My name is Michael. I started Return on Conversion to share my adventures in online business with friends and family back home.
A little background
I’ve wanted to be an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember.
Well, really I wanted the two things that came with being an entrepreneur: money and freedom.
When I was 13, I worked delivering newspapers in my neighbourhood. I quickly realized that if I actively canvassed for new subscribers, I could make more money. So despite being a super shy kid, I started knocking on doors and handing out subscription sales letters. Then I took over the paper route of the surrounding area and made even more money. Even though I was working for the newspaper, seeing the direct results of my hard work and hustle in my paycheck really stuck with me.
At 16, my parents bought a new computer that came with a CD burner. I downloaded hundreds of mp3s from Napster (those were the days…) and made mix CDs for friends. Soon word spread around school that I could make CDs, so I printed out a list of all the songs to use as an order form. I bought blank discs in bulk for $3 a piece, and sold them to classmates for $10. It was a fun little project until more people started getting CD burners.
After graduating university, I played around with different online businesses over the years, but always as side projects. Even though I thought I could hack it, there was always this little voice in the back of my head that told me I should stick to the “safe route” of my salaried corporate job. (I later found out this voice is known as ‘the resistance‘ and is a common struggle for entrepreneurs and creatives.)
In 2015, the income from my side projects (buying and optimizing websites) started to catch up to my salary, and I knew this was my big chance. So I quit my job, moved to Chiang Mai and decided I would become a full-time entrepreneur. I was finished with jobs where I wasn’t in control of my destiny.
Now I’ve got a different mindset: even if I crash and burn on my current projects, I don’t think there’s any way I could go back. Plus, I deleted every CV file on my computer, so there’s that.
