Millionaire at 23 - AMA

[Ramanujan]

On 9/18/2025 at 10:02 PM, Joshe said:

True, I noticed that as well. 

It helps to have no other option. When I was trying to break into freelancing web dev stuff, I'd put in 12-16 hours a day, because I had to. I wasn't going back to being controlled by a boss. For me, it was either make it work or become a failure, homeless, or sponge off my parents, and my ego wouldn't allow that. There was no other option but to work all day. There was a neurotic element to it tbh. 

When failure isn’t an option, the brain stops wasting energy on alternatives. All your choices get collapsed into "do the work". This brings a clarity that removes friction, which can make 14-hour days feel relatively effortless. 

Certain configurations of mind have certain energetic impacts than can make working 14 hours a day feel like nothing or feel like a living hell.

yeah. but sooner or later you will burn out. this approach can work for a small amount of time before burn out

[bazera]

@Ero Congrats man!

I'm in software development, but not doing ambitious things (at least by my standards), I mainly do front-end for companies for the last couple years, the pay is good and I haven't really tried anything else.

If I wanted to go towards entrepreneurship and working on a business, what field would you recommend? "AI" is such a buzzword today, but what would you say are it's usage in business world as of today that we can leverage as creators?

Also, how would you compare working 9-5 (if you even have) to working on your business, effort-wise and also how fulfilled are you?

[Ero]

On 9/17/2025 at 11:59 AM, Ramanujan said:

how do you deal with pain , discomfort and fatigue that shows up when you study those long hours

Discipline and timed breaks. Treat this like an exercise - do a set, take a break. Do a set, take an break.

[Ero]

@Joshe Most definitely. That’s why taking risk matters. By putting yourself in situations with no escape plan/alternative, you bring out the strongest driving life force - survival.

[Ero]

On 9/18/2025 at 2:22 PM, BlessedLion said:

Have other aspects of your life suffered from this pursuit of money? Like meditation, dating, rest, adventure, creativity? I would imagine working 12-14h a day you don’t have much time for other areas of life. Have you developed in areas outside of making money? 
 

Now that you have financial independence will you continue to pursue money or balance it out? 
 

There are a lot of sacrifices I had to make. Dating and social life took the hardest hit. Meditation as well. Slowly getting back into it. I still have a hardcore schedule but I am trying to balance it out at least a bit.

[Ero]

On 9/23/2025 at 7:03 AM, ted73104 said:

Not sure if you've mentioned this yet, could you let us know the name of your current company? It could be the next Google.

Going through a name change and we are still in stealth. Could share at some point in the future.

[ChrisZoZo]

@Ero what is the biggest surprise disadvantage of being wealthy? Also, do you regret anything in the process?

[Ero]

On 9/24/2025 at 0:28 PM, bazera said:

@Ero Congrats man!

I'm in software development, but not doing ambitious things (at least by my standards), I mainly do front-end for companies for the last couple years, the pay is good and I haven't really tried anything else.

If I wanted to go towards entrepreneurship and working on a business, what field would you recommend? "AI" is such a buzzword today, but what would you say are it's usage in business world as of today that we can leverage as creators?

Also, how would you compare working 9-5 (if you even have) to working on your business, effort-wise and also how fulfilled are you?

You should spend some time on your own to filter through the noise. Build your understanding of the space, it will be hard for me to break that down in the span of forum posts.

In general, my work is more rewarding than 9-5 but it’s still a lot suffering for that intensity.

[Ero]

4 minutes ago, ChrisZoZo said:

@Ero what is the biggest surprise disadvantage of being wealthy? Also, do you regret anything in the process?

Accounting and taxes, but that shouldn’t be surprising. I don’t regret anything.

[ChrisZoZo]

@Ero lol boring answer tell me something that I can learn from hehe

[Ramanujan]

Q) do you consider yourself as gifted

[Ramanujan]

Q) according to you , is being a millionare within everyones reach if they try

[ivankiss]

No questions, just wanted to say congrats.

[Lucasxp64]

On 14/09/2025 at 0:08 PM, Ero said:

First one was a cybersecurity company, providing IDP and passwordless MFA for enterprise, built on top of a novel algorithm made by me. 

My second company is building novel observability and steering tools for LLMs and agents. 

0) What's your explosive growth business playbook? I.e.: What kinds of product-market fit you were trying to find? Did you initially think of doing extremely mentally intensive stuff such as advanced algorithms (I mean c'mon, observability and writing your own cryptography primitive is the definition of advanced for me)... Didn't you think that you could have made just as much money with some stupid ChatGPT wrapper-like app for example and go down that route? Or whatever some simple CRUD-like code, and marketing the fuck out of it instead, as opposed to going balls deep into innovating with a novel algorithm... Or were it always obvious to you that would drive the most profit based on your skills, you felt that itch to use/innovate in those more advanced computer science topics? You were driven to build something defensible as heck, technically hard to replicate?

EXAMPLE: I got a liking for computer graphics, and I noticed there is a hole in the market for a specific tech which I won't mention, but all I can say it would be a tool for graphic designers to generate automatically something that big companies like Adobe didn't bother implementing and their current solution is trash, I have some confidence that I could learn on my own and write that... But I'm financially broke and have no job, I can't just risk 6 months into a project or god knows  how long it take me to get up to date to that algorithm/math even with help of ChatGPT (It couldn't one-shot it) like that without the safety net of a lot of money saved, AND the business skills to pull off something off similar and getting myself at least 1 thousand dollars monthly for my survival. I don't even have some organic following, email list etc that I could tap of people that would pay for that product, etc.

I can see how someone with a ton of saved cash and lust for innovating can go on weeks and months on some projects like yours.

1) How the heck do you find and test product-market fit? How deep do you go into a MVP or a test before realising it's gonna be a failure monetarily? i.e.: CAC is too high and LTV too low, or time-to-first-dollar takes too long and you can't use that to fuel more growth, etc. Or does it all just fall into place when you went after some novel algorithm that opened you a blue ocean market for you, essentially?

1.1) Did you build that novel algorithm out of intellectual pursuit FIRST, or did you see the market opportunity first, and went after it? Were you crazy obsessed with finding that market fit that would give you a crazy edge by thinking: "FUCK YES. I WILL WRITE a mathematically novel way of disrupting some industry that has FUCKING DEEP POCKETS" ... Or did it start with just: "I'll fuck around with some algorithms and see where it leads". You seem to be the first one.

1.2) Did you bootstrap yourself with your own cashflow, or did you need investors cash? What did you do for money when you were building your company before it returned profit doing the prototyping, the endless streak of failed projects, etc?

1.3) How are you getting and converting those leads for your cybersecurity company? Does most of your business budget goes into serving the current customers or into aggressive scaling by pouring as much money as possible into sales/ads

3) Did your Harvard alumni networking get you together with people that are helping you create and run a business (Within the context of, that you would have fumbled around for, let's say 10 years without it)?

3.1) This leads into this question, did university help you how? Do you believe university got you an advantage at bootstrapping you that saved you let's say 10 years? Example:

- The environment that helped you learn and develop great discipline

- The networking

- The extremely well-paying job opportunities that would have been a pain in the ass to get due to having to build a portfolio and having to work with clients that paid less, i.e. freelancing online starting as a rat in fiverr.com, etc?

- Access to high leverage partnerships like acquiring investors, mentoring, etc...

4) Do you find hard to be the tech guy and the marketing guy at the same time? Or did you parter up with someone else for the marketing? How did that go early on? At some point of course you had so much cash flow you could hire people to fill in positions such as closing sales on the phone, or whatever. But somehow you still need to lead them, or pay a hefty sum to some world class people under you... Someone starting out can't afford that, unless investors come.

OBS: If you have any names on teachers/authors or entrepreneur interviews out there that got a lasting impact on how you operate your business that isn't just the basic obvious guru crap-talk, I'd love that.

Edited October 1 by Lucasxp64

[LoneWonderer]

I am so glad for you! What an achievement at such a young age. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was jealous. Congratulations friend. In my own life I'll invest into the s&p 500 and hope for the best. Unfortunately my job and career I'll never reach those levels of wealth and I'm trying to come to terms with that. It's very difficult battle internally for me because I studied in elite schools with kids who will most be future multi millionaires and who will run the world. I've been out of school for 8 years now but I still see their lives on social media and these kids were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, the best education, best colleges all because of money their parents had. I fight a battle of feeling worthless compared to my peers everyday. I hope someday I get above above these jealousies and just be content with my life and my path. 🙏

[Lucasxp64]

7 hours ago, LoneWonderer said:

I fight a battle of feeling worthless compared to my peers everyday. I hope someday I get above above these jealousies and just be content with my life and my path. 🙏

OBS: I rewrote for clarity with AI my original text, those are my genuine words.

Have a probabilistic mindset, instead of the chimp mind. Progressively overload your challenges, start where you are at, and work at your sticking points. What to sell, what area? Is it closing sales to B2B clients on the phone? Is it getting the leads in the first place? How costly are those leads? What kind of productised service offer that is working out there based on your skills and time? Then what it looks like the pricing formula for what the client pays and hiring someone to do the job and with the cost of acquiring that customer?

Those are very specific problems. You should be able to come up with more and more specific questions about why you are not getting results and look at it like it's your personal religion.

Getting wealthy isn’t about luck or being one of the “chosen ones.” It’s about developing the right skills, acquiring valuable assets, and consistently improving your circumstances. Many people settle into a comfortable level of wealth and never push further—they don’t even try to understand how scalable businesses work.

Your peers may have had different starting points, but they simply developed discipline and skills in their own way. There’s no secret sauce—successful people openly share what they’ve done. The real differentiator is discipline: consistently playing your best game with whatever cards you’ve been dealt.

Ask yourself: what are your actual wealth goals? Personally, I’d cap my spending at $10–20k USD/month. Beyond that, I struggle to see how more money brings exponentially more joy. A luxury Airbnb in any major city rarely exceeds $10k/month. You could rent a Bugatti for $2k/day or charter a private jet for $1.5k/hour just to experience that lifestyle. Even if that’s not technically “multi-millionaire” territory, it’s enough for me—especially since I’d have earned it through frugality and grit.

Many wealthy kids inflate their lifestyles and end up in golden cages—high earners stuck in corporate roles, pampered but unfulfilled. I’m currently broke, but I understand the patterns that keep me stuck. I also know the level of income that would fulfill me. Wanting more is often just a quest for safety, not satisfaction.

My obsession with business—at least in theory—has always been strong. But I let distractions and flawed assumptions about discipline derail me. I thought I had to go full hermit mode, endure isolation, and be painfully hardcore. That mindset backfired. I was too stubborn, too rigid.

Sure, more support early on would’ve helped. But I didn’t seek it, and I regret that. If you feel like you don’t have what it takes, know this: there are people out there willing to teach and share. Just be specific about your challenges. There’s no voodoo here—just probabilities you can shift with the right context.

Edited October 4 by Lucasxp64

[LoneWonderer]

5 hours ago, Lucasxp64 said:

OBS: I rewrote for clarity with AI my original text, those are my genuine words.

Have a probabilistic mindset, instead of the chimp mind. Progressively overload your challenges, start where you are at, and work at your sticking points. What to sell, what area? Is it closing sales to B2B clients on the phone? Is it getting the leads in the first place? How costly are those leads? What kind of productised service offer that is working out there based on your skills and time? Then what it looks like the pricing formula for what the client pays and hiring someone to do the job and with the cost of acquiring that customer?

Those are very specific problems. You should be able to come up with more and more specific questions about why you are not getting results and look at it like it's your personal religion.

Getting wealthy isn’t about luck or being one of the “chosen ones.” It’s about developing the right skills, acquiring valuable assets, and consistently improving your circumstances. Many people settle into a comfortable level of wealth and never push further—they don’t even try to understand how scalable businesses work.

Your peers may have had different starting points, but they simply developed discipline and skills in their own way. There’s no secret sauce—successful people openly share what they’ve done. The real differentiator is discipline: consistently playing your best game with whatever cards you’ve been dealt.

Ask yourself: what are your actual wealth goals? Personally, I’d cap my spending at $10–20k USD/month. Beyond that, I struggle to see how more money brings exponentially more joy. A luxury Airbnb in any major city rarely exceeds $10k/month. You could rent a Bugatti for $2k/day or charter a private jet for $1.5k/hour just to experience that lifestyle. Even if that’s not technically “multi-millionaire” territory, it’s enough for me—especially since I’d have earned it through frugality and grit.

Many wealthy kids inflate their lifestyles and end up in golden cages—high earners stuck in corporate roles, pampered but unfulfilled. I’m currently broke, but I understand the patterns that keep me stuck. I also know the level of income that would fulfill me. Wanting more is often just a quest for safety, not satisfaction.

My obsession with business—at least in theory—has always been strong. But I let distractions and flawed assumptions about discipline derail me. I thought I had to go full hermit mode, endure isolation, and be painfully hardcore. That mindset backfired. I was too stubborn, too rigid.

Sure, more support early on would’ve helped. But I didn’t seek it, and I regret that. If you feel like you don’t have what it takes, know this: there are people out there willing to teach and share. Just be specific about your challenges. There’s no voodoo here—just probabilities you can shift with the right context.

Thanks for your post man. Chasing great wealth is not my life goal. I already make a good income in my current job that allows me to become a multi millionaire in 10-15 years through investing in the S&P if I make that my priority (spoiler I haven't made it my priority and I'm fighting to fix my financial emotional issues). I asked myself many times if the path of incredible financial success was something I wanted and no, I don't want that. Financial stability and security is my aim, after that is reached I want to focus on other areas of life. 

Even with a good salary I've never had enough, I spent it all for years. That is an emotional problem I'm now trying to deal with. No amount of money will ever be enough I realized because I ain't dealing with the emotional problem that's leading to all the spending. My solution isn't more money, it's healing and I need to confront my issues.

I think it's very important to study and atrive for well paying jobs or be self employed with a good salary that allows you to survive comfortably. Some will need more, some will need less. But miney amplifies your good and bad sides. If you're emotionally broken you can use money to try and run away from that like I have and it's not the answer.

I still get these jealousies of other super successful people but that's just because I haven't figured out my own unique life purpose yet and I compare myself to others. I want to reach the day I don't do that anymore. 🙏

Edited October 4 by LoneWonderer

[Yimpa]

Do you eat fast food? (e.g. McDonald's)

Have a personal chef?

Eat at restaurants often?

[Ero]

On 9/28/2025 at 5:51 AM, Ramanujan said:

Q) do you consider yourself as gifted

I do

[Ero]

On 9/25/2025 at 1:46 PM, ChrisZoZo said:

@Ero lol boring answer tell me something that I can learn from hehe

I don’t know what you are expecting. I’m not there yet, but there is a level of money at which you can start bending reality, so whatever problem you think you are having, there is a way around it.