#196 · I'm Buying A $5M Business

youtube ↗Mindset

I have a full 12‑14 hour day free next week; how should I spend that time to grow my business?

Treat the extra hours like a gym session. You won’t get 12× the results by working 12 hours straight; you’ll see diminishing returns after a point. Focus on the high‑impact, money‑making activities—outreach, lead‑generation, and sales—that deliver roughly 80 % of your results. Fill your calendar with those tasks, execute them efficiently, and you’ll accomplish the vast majority of what you need to move the business forward.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Mindset

What advice would you give to someone working full-time with only 3-4 hours per night to start a profitable business, and is it effective to target leads in an earlier time zone (Pacific) while being on Eastern time?

What a great question. Regarding your Pacific Standard Time question, if you work 6 – 9 PM Eastern, that’s 3 – 6 PM Pacific, so you can book meetings then; it’s not a problem. Now, for your main question about working full‑time with only 3-4 hours a day: Yes, it’s feasible. In fact, everything needed to start this business can be done in 2-3 hours a day, so your 3-4 hour window is more than enough. Having limited time is actually an advantage because it forces you to focus on revenue‑generating activities and constantly ask whether each task moves the needle. To compete with people who have 8-12 hours, you must make each hour two to three times more effective by always checking if your work is generating revenue. Think of it like being dropped into a mid‑to‑high difficulty area in a game right away—you level up much faster than if you stayed in the beginner zone. Most of the core activities I discuss take only an hour or two a day, leaving you extra time to build the rest of your business.

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youtube ↗Agency Operations

How many hours per day should I dedicate to Maker School while working full-time and interning, and how much money should I allocate besides subscription fees?

Well, you ended up joining anyway—just kidding. For anyone else here, I'd recommend a couple of hours, maybe two to three hours per day. The first couple of days might be a bit heavier: day one could be three to four hours, day two two to three hours, then from day three onward it settles to about two hours a day, maybe a little more. Some people take longer at the start, but that's okay. The reason this works quickly is that lead generation and outreach strategies become fast with practice because I make you do a lot of them. Regardless of initial timing, you'll eventually gravitate to a two‑to‑three‑hour daily workload, which most people can fit in. A core part of the program is daily accountability and habit tracking—not just learning a specific lead gen tactic or setting up automations. It's like going to the gym but for money: you show up daily, track your habits, and build consistency. Regarding money, it's hard to give a fixed number because it scales with how much outreach you do. My suggestion is about ten Upwork applications a day and roughly two thousand cold emails in the first month. In practice, most people end up spending an extra $100‑$150 per month on things like Upwork fees or cold‑email tools, due to limiting beliefs that hold them back. The beauty of Maker School is that the capital outlay is low: you spread the cost over three months, and the time to see results is short compared to typical businesses that require a big upfront spike with uncertain payoff. You also get discounts via coupon aggregators and my affiliate links, so give it a try.

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youtube ↗Mindset

Do you think three to four hours daily on weekdays and weekends is enough to make it work? I remember you saying you were doing 12 hours a day when you were starting.

Yeah, I do think you could absolutely spend three to four hours per day. But if you're only doing it on weekdays, you must understand that you're only spending 15 to 20 hours per week on this thing, which is presumably one of the most important things to you. I understand a lot of people here are limited in time. In a way, being limited in time could be positive because it forces you to be very efficient and effective with your time. But you will have to put in some time regardless if you want to achieve your goals. If you're unwilling to put more than just three to four hours per weekday—which is really what you're doing—keep in mind weekdays are only five-sevenths of the week. The probability of growth and the rate at which you grow will of course be slower. So I guess it's just about how quickly you want to hit your goals. If you want to hit your goals fast, you want to escape the permanent underclass. Is three to four hours a day going to do it for you? I don't know. Anyway, hopefully that makes sense.

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youtube ↗Agency Operations

I've been using AI for 2-3 months (vibe coded a budget tracker, tried content creation, lead scraping, AI clone videos). I'm a performance marketing freelancer making close to $3K/month but spending 7-9 hours a day delivering to current clients, making it hard to scale. I'm considering joining Maker School and can commit 1-2 hours a day — will that be enough to make meaningful progress toward my first AI services client?

Yes, you should join. Though 7-9 hours a day for performance marketing freelancing is a lot — are you paid on commission, or a flat retainer to manage ads? Either way, before adding more on top, look at changing your fulfillment structure or deliverable, or identify your lowest-paying client on an hourly basis and replace them with someone who pays more. Those moves either free up time or raise your effective hourly rate, which is really the same lever.

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