Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in finance but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Vijay Kailash, CFA, Founder of Option Selling Secrets, LLC., located in Charlotte, NC, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Do you know how there are a ton of different ways to invest your money? Two popular asset classes are stocks and real estate. Stocks are super easy to start investing in, but returns aren't usually more than 10% a year. Real estate may produce a return higher than 10% a year, but it is much more difficult to start investing in. What if there was a strategy that could combine the simplicity of stock market investing and the higher return potential of real estate investing? Well, there is! I teach passive stock market investors an investing strategy that is kind of like a hybrid between stocks and real estate. In real estate, investors typically buy a house to rent out, right? With our strategy, we teach investors how to "rent out" their stocks using something known as options. The cool thing is this strategy is very passive and takes less than 30-minutes a month to implement. There is no guesswork, no predicting where the market will go, no looking at charts. It's a simple rules-based system so our students can copy and paste the framework into their own portfolios. You can learn the strategy for FREE at OptionSellingSecrets.com.

Tell us about yourself

My goal is to help the working class achieve financial independence early. I believe when people are no longer tied to a paycheck, their overall life stress decreases, and they can express their creativity better. This creativity can exponentially propel society's progress. Imagine getting your life back because you didn't have to work anymore. What would you do with that time? Would you start a business or non-profit? Would you create more art? Would you travel more? Would you spend more time with family and friends? The possibilities are endless. I want to help the everyday person achieve this freedom lifestyle. But, it starts with learning personal finance and becoming financially literate. I've spent thousands of hours dedicating my educational and professional career to the stock market, real estate, and building businesses. As I was going through this journey, I was looking for ways to build a framework so people who've never invested can make the first step toward becoming financially independent. This is the reason I created my course. The course is broken down into two sections. The first section is about how to grow your investments from $0-50k. This is an extremely important step as it's the beginning of many people's financial journeys. After our students build their financial habits, we introduce them to the world of options selling. If used properly, options can reduce risk significantly and produce cash flow for our students. This is actual cash students can withdraw into their bank account to buy groceries, gas, pay rent (or mortgage), etc. Or, our students can keep that money reinvested and continue growing their investment portfolio. The whole point is that now they have another income stream and are growing their investment accounts. If they continue utilizing the strategies taught in the course, they will be able to achieve financial independence a decade ahead of schedule. Of course, it's not guaranteed, but that's how the math works if students follow our framework. If you want to learn our strategy to use it in your portfolio, you can learn for FREE at OptionSellingSecrets.com.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

One major accomplishment is getting messages from my students telling me how I've positively impacted their financial lives. For example, during a down month in the stock market, one of my students texted me saying he had made over $7.5k in the past month. He's been investing in the stock market for many years. But after being introduced to the conservative strategy I teach in our course, he's on track to achieve financial independence significantly ahead of schedule. The cool thing is when the market goes down; our strategy helps students not lose as much.

Not losing as much is incredibly important because the market doesn't need to recover as much to become profitable. This can drastically help our students achieve financial independence a decade ahead of schedule. It's really cool to see how a simple course can change someone's life. It's heartwarming, honestly. Hands-down, my biggest accomplishment is helping my students succeed financially.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Since I'm the only founder (and run a few other businesses), I was doing 100% of everything myself. At first, I had difficulty managing my time and focusing on the most important tasks/projects. After receiving revenue from my business, I hired a virtual assistant to help with podcast editing and other tasks. This helped me free up my time to focus on higher-value tasks (like making content for and attracting my dream clients).

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Create a routine – when you're a full-time entrepreneur, you get complete 100% flexibility in your schedule. This can be good, or it can cripple you. Having too much unstructured time can lead to a ton of waste and cause burnout because you are not making enough progress in your business. Make sure to create a routine and schedule and aggressively stick with it. Be defensive with your time and only focus on the highest value tasks.
  2. Hire help ASAP (once your budget allows) – This took me way too long to figure out. I found myself doing things like editing my podcasts and other tasks instead of finding ways to generate revenue. I found a virtual assistant to edit my podcast for $7.50/hour. I realized that I was essentially paying myself only $7.50/hour when I was editing myself. That's right. I was paying myself minimum wage to do low-value tasks. Don't make this mistake. That's not how you grow a business. Hire someone ASAP so you can focus on the $100/hour or $1,000/hour tasks. That's the key to growth. Also, if you're interested, check out my podcast, where I bring on successful entrepreneurs to learn from their experiences. It's called The Vijay Kailash Show (on Apple and Spotify).
  3. Listen to Audible and Podcasts – Getting a mentor is the best way to scale. Sometimes hiring a mentor/coach is out of our price range. But, there is a "good enough" solution for this. With Audibles, you're essentially getting decades' worth of someone's experience condensed into a simple 6-hour book. You're getting an incredible amount of value for less than $15. The cool thing is there are books written about most aspects of a business. Use these books as your guides and mentors for whichever stage of business you may be in. The same thing applies to podcasts. If you want to see my book recommendations, go to VijayKailash.com

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

I'll leave you with this: Believe in yourself and just go for it! You don't want to look back on your life and wonder, "what if I had started that business." The pain of regret is exponentially more painful than the pain of trying and failing. Give it a shot. You won't regret it. I'm cheering for you! Reach out to me if there's anything I can do to help. Cheers to your success!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.optionsellingsecrets.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realvijaykailash/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijaykailash/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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