Don't Listen to Your Teachers! How I made $40,000+ Selling Stickers in High School

[mmarco]

In high school, I was that kid always playing on my laptop.

My teachers would tell me to stop and I'd lie and say "I'm taking notes" or some excuse.

Meanwhile, I was actually on Photoshop designing cool stuff.

I found it much more fun to design art on Photoshop than pay attention in class.

Plus I had this feeling deep down that doing designs on photoshop would be more helpful.

Then in 11th grade, I started posting my designs on Redbubble.

My designs were mostly based on music or TV shows I liked. As I posted more designs, more sales started coming in.

In 2 years, I made $40,000 worth of sales.

This funded all my adventures in high school and college.

All because I didn't listen to my teachers when they told me to put away my laptop.

--

Lesson to young entrepreneurs: don't listen to your teachers, trust your gut.

Your teachers have never built a business and they're not internet-native. They don't know how much money you can make just posting cool stuff on the internet.

There’s a good quote from OpenAI ceo Sam Altman about this. “Don’t listen to other people’s advice”. Only you know yourself best.

If you're a young entrepreneur, trust your instincts. If you think you can do something, you probably can.

Don’t let some old teachers with no idea what’s going on get in your way.

--

Attention young ambitious entrepreneurs:

I write all my posts with a younger version of me in mind

Not everyone will get you, but I do

I’m publishing a full post about “Don’t listen to your teachers” next week.

Get it sent to your inbox by subscribing to my free newsletter

P.S. Expect some very funny stories about me getting yelled at in class haha

 

[greyareagcu]

@mmarco I wish I could go back to when I was living under my parent’s roof with all the free time in the world! Use this time wisely, it won’t last forever!

 

[mmarco]

@greyareagcu 100%!! You don't know what you got until it's gone. I wish I could go back and double down on this. I wasted way too much time doing BS homework when I could've been building a business haha

 

[jahypnus7]

@mmarco This advice is so bad it's not even funny. Then you've created multiple accounts to comment on your own post. You're low key scamming people to make money yourself.

 

[wingsofthedawn]

@mmarco Don't listen to your teachers is very similar to Don't get an education. If you don't listen to your teachers, why did you go to college?

Great click bait headline. And congratulations on the sales.

 

[vbytuffff]

@wingsofthedawn Super misleading title. The teacher told OP to pay attention in class. He twisted it to say don't start a company. Wtf.

Edit: all this to peddle his "newsletter" of course

 

[wingsofthedawn]

@vbytuffff Yeah, and all sales numbers are gross, not net. Imagine what he could do if he stopped trying to promote himself and spent that energy grinding. I guess we're all different, but I have no desire to be famous. When I deal with vendors and customers I tell them that I'm the GM, I never say owner. People who need to know, know.

 

[mmarco]

@wingsofthedawn I dropped out of college when I was making more than my professors! It took me a while to connect it all and realize I wasn’t crazy for believing I could build something real on the internet haha. If I had enough self-confidence at 17, I would’ve just traveled while building up the business and not wasted my time at school.

 

[wingsofthedawn]

@mmarco Congrats, and I mean it. You seem talented and hard working, and it has worked out for you so far. Generally, advising people to ignore education is not great advice.

At 18 most people's "gut" is not telling them anything helpful at all.

 

[mmarco]

@wingsofthedawn Thank you!! Yeah, you’re definitely right for 99% of kids, but if this helps 1 teenage kid to follow their dreams and not listen to the bs, I’ll be happy!

 

[wingsofthedawn]

@mmarco Bs?

 

[mmarco]

@wingsofthedawn Bullshit

 

[wingsofthedawn]

@mmarco What bullshit are you talking about? Surely we want to live in an educated society that has knowledge of things outside of the internet.

 

[mmarco]

@wingsofthedawn “You’re too young to build a business”

“You’re wasting time growing a social media”

This kind of crap

 

[wingsofthedawn]

@mmarco Oh ok. Most of my professors just talked about whatever the hell the subject of the class was.

 

[mmarco]

@wingsofthedawn You had better professors than I did then

 

[mmarco]

@wingsofthedawn I agree though. We need engineers and scientists and artists and stuff. But entrepreneurs need to be digital savy and we can’t let 60 year old teachers influence how we run businesses

 

[godswillservices]

@mmarco An education doesn't necessarily mean you're just going through a degree mill. It's important for you (and the general population) to have a basic understanding about the world you live in and why things are the way they are.

 

[mmarco]

@godswillservices Agreed! But so is making money!

 

[_youngboolingbhris_]

@wingsofthedawn Great strawman. He didn't say to not get an education. You said that.