Mark Tilbury REACTION – Side Hustles to AVOID – Investment Banking – Capital Raising – Capital Raises
📍 All right, in this video, I’m going to react to somebody called Mark Tilbury. I actually haven’t heard about him just until I got a request to make this reaction video. And so the video I’m reacting to is seven very difficult side hustles to avoid. So apparently I heard that this guy is very successful.
So I’ll just show my candid reactions and go from there.
Those side hustles that the gurus talk about won’t make you rich, and a lot of them should be avoided at all costs. Believe me, I’ve tried so many different side hustles before finally escaping my 9 to 5 job and becoming a millionaire in my 20s. Nice. I now own multiple million dollar businesses, so this video comes from experience.
So not only am I going to expose the top 7 side hustles to avoid, I’m also going to reveal how you can actually be successful. With some clever tweaks, so number seven is e commerce. I’m sure you’ve all seen those TikTok videos where people claim to have got rich from selling Christmas gnomes on Amazon.
So I actually know somebody in their 20s that made I think over a hundred million dollars revenue from e commerce. Uh, but that being said, I’m not trying to look for exceptions to what he’s saying. I mean, the guy, the guy knows what he’s talking about here. But I’m just saying that I actually have witnessed people do it.
And I’ve seen them do it through YouTube, uh, and selling, uh, products that way. But I personally don’t know anything about e commerce. Uh, I’m just saying that maybe look at the context behind what he’s saying, as opposed to all or nothing black and white, but let’s listen. That seemed like a walk in the park, but behind all the flashy success stories you see online, it can be an extremely tough game.
Honestly, I think the number one issue here is customer data. This is the ability to know your customer’s purchasing habits. This specific type of data is a game changer. Knowing this information allows you to build a much stronger returning customer base, as you can market to them again and again at almost no cost.
If a huge corporation like Amazon owns all of your customer data, And who’s to say they can’t use this to push you out and start selling a product like yours? Speaking of being powerless, there was a time when I got banned from one of these internet giants myself. A few years back, I listed some craft knives on my RC model business, and they got taken down.
I was told that I’d broken their terms and conditions for a little… Okay, so I think I understand more of what he’s saying. So because the guy that I know, he didn’t depend on Amazon to do his e commerce. Because he said e commerce, and then, but really what he’s saying is over dependence on one… person, and I agree with that completely because the person I’m referring to before, the person who made 100 million in revenue, I mean, they didn’t depend exclusively on Amazon, and they actually knew their customers really well because they partnered with YouTubers who knew their subscribers really well.
So this makes a lot of sense. And even me, as I run raises. com, I’m noticing that I have to know who I’m working with. I have to know them intimately, and everything that’s going on in their world. And become one of them. So yeah, knowing your customer is everything Craft night. I know how ridiculous. And there’s a punishment.
They ban me from listing any new items for an entire month. So should we completely forget about Amazon and eBay? Well, it might surprise you to hear that I actually do sell on eBay. This is my warehouse. But why sell on E? So this goes back to seeing things as black and white, because now he’s telling you the exception to the rule.
After I’ve just said third party platforms are not a good idea. Well, I only do it to draw attention to my brand. I see it more as a marketing tool and use it to funnel as many people to my website as possible. A little trick I use to achieve this is by having my staff include business brochures with every order we sell on a third party platform.
These brochures contain a discount code that customers can use on my website. By doing this, you can redirect these customers to your website where you play by your own rules and you regain that control. But number six is an even bigger trap, really. That’s a really good idea because, yeah, because uh…
Using hype to get attention and then actually giving them the result. That’s that’s a good idea The ultimate path passive income earning an extra yearly salary effortlessly and riding that relaxing wave to financial freedom absolute nonsense Well coming from someone who owns multiple properties. I can promise you it’s not that easy First off to even purchase a property.
You need a significant amount of money. It’s highly illiquid You’ll have a large chunk of your money. I I agree. Well, I mean people watching our razors. com stuff More than half of them are in real estate. So Yeah, I can attest that it’s never completely passive unless you’re potentially a limited partner.
If you’re not a limited partner, it’s usually not as passive. And even if you’re a limited partner, you still have to do a lot of research, which takes a lot of energy. which you’re unable to use, and you must be prepared for that, even if you can… What’s the difference between… Just skipping his ad. selling on a marketplace and selling with Shopify?
When you build a store… you can afford to buy a property. It will typically require ongoing expenses like tax and insurance, not to mention the maintenance. I’m sure many of you have lived or currently live in student housing. Just consider the damage that it’s caused over a year, and how many times the handyman is called in to fix yet another.
So, it makes sense. But again, like if you’re a limited partner, it’s a bit different. I think the real issue is more the interest rates and watching that because some people get priced out of their profitability if the interest rates hit a certain level. This house behind me is one of my single family rental properties.
Stunning, even though I do say so myself. But it hasn’t always been that way. Honestly, it took me about four years to make this house worthwhile. Check out the tiling on the roof up there. It looks decent, right? Well, that’s because I had to refit them. One of the ridge tiles fell off, which caused the wind to blow down many more.
And at the time, I decided to do the job myself, thinking, How hard can it be? But then I realized how high a roof on a two story building is. I’m not even afraid of heights. But it’s extremely difficult to lay tiles when you’re 26 foot up a ladder. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, he could get a management company, like, he could get a, um, a property manager, though, and then split revenue with them, but then the issue is, like, would it be profitable in doing that?
And then they could probably take some of the burden off of his head. It feels like being on one of those Mr. Beast videos. The frustrating part is that if I’d have found out when that first pile had fallen off, I could have saved a lot of money and fixed that problem immediately. I’ve been very lucky that my tenants have always paid on time, but this isn’t the case for everyone.
So ask yourself, is it worth it? Look, despite… I agree on the tenant thing. Uh, especially if you’re in a, not a tenant friendly or landlord friendly place. So make sure you go to a landlord friendly place. All the chaos that comes with real estate, I’m still very passionate about it. I usually aim to keep a good 15 percent of my annual rental money aside, which protects me against some of the issues we’ve discussed along the way.
Ultimately, it’s a great way to build long term wealth. So when you have enough money to tie up into an investment property, then it can be a good idea, but it’s definitely not a side hustle. Saying this, I can’t actually believe how many people fall for number five. Right, imagine waking up at 5am armed with a protein shaker ready to take on the financial market.
The day begins with one simple premise. All you have to do is sit with your laptop, following charts, and BOOM! You’ve made a profit. This is the illusion that fake gurus put out on social media. And I can confirm that this is one daring adventure where profits can be lost in the blink of an eye. Believe it or not, I’ve tried trading myself.
And you want to know how long I lasted? Eight months. Not even a year. One of my shares, BOOM! I agree. I know somebody that, uh, traded with Merrill Lynch. And they traded billions of dollars and made one time they made a billion dollar bonus. It’s definitely not a, I mean obviously that’s at a high level, but it’s obviously not a passive thing.
Again, I think it’s passive if you, if you’re a limited partner and then you invest in somebody else’s hedge fund, that’s more passive. But the active part is you still have to spend your mental energy doing research and due diligence. Uh, I personally haven’t done any day trading to that extent. But, uh, yeah, it’s definitely not, not a passive thing.
Because I wasn’t online enough to monitor his progress, resulting in a loss of money. I’m grateful that I didn’t have a significant amount invested, as a large sum could have sunk me at the time. The biggest issue I have with online trading is a fake guru selling signals to unsuspecting people that don’t know any better.
Yep, I agree to that. The signal thing is really like a pump and dump, and there are a lot of that in the public markets, unfortunately. Just do what they tell you, and you’ll be rich. If they actually know how to beat the market, then why would they be making most of their money from selling these signals instead of from trading themselves?
Ultimately, to start trading, you need to have a decent amount of money and be in a financial position where potential losses will not exceed. The best way to make money online is not affiliate marketing. It’s not Amazon FBA, it’s not Shopify dropshipping, it’s not building… It’s not. that will significantly affect you.
I know this is usually the point where I tell you how to make this side hustle a success, but to be honest with you… Unless you’re going to dedicate your life to it, then I don’t see how day trading is going to work out for you. AI will be far better at spotting patterns than any human brain. So I think the days of even the best human traders are pretty limited.
Number four, low skilled service based businesses are probably the most common side hustle shared in those top 10 side hustle videos on you. I kind of agree. Um, you know, this will be replaced by AI really shortly. You’ve probably heard them talking about getting paid to complete online surveys and for writing video captions.
The harsh truth is, when it comes to a low skilled service based business, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’ve come from. Low skilled, quote unquote low skilled services, best things to hire virtual assistants, or in other words, administrative assistants from the Philippines or even Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, whatever.
It’s best to get them to do that type of work. Um, and then, yeah, don’t think that this is a good way to build income. I totally agree. Your value purely on the quality of the service you provide. Those typical barriers like age and experience become a thing of the past. So as long as there’s an internet connection, anyone, anyone in the world can compete with you.
It’s important to remember that this includes kids and people in less economically developed countries. So this is going to drive down the amount that you can charge. I mean, look around! AI is slowly integrating itself into many areas within society. Who’s to say it won’t take over some service based businesses?
AI is advancing by the day and it’s already replaced the role of a caption creator. I have a feeling that the days of copywriting and certain services might be numbered. If you’re considering starting a service based business, remember that even if you’re earning a decent amount of money, You’re still tied down by time.
It’s not all doom and gloom. You just need to make sure that you start a service based business that is not only successful, but also… Yeah, I think it’s tied down by time unless it’s technology enabled. So I think people need to add technology enabled service based businesses. So that it, you prioritize your service so that you don’t depend on only time, money output.
Scalable video editing is a great example of this, as it allows you to establish an agency style business. This way you can avoid being limited to manual work. Remember, life is short, so make sure you’re the one in control of the stopwatch. When people learn about number three, dropshipping, they often say things like, Wait a minute.
I don’t have to handle inventory or make my own products. I can just have a supplier in China ship a product to my customers and all I need to do is run a few Facebook ads, meaning I can make money from anywhere in the world. Sign me up. If only this was true, as dropshipping often involves shipping from abroad, it means items take ages to arrive.
A few years ago, this was the norm for me. Yeah, so this is kind of like that guy I know who made the hundred million dollars in revenue, um, and it was on the Forbes list and everything, and, yeah, he, like, there are some complaints about the amount of time it takes. To deliver. I might wait a week and a half for my orders, but now, well, I expect them the next day.
We’re all used to that next day quick delivery option. So I’m not sure how many people will still have the patience to wait. This will lead to a lot of charge packs as people get very frustrated. On top of this, one of the biggest headaches with dropshipping is the quality of the products. They can be all over the place.
As sellers, you have restricted access to quality control, which can leave you with very unhappy customers. It’s not impossible to be a successful dropshipper though. You can use a local warehouse to fix shipping issues. And you can do something called white label. Meaning, you can start putting your own brand on the products you sell.
This will help you stand out in a very competitive market. I see white label dropshipping as a worthwhile side hustle and a low risk method to generate income. It’s also excellent for testing ideas before fully committing to big orders. But this doesn’t fix your quality issues, as you don’t have any control over the manufacture and fulfilment process.
Once, I visited a factory where I was told the products were of great value and high quality. While the qualities of the products were indeed very good, the state of the workplace was not. From exposed hanging wires to overheating… Yeah, people really have, they have to know the warehouses and the factories.
They have to go there or fly there, and they have to intimately know the factories. If not… Probably not going to work. And that’s not from me, that’s just from watching other people who are into that business. The factory was extremely unsafe. It felt like a ticking time bomb. Unexpectedly, as I was walking around the factory, a red hot shard of metal flew out from the machine.
If you’re growing as a business, you should gradually aim to take control of all aspects of that business. Number two, being a YouTuber is what all the kids want to do nowadays. Earning thousands for simply sitting in front of a camera, discussing your passions, and accumulating millions of fans. This sounds like an ideal side hustle.
But it’s not as easy as it seems. I started my channel not to make money. I definitely agree with this because there are some YouTubers I know that they have 100, 000 subscribers and they’re not sending them to anything. And there are, alternatively, there are some people that, like, they have to combine the, if you’re raising money for an investment, for example, uh, you know, you have to find a way to funnel people to something.
Or a product like we do, a service like we do, you know, so you have to funnel people to it. So even if you have a few subscribers, Like just 5k to 10k subscribers and you send them to an investment If you’re legally able to do that or you send them to a product that you that can make millions Whereas there’s some people I know they have 1 million subscribers I are more like 200, 000 subscribers to 100, 000 subscribers and actually not making even 2, 000 a month from it You know because they have no way of monetizing it or they attract the wrong audience But it’s a passion project with my son.
We didn’t get monetized or accept any sponsors until we’d been filming videos for years. A significant portion of our personal funds went into building studio sets and traveling to improve our videos. If we’d have started this as a side hustle, it wouldn’t have made any sense and probably lost us a lot of money.
The reality is, success on YouTube is not guaranteed, and competition continues to grow daily. Achieving what’s seen as overnight success usually takes five to seven years of hard work and determination. Does this mean I don’t believe in you and you shouldn’t start a YouTube channel? No, I’m simply suggesting that if you’re seeking a quick and easy way to earn money, YouTube may not be the best choice.
If you’re truly passionate about it and you would do it even without pay, then I wish you all the best. However, it doesn’t qualify as a side hustle. Number one is, of course, multi level marketing. We’ve all encountered a friend Yeah, I think multi level marketing is always a waste of time. No exception except for the top 0.
001 percent like Ed Milet. But, yeah, I’d stay away from this, uh… Like, uh, a plague and to have started their own business. But actually all they’re doing is acting as a sales agent for a big . All right? So, I mean, we, we pretty much watched the whole video. So at the end of the day, like, I think this is the first time I’m watching this guy.
I think he’s brilliant and, um, I’m green of all, everything he says. The only thing is notice that for every point. He always has a counterexample because some of these things you want to have context around it. Uh, so, I mean, with this, you know, hopefully this has been a good reaction. If you want to learn about what we do, just make sure you head to raze.
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