Mark Middo went from $250,000 in debt to growing a $1 million company online in 18 months -- here's his advice to others

Mark Middo went from $250,000 in debt to growing a $1Mil company online in 18 months -- here's his advice to others
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Source: Mark Middo

Entrepreneurship is definitely not for the faint hearted. It’s a rollercoaster ride filled with tremendous highs and massive lows.

Fortunately there are people who have been through the journey who can share their wisdom. Mark Middo is one of them.

I’m lucky, with what I do as a podcast host and perpetual networker, as I get to hear many inspiring entrepreneurial stories. However it’s not often that a story pricks my ears just like the one I’m going to share here..

A couple of months ago I interviewed small business owner Alex Pirouz for a LinkedIn related article I was putting together.

After I asked him a bunch of LinkedIn related questions for the article, we started chatting about business in general and he began telling me about his company Linkfluencer’s recent success.

He told me about how this rapid growth was happening due to bringing on board a new business partner - a gentleman by the name of Mark Middo.

I discovered that Mark just so happens to be one of Australia’s leading online entrepreneurs and he wrote a international best selling book titled “5 Minute Business”.

Alex encouraged me to chat to Mark, as he has an interesting story, so I reached out to him and had a quick phone call.

On that call Mark intrigued me with his story, which led to us meeting at a funky coffee house in Melbourne near his office.

After a chinwag and some coffee (a latte for Mark, and a large cap with honey for me - that’s just how I roll), Mark opened up and began sharing his story with me...

“I started in online business when I was 18 and was a failure for years, I tried a range of different business ideas. After many failures over the course of 6 years I finally had some success when I created a piece of software that I was actually using myself that helped me trade online.”

“I had a passion for trading stocks and futures at the time. It was an awesome piece of software, it only cost me $150 to develop on eLance, so I put it online for sale and sold a tonne of copies. I then ended up selling the company to a US Trading firm.”

“From there I got a bit arrogant and thought I could do anything, so I started buying up investments including property thinking everything I touched would turn to gold.”

This got me reflecting on the entrepreneurship journey. Everyone has a different story and valuable experiences.

Source: Mark Middo

Bad choices are what build character, and the ones that learn from those are the ones that take their growth to the next level.

Mark went on to share:

“A few years after that I launched my book 5 Minute Business, which was about the story on the software I sold. When I launched this it did really well, it went to #1 in the world on Amazon and had over 42,000 downloads in its first 3 days of release becoming an international best seller.”

“I then thought I should take advantage of this and created a business on the backend of that training people on how to get started in online business, but unfortunately I ended up hating it.”

“On top of that one of my investments I’d got into years before went south and I ended up around a quarter of a million in debt. Due to my debt and loss of drive for the business I had to sell it all to try get to myself back to even.”

It goes to show things can turn around quickly, especially when you do something you’re not passionate about and make some poor judgements.

I think there are some important lessons there for all aspiring entrepreneurs. In the entrepreneurial space, and indeed in life, nothing lasts forever - things can change quickly and you need to be ready for the rollercoaster ride. Entrepreneurship is definitely not for the faint hearted.

You’ll get knocked down but if you get up, persist, and if you’re open to it, opportunity will come knocking.

That certainly was the case for Mark:

“I was in a bit of a funk for a while after I lost that business, and had to do a bit of work back in online marketing space for cash flow. I have another company called Reminisce Entertainment, which I own with 2 other business partners, but it wasn’t enough to service the debt and live.”

“Luckily, we ran a pretty big event, which brought me back to positive.”

“Around the same time I was talking to a good friend Alex Pirouz founder of Linkfluencer who was on the lookout for a business partner with my skill set. It was perfect timing for me so I bought equity in his company and became joint shareholder.”

“I realised I’m great at growing a business fast, but absolutely terrible at sustaining this growth. So partnering with Alex who had a solid team and wanted a business partner who knows how to scale a business fast online was a match made in heaven.”

Since then, over the past 8 months Mark and Alex have done just that - growing Linkfluencer into a million dollar online company.

It’s a pretty incredible story and that’s the value of finding a business partner who compliments your skill set and you can add value to them as much as they can add value to you.

Mark’s story goes to show the importance of experiencing failure, learning from your mistakes, finding your shortcomings then aligning yourself with people who can complement your skills.

I thought it would be great to get Mark’s 5 key learnings from his journey so far, which I think are some really solid life lessons for all aspiring entrepreneurs:

Lesson #1: Don’t get ahead of yourself

“I made the massive mistake of getting overconfident after I had a sniff of success. I was only 25 so I was pretty immature and thought I could do anything. This cost me in a big way for years.”

Lesson #2: Know your weaknesses

“I found some pretty big shortcomings in my skills and personality. I realised what I’m good at and where I’m pretty average, which was a good wake up call. You need to be pretty honest with yourself and do some internal audits.”

Lesson #3: Get an A-Team

“Once you identify your shortcomings align yourself with people who complement your weaknesses and add your value to them, this is what I did with Alex and Linkfluencer. Since then the results speak for themselves as we go from strength to strength.”

Lesson #4: Work ethic is everything

“You can’t grow a multi-million dollar company working 9 until 5 Monday - Friday. You have to live and breathe it and outwork everyone else - but if you love it, it’s not work.”

Lesson #5: Create a killer to-do list

“If you’re in a bad space like I was, develop an action plan to get yourself out of it and just tick it off, work every day on smashing that to do list. Even If you have to work 18 hours a day to do it - it will pay off in the end.”

Your turn...

Are you going through the entrepreneur journey, or have you been through it before? What have you learnt along the way? Share in the comments below so others can learn from your experience too.

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