Cash’s Blog

I was born at a young age

From a young age, I have had an interest in technology. My first computer was a 286 beast with Windows 3.1. It was quite outdated evenk then, but it worked and was good to experiment on. I think I would’ve been about 12 (1999)  when my friend who was also quite into computers stared teaching me HTML and VBscript (webpage development).

Several years later, me and my friend Nick, started a website called Anid Downloads. It was basically a whole bunch of MIDI’s, GIF animations we put together and some games made in a program called Klick & Play. With very little knowledge of the Internet, it did little more than impress a few friends at school. We never did anything big with Anid Downloads, but I believe this was the start of it all.

Several years later, when I was about 16 ( 2004), me and some of my friends got into playing computer games. Some of my favourites were the Grand Theft Auto series, Battlefield 1942 and Quake III. We had some small LAN parties at our houses, then found out about bigger, public events and started attending. After we had been to a few, we thought “Hey, we can do this!!”

Overload LAN

The whole group came up with the name “Overload LAN.” Nick and me were working at McDonalds at the time, and had saved a few thousand dollars. So, soon enough, we had bought some network switches, cable, the domain name and designed a website with registration system. Andrew, a friend, was a helper with  sound and lighting at our school. We initially organised to “hire” him to help us with the power set-up, but he soon became one of leaders in the group of organisers. Nick was also involved but after the first event, had to resign due to school commitments.

We ran our first event and it was quite a success (thanks to James who forwarded us another LAN party group’s mailing list). James and his friend, David met with Andrew and I after our first event and explained that they were interested in becoming a part of Overload LAN. After some negotiation, they bought us out and we ran the second event with their support. A few LAN parties later, we were getting attendance of 100+ people.

Although it was good fun, there were too many organisers with too many different ideas, members of the team not pulling there weight and very little money to be made. I ended up (not formally) resigning after the 5th event. Overload LAN stopped running after the 8th event. Its parent company tried moving on to bigger things, but eventually realised that, with the very low cost of Internet access, Melbourne’s LAN party scene had dried up.

My Taste of Working Life

At age 19, I stared working full-time, doing house removals.  A few months later, I moved house and my 45 minute commute to work (each way) became one and a half hours (each way). I spent 6 months putting up with this, then said enough is enough and quit. I lived on savings for roughly 6 months and did some freelance webmaster work for my former boss, who had started a side-project. I’m currently still the webmaster of this website.

I worked at a servo (gas station) for around 6 months, after a long period of unemployment. It was good, easy and I enjoyed meeting some interesting people. I later resigned when I was offered a well-paying office job.

A change of plans…

A lot of the below was written when I was working part-time and assumed starting a website was easy. I now know it is not THAT easy

But this is still my philosophy and I intend to reach these goals within the next few years

So what now?

I worked full-time in removals (what one would call a “real job”) for about a year and I’m determined to never do anything like that again. I consider myself a bit of an entrepreneur. I managed to organise and run a LAN party and I really enjoyed doing so. I wouldn’t find a job working in an office or labouring for the rest of my life fulfilling or any “job” for that matter. I’m sure some people are perfectly happy working their jobs. Maybe they’re too scared to try something else, maybe they’re not intelligent enough, maybe they just don’t want to. That’s fine! I have nothing but respect for the people working their arses off. The world needs builders, courier drivers and checkout chicks. I have just chosen to take a different path.

“Andrew, you need to Real-job“…

I have constant pressure from my parents, family, peers, everyone, to get a “real job”. I don’t know why, but it is so difficult to explain to them that there are alternatives to working your arse off for 45 years of your life and want to try one.

Ok, let’s quickly do some maths. There are 168 hours in a week (24 hours x 7 days). You spend a average of 40 hours a week at work (8 hours x 5 days), plus travel, we’ll say 1 hour per day, so 5 hours.  You then spend 56 hours or more sleeping (8 hours x 7 days ).
So thats’s:
168 hours you have in a week
-45 hours at work and commuting
-56 hours sleeping
then you have 67 hours remaining. That’s almost 2/3 of your time gone. By the time you go shopping, eat, shower, sit on the couch watching TV because you’re so tired from a big day at work, there’s not much time left. And you do this for 45 years; the best part and the best part of your life!

A Start in the Right Direction

If any of your friends ever invite you to an AMWAY meeting, I suggest you go! Even if you don’t want to go through with it, It will completely change your perspective on working life. Be aware, that it is multi-level marketing. So, there’s a bit of sales pitch to what they say, but for a reason. Remain open-minded and understand why they have the structure they do. Although AMWAY has copped a lot of bad publicity, I have to say, it is the world’s greatest business system.

It helped open my eyes to the facts; scare me a little even. Think about when you retire. Are you going to have more money than you did when you were working? What will that mean for your lifestyle?

What is success?

I keep using the term “success”. I believe that different people would have a different definition of success. To some, success is lots of money. To others, it is doing something positive for the world. Some people (like me) are in between. But it’s not the money that’s important for me. I don’t want to be the richest man in the world. Everyone has bills, expenses and a lot of us sometimes struggle to pay them. Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to worry about money? Concentrate on more important things in life, like keeping fit, eating right or raising a family. I had a regular customer, when I was working at the servo (who is what I would call successful) who used to say, “Money just buys the tickets to go on the rides.”

So what is my brilliant money-making scheme?

I’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s not brilliant and it’s not a scheme. It does involve work. No one achieved the lifestyle I’m looking for without working for it. The Internet is a wonderful tool. The Internet allows anyone with half a brain to start a website and if it’s something people are interested in, you can make a lot of money from it. – That’s it!

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