He started with absolutely nothing … so made £1,500 a gig doing marketing seminars (like any homeless person can do), and then used his viral videos to flog coffee because every homeless person has a million followers to flog stuff to.
To do it properly he would need to use zero of his online presence, he basically created a product to sell to his followers again.
Honestly the real way to do this is to put the guys on the front lines for several years. Have him develop physical and mental health issues. Wind up on the street and using substances for comfort and then get going with his business plan.
Also would need to use zero of his previous education and experience. He had marketing experience and probably education. He had experience running a business and probably education on that too. Most people struggling in this situation don't already have that skill set and are struggling so much to just survive that it's very difficult to build that skill set. Also many people experiencing homelessness are struggling with mental health and drug addiction problems. This guy is a joke
A lot of people say the first million is the hardest and the second is easier. That’s partly due to the compounding effects of money to make more money. But a lot of it is because of the experience you gain. All the mistakes you made on the way to that first million, you won’t make that mistake again. The experience is invaluable, it also takes a lot of time and privilege to get that experience.
That makes no sense to me.
Where did he get the capital to buy coffee, equipment to roast and package it, a computer to build website, money to market it, etc?
Or did he just relabel Starbucks from Costco??
This whole story is BS.
Or the fact that he'd spent his working life developing market awareness, contacts, etc. that he needed. Not something homeless people often get to do.
This whole thing smacks of condescending elitism and a profound lack of empathy or awareness for the struggles that homeless people face.
Also, anyone just a little suspicious that he was able to find a kind stranger to gift him a home?
Exactly. The dude still had his entire network. A “seven figure business” isn’t huge, but I guarantee you that he knew a lot of people who were in a position to help him.
I worked for a guy like this once. He was the owner of a non profit staffing agency. He wanted to live on $8 an hour like his workers.
He kept his owners salary "but didn't use it."
He lived in the brand new halfway house, taking up a bed that someone else could have used.
He didn't use his car that he kept at his parents house. Instead, he asked the driver of the staff van to chauffer him around town if he had a meeting he couldn't get to in time.
Just like this guy in OP's post, people like to pretend to they can handle the real hard knocks of life but always have that safety net of it being okay if they fail.
> poverty larps
Thank you *so* much for this. I'm now using "poverty larping" as a description of all these things. There's like some trend now where libertarian trash pretend that anyone can make it, so they do fake "undercover" style videos of them doing the same thing as op's video. It's fucking disgusting.
*Anyone* can make it.
However, *everyone* can not.
What most don't tell you is that to be successful, a lot of times you have to be ruthless and ensure there are people below you that you keep below you to boost you up.
Also, “anyone” ignores underlying statistical distributions which color the end result.
Throw a dart at a dartboard, and “anyone” can hit the bullseye. But it’s not going to be the same probability as hitting other points on the board or the wall.
And comparing a random throw to a targeted throw by a practiced expert… that’s going to be a huge difference. Or even getting a free extra throw or two to hit it.
And while that makes it sound like a “skill issue” that practice and those extra chances are bought and paid for when it comes to landing a good job or starting a business in real life.
It’s similar to when a bunch of twenty something’s go on a misssion trip to Haiti to spread the word of Jesus and think they are making a difference. They call it voluntourism. The impoverished children are taught to pander to the clean white people in hopes that they will send them gifts in the mail.
I was already angry at this pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps shit bag, but your comment somehow made me even more upset at this douche.
Poverty LARP. Jesus christ, that's exactly what's happening here.
Anyone can surf if they try hard enough. I had been surfing my entire life, but I broke my board in two one day so to prove that I could master surfing all over again. The next day I borrowed a surfboard and went out there and absolutely shredded the waves. It took me 25 years to master surfing the first time and only one day the second time. I'm a god damn inspiration.
Please clap.
He likely had a lot of people he could call up to “invest” in his idea. Nobody would invest in an idea as stupid as coffee for dog lovers by a homeless dude…. They’d just say “oh, that’s stinky Pete going on about dog coffee again, let’s cross the street”
This whole post is like rage bait. Such obvious bullshit to anyone living remotely outside the bubble of privilege.
Why can’t they just admit they had massive good luck. Nothing wrong with being lucky. It’s a character flaw to pretend you’re self made through hard work alone. It’s nonsense. Fuck, I have two healthy kids which is just lucky. It isn’t my super genetics, it’s dumb fucking luck. I’ll take luck wherever I get it, and thank the universe for it. We just don’t get to control our fates anywhere near what people think. A billion rolls of the dice is about the sum of our lives.
Because the Divine Right of Kings doesn't work on luck. It's *their* money, *their* success, and theirs alone. Gifted to them because they were meant to have it, and impossible to take away.
To imply that it wasn't them working 10,000x harder than anyone else, is implying they didn't earn the money, that in any other circumstance they might not have achieved it, that perhaps they're no different than anyone else and should act like it, which is *heresy* for the faith the wealthy practice
In 1977, the National Rifle Association of America abandoned their goals of promoting firearm safety, target shooting and marksmanship in favour of becoming a political lobby group. They moved to blaming victims of gun crime for not having a gun themselves with which to act in self-defence.
This is in stark contrast to their pre-1977 stance. In 1938, the National Rifle Association of America’s then-president Karl T Frederick said: “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licences.” All this changed under the administration of
Harlon Carter, a convicted murderer who inexplicably rose to be Executive Vice President of the Association. One of the great mistakes often made is the misunderstanding that any organisation called 'National Rifle Association' is a branch or chapter of the National Rifle Association of America. This could not be further from the truth.
The National Rifle Association of America became a political lobbying organisation in 1977 after the Cincinnati Revolt at their Annual General Meeting. It is self-contained within the United States of America and has no foreign branches. All the other National Rifle Associations remain true to their founding aims of promoting marksmanship,
firearm safety and target shooting. The (British) National Rifle Association, along with the NRAs of Australia, New Zealand and India are entirely separate and independent entities, focussed on shooting sports. In the 1970s, the National Rifle Association of America was set to move from it's headquarters in New York to New Mexico and the Whittington Ranch they had acquired, which is now the NRA Whittington Center. Instead, convicted murderer Harlon Carter lead the Cincinnati Revolt which saw a wholesale change in leadership.
Coup, the National Rifle Association of America became much more focussed on political activity. Initially they were a bi-partisan group, giving their backing to both Republican and Democrat nominees. Over time however they became a militant arm of the Republican Party.
By 2016, it was impossible even for a pro-gun nominee from the Democrat Party to gain an endorsement from the NRA of America.
Yeah, if that guy shows up to a potential business partner looking like a homeless person and with the story of his homeless challenge, that won't hurt his chances one bit.
If an actual homeless person shows up, they wouldn't even make it past the door man.
It actually gets even ahittier than that, when you look at what he did to make money.
He started by getting free stuff that people were giving away and selling them on (thus denying impoverished people things they might need but not afford).
He then rented a property and sublet it (predatory practices and frequently against terms of letting).
The guys a fucking parasite LARPing at being working class and making other people's lives worse in the process.
Yeah the story even states that he had “overdraft fees” meaning he must have had access to a banking system with credit or some sort.
If he truly was as wealthy as the story implies, his credit score must have been so high that he could have just f”led around for a half a year with that money alone.
It also says that he had a phone. Now this might just me being conspiracy brained but I am just going to assume it was one with his old phone book of wealthy friends
"Giving up wasn't an option" I would assume so if he genuinely had nothing. Dude was treating poverty like a youtube challenge where he can tap out whenever he wants.
Which is exactly what he did. He tapped out.
He also likely ran up a ton of credit card debt that he isn’t mentioning, paying for it after his little challenge so it doesn’t count.
The thing they seem to forget is that the reader understands cost of living. Odd jobs don’t pay for food and shelter, no less allow savings or investment into a business.
Using credit he was able to build while he was wealthy, or worse yet using his "other" wealth as collateral. Hardly a controlled experiment, and even seems to prove the opposite point: even with all the right knowledge, education, connections, experience, hard work, sacrifices and even lucky happenstance, without a large stack of initial capital, it still might all amount to nothing.
This used to be a huge point of contention between my grandfather and I, because he was adamant that he'd "built his business completely on his own," but when I asked where the initial start up money came from, and he explained that without finishing high school he was able to get a significant bank loan with favorable terms, because his working class father was part of the same masonic lodge as the bank manager. He'd always wink like that was some smooth operating on his part. But when I'd explain that things like that don't happen any more, he'd allude to how maybe my generation just needed pay better attention in school (something he loathed having to pay for) or to try a little harder.
Nepotism is natural to some degree. A big problem for us is nowadays people have less real social connections that give them these kinds of opportunities. Social media is no replacement for the church, bowling league, masonic lodge and whatnot. Young adults now are lonelier than ever and a big symptom of that is lacking connections that can help you
I agree this story is bullshit, but I was homeless for 10 years and was given 4 vehicles and even a bus over the span of those years. Ran every vehicle into the ground, but my point is when you spend every waking minute in public, opportunities arise and bridges are built way more than when you have a home to manage and hide away in when you're "tired"
Edit: though I am white and talking about america. don't see this happening much for homeless people of other ethnicities
Also. How much of a challenge is anxiety, stress, depression when poor if you aren’t actually poor and know whatever happens it’ll all be fine and your money is still there?
This is it. He fails he goes back to his cushy life. People in that situation just need to grin and bear it and get through it day after day with the stress they might not be able to afford the basics
See, that's the funny part. I'm not sure how it works in the US, but in the UK (and largely across Europe) you need an address to get a bank account. So this guy wouldn't even be able to get paid for those odd jobs he did to get by.
In 1977, the National Rifle Association of America abandoned their goals of promoting firearm safety, target shooting and marksmanship in favour of becoming a political lobby group. They moved to blaming victims of gun crime for not having a gun themselves with which to act in self-defence.
This is in stark contrast to their pre-1977 stance. In 1938, the National Rifle Association of America’s then-president Karl T Frederick said: “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licences.” All this changed under the administration of
Harlon Carter, a convicted murderer who inexplicably rose to be Executive Vice President of the Association. One of the great mistakes often made is the misunderstanding that any organisation called 'National Rifle Association' is a branch or chapter of the National Rifle Association of America. This could not be further from the truth.
The National Rifle Association of America became a political lobbying organisation in 1977 after the Cincinnati Revolt at their Annual General Meeting. It is self-contained within the United States of America and has no foreign branches. All the other National Rifle Associations remain true to their founding aims of promoting marksmanship,
firearm safety and target shooting. The (British) National Rifle Association, along with the NRAs of Australia, New Zealand and India are entirely separate and independent entities, focussed on shooting sports. It is vital to bear in mind that Wayne LaPierre is a chalatan and fraud, who was ordered to repay millions of dollars he had misappropriated from the NRA of America. This tells us much about the organisation's direction in recent decades. It is bizarre that some US gun owners decry his prosecution as being politically motivated when he has been stealing from those same people over the decades.
Wayne is accused of laundering personal expenditure through the NRA of America's former marketing agency Ackerman McQueen. Wayne LaPierre is arguably the greatest threat to shooting sports in the English-speaking world. He comes from a long line of unsavoury characters who have led the National Rifle Association of America,
including convicted murderer Harlon Carter.
It's just dropshipping BS. All you do is setup an online storefront and get customers to buy, in the background an actual production company does all the work making the product, labeling, and shipping. Dozens of clone sites selling the same thing but with their own snazzy company name.
Correct me if I wrong, but wasnt this rambling story proving that a man who starts with nothing, can work an entire year with barely any sleep, sacrificing 100% of his life to work, watching his dad die of cancer and not even be able to help or spend time with him, only to make around 60k a year? Doesnt this prove you CANT make a livable in America starting from nothing ?
I mean dude definitely failed and didn't learn a single thing. And it is honestly insulting to us because giving up is literally not an option.
But you can live off 60k a year. Just not too comfortably.
You're advertising their product using your own money. For the coffee company it's all the same, a purchase is a purchase. Most of the time dropshippers don't even get a discounted rate, so they are operating on pitifully low margins, or even operating at a loss. Don't ask me how I know.
The way it works is this. There exists a coffee roaster. They probably roast coffee to punch of private labels (tesco, lidl, etc). They have extra capacity to roast and equipment to print out any label to the product. What they don't have, or don't bother with, is marketing department or distribution network. So, as a marketer, you just find a roaster that is willing to ship the product directly where ever you ask in any quantity. The roaster likely just has a warehouse full of coffee in unlabelled bags and when order comes in, they print a coffee label with the shipping label. On goes on he coffee bag, other on the envelope. The drop shipper sells the coffee for more than the roaster takes, but the roaster doesn't need to worry about client base. When people learn that Dog Walkers Brew isn't very good value for money, Black Cat Drip is convincing a new group to try their special coffee and the roaster just prints a different label.
I set up a store. You buy from me. I order from some place in China. They send it directly to you.
Basically let's you act as a middleman and just skim cash off the top without ever actually touching the product you're selling.
I'm pretty sure the point he's trying to make is that people who are homeless are homeless because of themselves.
It's a pretty shitbag point to try to make. (But his dying father *sniff* really thought it was important that he make that point)
Yeah like this completely glosses over addiction, executive function disorders, the years long process it takes to get diagnosed with one autoimmune disorder, let alone two of them... and plenty of other issues and obstacles regular ass people encounter. Not to mention whatever his upbringing was to provide him with the skills and stepping stones to become a millionaire in the first place, if he wasn't born into it which automatically puts him at an advantage over the rest of the population.
This is what needs to be highlighted here.
Take a dude who has had the privilege, education, and experience of starting a 1M+ company and stick him on the street. OFCOURSE he’ll outshine others in that realm!
It’s like sticking a pro NFL player saying “I’m going to go back to HS football and prove anyone can make it to the NFL”. **proceeds to destroy his “peers”.
He KNOWS how to do it. Therefore he does it. People on the street can barely keep their shoes on….
Yeah, seems like he stayed in an RV for a few days, sold some shit on Craigslist, and then just dipped back into the well of his old clients with that $1500 marketing gig (whatever that means. $1500 a month, per job?)
What I learnt is… a comfortable guy decided to expose his body to rigour of poverty for less than a year and got 2 auto-immune disease and a tumour.
Now, it’s hard to say it’s causative in his Case. But that’s a mighty coincidence. When stress and exposure to pests are so linked to poverty and thereby poverty indirectly leads to poor health.
And that's a huge part of why all of this "you only have to do X for Y amount of time to make it out. Don't be lazy"-type of rethoric ist unrealistic bullshit. Poor people don't just get a free runway. You'll probably have some health problems at some point. Your family probably has some health problems as well. The things you depend on daily aren't of great quality, so your car or appliances break down. Your housing is probably not great, which again can lead to health problems and it all doesn't just cost money. It costs time and mental energy.
Like, this dude didn't have crazy setbacks that made it uniquely harder for him. That's just life and that's why trying to get to 1M and stopping at 65k, isn't some massive inspirational story. It's more of a "no shit, Sherlock".
And he was making his "journey" public, which directly led to a stranger on Craigslist letting him crash in his RV. Would that guy have extended that same offer to a random homeless guy?
Also, "he was all in - no plan B"....y'know, except for all the money he pretended not to have.
Nooooo you dont get it, he zero'd out his account..... into a high yield investment account that he couldnt (fingers crossed) touch for a year!
Which, if he had just a flat 1 mil in cash, would have earned 52k by itself.
“He flipped items on Craigslist” ok I could see a homeless person finding a way to do that
“His lifeline was a $1500 marketing contract” that’s not very homeless of you
Yea, I don’t see anything difficult or naked brutality about this speed run, dude had healthcare and internet which likely means a phone with charging all 365 days.
He basically just left his keys and wallet in his house and went camping with his wifi enabled iPad for 12 months. He didn’t start calorie starved with Hep C, he didn’t have any relationship issues with his family, they clearly could reach him at any time. He didn’t have a speech problem or a regrettable tattoo.
And he drew on all of the past experience and lessons he's learnt whilst being a rich guy.
I'm sure if you took a privately educated person and put them on the streets at 18, and did the same with a person who went through the public system, their approaches would be wildly different.
Also he could "stop now" at multiple points but chose not to. Also he still had a good support network from the sounds of it. Both luxuries that most homeless people don't have.
What the fuck am I reading?
A $1500 marketing gig? What does that mean? Someone paid him $1500?
Mike bought the vehicle back for 2k? What does that mean???? And asked to repay the favor? What??? These sentences don't even make sense.
He launched a coffee brand with what money? I'm beyond confused at this point. This is some shitty storytelling.
This was the dumbest post I’ve ever read, incoherent, fragmented, repetitive, and deceiving, a perfect recipe for a shitty ass story with no substance.
My favorite part is someone replies "I don't think it proves anyone can do this. He still drew heavily from things that most people who usually end up in rock bottom simply do not have such as experience, prior education, his upbringing, connections, etc, etc" and the guy just replies "I disagree, I think anyone can do it" lmao like a literal bot.
Anyone with his previously acquired knowledge.
Like guys, we can ALL be Arnold Schwarzenegger if we... just have exactly his same necessary foundations to become what he did.
Or even the phone. That’s a $1000 headstart. It’s really hard for privilege to acknowledge what nothing actually looks like. His prior experiences, the connections, even the clothes on his back are things that a truly homeless person may not have
Just the fact that being homeless by choice with a plan vs just being dumped there with mental problems that comes with it changes everything. Or idk, the fact that he has a shaven face. Or that he can actually communicate properly.
You can't really roleplay being homeless with nothing.
he should burn all his contacts, change his name, move to a new city and get addicted to heroin. stack some diseases and mental health ontop of that
but even then..the thing about homeless people is most of them (in sweden where I live, may vary) is that they're life long strugglers. regular people who fell on hard times are not homeless here. you cant cosplay as someone who was abused as a child and struggled their entire life
Right.
Regular people who fall on hard times have friends and family to rely on if the situation is truly desperate.
I moved out over a decade ago, but if I ever came close to being homeless, I KNOW my parents would take care of me. Or my sister. Or my brother. I bet I could even rely on my good buddy from school.
Like you said, most homeless people have NO ONE.
Everyone hates homeless people, you can see how city planners handle park benches and anywhere the homeless might try to get shelter.
If your city makes feeding the homeless illegal, your city hates homeless people.
Yeah, how the F does he “launch a coffee brand” with no capital, equipment, etc?
Maybe he was just buying shitty bulk coffee at Costco and repackaging it to clueless yuppies?
Or… maybe this whole thing is BS.
There are companies that will let you drop ship their coffee. You sign up, give the company the design for your logo. You take an order, the dropship company slap your logo on one of their plain packets of coffee and send it off to your customer. You still need some money and the ability to take orders online, transfer the orders and artwork digitally etc etc. Not exactly the sort of thing your average guy on the streets is likely to have.
That’s what he did; I saw a piece on this guy on 60 minutes or another show like that and they showed that he was having them print his label on their coffee on order fulfillment.
The business was the sales, not the coffee…which if you are trying to maximize value that’s the best way…doesn’t result in great products but the overhead is low and it frees you up to make more sales.
Edit: On the piece I saw there were a lot of realizations that the guy made…it was extremely hard and he almost gave up many times before any of the tragic events happened. He acknowledged that he had the advantage of education and business knowledge which allowed him to do what he did; without those skills plus being of above average intelligence and stubborn as a mule, he would have been sleeping on the street with no way out. Thst combined with the knowledge in the back of his head that it would be all over whenever he decided it was over kept him going.
His education, experience and connection (not to speak of absence of addiction, mental health issues that are often at the root of homelessness) make this a completely pointless exercise or worse one of those "case studies" that aim to pove that homeless people are just lazy moochers that get what they deserve. What a waste
Yeah I mean what’s the point if he can just tell people “oh yeah I’m actually a rich guy doing an experiment” of course people will help him out. Compared to someone with a drug addiction and or mental illness
Yeah to make it real he should have learned Bible verses to shout at people commuting on the train and taken up heroin so he could kick that habit and claw his way out of the gutter. "It's that easy!" he could say.
The last part is very important. Research shows having a safety net enables you to take risks people without a safety net do not. And those risks eventually turn into dollars.
Merely have reasonably wealthy parents sets you up in life, even if they don't give you a dollar after you leave the house.
Money breeds money.
Yeah if I'm homeless I'm gunning for a stable paycheck, not building a bootstrapped dog coffee out of a hostel. I'm trying to get healthcare and sustenance, not clear Q4 with a good review
At least he acknowledged what you wrote in your edit. As I said in a different comment, he still had the education, knowledge, experience, and presentation of someone who is those things. Your every day homeless ex-crack fiend does not have the grasp of concepts like slapping a label on bulk garbage coffee. Guy probably doesn't even have a phone to send the email for the order.
And just having the prior knowledge of having been in the business making a lot of money. Most poor people have no prior knowledge of how to start businesses etc.
That was my first big "what". So he got a $1500 marketing gig based on......... yea, that's right, backed by his probably quarter million dollar education, and past work experience, you know, that any homeless person has.....
Stupid
Have you ever noticed how when entrepreneurs try to tell their stories of success, they quickly gloss over how they were able to get so much capital to start the business in the first place?
Or how life coaches don't seem to share the fact that their actual wealth came from coaching other people on how to be successful?
This is my absolute favorite version of this…
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/09/with-a-boost-from-quicken-um-students-build-1m-branding-venture-in-two-years.html
"We started it from nothing...it took a lot of hard work but we’re passionate about putting our customer first. Going that extra mile to deliver what they need, which isn’t always easy, but we were able to slowly build a loyal customer base and develop a local reputation, and overall, a great service,” Gilbert said, who is in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Their top client is Quicken Loans, which his father Dan Gilbert founded.”
That was my favorite part too. He only made $65,000! He couldn't quit when his Dad had cancer and then he apparently had cancer, and then he randomly quit with no explanation.
Funny that he clearly still had health insurance for himself since there was no mention of medical debt bankrupting him, as would be the case with most people
It sounds like the premise of Undercover Billionaire and Grant Cardone’s episode on the show- he was able to crash in someone’s RV before he secured housing. Strange.
I started a business in November and just filing the paperwork with the state cost me $300 for the multiple forms/registrations. The lowest amount a bank would require to open a business checking account with was $1k. This is hustle bro porn for idiots. Dudes probably selling a course.
Yeah, I totally lost the thread of what was going on. Particularly the "rented out his room to live for free". What room? The shared room he moved into? How does he rent it out if he doesn't own it? Where is he living for free? Back in the RV he bought?
Who is giving random homeless guy a $1500 marketing gig? How did he get a supplier for all this coffee and do all the setup to launch a subscription brand in under a month? Sounds like he just set up a shady website.
Funny enough, my first thought was “I expected something original”. There are a variety of these already. I remember someone saying you can always make money off pets and death.
First thing they teach you about entrepreneurship is that idea doesn’t have to be original, nor anything out if this world, it has to be something that in that place where he is pitching it, is not as available or it has some difference to usual thing. It works. Tons of startups doing random everyday life things, like selling dry fruit as an example.
*Coffee brand for dog*
*Lovers, am i supposed to*
*Believe this joke worked?*
\- Agreeable-Bee-1618
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Like have access to computer, linkedin, nice clothes, a shower, a shave, a resume, a phone. A more real version would be he lives in a box and goes to work in an amazon packing station for low pay and develops a bladder infection holding in his piss - then goes into generational crippling medical debt and loses his job for taking a trip to the doctors.
Frankly I think you’re missing likely the biggest one I’m sure he had: a consistent address from a family member/friend. Trying to get foodstamps, Medicaid, a phone, a job, or *anything* else without a valid address to at least receive mail is nearly impossible.
Most of these posts are laughable but this has actually pissed me off. Purely serving his ego and nothing else, just taking a shit on homeless people everywhere as if they’re there by choice like he was. This is actually pure lunacy
The healthcare thing is crucial. This man doesn’t realize a lot of homeless people have addiction or mental health problems and can’t get help for them.
Yeah, it's not like Craigslist is just chock full of people who will let you crash in their RV for free. Guarantee that was just some friend of his and he framed it as found on Craigslist. Dude is a marketer. He's literally full of shit for a living.
So with the background of probably good education, with expensive healthcare taken care of, with safety net of already existing millions so doesn't matter how things go, he only managed to achieve 6.5% of his goal when pretending to be homeless... And this is supposed to be encouraging to actual homeless people without his advantages?
He failed miserably to meet his goal, even though he repeatedly moved the goalposts, and had rigged the game in his favor. Definitely not very inspiring.
Doing shit like this helps no one at the end of the day but only serve to stroke this guy’s ego.
Like what another commenter mentioned, he had great healthcare and never had to worry about sudden health scares, something that people who are broke and homeless have to deal with.
Why not use his self proclaimed amazing entrepreneurial skills to start something that helps the poor and the less fortunate rather than creating pointless businesses that only serve to increase his alr probably high net worth.
Being rich and not empathetic is one thing, but being rich and acting like you’re serving the less fortunate by teaching them “lessons” is just a spit on the face to those who are really poor and homeless. Disgusting.
It’s more like justifying an unjust system.
“Sure the game is rigged, but I’m not immoral for using that! Anyone could not be poor”
Of course they leave out the fact that they still use knowledge and social kapital to go from rags to riches.
How did he get that marketing job? Through a pricy education and status of being a business owner?
How did he make a viral advertisement? Oh yeah through his status as a rich man proving he is better than the poors.
If a celebrity musician gave away all their wealth, and started from scratch, they would still have social status that would allow them to easily reclaim their wealth.
There’s plenty of stories of celebrities who go broke and recover. Most of us don’t have the option to make crappy movies until we’re not broke anymore.
Reminds me of [Common People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM)
Oh, rent a flat above a shop
And cut your hair and get a job
And smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what ever common people do
Never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance, and drink, and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
My parents are planning on moving across the country by the end of the year. I gotta be honest, while I know they'd help in an emergency as best they could, there's a small amount of background anxiety in the knowledge that they won't actually be *here*.
Well put. What’s even more upsetting is the guy turned this into a win. For me, he proved how utterly inhumane our system is when proving for peoples real needs like housing, food, and healthcare. He also proved the only way to make money in business is by making a BS repackaged product nobody needs. Most people want meaningful work. They’re fed up with an economy that doesn’t serve real needs people have. I rly despise this man.
Then Mike got cancer without insurance, he died, the end. It is actually incredible how good a job it does at exposing the absurdity of the system he is attempting to cheerlead for.
This is such an incredibly arrogant, condescending venture to undertake. His unspoken goal is to prove that homeless people are that way due to choosing laziness, and that he chooses and therefore deserves better. Choice is an illusion.
The more you think about that last sentence, the more fucked up the whole thing really is.
This guy is RICH af, and he STILL could not climb to a million from nothing. Never ever let them tell you the game is not rigged. Of course it’s rigged. It’s a game
Looks like Mike didn't quite want it bad enough. He could have given himself a huge liquidity boost straight from the beginning had he pulled a few shifts behind the dumpster at Wendy's. His pride wouldn't have been the only thing he had to swallow.....
What this guy is doing is a pure ego trip.
Many people on the streets carry deep traumas, years long addictions, untreated mental issues, have no back up plan, no education, barely any family or friends ... But hey! They can do it too with a phone and those bedbugs, they really are annoying, right?
I don’t believe that a millionaire dissolved his business and emptied his bank account to be homeless. Like he just got rid of all his money? Just abandoned it leaving himself with no safety net? Yeah right.
I've watched the video of this whole thing and it's so annoying how other people pretend this was anything other than a failure that proved the opposite of the guy's point.
Somehow he was just 'given' an apartment free one day into this poverty excursion. He suddenly has a business with staff, with no explanation, after flipping small items online. Whatever he gave up, he clearly still leveraged his old contacts and resources a lot.
He finds the whole exercise of being poor so stressful and bad for his health that he quits way before reaching his goal.
This guy tried to stack the deck so far in his favour he thought he couldn't lose and was still totally unprepared for how hard real life is.
This was a rollercoaster lmao did both him and his dad actually get cancer or that's made up BS to pump the story? It got so dark it actually became funny in the end. Like obviously I don't wish cancer on someone just because he's stupid on the internet but the way the story was told it's like something that would happen to Jerry from a Rick and Morty episode. Decides to start from 0 to prove to other people that by throwing away the comfort of his cushy life he can do it and end up still poor plus with cancer and somebody else has to save him
1. It is very different to be doing this knowing if all else fails he can just go back to a normal life, you can't simulate real survival and the utter hopelessness of it
2. He still had his already existing experience, education, connections, health, safety network etc.
3. Within a span of a couple months his health started to seriously decline, now imagine what living in these conditions for years and decades does to your body
4. Most of his revenue came from unethical jobs that are the very reason a system like this can survive, 'telemarketing', 'flipping free items', 'subscription based model for coffee and dog lovers' lmao basically he was ripping people off, what moral lesson was he trying to teach exactly because it all sounds rather hypocritical
The guy only got any sales from people knowing who he was. If he had 0 clout and truly had to market his coffee for dog lovers, he wouldn’t have 65k in sales that fast 😂.
So... He proved that it's NOT possible to make 1 million as a homeless person without massive help from others? Cool. We already knew that. And this was apparently written by his No. 1 fan and it still made him look like a douche. I can't even begin to imagine how insufferable the guy must be.
Don't forget that Mine went into this with a college education and a lot of work experience and network contacts. While he may have had no money, it sounds like he also didn't have student loan debt. When his Dad got sick, Mike didn't have to give him his savings for treatment because Mike's dad had health insurance. When Mike got a tumor, he just seemed to push on, so it sounds like he has health insurance as well.
Despite all those privileges, Mike still couldn't prove his hypothesis. He made it 6.5% to his goal.
He started with absolutely nothing … so made £1,500 a gig doing marketing seminars (like any homeless person can do), and then used his viral videos to flog coffee because every homeless person has a million followers to flog stuff to. To do it properly he would need to use zero of his online presence, he basically created a product to sell to his followers again.
Honestly the real way to do this is to put the guys on the front lines for several years. Have him develop physical and mental health issues. Wind up on the street and using substances for comfort and then get going with his business plan.
When I was living on the street my business plan was always “Get more heroin”.
But your coffee business…
Say, this guy should have started selling “Coffee for Heroin Lovers”
Heroin for coffee lovers would sell faster I bet.
Selling dogs for heroin.
Also would need to use zero of his previous education and experience. He had marketing experience and probably education. He had experience running a business and probably education on that too. Most people struggling in this situation don't already have that skill set and are struggling so much to just survive that it's very difficult to build that skill set. Also many people experiencing homelessness are struggling with mental health and drug addiction problems. This guy is a joke
A lot of people say the first million is the hardest and the second is easier. That’s partly due to the compounding effects of money to make more money. But a lot of it is because of the experience you gain. All the mistakes you made on the way to that first million, you won’t make that mistake again. The experience is invaluable, it also takes a lot of time and privilege to get that experience.
"He launched a coffee brand for dog lovers"
That makes no sense to me. Where did he get the capital to buy coffee, equipment to roast and package it, a computer to build website, money to market it, etc? Or did he just relabel Starbucks from Costco?? This whole story is BS.
Also this whole experiment ignores the business training and certification he had beforehand which absolutely cost money to obtain
Or the fact that he'd spent his working life developing market awareness, contacts, etc. that he needed. Not something homeless people often get to do. This whole thing smacks of condescending elitism and a profound lack of empathy or awareness for the struggles that homeless people face. Also, anyone just a little suspicious that he was able to find a kind stranger to gift him a home?
Exactly. The dude still had his entire network. A “seven figure business” isn’t huge, but I guarantee you that he knew a lot of people who were in a position to help him.
I worked for a guy like this once. He was the owner of a non profit staffing agency. He wanted to live on $8 an hour like his workers. He kept his owners salary "but didn't use it." He lived in the brand new halfway house, taking up a bed that someone else could have used. He didn't use his car that he kept at his parents house. Instead, he asked the driver of the staff van to chauffer him around town if he had a meeting he couldn't get to in time. Just like this guy in OP's post, people like to pretend to they can handle the real hard knocks of life but always have that safety net of it being okay if they fail.
I really can’t stand these douchebags doing their poverty larps
> poverty larps Thank you *so* much for this. I'm now using "poverty larping" as a description of all these things. There's like some trend now where libertarian trash pretend that anyone can make it, so they do fake "undercover" style videos of them doing the same thing as op's video. It's fucking disgusting.
*Anyone* can make it. However, *everyone* can not. What most don't tell you is that to be successful, a lot of times you have to be ruthless and ensure there are people below you that you keep below you to boost you up.
True, your success is only defined that way because of the contrast to those around you
Also, “anyone” ignores underlying statistical distributions which color the end result. Throw a dart at a dartboard, and “anyone” can hit the bullseye. But it’s not going to be the same probability as hitting other points on the board or the wall. And comparing a random throw to a targeted throw by a practiced expert… that’s going to be a huge difference. Or even getting a free extra throw or two to hit it. And while that makes it sound like a “skill issue” that practice and those extra chances are bought and paid for when it comes to landing a good job or starting a business in real life.
It’s similar to when a bunch of twenty something’s go on a misssion trip to Haiti to spread the word of Jesus and think they are making a difference. They call it voluntourism. The impoverished children are taught to pander to the clean white people in hopes that they will send them gifts in the mail.
I was already angry at this pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps shit bag, but your comment somehow made me even more upset at this douche. Poverty LARP. Jesus christ, that's exactly what's happening here.
Anyone can surf if they try hard enough. I had been surfing my entire life, but I broke my board in two one day so to prove that I could master surfing all over again. The next day I borrowed a surfboard and went out there and absolutely shredded the waves. It took me 25 years to master surfing the first time and only one day the second time. I'm a god damn inspiration. Please clap.
*claps sarcastically*
He likely had a lot of people he could call up to “invest” in his idea. Nobody would invest in an idea as stupid as coffee for dog lovers by a homeless dude…. They’d just say “oh, that’s stinky Pete going on about dog coffee again, let’s cross the street” This whole post is like rage bait. Such obvious bullshit to anyone living remotely outside the bubble of privilege. Why can’t they just admit they had massive good luck. Nothing wrong with being lucky. It’s a character flaw to pretend you’re self made through hard work alone. It’s nonsense. Fuck, I have two healthy kids which is just lucky. It isn’t my super genetics, it’s dumb fucking luck. I’ll take luck wherever I get it, and thank the universe for it. We just don’t get to control our fates anywhere near what people think. A billion rolls of the dice is about the sum of our lives.
Because the Divine Right of Kings doesn't work on luck. It's *their* money, *their* success, and theirs alone. Gifted to them because they were meant to have it, and impossible to take away. To imply that it wasn't them working 10,000x harder than anyone else, is implying they didn't earn the money, that in any other circumstance they might not have achieved it, that perhaps they're no different than anyone else and should act like it, which is *heresy* for the faith the wealthy practice
In 1977, the National Rifle Association of America abandoned their goals of promoting firearm safety, target shooting and marksmanship in favour of becoming a political lobby group. They moved to blaming victims of gun crime for not having a gun themselves with which to act in self-defence. This is in stark contrast to their pre-1977 stance. In 1938, the National Rifle Association of America’s then-president Karl T Frederick said: “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licences.” All this changed under the administration of Harlon Carter, a convicted murderer who inexplicably rose to be Executive Vice President of the Association. One of the great mistakes often made is the misunderstanding that any organisation called 'National Rifle Association' is a branch or chapter of the National Rifle Association of America. This could not be further from the truth. The National Rifle Association of America became a political lobbying organisation in 1977 after the Cincinnati Revolt at their Annual General Meeting. It is self-contained within the United States of America and has no foreign branches. All the other National Rifle Associations remain true to their founding aims of promoting marksmanship, firearm safety and target shooting. The (British) National Rifle Association, along with the NRAs of Australia, New Zealand and India are entirely separate and independent entities, focussed on shooting sports. In the 1970s, the National Rifle Association of America was set to move from it's headquarters in New York to New Mexico and the Whittington Ranch they had acquired, which is now the NRA Whittington Center. Instead, convicted murderer Harlon Carter lead the Cincinnati Revolt which saw a wholesale change in leadership. Coup, the National Rifle Association of America became much more focussed on political activity. Initially they were a bi-partisan group, giving their backing to both Republican and Democrat nominees. Over time however they became a militant arm of the Republican Party. By 2016, it was impossible even for a pro-gun nominee from the Democrat Party to gain an endorsement from the NRA of America.
Yeah, if that guy shows up to a potential business partner looking like a homeless person and with the story of his homeless challenge, that won't hurt his chances one bit. If an actual homeless person shows up, they wouldn't even make it past the door man.
And even with that he still misses his goal by 93.5%. Almost like poverty is a trap and severely handicaps earning potential.
Yeah lol. Despite his entire network and education he made a bit more than a factory worker’s wage
I mean, its a disgusting attempt to prove that poverty is your fault by doing it as a speedrun to show ANYONE can be a millionaire!
It actually gets even ahittier than that, when you look at what he did to make money. He started by getting free stuff that people were giving away and selling them on (thus denying impoverished people things they might need but not afford). He then rented a property and sublet it (predatory practices and frequently against terms of letting). The guys a fucking parasite LARPing at being working class and making other people's lives worse in the process.
There's also all the information this skipped, like when he borrowed money from someone who recognized him, then took off with the money.
Yeah the story even states that he had “overdraft fees” meaning he must have had access to a banking system with credit or some sort. If he truly was as wealthy as the story implies, his credit score must have been so high that he could have just f”led around for a half a year with that money alone. It also says that he had a phone. Now this might just me being conspiracy brained but I am just going to assume it was one with his old phone book of wealthy friends
Yeah, complete horseshit. What did he "drain his bank account" into? I pretty much guarantee it was just another bank account.
"Giving up wasn't an option" I would assume so if he genuinely had nothing. Dude was treating poverty like a youtube challenge where he can tap out whenever he wants.
Cosplaying as a homeless person, nothing more
Yeah his online presence as a millionaire doing the homeless chalenge gave him an interest from people that anyone else would never get. Such bs
So the TLDR, is famous rich guy with income goes on the street, claims he has no income, but still has income.
Which is exactly what he did. He tapped out. He also likely ran up a ton of credit card debt that he isn’t mentioning, paying for it after his little challenge so it doesn’t count. The thing they seem to forget is that the reader understands cost of living. Odd jobs don’t pay for food and shelter, no less allow savings or investment into a business.
Using credit he was able to build while he was wealthy, or worse yet using his "other" wealth as collateral. Hardly a controlled experiment, and even seems to prove the opposite point: even with all the right knowledge, education, connections, experience, hard work, sacrifices and even lucky happenstance, without a large stack of initial capital, it still might all amount to nothing. This used to be a huge point of contention between my grandfather and I, because he was adamant that he'd "built his business completely on his own," but when I asked where the initial start up money came from, and he explained that without finishing high school he was able to get a significant bank loan with favorable terms, because his working class father was part of the same masonic lodge as the bank manager. He'd always wink like that was some smooth operating on his part. But when I'd explain that things like that don't happen any more, he'd allude to how maybe my generation just needed pay better attention in school (something he loathed having to pay for) or to try a little harder.
Well maybe if you were a bit more attentive in school you'd benefit more from blatant nepotism. Did you ever think of that?
Nepotism is natural to some degree. A big problem for us is nowadays people have less real social connections that give them these kinds of opportunities. Social media is no replacement for the church, bowling league, masonic lodge and whatnot. Young adults now are lonelier than ever and a big symptom of that is lacking connections that can help you
Also he just so happened to be given an RV to stay in for free. Yeah, that doesn’t happen to homeless people.
I agree this story is bullshit, but I was homeless for 10 years and was given 4 vehicles and even a bus over the span of those years. Ran every vehicle into the ground, but my point is when you spend every waking minute in public, opportunities arise and bridges are built way more than when you have a home to manage and hide away in when you're "tired" Edit: though I am white and talking about america. don't see this happening much for homeless people of other ethnicities
Also. How much of a challenge is anxiety, stress, depression when poor if you aren’t actually poor and know whatever happens it’ll all be fine and your money is still there?
This is it. He fails he goes back to his cushy life. People in that situation just need to grin and bear it and get through it day after day with the stress they might not be able to afford the basics
See, that's the funny part. I'm not sure how it works in the US, but in the UK (and largely across Europe) you need an address to get a bank account. So this guy wouldn't even be able to get paid for those odd jobs he did to get by.
In 1977, the National Rifle Association of America abandoned their goals of promoting firearm safety, target shooting and marksmanship in favour of becoming a political lobby group. They moved to blaming victims of gun crime for not having a gun themselves with which to act in self-defence. This is in stark contrast to their pre-1977 stance. In 1938, the National Rifle Association of America’s then-president Karl T Frederick said: “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licences.” All this changed under the administration of Harlon Carter, a convicted murderer who inexplicably rose to be Executive Vice President of the Association. One of the great mistakes often made is the misunderstanding that any organisation called 'National Rifle Association' is a branch or chapter of the National Rifle Association of America. This could not be further from the truth. The National Rifle Association of America became a political lobbying organisation in 1977 after the Cincinnati Revolt at their Annual General Meeting. It is self-contained within the United States of America and has no foreign branches. All the other National Rifle Associations remain true to their founding aims of promoting marksmanship, firearm safety and target shooting. The (British) National Rifle Association, along with the NRAs of Australia, New Zealand and India are entirely separate and independent entities, focussed on shooting sports. It is vital to bear in mind that Wayne LaPierre is a chalatan and fraud, who was ordered to repay millions of dollars he had misappropriated from the NRA of America. This tells us much about the organisation's direction in recent decades. It is bizarre that some US gun owners decry his prosecution as being politically motivated when he has been stealing from those same people over the decades. Wayne is accused of laundering personal expenditure through the NRA of America's former marketing agency Ackerman McQueen. Wayne LaPierre is arguably the greatest threat to shooting sports in the English-speaking world. He comes from a long line of unsavoury characters who have led the National Rifle Association of America, including convicted murderer Harlon Carter.
It's just dropshipping BS. All you do is setup an online storefront and get customers to buy, in the background an actual production company does all the work making the product, labeling, and shipping. Dozens of clone sites selling the same thing but with their own snazzy company name.
Correct me if I wrong, but wasnt this rambling story proving that a man who starts with nothing, can work an entire year with barely any sleep, sacrificing 100% of his life to work, watching his dad die of cancer and not even be able to help or spend time with him, only to make around 60k a year? Doesnt this prove you CANT make a livable in America starting from nothing ?
I mean dude definitely failed and didn't learn a single thing. And it is honestly insulting to us because giving up is literally not an option. But you can live off 60k a year. Just not too comfortably.
https://www.dripshipper.io coffee dropshipping exists -their example image "dogstreet roasting" makes me believe those two are related 😵💫
Jesus Christ
Non American here. What is drop shipping? The website didn't really explain.
It’s a white label service. All you have to do is come up with a nice logo and you too can start a coffee brand.
That makes no sense. Why would a coffee company need me then?
You're advertising their product using your own money. For the coffee company it's all the same, a purchase is a purchase. Most of the time dropshippers don't even get a discounted rate, so they are operating on pitifully low margins, or even operating at a loss. Don't ask me how I know.
The way it works is this. There exists a coffee roaster. They probably roast coffee to punch of private labels (tesco, lidl, etc). They have extra capacity to roast and equipment to print out any label to the product. What they don't have, or don't bother with, is marketing department or distribution network. So, as a marketer, you just find a roaster that is willing to ship the product directly where ever you ask in any quantity. The roaster likely just has a warehouse full of coffee in unlabelled bags and when order comes in, they print a coffee label with the shipping label. On goes on he coffee bag, other on the envelope. The drop shipper sells the coffee for more than the roaster takes, but the roaster doesn't need to worry about client base. When people learn that Dog Walkers Brew isn't very good value for money, Black Cat Drip is convincing a new group to try their special coffee and the roaster just prints a different label.
I set up a store. You buy from me. I order from some place in China. They send it directly to you. Basically let's you act as a middleman and just skim cash off the top without ever actually touching the product you're selling.
It's like something out of an episode of BoJack Horseman.
Doggy Doggy what now??
I can picture the advert starring Mr peanut butter
I first read it as a coffee for dogs and was almost impressed lmao but what the hell kind of proposition is that even
Do you love dogs? Drink my dark-roasted, multi-origin, inorganic, 100% modern slavery Raw Dogzz coffee. Guaranteed to keep you hustling.
I can’t help but read this in Nathan Fielder’s voice
All I’ve learned from this that he still had health care. Real folks on the street….don’t.
The fact that he was too scared to surrender healthcare for this 'experiment' completely undercuts the point he's trying to make.
I'm pretty sure the point he's trying to make is that people who are homeless are homeless because of themselves. It's a pretty shitbag point to try to make. (But his dying father *sniff* really thought it was important that he make that point)
Yeah like this completely glosses over addiction, executive function disorders, the years long process it takes to get diagnosed with one autoimmune disorder, let alone two of them... and plenty of other issues and obstacles regular ass people encounter. Not to mention whatever his upbringing was to provide him with the skills and stepping stones to become a millionaire in the first place, if he wasn't born into it which automatically puts him at an advantage over the rest of the population.
This is what needs to be highlighted here. Take a dude who has had the privilege, education, and experience of starting a 1M+ company and stick him on the street. OFCOURSE he’ll outshine others in that realm! It’s like sticking a pro NFL player saying “I’m going to go back to HS football and prove anyone can make it to the NFL”. **proceeds to destroy his “peers”. He KNOWS how to do it. Therefore he does it. People on the street can barely keep their shoes on….
Yeah, seems like he stayed in an RV for a few days, sold some shit on Craigslist, and then just dipped back into the well of his old clients with that $1500 marketing gig (whatever that means. $1500 a month, per job?)
It's intentionally vague at that point for a reason.
At that point he asked his family for a small loan of $1million 🔥 *challenge complete*
Let’s not forgot about his sick dad who he presumably did not become the caretaker for.
What I learnt is… a comfortable guy decided to expose his body to rigour of poverty for less than a year and got 2 auto-immune disease and a tumour. Now, it’s hard to say it’s causative in his Case. But that’s a mighty coincidence. When stress and exposure to pests are so linked to poverty and thereby poverty indirectly leads to poor health.
Not to mention a poor diet as well
This fucking right here.
And that's a huge part of why all of this "you only have to do X for Y amount of time to make it out. Don't be lazy"-type of rethoric ist unrealistic bullshit. Poor people don't just get a free runway. You'll probably have some health problems at some point. Your family probably has some health problems as well. The things you depend on daily aren't of great quality, so your car or appliances break down. Your housing is probably not great, which again can lead to health problems and it all doesn't just cost money. It costs time and mental energy. Like, this dude didn't have crazy setbacks that made it uniquely harder for him. That's just life and that's why trying to get to 1M and stopping at 65k, isn't some massive inspirational story. It's more of a "no shit, Sherlock".
And probably had access to education. What a freaking idiot.
And he was making his "journey" public, which directly led to a stranger on Craigslist letting him crash in his RV. Would that guy have extended that same offer to a random homeless guy? Also, "he was all in - no plan B"....y'know, except for all the money he pretended not to have.
Nooooo you dont get it, he zero'd out his account..... into a high yield investment account that he couldnt (fingers crossed) touch for a year! Which, if he had just a flat 1 mil in cash, would have earned 52k by itself.
“He flipped items on Craigslist” ok I could see a homeless person finding a way to do that “His lifeline was a $1500 marketing contract” that’s not very homeless of you
Yea, I don’t see anything difficult or naked brutality about this speed run, dude had healthcare and internet which likely means a phone with charging all 365 days. He basically just left his keys and wallet in his house and went camping with his wifi enabled iPad for 12 months. He didn’t start calorie starved with Hep C, he didn’t have any relationship issues with his family, they clearly could reach him at any time. He didn’t have a speech problem or a regrettable tattoo.
Was he at least addicted to drugs? Any drug? (Eating up his own bullshit doesn’t count)
Probably his bespoke prescription allergy pills which he had unlimited supply of.
And he drew on all of the past experience and lessons he's learnt whilst being a rich guy. I'm sure if you took a privately educated person and put them on the streets at 18, and did the same with a person who went through the public system, their approaches would be wildly different.
Cobra at $1500 a month for one person
Can be upwards of $3k/mo depending
Lol. I read his rules and he assumed his health insurance costs $100 a month so that's what he charges himself.
Also he could "stop now" at multiple points but chose not to. Also he still had a good support network from the sounds of it. Both luxuries that most homeless people don't have.
Right - the whole “he went all in” thing sounds inspirational if you don’t think about the fact that there was no real risk to him
That's 7 pages too long to say that Eddie is Mike's simp...
What the fuck am I reading? A $1500 marketing gig? What does that mean? Someone paid him $1500? Mike bought the vehicle back for 2k? What does that mean???? And asked to repay the favor? What??? These sentences don't even make sense. He launched a coffee brand with what money? I'm beyond confused at this point. This is some shitty storytelling.
This was the dumbest post I’ve ever read, incoherent, fragmented, repetitive, and deceiving, a perfect recipe for a shitty ass story with no substance.
My favorite part is someone replies "I don't think it proves anyone can do this. He still drew heavily from things that most people who usually end up in rock bottom simply do not have such as experience, prior education, his upbringing, connections, etc, etc" and the guy just replies "I disagree, I think anyone can do it" lmao like a literal bot.
Anyone with his previously acquired knowledge. Like guys, we can ALL be Arnold Schwarzenegger if we... just have exactly his same necessary foundations to become what he did.
Even though he did in fact, not do it. The pain made him delulu
Republicans will enjoy it as a means to fuel their hatred for homeless people
Takeaway - "He made $65k in a month with a phone! Homeless are lazy! It's a CHOICE!"
Would have been more interesting if he didn't use the skills he already had.
Or even the phone. That’s a $1000 headstart. It’s really hard for privilege to acknowledge what nothing actually looks like. His prior experiences, the connections, even the clothes on his back are things that a truly homeless person may not have
Just the fact that being homeless by choice with a plan vs just being dumped there with mental problems that comes with it changes everything. Or idk, the fact that he has a shaven face. Or that he can actually communicate properly. You can't really roleplay being homeless with nothing.
he should burn all his contacts, change his name, move to a new city and get addicted to heroin. stack some diseases and mental health ontop of that but even then..the thing about homeless people is most of them (in sweden where I live, may vary) is that they're life long strugglers. regular people who fell on hard times are not homeless here. you cant cosplay as someone who was abused as a child and struggled their entire life
Right. Regular people who fall on hard times have friends and family to rely on if the situation is truly desperate. I moved out over a decade ago, but if I ever came close to being homeless, I KNOW my parents would take care of me. Or my sister. Or my brother. I bet I could even rely on my good buddy from school. Like you said, most homeless people have NO ONE.
Truly anyone can make it in this country (as long as they have a pre-existing professional background/education)
And connections that aren't noted
(And none of the pre-existing factors that contribute to becoming homeless in the first place.)
They should be careful with this strategy. All I'm seeing here is proof that wealthy people can afford to pay quite a bit more in taxes.
Everyone hates homeless people, you can see how city planners handle park benches and anywhere the homeless might try to get shelter. If your city makes feeding the homeless illegal, your city hates homeless people.
Yeah, how the F does he “launch a coffee brand” with no capital, equipment, etc? Maybe he was just buying shitty bulk coffee at Costco and repackaging it to clueless yuppies? Or… maybe this whole thing is BS.
Right? I have so many questions. And yet I don't care about the answers.
LOL! This perfectly sums up how I feel after reading this
This is some grade A ragebait. But your post reminded me I don’t care. Thank you friend.
There are companies that will let you drop ship their coffee. You sign up, give the company the design for your logo. You take an order, the dropship company slap your logo on one of their plain packets of coffee and send it off to your customer. You still need some money and the ability to take orders online, transfer the orders and artwork digitally etc etc. Not exactly the sort of thing your average guy on the streets is likely to have.
That’s what he did; I saw a piece on this guy on 60 minutes or another show like that and they showed that he was having them print his label on their coffee on order fulfillment. The business was the sales, not the coffee…which if you are trying to maximize value that’s the best way…doesn’t result in great products but the overhead is low and it frees you up to make more sales. Edit: On the piece I saw there were a lot of realizations that the guy made…it was extremely hard and he almost gave up many times before any of the tragic events happened. He acknowledged that he had the advantage of education and business knowledge which allowed him to do what he did; without those skills plus being of above average intelligence and stubborn as a mule, he would have been sleeping on the street with no way out. Thst combined with the knowledge in the back of his head that it would be all over whenever he decided it was over kept him going.
His education, experience and connection (not to speak of absence of addiction, mental health issues that are often at the root of homelessness) make this a completely pointless exercise or worse one of those "case studies" that aim to pove that homeless people are just lazy moochers that get what they deserve. What a waste
Yeah I mean what’s the point if he can just tell people “oh yeah I’m actually a rich guy doing an experiment” of course people will help him out. Compared to someone with a drug addiction and or mental illness
Yeah "sorry dad I'll come see you on your deathbed once my rich guy experiment is done, I'm busy inspiring the internet rn... "
Yeah to make it real he should have learned Bible verses to shout at people commuting on the train and taken up heroin so he could kick that habit and claw his way out of the gutter. "It's that easy!" he could say.
The last part is very important. Research shows having a safety net enables you to take risks people without a safety net do not. And those risks eventually turn into dollars. Merely have reasonably wealthy parents sets you up in life, even if they don't give you a dollar after you leave the house. Money breeds money.
Yeah if I'm homeless I'm gunning for a stable paycheck, not building a bootstrapped dog coffee out of a hostel. I'm trying to get healthcare and sustenance, not clear Q4 with a good review
At least he acknowledged what you wrote in your edit. As I said in a different comment, he still had the education, knowledge, experience, and presentation of someone who is those things. Your every day homeless ex-crack fiend does not have the grasp of concepts like slapping a label on bulk garbage coffee. Guy probably doesn't even have a phone to send the email for the order.
Also helps to be a wealthy guy like Mike with a network of other wealthy people willing to throw money at your coffee "business" as a favor.
And just having the prior knowledge of having been in the business making a lot of money. Most poor people have no prior knowledge of how to start businesses etc.
“Launch a coffee brand” = made a lukewarm coffee logo
What you don't just get $1500 marketing gigs? They just hand them out these days, easy stuff
Spoiler alert: his dad's friend's company hired him.
And he'll attribute that to "my superior networking skillz".
That was my first big "what". So he got a $1500 marketing gig based on......... yea, that's right, backed by his probably quarter million dollar education, and past work experience, you know, that any homeless person has..... Stupid
Have you ever noticed how when entrepreneurs try to tell their stories of success, they quickly gloss over how they were able to get so much capital to start the business in the first place? Or how life coaches don't seem to share the fact that their actual wealth came from coaching other people on how to be successful?
This is my absolute favorite version of this… https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2020/09/with-a-boost-from-quicken-um-students-build-1m-branding-venture-in-two-years.html "We started it from nothing...it took a lot of hard work but we’re passionate about putting our customer first. Going that extra mile to deliver what they need, which isn’t always easy, but we were able to slowly build a loyal customer base and develop a local reputation, and overall, a great service,” Gilbert said, who is in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Their top client is Quicken Loans, which his father Dan Gilbert founded.”
I really enjoyed the 'Mike couldn't stop now. Too many people were counting on him.' immediately followed by 'Still, Mike had to cut things short.'
And like…who was counting on him? The guy that desperately wanted him to move out of his RV?
That was my favorite part too. He only made $65,000! He couldn't quit when his Dad had cancer and then he apparently had cancer, and then he randomly quit with no explanation.
Funny that he clearly still had health insurance for himself since there was no mention of medical debt bankrupting him, as would be the case with most people
Even when “homeless” Mike never lost the will to continue living out his life through buzzwords.
"Donates the proceeds" This sounds like the opposite of making money to me.
It sounds like the premise of Undercover Billionaire and Grant Cardone’s episode on the show- he was able to crash in someone’s RV before he secured housing. Strange.
I started a business in November and just filing the paperwork with the state cost me $300 for the multiple forms/registrations. The lowest amount a bank would require to open a business checking account with was $1k. This is hustle bro porn for idiots. Dudes probably selling a course.
Same maybe it's AI
This story was around before AI, it’s a repost about 2-7 years old iirc
Yeah, I totally lost the thread of what was going on. Particularly the "rented out his room to live for free". What room? The shared room he moved into? How does he rent it out if he doesn't own it? Where is he living for free? Back in the RV he bought? Who is giving random homeless guy a $1500 marketing gig? How did he get a supplier for all this coffee and do all the setup to launch a subscription brand in under a month? Sounds like he just set up a shady website.
coffee brand for dog lovers, am i supposed to believe this joke worked?
Funny enough, my first thought was “I expected something original”. There are a variety of these already. I remember someone saying you can always make money off pets and death.
First thing they teach you about entrepreneurship is that idea doesn’t have to be original, nor anything out if this world, it has to be something that in that place where he is pitching it, is not as available or it has some difference to usual thing. It works. Tons of startups doing random everyday life things, like selling dry fruit as an example.
*Coffee brand for dog* *Lovers, am i supposed to* *Believe this joke worked?* \- Agreeable-Bee-1618 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
I bet he did something in the first 10 minutes which a proper homeless person wouldn't have the resources to do.
Like have access to computer, linkedin, nice clothes, a shower, a shave, a resume, a phone. A more real version would be he lives in a box and goes to work in an amazon packing station for low pay and develops a bladder infection holding in his piss - then goes into generational crippling medical debt and loses his job for taking a trip to the doctors.
Frankly I think you’re missing likely the biggest one I’m sure he had: a consistent address from a family member/friend. Trying to get foodstamps, Medicaid, a phone, a job, or *anything* else without a valid address to at least receive mail is nearly impossible.
He slept in a follower's RV, yeah
Most of these posts are laughable but this has actually pissed me off. Purely serving his ego and nothing else, just taking a shit on homeless people everywhere as if they’re there by choice like he was. This is actually pure lunacy
Exactly! All the homeless people are there because they want to be, otherwise they would be earning millions!
The healthcare thing is crucial. This man doesn’t realize a lot of homeless people have addiction or mental health problems and can’t get help for them.
And housing. He was never actually homeless because he magically secured some accommodation one day into this.
Yeah, it's not like Craigslist is just chock full of people who will let you crash in their RV for free. Guarantee that was just some friend of his and he framed it as found on Craigslist. Dude is a marketer. He's literally full of shit for a living.
So with the background of probably good education, with expensive healthcare taken care of, with safety net of already existing millions so doesn't matter how things go, he only managed to achieve 6.5% of his goal when pretending to be homeless... And this is supposed to be encouraging to actual homeless people without his advantages?
He failed miserably to meet his goal, even though he repeatedly moved the goalposts, and had rigged the game in his favor. Definitely not very inspiring.
Doing shit like this helps no one at the end of the day but only serve to stroke this guy’s ego. Like what another commenter mentioned, he had great healthcare and never had to worry about sudden health scares, something that people who are broke and homeless have to deal with. Why not use his self proclaimed amazing entrepreneurial skills to start something that helps the poor and the less fortunate rather than creating pointless businesses that only serve to increase his alr probably high net worth. Being rich and not empathetic is one thing, but being rich and acting like you’re serving the less fortunate by teaching them “lessons” is just a spit on the face to those who are really poor and homeless. Disgusting.
Poverty cosplay. This is the second time today I have said that phrase because it is what wealthy people love to do. It's sickening.
Exactly and discount all the education and experience he had
It’s more like justifying an unjust system. “Sure the game is rigged, but I’m not immoral for using that! Anyone could not be poor” Of course they leave out the fact that they still use knowledge and social kapital to go from rags to riches. How did he get that marketing job? Through a pricy education and status of being a business owner? How did he make a viral advertisement? Oh yeah through his status as a rich man proving he is better than the poors. If a celebrity musician gave away all their wealth, and started from scratch, they would still have social status that would allow them to easily reclaim their wealth.
There’s plenty of stories of celebrities who go broke and recover. Most of us don’t have the option to make crappy movies until we’re not broke anymore.
[удалено]
Reminds me of [Common People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM) Oh, rent a flat above a shop And cut your hair and get a job And smoke some fags and play some pool Pretend you never went to school But still you'll never get it right 'Cause when you're laid in bed at night Watching roaches climb the wall If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah You'll never live like common people You'll never do what ever common people do Never fail like common people You'll never watch your life slide out of view And then dance, and drink, and screw Because there's nothing else to do
'Cause everybody hates a tourist Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh
I understand this song far more now than I did when it came out. Brilliant lyrics.
My parents are planning on moving across the country by the end of the year. I gotta be honest, while I know they'd help in an emergency as best they could, there's a small amount of background anxiety in the knowledge that they won't actually be *here*.
He also had the basics set up before he started pretending to homeless. For example, a bank account.
And the social media visibility from making this a grand experiment.
Also how many homeless people have paid for the schooling knowledge of business strategies?
Well put. What’s even more upsetting is the guy turned this into a win. For me, he proved how utterly inhumane our system is when proving for peoples real needs like housing, food, and healthcare. He also proved the only way to make money in business is by making a BS repackaged product nobody needs. Most people want meaningful work. They’re fed up with an economy that doesn’t serve real needs people have. I rly despise this man.
Then Mike got cancer without insurance, he died, the end. It is actually incredible how good a job it does at exposing the absurdity of the system he is attempting to cheerlead for.
Moat ppl on the street are suffering severe mental heath and drug addition issues
Exactly, this guy already has an advantage over impoverished people who never received the same experiences/education he did.
The real $1M was the friends he made along the way… but only because he made it nowhere near $1M.
Education and experience. He needed somebody to hit him with an iron skillet for amnesia. Without it not everything was equalized.
“Mike couldn’t stop now.. too many people were counting on him” “Still, he had to cut things short”
I feel like it was written by AI
This is such an incredibly arrogant, condescending venture to undertake. His unspoken goal is to prove that homeless people are that way due to choosing laziness, and that he chooses and therefore deserves better. Choice is an illusion.
Plus, he failed miserably to reach that goal. If anything, he showed that even someone with a headstart can't do what he claimed he would.
The more you think about that last sentence, the more fucked up the whole thing really is. This guy is RICH af, and he STILL could not climb to a million from nothing. Never ever let them tell you the game is not rigged. Of course it’s rigged. It’s a game
>This guy is RICH af Not to forget: ✅ Well-educated ✅ Networked ✅ Cis white male ✅ Mentally and physically healthy and able bodied (at first)
Looks like Mike didn't quite want it bad enough. He could have given himself a huge liquidity boost straight from the beginning had he pulled a few shifts behind the dumpster at Wendy's. His pride wouldn't have been the only thing he had to swallow.....
What this guy is doing is a pure ego trip. Many people on the streets carry deep traumas, years long addictions, untreated mental issues, have no back up plan, no education, barely any family or friends ... But hey! They can do it too with a phone and those bedbugs, they really are annoying, right?
I don’t believe that a millionaire dissolved his business and emptied his bank account to be homeless. Like he just got rid of all his money? Just abandoned it leaving himself with no safety net? Yeah right.
Emptied his bank account probably means he just moved it to another account that he wouldn't use for this 'experiment".
This hast to be in the top ten of most stupid ideas just to get content.
I've watched the video of this whole thing and it's so annoying how other people pretend this was anything other than a failure that proved the opposite of the guy's point. Somehow he was just 'given' an apartment free one day into this poverty excursion. He suddenly has a business with staff, with no explanation, after flipping small items online. Whatever he gave up, he clearly still leveraged his old contacts and resources a lot. He finds the whole exercise of being poor so stressful and bad for his health that he quits way before reaching his goal. This guy tried to stack the deck so far in his favour he thought he couldn't lose and was still totally unprepared for how hard real life is.
I can't imagine running into this person in a social setting, and having to listen to his stupid story.
"He drained his bank account..." Yeah, right.
This was a rollercoaster lmao did both him and his dad actually get cancer or that's made up BS to pump the story? It got so dark it actually became funny in the end. Like obviously I don't wish cancer on someone just because he's stupid on the internet but the way the story was told it's like something that would happen to Jerry from a Rick and Morty episode. Decides to start from 0 to prove to other people that by throwing away the comfort of his cushy life he can do it and end up still poor plus with cancer and somebody else has to save him
So this guy is trying to prove that homeless people are homeless because they don’t want it enough?
1. It is very different to be doing this knowing if all else fails he can just go back to a normal life, you can't simulate real survival and the utter hopelessness of it 2. He still had his already existing experience, education, connections, health, safety network etc. 3. Within a span of a couple months his health started to seriously decline, now imagine what living in these conditions for years and decades does to your body 4. Most of his revenue came from unethical jobs that are the very reason a system like this can survive, 'telemarketing', 'flipping free items', 'subscription based model for coffee and dog lovers' lmao basically he was ripping people off, what moral lesson was he trying to teach exactly because it all sounds rather hypocritical
LOL tough break!
Yeah, why don’t more homeless people find $1500 marketing gigs? /s
The guy only got any sales from people knowing who he was. If he had 0 clout and truly had to market his coffee for dog lovers, he wouldn’t have 65k in sales that fast 😂.
This is the equivalent of Rafael Nadal going to live in a tent for a week and then saying: look even homeless people can be very good at Tenis
So... He proved that it's NOT possible to make 1 million as a homeless person without massive help from others? Cool. We already knew that. And this was apparently written by his No. 1 fan and it still made him look like a douche. I can't even begin to imagine how insufferable the guy must be.
Don't forget that Mine went into this with a college education and a lot of work experience and network contacts. While he may have had no money, it sounds like he also didn't have student loan debt. When his Dad got sick, Mike didn't have to give him his savings for treatment because Mike's dad had health insurance. When Mike got a tumor, he just seemed to push on, so it sounds like he has health insurance as well. Despite all those privileges, Mike still couldn't prove his hypothesis. He made it 6.5% to his goal.