How you'll go broke with a lifestyle business

I see it all the time on Twitter, people want a “lifetime business” and basically it just means building a business that makes enough money to pay their bills, give them the lifestyle they want, and not have a job.

Sounds great, and it can be if done correctly.

I had this at one point, it was my first “successful” business. It was my mobile app business and I built it up to $30k a month in less than a year. After that, I coasted.

I could afford my lifestyle which didn’t really change much, I was able to do things without worrying about the price and everything was good.

It didn’t last.

What went wrong?

So it’s 100% my fault that the business went to shit. I could have done things completely differently and changed the outcome substantially.

Here are a few of the things that, looking back, I should have done differently.

Working less

One problem was I didn’t have the same drive and was spending more time enjoying things than working. I still did work but I wasn’t as worried about how things went.

Before, I would build an app and need it to get 4 figures a month in revenue and if it didn’t I would jump in twice as hard to get that app or the next one there. Later, if it didn’t, I wouldn’t worry and wouldn’t work any harder.

I would also go out more, have lunch with friends, get drinks, or travel and let the business be on autopilot.

Spending more

I was enjoying life and I never cared about a bill. I would go to the bar and spend $100 or $200 and not care. I’d go on a weekend trip and spend $1-3k and not worry. If I wanted something, I’d just buy it and not think twice. The only thing I held back on was buying a Ferrari and thank god I didn’t.

I lost my competitive edge

While I wasn’t working as much, I also wasn’t trying to find new competitive edges.

Before, I would research like crazy and try tons of new things, even if one thing worked well, I’d look for new things as well, scaling horizontally basically.

As things got good, I stopped focusing on the horizontal scaling and only tried to scale vertically. While this worked a bit, I was missing a ton of opportunities to grow and strengthen my business.

What I would do differently

Invested my money

I should have saved more money and invested in more recurring investments. Dividend stocks and real estate would be ideal. To be honest, I looked into real estate but was too naive to jump in. I should have.

Focused on a better core business

I will be honest, I knew my business wasn’t sustainable but for some reason, did nothing to prevent it.

I was reskinning apps and while I would try and make them different and better, I didn’t have anything solid. I should have found 1 app to build that could have been a long term success.

Looking back, it wouldn’t have been hard to build 1 app that could generate $5-10k/mo or more by now but at that point, I wasn’t thinking like that.

Chilled on the “lifestyle”

I was enjoying life too much, going to lunch and having drinks, traveling, etc. nearly every day. Yes, the point is to enjoy life but I should have cut back.

I fell into the “I’m my own boss, I can do what I want” mantra and while that is true, as a boss, you need to make sure you work.

I should have set boundaries with friends, dedicated time to work and be focused, and then had a smaller amount of time to go out and have fun.

Like I said, people will say “What’s the point if you aren’t enjoying life”, I’d be enjoying life more now if I had “enjoyed” life a little less back then, I still could have had plenty of fun with balance.

Understood the kind of business I was doing

As I mentioned, my app business was not the best at its core. With mostly cheap reskins in my portfolio, there wasn’t anything sustainable to hold onto.

I should have sold. I had this false belief that these apps would just continue to print money month after month but basically none of them did. Selling them after building them up a bit would have been the best move. I could have used the cash to focus on more sustainable projects that cost more money.

Final thoughts on building a lifestyle business

I think it is completely fine to have a lifestyle business, it provides you with a really nice life that you can enjoy. But, I would really think about how you are building it and what the long term goals and plan are.

You see so many people say “Oh, I just need $5k a month and I’m good” and then they get there and kind of slow down, that is just asking for trouble.

If you want a lifestyle business, figure out what your number is, then work until you’re 2-3x that, and then create a plan for when you reach that so you don’t slack off and let if fall apart.

You also need to be smart with the money you make and make sure you invest it in some way that continues to grow or provides an additional income.

And trust me, you might try and say that won’t be you but it’s easier to fall into than you think.

Lifestyle businesses are great and I hope you build one, just remember all these things so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.