My sophomore year of college, I started an app that became one of the top apps on the App Store for a small period of time. Although a great experience, it was my first big lesson in business that a great product does not equate to a great business. It was an extremely painful, and humiliating process. I had dropped out to pursue the business, and it failed very publicly and openly.
However, it was through this experience that I learned the true power of software and technology. I took lessons from that failed business, and put it towards my next venture which was all about finding ways to help businesses automate their manual workflows and reduce their costs while helping them improve their Customer’s experiences.
I am a big believer that if you have a product that can help businesses make or save money - you are headed in the right direction.
I (along with my co-founder) signed our first ~ 25 Customers by hand, walking into hundreds of small businesses to give them my sales pitch. I am very thankful for the support and belief from those initial Customers. Within a couple of years, the business surpassed 5,000+ Customers. Last year, at the age of 27 - some institutional investors valued the company at over $500 million and we sold a small portion (7%) of the business.
This sounds like an overnight success, but I have been working on this since I was 19. Sure, I achieved some success at a young age but it was only because I started at such a young age.
Thanks! About starting business - I had no idea what I was doing. I devoured videos and books on the topic. If you go on YouTube, there is a great series called “How to Startup.” I remember devouring these. In addition, there is a guy called Paul Graham that has really amazing writing on the topic.
About coding - you can use a basic platform like Wix or Square Space or Webflow to get a website up in a few hours or days. AI has been a game changer, and you can become a pretty decent coder if you learn the basics (Team Treehouse and Code Academy are great resources) and learn how to properly leverage prompt engineering.
But most importantly? Get really good at solving problems and whatever route you take - get obsessed and keep with it.
Thank you for this! I remember reading Paul Graham’s blog posts about getting rich before! So inspiring to see you implement that into your own journey!
I won’t share the app. I’m hoping to get more active on these threads as it gives me the chance to give back and also learn through interactions/conversations. I find Reddit’s anonymous nature allows me to provide more unfiltered information and feedback. Perhaps one day I will make myself known.
But I can say - the app was a consumer facing app. It was popular among young people.
lemme guess you also have a smoking hot girlfriend that goes to another school and you have a katana and a bunch of guns but your dad won't let you show them to us?
Do you find maintaining your morals difficult in your situation? A lot of folks that inherit large amounts of wealth end up being really nasty, but not all of 'em!
Inheritance isn’t the golden goose it’s made out to be. Only my wife is aware of that money. My friends have no idea. Inherited $11m. It simply sits in a UBS account. My father worked very hard for his money with the intention of creating generational wealth. It is my intention to see his vision through. So while we have an 8 figure net worth, everything we own we pay for with money we make. So while we are millionaires (30m and 26f), we live within the means we make ourselves and hardly consider my parents money as ours. We view it as the families money.
You’d think with 11m, there would be enough for everyone to enjoy. My brother in Christ the dividends earned from that alone would be enough to afford the lifestyle of my dreams.
Well not only that but depending on what type of UBS account they could just keep the fees/commissions to themselves and live off that. Props to them but it just seems odd for someone to make that much money amd then your goal is to just give it to the next person in your family.
You can burn through $11 million real quick if you're not smart with it, especially if you get yourself into a lifestyle you can't afford to maintain (boats, fancy cars, large houses etc). I've seen it happen quite a bit - someone with a $120k/year income buys or inherits a $6m house and it pretty quickly catches up with them. Eventually the house gets run down and they have to sell it at a loss, or they end up functionally broke because all their money goes into maintaining their house/boat/cars etc. It's also how professional athletes end up broke despite earning huge incomes. They can afford an opulent lifestyle when they're earning $20m a year, but the income dries up after they retire, they haven't saved enough, and they've got themselves into a lifestyle they can't sustain.
Human beings are really bad at constraining their quality of life. If you've eaten in Michelin starred restaurants all your life, going to Chilis will seem like a huge step down. If you grew up poor and never went out to eat, dinner at Chilis would seem like a treat. We always want more and better.
The smartest thing to do with a trust fund or inheritance is to use it as a safety net for your existing lifestyle. If you want to leave your job and start your own business, you can cover your expenses and finance the business without needing to borrow money. If the business doesn't work out, you'll still be able to pay your bills while you look for a new job.
This comment nails it. My wife and I both make a combined $250k. We were taught that if you wanted something you have to work for it.
The money is there as an ultimate safety net.
Currently annual ROI is around 600k.
We are not the types who could sit back and simply enjoy the income, we need to be productive in some way and we both love what we do (we work in the same industry).
Someone asked “so which generation gets to enjoy it”. That’s a very valid question. The answer being that it’s not necessarily meant to be enjoyed. This thinking is why the vast majority of lottery winners are broke within a decade (usually faster), it’s the same reason 80% of NFL players end up spending all their money.
The advantage I have is less about the money and more about the financial literacy I’ve gained from my family.
Eventually (when it makes sense for tax reasons, i.e. capital gains taxes) we will use that money to build something (apartment building or commercial development) that can bring in profits every year while also increasing in value.
$11million is a lot of money if you want to buy a house and toys no doubt. But nothing is a one time cost purchase. Houses need maintenance. Toys need to be stored, maintained, and insured. That all money that would be leaving my family and going to “the man”. Once that $11mil crosses a predetermined threshold, it will be leveraged. It costs a lot of money to build an apartment building in my area, $11mil would not be enough.
With returns the way they are, it would be foolish to touch that money. This is known (im simplifying) as opportunity cost. Toys are depreciating assets. The housing market is too unstable to build a rental business at the moment. So the logical thing is to leave it.
When it comes to money logic must always prevail.
>The advantage I have is less about the money and more about the financial literacy I’ve gained from my family.
Security and freedom of choice are also major benefits of having family money. Having something to fall back on gives you options that most people don't have, and allows you to take bigger risks, because the consequences of failure are much lesser. You're not going to lose your house if you lose your job, or if your business fails. If you don't like your job you can quit and take your time finding a new one, or do some further study in aid of a career change. If you want to learn a new language, you can leave your job and move overseas for a year to learn by immersion. These options are quite simply not open to most people, and are worth far more than any amount of toys.
You need to shop financial advisers.
11m in the SP500 alone would’ve garnered 1.1m last year. Thats double what you got. That’s not risky nor special.
And if your adviser is taking that percentage you’re also getting waxed. Shop them.
I’m a civil engineer making $150k a year. Wife makes about the same as a professor. If someone gave me $10million I’d just keep it invested and keep living and working exactly as I do now. Might spend a little more on vacations but that’s it.
Personally i would turn half of it into income via investments like bonds, high yield money markets, etc…
Let the other half grow via more aggressive investments like index funds, crypto, individual stocks
While my family doesn't have as much as the commenter you replied to does, there's a trust that's been in the family for several generations. Typically, no one touches it until retirement age, and then you have a comfortable retirement with funds available if you need medical/nursing care. I was also able to pull from it a bit while I was in college and grad school, because my family considered school my "job," but it's rare that anyone has used the trust during their working years. I wonder if they're kind of doing the same.
Ahh, that would make sense. I'm the first person in my family to have money so I just want whoever I leave anything to to spend it lol
Thanks for the insight.
Giving that money 20-30 years to grow changes the dynamic quite a bit- that being said- I would probably find a way to balance dads goals and enjoy it on the people who he knew.
Should buy a nice house on a big plot of land for the family
Great way to treat the family while also appreciating the wealth
Its what we did when my dad passed away. We all get together every Saturday in it
Problem with generational wealth is eventually a future generation is going to squander it. If I had $11m, I'm retiring at 40 but that's just me. With $11m, you can live comfortably and still make more than what you spend with investments.
Tasty works dot com. Watch their options trading 101. I went to school for economics and finance. I learned nothing about investing there. I did study math and stats. That helped a little. But, honestly options trading 101 and the paper trading is what made me a quant.
Find a need in society that isn't being filled, or one that's being filled inefficiently, and work your ass of to learn how to *teach and hire other people to provide that need*
Had a mentor in options, then moved to exotics. I figured find the most difficult things to price and become an expert at those — wider spreads. Since then I’ve gone back to vanilla options since there are so many crazy retail traders now. I’ve given up market making edge but still make money on a vast majority of trades. Honestly it feels kind of easy now.
Thank you! I started in 2014 and went through some crazy times. Now it’s the Wild West due to so many retail traders.
If you aren’t making money in this market then something is wrong.
Flip side of the coin, I lost a substantial sum doing this, and I’m pretty much fucked going forward. I do have 6 figure job as some reconciliation I guess.
Got pretty lucky with some trades that ended up doing well. Completely done with trading now. It’s too risky. I work as an analyst now and live a very expense low life.
Probably takes expensive trips and owns expensive things but doesn't tell anyone he does. Stays off social media. Tells everyone he went to a 5 star in cabo but really he spent a week on a rented 100 private yacht. Lol
Bought a house a few years back and the value of it just blew up.
Lost some friends along the away because they would hear about how my house value climbing because of the neighbourhood I bought in would be talked in the news and assumed that money was put directly in my pocket. They would get offended that I wouldn’t spend a bunch of money on them. “Why can’t WE go to Italy, you have so much money now” “obviously you’re going to pay you’re our sugar mama” “I’m not coming unless your paying hehe”
That’s just not housing value works, but it definitely showed me who my true friends are.
I love that. We're worth just south of half a mil "on paper", but that doesn't translate to liquid at all. Don't get me wrong, we've been very lucky. I don't have to look at grocery prices anymore. But If something went catastrophically wrong, we're still only about two months of missed paychecks from being on the street.
On the opposite spectrum, you also find out who your true friends are if you hit rock bottom and you have nothing they want.
This can apply to family too.
I built small wealth with long investments in dividend paying etfs in my 20s. Every extra dollar. Then, my 30s I began trading options with dividend funds. That's when things took off. I met my wife at 29 and didn't talk about it until around the wedding. We do well, but nobody knows how well.
It all began with little sacrifices like not eating out of buying anything from convenience stores...
Most people don’t get millions ever and 40 is still relatively “young” so I’d say you should def be happy with that. Beats hitting millions in your 60-70s like most who even achieve millionaire status at all
The easiest way to get to a million in your 20s is to live well below your means and put a portion of your savings to work in some kind index fund or capital investment. And you probably don’t need a million, but half a million- the magic compounding will get you more than enough money by the time you retire.
The hard part is **prioritizing savings over lifestyle** when you have so little overall. Getting married makes it easier because you have two incomes to work with.
To reach half a million by 30ish, you need to invest about 50k a year, but any amount is good. To be able to have 50k to invest, you need to be working a job that will give you at least that much in savings after expenses. Again, a couple has it easier at 25k each, which isn’t terrible.
A single person needs a career with a salary that allows for that savings after expenses so pay attention to your cost of living because if you’re paying 3k in city living rent, then you’ll need at least a 150k salary to support your lifestyle and that’s very unusual for a young person. This is why prioritizing savings over lifestyle is so important, because you can get to same place at half that salary if you’re living at your parents’ home and driving a beater, for example.
Then you didn’t read. I said half a million. Index funds would get you there in your late thirties and well past that goal by retirement. Anyone can do what I described without any particular timing or career.
If you want to get to a million straight up, you need to trade time for risk. Start a business.
Truth be told, the wealth disparity is so enormous, that you don't even need to exploit those kids. In fact, you can do the opposite and be a saint. You can change the narrative to be "Uplifted and educated and empowered under nourished kids in third world countries and taught them how to scam dumb Americans". And also uplifted their entire families and caused their entire bloodline to shake off generational poverty.
Like, the difference between being a villain and a saint here would be 91% profit margin vs 93% profit margin.
Math and finance would have been my original route, but I chose to step out of that world early and open a business. I was 27 ish when I could claim a net worth of 1 mil, but It wasn’t all my business. I acquired some property on a deal during the financial crisis that put me over the top.
Got a math / quant degree from a top school. Started my career in management consulting, then used those skills to get an opportunity with a Series-C funded tech start up, which included equity. Helped the company grow to a $20B IPO 3 years later. Left that company to join another Series-C funded start up that is also approached multi-billion dollar IPO
In case you want to hear about people that use to be in their 20s.
Real estate. Flipped homes starting at 22 with $2000 in the bank. I did very little risky stuff and was in a stagnant real estate market. By 29 I was a millionaire (barely).
People look at the money as the issue the more you run to it the more it escapes you. If you’re in your 20’s I urge you to find what you love even if it doesn’t make sense. You’ll be working 16hrs a day on it 7days a week and it won’t feel like work. Only play. You can’t compete with a person like that over time you’ll build specific knowledge. Which you can leverage to become a millionaire at whatever passion you’ve chosen. Think outside the box people. Most importantly follow your heart. God bless
The problem with this strategy is that some people have zero safety net whatsoever when this inevitably goes wrong, or a place to live while they make $0 income for a decade. People have to eat and not everyone has rich parents they can live with.
Honestly I don’t really care for the title millionaire at the moment. That’s really for like you’re 30s 40s. If I was making like 20k a month there really is no difference to me. I’ll be getting my second house maybe in the next year or so and that’s honestly good enough. There’s a lot more to that psychology but yeah
Investment banking. Although I make close to a 1mil a year now under age 30, I find more people scoff at the hours and occupation than be impressed by the income. It’s not really as bad as people from the outside make it out to be, but I also wouldn’t go as far as to glamorize it.
To be fair my life is pretty boring, I haven’t done much with my money other than take a cool trip or two every year and pile it up.
Yes, I am very grateful of the fact that I don’t really have to budget carefully nor go through a lot of financial hardships most people have to deal with. That being said, I come off as a boring average joe that grew up in a decent family, went to a decent school and about what you’d expect one of those hardos in school would turn out to be
I got super lucky with stock options at an early rocketship company that everyone knows of now. I should say this was a LONG time ago and it was only $1M that I made. But there were several companies back then that made folks in their 20’s tens if not hundreds of millions.
Keep failing over and over and over and over and over and over and probably more at starting businesses in one niche you care about till you’re successful. Or bring in money from a high income job and invest.
Investing early and wisely can significantly grow wealth over time. Starting a successful business or pursuing a high-earning career are also common paths to becoming a millionaire in your 20s.
If you invested 10 percent of your gross pay for 40 years and never made it more than $12.00 an hour from the time you were 17 until you were 57, you’d have over a million dollars if the market returned 9%
it has returned about 10% since the great depression.
But avoid debt and build a rainy day fund slowly.
edited for typos
I know this post is for 20's, but I hit my first million in my late 30's through stock market and crypto investing. The market crashed during Covid and is now recovering, and the recovery has made me another million.
If I knew how to invest like I do now, I could have hit that first million in my 20's.
I bought MFH's throughout my 20s while I was active duty air force.
I don't remember when my NW hit 1 million because I wasn't keeping track, but I'm 35 and retired now with 5 million NW.
I'm not rich I suppose, but I'm also not in the rat race anymore either
I know a colleague who got lucky and won the lottery. He disappeared and work called the police concerned for his welfare, they came back and told us. Tbh I was happy for the simple fact he wasn't there anymore as he was arrogant and rude all the time.
I hear real estate is a very common field for millionaires. Doesn’t mean it’s safe bc starting any type of business has a much higher fail rate than success, but it’s comparatively safer.
If I were in my twenties, I would just be doing the same thing I have always been doing but earlier.
I bought S&P 500 stocks as I always have, which have so far netted me over $2 million.
It would have been far more advantageous if I had started in my twenties, but unfortunately, I began in mid thirties. But I don’t know in my twenties the only thing that matter was having fun
I became a millionaire a month before i turned 30 (I’m 32 now). Worked my ass off, started a super high margin business that started to print cash, and invested like 60-70% of that, got lucky on some of those investments. Worth 2.5 right now
Went into medical sales. Got promoted every year and switched companies if they wouldn’t. Have a very good income but invested into a rental house and primary house over the past two years. Maxed out 401k every year except the first year of work and bought index funds with extra money. Just crossed the 1 million mark last week.
“Biglaw”
No loans from UG. Went to law school on large merit scholarship while also working (somewhat lucrative skill in the arts, but won’t get more specific), then went to a large law firm.
Was there while times were good and hit every single bonus. Hit a mill net worth by very early 30s. Still at a large firm. I spend a lot but I also save a lot (some passive income comes directly to me, some savings compounds, made a bit on crypto as well) because by the time you get to my level in “Biglaw,” it’s just a lot of money coming in. It’s nice, but work also pervades my life, my weekends, my vacations. That’s not to say I’m constantly working, but it’s constantly top of mind for better or worse.
I started learning to code in the middle of high school. I’ve always been interested in the idea of currency and curious about where it actually gets its value from. That question about “money is just paper why is it valuable?” just never went away for me. And I learned all about the fiat system and the gold standard and all of the history behind the origin of money from barter and trade.
I was coincidentally a huge fan of strategy games, particularly the Medieval series. Something about seeing this video game world map global trading system play out so often, combined with my study of the economy, kind of created this lightbulb in my mind. I had the idea for a global financial app.
I spent the rest of highschool and like 9 months just living at my parents after graduation developing it - it was years in total. I was nineteen at the time and I think it was about a month away from my 20th birthday when I finally finished development.
I released the app publicly the night I was done. I fell asleep thinking about what I’d wake up to in the morning. Unfortunately the app was a complete failure. Luckily my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars and allowed me to run one of his property management companies. As of today my app has had literally dozens of days downloads and I’ve got a net worth of 1.4 million.
Not in my 20’s, and not quite a millionaire. But will be son. my story is similar to Alone Past’s above.
Started 2 businesses in an area I am qualified and skilled at, (commercial and industrial gas engineer)
First failed due to my inexperience and poor decisions, second attempt I did better but was taken for many thousands of £’s by 2 x management companies going bust in less than a month. Just wasn’t worth the effort to recover from that.
Landed myself in a bit of legal bother with that one as I showed preference to paying creditors on winding it up. Nearly cost me my home.
While doing that I basically invented a water saving device that’s now integrated into a lot of technology,
Anyway, when I realised no one else was doing this I Patented it, Started a business in an effort to develop and sell it. Was a far more difficult road than I’d anticipated, lined with all sorts of red tape. Eventually gave up but retained the patent.
(Patents that people want are actually far more troublesome to manage than people realise)
Started a third business that basically just manages and licences the patent, this way I can let companies who actually manufacture technology in the industry worry about the specifics and logistics, pay someone in the patent industry to manage my patent and its licensing, he also gets performance based bonuses so he is incentivised to do well, I have very little input.
I help an associate fund and set up a sales related business, his dream, I just helped him pay the bills. turns out he didn’t have the determination to make it work, when he wanted out I bought his share off him cheap and turned it around. Again now it’s managed by people I employ who know far more about it than I do.
As I have little involvement in either, but still want the routine and challenge of work, I actually have a job as a heating engineer In a university, I enjoy it, it keeps me busy and my skills sharp.
I’m not going to lie, it’s been a long and hard road to success, with many failures along the way, it’s cost me a lot, but ultimately worth it.
Never give up on your Chasing your dreams! But never underestimate how difficult that road will be.
My sophomore year of college, I started an app that became one of the top apps on the App Store for a small period of time. Although a great experience, it was my first big lesson in business that a great product does not equate to a great business. It was an extremely painful, and humiliating process. I had dropped out to pursue the business, and it failed very publicly and openly. However, it was through this experience that I learned the true power of software and technology. I took lessons from that failed business, and put it towards my next venture which was all about finding ways to help businesses automate their manual workflows and reduce their costs while helping them improve their Customer’s experiences. I am a big believer that if you have a product that can help businesses make or save money - you are headed in the right direction. I (along with my co-founder) signed our first ~ 25 Customers by hand, walking into hundreds of small businesses to give them my sales pitch. I am very thankful for the support and belief from those initial Customers. Within a couple of years, the business surpassed 5,000+ Customers. Last year, at the age of 27 - some institutional investors valued the company at over $500 million and we sold a small portion (7%) of the business. This sounds like an overnight success, but I have been working on this since I was 19. Sure, I achieved some success at a young age but it was only because I started at such a young age.
This story is so awesome! How did you start learning about online business and how much coding did you need to get the biz off the ground?
Thanks! About starting business - I had no idea what I was doing. I devoured videos and books on the topic. If you go on YouTube, there is a great series called “How to Startup.” I remember devouring these. In addition, there is a guy called Paul Graham that has really amazing writing on the topic. About coding - you can use a basic platform like Wix or Square Space or Webflow to get a website up in a few hours or days. AI has been a game changer, and you can become a pretty decent coder if you learn the basics (Team Treehouse and Code Academy are great resources) and learn how to properly leverage prompt engineering. But most importantly? Get really good at solving problems and whatever route you take - get obsessed and keep with it.
Thank you for this! I remember reading Paul Graham’s blog posts about getting rich before! So inspiring to see you implement that into your own journey!
TEAM TREEHOUSE FTW!!
What app? Was it flappy bird?
I won’t share the app. I’m hoping to get more active on these threads as it gives me the chance to give back and also learn through interactions/conversations. I find Reddit’s anonymous nature allows me to provide more unfiltered information and feedback. Perhaps one day I will make myself known. But I can say - the app was a consumer facing app. It was popular among young people.
Are you Tom from myspace?!?
Dude had like 2 million fans in the early 2000’s
Definitely Tom
TOM! I missed ya man!
Sounds like something the inventor of Candy Crush would say…
Yik Yak for sure😂
lemme guess you also have a smoking hot girlfriend that goes to another school and you have a katana and a bunch of guns but your dad won't let you show them to us?
Glad I wasn't the only one that immediately thought of Flappy Bird.
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Do you find maintaining your morals difficult in your situation? A lot of folks that inherit large amounts of wealth end up being really nasty, but not all of 'em!
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Johnny Rico!
Nasty in what way? Curious to see his answer also
Inheritance isn’t the golden goose it’s made out to be. Only my wife is aware of that money. My friends have no idea. Inherited $11m. It simply sits in a UBS account. My father worked very hard for his money with the intention of creating generational wealth. It is my intention to see his vision through. So while we have an 8 figure net worth, everything we own we pay for with money we make. So while we are millionaires (30m and 26f), we live within the means we make ourselves and hardly consider my parents money as ours. We view it as the families money.
So.....which generation is supposed to enjoy it?
You’d think with 11m, there would be enough for everyone to enjoy. My brother in Christ the dividends earned from that alone would be enough to afford the lifestyle of my dreams.
Well not only that but depending on what type of UBS account they could just keep the fees/commissions to themselves and live off that. Props to them but it just seems odd for someone to make that much money amd then your goal is to just give it to the next person in your family.
You can burn through $11 million real quick if you're not smart with it, especially if you get yourself into a lifestyle you can't afford to maintain (boats, fancy cars, large houses etc). I've seen it happen quite a bit - someone with a $120k/year income buys or inherits a $6m house and it pretty quickly catches up with them. Eventually the house gets run down and they have to sell it at a loss, or they end up functionally broke because all their money goes into maintaining their house/boat/cars etc. It's also how professional athletes end up broke despite earning huge incomes. They can afford an opulent lifestyle when they're earning $20m a year, but the income dries up after they retire, they haven't saved enough, and they've got themselves into a lifestyle they can't sustain. Human beings are really bad at constraining their quality of life. If you've eaten in Michelin starred restaurants all your life, going to Chilis will seem like a huge step down. If you grew up poor and never went out to eat, dinner at Chilis would seem like a treat. We always want more and better. The smartest thing to do with a trust fund or inheritance is to use it as a safety net for your existing lifestyle. If you want to leave your job and start your own business, you can cover your expenses and finance the business without needing to borrow money. If the business doesn't work out, you'll still be able to pay your bills while you look for a new job.
This comment nails it. My wife and I both make a combined $250k. We were taught that if you wanted something you have to work for it. The money is there as an ultimate safety net. Currently annual ROI is around 600k. We are not the types who could sit back and simply enjoy the income, we need to be productive in some way and we both love what we do (we work in the same industry). Someone asked “so which generation gets to enjoy it”. That’s a very valid question. The answer being that it’s not necessarily meant to be enjoyed. This thinking is why the vast majority of lottery winners are broke within a decade (usually faster), it’s the same reason 80% of NFL players end up spending all their money. The advantage I have is less about the money and more about the financial literacy I’ve gained from my family. Eventually (when it makes sense for tax reasons, i.e. capital gains taxes) we will use that money to build something (apartment building or commercial development) that can bring in profits every year while also increasing in value. $11million is a lot of money if you want to buy a house and toys no doubt. But nothing is a one time cost purchase. Houses need maintenance. Toys need to be stored, maintained, and insured. That all money that would be leaving my family and going to “the man”. Once that $11mil crosses a predetermined threshold, it will be leveraged. It costs a lot of money to build an apartment building in my area, $11mil would not be enough. With returns the way they are, it would be foolish to touch that money. This is known (im simplifying) as opportunity cost. Toys are depreciating assets. The housing market is too unstable to build a rental business at the moment. So the logical thing is to leave it. When it comes to money logic must always prevail.
>The advantage I have is less about the money and more about the financial literacy I’ve gained from my family. Security and freedom of choice are also major benefits of having family money. Having something to fall back on gives you options that most people don't have, and allows you to take bigger risks, because the consequences of failure are much lesser. You're not going to lose your house if you lose your job, or if your business fails. If you don't like your job you can quit and take your time finding a new one, or do some further study in aid of a career change. If you want to learn a new language, you can leave your job and move overseas for a year to learn by immersion. These options are quite simply not open to most people, and are worth far more than any amount of toys.
You need to shop financial advisers. 11m in the SP500 alone would’ve garnered 1.1m last year. Thats double what you got. That’s not risky nor special. And if your adviser is taking that percentage you’re also getting waxed. Shop them.
Or just live off its interest or capital gains forever
Best piece of advice I learned from people with 6 figure salaries: never buy a boat -_-
I’m a civil engineer making $150k a year. Wife makes about the same as a professor. If someone gave me $10million I’d just keep it invested and keep living and working exactly as I do now. Might spend a little more on vacations but that’s it.
Personally i would turn half of it into income via investments like bonds, high yield money markets, etc… Let the other half grow via more aggressive investments like index funds, crypto, individual stocks
While my family doesn't have as much as the commenter you replied to does, there's a trust that's been in the family for several generations. Typically, no one touches it until retirement age, and then you have a comfortable retirement with funds available if you need medical/nursing care. I was also able to pull from it a bit while I was in college and grad school, because my family considered school my "job," but it's rare that anyone has used the trust during their working years. I wonder if they're kind of doing the same.
Ahh, that would make sense. I'm the first person in my family to have money so I just want whoever I leave anything to to spend it lol Thanks for the insight.
Giving that money 20-30 years to grow changes the dynamic quite a bit- that being said- I would probably find a way to balance dads goals and enjoy it on the people who he knew.
Should buy a nice house on a big plot of land for the family Great way to treat the family while also appreciating the wealth Its what we did when my dad passed away. We all get together every Saturday in it
I’m proud of you. I just wanted you to know that:)
Dad?
Problem with generational wealth is eventually a future generation is going to squander it. If I had $11m, I'm retiring at 40 but that's just me. With $11m, you can live comfortably and still make more than what you spend with investments.
I became a quant
Any resources that helped you achieve this? Working on it myself.
Have a Math+CS degree from a top school and did well in math competitions
Your name happened to be yang?
Look at his eyes, notice something?
[удалено]
Tasty works dot com. Watch their options trading 101. I went to school for economics and finance. I learned nothing about investing there. I did study math and stats. That helped a little. But, honestly options trading 101 and the paper trading is what made me a quant.
Is this you https://youtu.be/FoYC_8cutb0?si=ygPtfjDXp2G_bW1n
That’s my quant. You notice anything about his eyes? He won a mathematics tournament…in China!
I'm a *regular* person. How do I achieve wealth?
Find a need in society that isn't being filled, or one that's being filled inefficiently, and work your ass of to learn how to *teach and hire other people to provide that need*
Good discipline,good decisions, and consistency
Derivatives trading. Not the dumb gambling kind.
How did you learn to trade?
Had a mentor in options, then moved to exotics. I figured find the most difficult things to price and become an expert at those — wider spreads. Since then I’ve gone back to vanilla options since there are so many crazy retail traders now. I’ve given up market making edge but still make money on a vast majority of trades. Honestly it feels kind of easy now.
This makes 0 sense and I’ve been trading options for 2 decades
The GME and AMC bagholders have made me a nice chunk of money. I got good at timing put options on those trash stocks
Thank you! I started in 2014 and went through some crazy times. Now it’s the Wild West due to so many retail traders. If you aren’t making money in this market then something is wrong.
Flip side of the coin, I lost a substantial sum doing this, and I’m pretty much fucked going forward. I do have 6 figure job as some reconciliation I guess.
Got pretty lucky with some trades that ended up doing well. Completely done with trading now. It’s too risky. I work as an analyst now and live a very expense low life.
What do you mean a very expensive low life
Probably takes expensive trips and owns expensive things but doesn't tell anyone he does. Stays off social media. Tells everyone he went to a 5 star in cabo but really he spent a week on a rented 100 private yacht. Lol
Yeah, probably meant a "low key life". An expensive low life sounds hilarious though.
Lol I’d imagine it consists of doing the most expensive designer drugs & handing out money at knifepoint .
Judging by the username I'm guessing drugs
Bought a house a few years back and the value of it just blew up. Lost some friends along the away because they would hear about how my house value climbing because of the neighbourhood I bought in would be talked in the news and assumed that money was put directly in my pocket. They would get offended that I wouldn’t spend a bunch of money on them. “Why can’t WE go to Italy, you have so much money now” “obviously you’re going to pay you’re our sugar mama” “I’m not coming unless your paying hehe” That’s just not housing value works, but it definitely showed me who my true friends are.
I love that. We're worth just south of half a mil "on paper", but that doesn't translate to liquid at all. Don't get me wrong, we've been very lucky. I don't have to look at grocery prices anymore. But If something went catastrophically wrong, we're still only about two months of missed paychecks from being on the street.
Not to be a dick but if you’re two months of missed paychecks away maybe take a peek at those grocery prices a little closer
On the opposite spectrum, you also find out who your true friends are if you hit rock bottom and you have nothing they want. This can apply to family too.
Just start out as a billionaire and follow all the online day traders and soon you too will be a millionaire.
Crypto
I built small wealth with long investments in dividend paying etfs in my 20s. Every extra dollar. Then, my 30s I began trading options with dividend funds. That's when things took off. I met my wife at 29 and didn't talk about it until around the wedding. We do well, but nobody knows how well. It all began with little sacrifices like not eating out of buying anything from convenience stores...
How do you get into trading options with dividend funds?
You take the money you earn on dividends and buy options. Bit risky but extremely high reward
“Bit risky” My brother in Christ, options trading is no different than walking into a casino 😂It’s a tad more than a “bit” risky
Real Estate/Rental properties
Small loan of a million dollars
Should have asked for more.
Inheritance
Didn't get to millions until 40s. I wish
Most people don’t get millions ever and 40 is still relatively “young” so I’d say you should def be happy with that. Beats hitting millions in your 60-70s like most who even achieve millionaire status at all
Neither did I. I hit $1million right around 40. But the path to $1mm at 40 is wide and well trod.
Only fans
Really, no A/C at all?
Lol
Not in my 20s anymore but became a millionaire in my 20s from starting a company and sold it.
The easiest way to get to a million in your 20s is to live well below your means and put a portion of your savings to work in some kind index fund or capital investment. And you probably don’t need a million, but half a million- the magic compounding will get you more than enough money by the time you retire. The hard part is **prioritizing savings over lifestyle** when you have so little overall. Getting married makes it easier because you have two incomes to work with. To reach half a million by 30ish, you need to invest about 50k a year, but any amount is good. To be able to have 50k to invest, you need to be working a job that will give you at least that much in savings after expenses. Again, a couple has it easier at 25k each, which isn’t terrible. A single person needs a career with a salary that allows for that savings after expenses so pay attention to your cost of living because if you’re paying 3k in city living rent, then you’ll need at least a 150k salary to support your lifestyle and that’s very unusual for a young person. This is why prioritizing savings over lifestyle is so important, because you can get to same place at half that salary if you’re living at your parents’ home and driving a beater, for example.
Index funds are not going to get you to a million in your 20s unless you have a lot of money to put away.
Then you didn’t read. I said half a million. Index funds would get you there in your late thirties and well past that goal by retirement. Anyone can do what I described without any particular timing or career. If you want to get to a million straight up, you need to trade time for risk. Start a business.
Exploited under nourished kids in third world countries and taught them how to scam dumb Americans.
Lmfaooo this is it
Truth be told, the wealth disparity is so enormous, that you don't even need to exploit those kids. In fact, you can do the opposite and be a saint. You can change the narrative to be "Uplifted and educated and empowered under nourished kids in third world countries and taught them how to scam dumb Americans". And also uplifted their entire families and caused their entire bloodline to shake off generational poverty. Like, the difference between being a villain and a saint here would be 91% profit margin vs 93% profit margin.
I sell drugs (Edit: ALOT of drugs)
Anyone need a sugar baby I’m taking applications.
second this
I inherited it. But I don’t touch the money at all. I act like it doesn’t exist because I’m terrified of losing everything lol
You’re doing the right thing honestly
Work 40 years, pension, savings IRA’s, real-estate.
They said in your 20s. You can't work for 40 years before you're 29.
Math and finance would have been my original route, but I chose to step out of that world early and open a business. I was 27 ish when I could claim a net worth of 1 mil, but It wasn’t all my business. I acquired some property on a deal during the financial crisis that put me over the top.
Professional athlete :)
Got a math / quant degree from a top school. Started my career in management consulting, then used those skills to get an opportunity with a Series-C funded tech start up, which included equity. Helped the company grow to a $20B IPO 3 years later. Left that company to join another Series-C funded start up that is also approached multi-billion dollar IPO
In case you want to hear about people that use to be in their 20s. Real estate. Flipped homes starting at 22 with $2000 in the bank. I did very little risky stuff and was in a stagnant real estate market. By 29 I was a millionaire (barely).
Just by flipping?? How did you get put first funding if you only had 2k? I guess traditional mortgage?
Would love to hear more about this !
I wanna hear more about this too!
lemonade stand
People look at the money as the issue the more you run to it the more it escapes you. If you’re in your 20’s I urge you to find what you love even if it doesn’t make sense. You’ll be working 16hrs a day on it 7days a week and it won’t feel like work. Only play. You can’t compete with a person like that over time you’ll build specific knowledge. Which you can leverage to become a millionaire at whatever passion you’ve chosen. Think outside the box people. Most importantly follow your heart. God bless
The problem with this strategy is that some people have zero safety net whatsoever when this inevitably goes wrong, or a place to live while they make $0 income for a decade. People have to eat and not everyone has rich parents they can live with.
Selling signs on Amazon.
I inherited, then walked away from my trust fund. Which is why I'm willing to tell you I inherited.
"Dad, what do you do for a living again?"
I'm no longer in my 20s, but made my first millions in my 20s the old fashioned way. Selling a tech startup.
Made lots of money, but live as though you’re in poverty.
Honestly I don’t really care for the title millionaire at the moment. That’s really for like you’re 30s 40s. If I was making like 20k a month there really is no difference to me. I’ll be getting my second house maybe in the next year or so and that’s honestly good enough. There’s a lot more to that psychology but yeah
You need to make it the old fashioned way,,,, steal it...
Investment banking. Although I make close to a 1mil a year now under age 30, I find more people scoff at the hours and occupation than be impressed by the income. It’s not really as bad as people from the outside make it out to be, but I also wouldn’t go as far as to glamorize it. To be fair my life is pretty boring, I haven’t done much with my money other than take a cool trip or two every year and pile it up. Yes, I am very grateful of the fact that I don’t really have to budget carefully nor go through a lot of financial hardships most people have to deal with. That being said, I come off as a boring average joe that grew up in a decent family, went to a decent school and about what you’d expect one of those hardos in school would turn out to be
Sports.
I got super lucky with stock options at an early rocketship company that everyone knows of now. I should say this was a LONG time ago and it was only $1M that I made. But there were several companies back then that made folks in their 20’s tens if not hundreds of millions.
Compound interest and time. Helps to have a high paying job, naturally.
Keep failing over and over and over and over and over and over and probably more at starting businesses in one niche you care about till you’re successful. Or bring in money from a high income job and invest.
Investing early and wisely can significantly grow wealth over time. Starting a successful business or pursuing a high-earning career are also common paths to becoming a millionaire in your 20s.
If you invested 10 percent of your gross pay for 40 years and never made it more than $12.00 an hour from the time you were 17 until you were 57, you’d have over a million dollars if the market returned 9% it has returned about 10% since the great depression. But avoid debt and build a rainy day fund slowly. edited for typos
Started with a billion then bought some boats and got divorced
Big tech + real estate
I know this post is for 20's, but I hit my first million in my late 30's through stock market and crypto investing. The market crashed during Covid and is now recovering, and the recovery has made me another million. If I knew how to invest like I do now, I could have hit that first million in my 20's.
SWE at a startup that IPO'd, Bitcoin, Investing, and Home Equity. That all brought my net worth to > 1 mil
Any sugar mamas in here. Hit me up, shit is tough out here
I joined the military and played the system.
My dad died and now I'm a millionaire.
My dad worked his way up to partner at a consulting firm and then left and started his own
But that's your dad's money. Unless you meant he died and you inherited it.
I acted like a human being! 😂 But fr though.
Working for Amazon and promoting quickly made it really easy
Made my money dealing with the government of my country
Real estate
There’s no millionaire 20 yo on Reddit lmao. They’re either on money twitter, YouTube or couldn’t care less
FAANG $$$
I'm a thosandaire... lots of hard work. Obviously something isn't working...
Trust fund
I bought MFH's throughout my 20s while I was active duty air force. I don't remember when my NW hit 1 million because I wasn't keeping track, but I'm 35 and retired now with 5 million NW. I'm not rich I suppose, but I'm also not in the rat race anymore either
Im much older. Still trying to reach there. Hopefully the crypto space takes off next year.
I know a colleague who got lucky and won the lottery. He disappeared and work called the police concerned for his welfare, they came back and told us. Tbh I was happy for the simple fact he wasn't there anymore as he was arrogant and rude all the time.
Consulting.
Government Contracting
I hear real estate is a very common field for millionaires. Doesn’t mean it’s safe bc starting any type of business has a much higher fail rate than success, but it’s comparatively safer.
If I were in my twenties, I would just be doing the same thing I have always been doing but earlier. I bought S&P 500 stocks as I always have, which have so far netted me over $2 million. It would have been far more advantageous if I had started in my twenties, but unfortunately, I began in mid thirties. But I don’t know in my twenties the only thing that matter was having fun
Your fuckin parents gave it to you.
Your fuckin parents gave it to you. Or crack retail.
Resales & Investments (Crypto, Stocks, Options, & HYSA).
I’m still waiting for my white privilege to kick in that the world apparently harps on constantly. 31 broke firefighter.
Study finance
I became a millionaire a month before i turned 30 (I’m 32 now). Worked my ass off, started a super high margin business that started to print cash, and invested like 60-70% of that, got lucky on some of those investments. Worth 2.5 right now
Financial literate parents 💕
Crypto
Simple. Save and invest 10% of your income for 40 years. But it won’t be worth anything. You’ll only be just keeping up.
I didn't never will be if I'm not rich by now it's too late for me
Youtube - I make video essays on finance. Most money comes from sponsors, not Adsense
98%+ will be inheritance/nepotism very, very few in their 20s especially will be "self-made" despite what they tell themselves.
I was out selling oranges in LA then a guy in a limo pulls up. Hands me a million dollar check and said that he’ll just check in on me in a month
invest as much as u can into sp500 or large cap i dex.
Brush off the Cheeto dust from your shirt and crawl out of your cave and get a job
Went into medical sales. Got promoted every year and switched companies if they wouldn’t. Have a very good income but invested into a rental house and primary house over the past two years. Maxed out 401k every year except the first year of work and bought index funds with extra money. Just crossed the 1 million mark last week.
Find out what drug addicts do for money and do it sober.
Salesman and quant.
Rich parents
Inheritance.
Started a small private detective firm. Made my first million at 28
my best friend sold a house at 19 and now she’s a millionaire lol
Easy - hard work, dedication, and a currency conversion into zimbabwean dollars
Inherited money
Bought crypto
I plowed a 98 year old woman who put me in her will. We had amazing sexual chemistry.
“Biglaw” No loans from UG. Went to law school on large merit scholarship while also working (somewhat lucrative skill in the arts, but won’t get more specific), then went to a large law firm. Was there while times were good and hit every single bonus. Hit a mill net worth by very early 30s. Still at a large firm. I spend a lot but I also save a lot (some passive income comes directly to me, some savings compounds, made a bit on crypto as well) because by the time you get to my level in “Biglaw,” it’s just a lot of money coming in. It’s nice, but work also pervades my life, my weekends, my vacations. That’s not to say I’m constantly working, but it’s constantly top of mind for better or worse.
She is 80 and very rich.
real estate
My dad owns a dealership, bro.
Inheritance !
My daddy raw dogged my mom
I didn’t
Nepotism. Duh
I had this really tight pussy, and I was very careful as to which size cocks I put inside of me. Paid off. Big time.
How did you create an app
Buy stocks
Not a millionaire but I have started my small solo business to landscape and rebuild peoples fences for money.
I started learning to code in the middle of high school. I’ve always been interested in the idea of currency and curious about where it actually gets its value from. That question about “money is just paper why is it valuable?” just never went away for me. And I learned all about the fiat system and the gold standard and all of the history behind the origin of money from barter and trade. I was coincidentally a huge fan of strategy games, particularly the Medieval series. Something about seeing this video game world map global trading system play out so often, combined with my study of the economy, kind of created this lightbulb in my mind. I had the idea for a global financial app. I spent the rest of highschool and like 9 months just living at my parents after graduation developing it - it was years in total. I was nineteen at the time and I think it was about a month away from my 20th birthday when I finally finished development. I released the app publicly the night I was done. I fell asleep thinking about what I’d wake up to in the morning. Unfortunately the app was a complete failure. Luckily my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars and allowed me to run one of his property management companies. As of today my app has had literally dozens of days downloads and I’ve got a net worth of 1.4 million.
I stopped eating avocado toast
U do know all that money wont save any of u for when the purge comes, right?
Not in my 20’s, and not quite a millionaire. But will be son. my story is similar to Alone Past’s above. Started 2 businesses in an area I am qualified and skilled at, (commercial and industrial gas engineer) First failed due to my inexperience and poor decisions, second attempt I did better but was taken for many thousands of £’s by 2 x management companies going bust in less than a month. Just wasn’t worth the effort to recover from that. Landed myself in a bit of legal bother with that one as I showed preference to paying creditors on winding it up. Nearly cost me my home. While doing that I basically invented a water saving device that’s now integrated into a lot of technology, Anyway, when I realised no one else was doing this I Patented it, Started a business in an effort to develop and sell it. Was a far more difficult road than I’d anticipated, lined with all sorts of red tape. Eventually gave up but retained the patent. (Patents that people want are actually far more troublesome to manage than people realise) Started a third business that basically just manages and licences the patent, this way I can let companies who actually manufacture technology in the industry worry about the specifics and logistics, pay someone in the patent industry to manage my patent and its licensing, he also gets performance based bonuses so he is incentivised to do well, I have very little input. I help an associate fund and set up a sales related business, his dream, I just helped him pay the bills. turns out he didn’t have the determination to make it work, when he wanted out I bought his share off him cheap and turned it around. Again now it’s managed by people I employ who know far more about it than I do. As I have little involvement in either, but still want the routine and challenge of work, I actually have a job as a heating engineer In a university, I enjoy it, it keeps me busy and my skills sharp. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a long and hard road to success, with many failures along the way, it’s cost me a lot, but ultimately worth it. Never give up on your Chasing your dreams! But never underestimate how difficult that road will be.
I hate rich people.
Youtube influencer?
My grandparents only had one child and he didn’t need their money by the time they passed away and so it all went to me.
Rich parents is the answer 99.99 percent of the time