few minutes. Eg in the caribbean somewhere.

Yeah. Here's the final chapter of the story of Bob, my book i wrote years ago. the final bit of the final chapter. It all fits with the blue blue blue sea I see, hope you see it too:

I'll publish the whole thing again some time, it was online. Maybe I'll turn it into an animated video. With a droplet of the new available 2009-2010 money I can hire technical people to produce it the way I want. watch out for it! It will be COVERED in advertising, obviously.

#14 (permalink)

cool man good luck!

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#15 (permalink)

Wow, thanks for sharing everything. So it's April I'm assuming you've moved? Were you successful? Did you meet the deadline?

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