Well, here's my story: I started a business at 18 detailing cars. Just here and there on the side. In 6 months I had steady daily business after my college classes, and on weekends. I also worked for my dad part time as well. After getting busy enough, I bought the Chevy Xtreme and went mobile, building my own trailer. I decided to see if I could sell the trailer, figuring it was simple and build another. I sold it for a nice, hefty profit, rather easily, and built another. I put that one up for sale as well, using it while I was selling it. After a while, I sold the detailing aspect of the business for a nice chunk of change, and with that overhead, I started building trailers, much higher quality, full time, and selling them nationally via my own website and a couple other websites.
I built custom trailers as well. I built one that was $24,000 and sold for $35,000. The guy I sold it to was told that it will take some time to build (3-4 weeks). He paid for it and I got to building. It took 4 weeks to the day. The whole time he was pestering me about getting it. I told him "its almost done" and kept pictures to update him. On the 4th week, I told him it was ready to ship, and shipped it. I come to find out that he had called his credit company and reversed the charges without telling me. The credit company also didn't inform me as they never updated my change of address and sent the notifications/rebuttal to my OLD address. So I was out the money he paid, the money for the trailer, and my bank account began a huge series of bouncing checks and NSF payments. I had to lawyer up and it never went anywhere.
Because I was 22 at the time, I didn't know what to do and basically crawled into a ball and tried to shut the world out. I wasn't mature enough to deal with it. I wasn't ready for the money I was making, I wasn't smart about it at all, and I wasn't ready to have a business that was so successful. At the first sign of adversity, I mentally folded.
I went back to work for my dad, which was still a great job, and eventually decided I wanted to fulfill my dream of serving my country. The Marine Corps, especially the infantry, has DRASTICALLY made me a better man and I think when I get out, I'm ready to try my hand in business again, whichever way I choose to go.
