From a tricycle driver to an almost 7-figure entrepreneur: Arne Giske speaks about his failures, challenges, and successes in online business.
There are many entrepreneurs making waves online but none quite does it so effectively and naturally like Arne Giske. At only 24, this Viking has managed to put together one of the largest communities of entrepreneurs on Facebook, with over 60,000 members.
And this has brought about great opportunities that have changed his life in a major way. Before diving into that, Arne shares his failure and struggles he had online before he found his footing.
From being broke, 2 years ago, to making $50,000 a month
Barely two years ago, the guy who made over $30,000 in a few weeks last month was completely broke, flapping around looking for the next big thing. Every idea Arne came up with was a failure. This brought about a huge downspin in his mindset. Not knowing what to do or how to do it was a consistent nag on his young mind. Having no income, no job and no clients didn’t help either.
Being comfortable with rejection
With a background in sales, he was good at getting leads but made no conversions. In college, he had joined an insurance company as a sales representative but that didn’t work out as he had hoped it would.
Before then, he used to ride a tricycle around the streets of Washington trying to make a few bucks. These two ventures are the ones that taught him one of the greatest lessons in sales; being comfortable with rejection.
Getting started online and challenges faced
When Arne set his mind to look for something to do online, he had no idea that soon enough he would run one of the largest and most successful group for entrepreneurs out there. He just wanted to make some quick bucks, brokering deals between clients and service providers. 3 months down the line he got his first deal, an app project that would bring in $15,000, with Arne taking a good commission out of that.
Life would be good for a while. But not for long. His clientele pool dried out. He got many leads but no one wanted to work with him. It was devastating and for a broke, young millennial, the only way out was to look for a job, fast.
One last shot at online business and creation of MEC
He had not received an offer from any company yet and it was during this period he decided to give online business one last shot. Two things happened to him in this phase: He had to change his mindset and he had to change the WHY. Initially, like most of us, his WHY was to make as much money as possible and within the shortest possible time.
Giske changed this selfish WHY into offering as much value to his clientele as possible. So he started off with a few online groups. They flopped. He didn’t give up and that’s how MEC was born. Millennial Entrepreneur Community (MEC) is a 60,000-strong, no BS Facebook group pulling together entrepreneurs from every continent and every walk of life with a singular purpose of helping one another in their business goals and challenges.
Growing such a group from 0 to 60,000 members with a very high engagement ratio was an eye-opener for Arne. It also offered him a massive opportunity to teach other people how they can build their own communities and leverage them to make sales.
7 figure diaries
When people wanted to know how they can achieve success online as Arne has, an idea about a coaching program came to his mind. This gave birth to the 7 figures diaries where he documents his journey highlighting his fails, challenges, and successes to help people avoid pitfalls and scale their communities faster.
From Idea to inception, the course, priced at $100 on launch took about 3 weeks and brought in over $30,000 sales in the first month. The course will be worth $1,000 by end of year, 2018.
Arne’s advice to online entrepreneurs and what the future holds
One of the greatest pieces of advice Arne offers is that people should leverage what they already have to solve problems for others. By offering value first, people learn to trust your product and systems and money will follow. Building a wide network and working with a good team will also enable one to dictate how fast they move.
No one knows much about the future but Arne predicts that he will have crossed 7 figures by end of the year, following the current trajectory. His network keeps on growing. So does his value. As a true digital nomad and travel addict, he plans to visit 7 continents in 2018.
From being broke two years ago to a million bucks this year, that’s gotta be one hell of a ride!
About Fail Forward Nation
Fail Forward Nation is a community of like-minded people who have faced challenges and failures in the past. Anyone can share their stories either anonymously or hop onto a video.
It’s all about encouraging others, learning from mistakes made, engaging, discussing and supporting others as they go through a mindset shift.
You can check out some of these videos from the Fail forward Facebook community.
You can reach the author of this article here.