How I Turned $0 into $6,000,000 (Step-by-Step)

Hey, my name is James Pelton and I grew a software as a service company from zero. I wrote it from scratch. I'm a computer programmer by trade and I ended up exiting that business for seven figures back in 2020. So I'm on this journey that a lot of people are on. It's zero to millionaire. I just wanted to share a little bit of my story and I wanted to share five lessons that I learned in that journey. Again, I want to share those because you don't need to make the same mistakes that I make. You don't need to learn the same lessons. You can look at people who have gone out ahead of you, done the things that you want to do and learn from them to either speed up your results, save you from trouble, things like that. I was just an average computer programmer guy working at nine to five and I decided at some point I hated my nine to five. It was actually when I had my daughter, she would go to bed at about 7 30 PM and she didn't wake up. So I'd wake up in the morning. She wasn't awake yet. I would go to work. I'd get home at maybe six by the time you get through traffic and all that. And she'd go to bed like an hour after I got home and I quickly realized, Hey, if I worked this nine to five for the rest of the next 40 years, I was in my twenties at this time, this is going to be my relationship with my daughter is I'm going to have this hour in the evenings. Maybe we'll have some family vacations. If my employer will allow it weekends, unless I'm doing church stuff or other things, that's going to be my relationship with my daughter. And I panicked, honestly, I was like, I don't want that. And so then I became obsessed with which maybe some of you are in this position. I became obsessed with how can I get a way to replace my nine to five income so I can have more freedom. I can do more things. So what the Lord brought me to was I wrote some software. I started a business. So I was actually a part time pastor at the time and we were looking for a way to let all of our college students know where we could go out to eat after church. We were having a really hard time getting the message out to everyone. So I thought to myself, okay, how would I do this manually? I would text message everyone in the group and then everyone would have the message. And so then as a programmer, the way I think is, okay, whatever I would do manually, let's just do that automatically. I'll program a way to do that. And voila. Then over time I had a bunch of churches reach out. They wanted this software that I wrote for my church. And eventually after the 30th church reached out, I realized, hey, there's a business to be made here. So over the next few years, worked on growing the business. I started hiring salespeople, customer support. We were actually named Nebraska's fastest growing company in 2017. So I grew the business all the way until 2020 when someone came in, made an offer on the business and I exited for seven figures at that point. And I was officially a millionaire. Woo hoo. Mission accomplished. So that got me into investing and that's where I got into traditional investing, which led me into real estate, which led me into internet, passive income, which led me to crypto, which led me to defy, which led me to DGN. And there's a lot of lessons I've learned through that whole journey. But if I had to boil down to five lessons that I've learned in that zero to millionaire journey that I would want to share with my younger self, or maybe you, if you're a younger version of where I was at that time. So lesson number one, and this comes from the book of Proverbs, but hard work brings a profit mere talk leads only to poverty. Working hard is the way to profit. Hey, a lot of times we like to think that it's going to be some passive thing. It's going to be some DGN defy thing where you're making 20% a day or something like that. You hear those stories of people putting a thousand dollars into Shiba Inu and it turned into a billion dollars. That's basically like playing the lottery. Okay. That is not a good path to success. It might work for one out of a million people, but the odds are not in your favor. You are not Katniss Everdeen and comment below. If you get that reference, don't forget to hit like also. So first lesson is don't look to get rich quickly. There's another proverb that says wealth obtained hastily dwindles, but he who labors increases it little by little. So if you want to get rich, you're going to have to work hard. Okay. There's just no way around it. If you don't want to work hard, sorry, you're out of luck. I did not make my money from putting a thousand dollars into a crypto project and it blew up and now I'm a millionaire. It came through a lot of hard work. So that's lesson number one, work hard. Don't try to skip that step. Number two is money follows value. So if you're looking to make money, rarely going to be able to do that. If that's your goal is I'm going to make money. That's not a path to making money. Instead, you want to look to provide value for other people and we'll talk more about this in a second, but you look to provide value and money will follow. In fact, if you provide enough value for enough, people will start just giving you money. They'll start asking you, how can we give you money for you to provide more value? So focus on value rather than making money. So look for problems to solve for people, maybe even yourself. Look, what problems do I have that a business could solve? Provide that value, that solution for people, and you will start to make money. Lesson number three is don't give up. Okay. It took a long time, actually, from when I first thought about my business to when I actually exited for seven figures was actually like nine years. Okay. It took on time to get to that point. And through that time, there was a lot of times where I considered giving up. In fact, at the time when you most feel like giving up is right at the beginning. When I first was starting this business, I had a number of people tell me, Hey, this isn't going to work out. People told me it's a bad idea. People told me you're going to run into legal problems. People told me there's other ways to do this for some reason. I don't know if it's jealousy or what the deal is, but when you start to do something, you're going to get a lot of pushback from a lot of people. I, it could be something. I'm not a psychologist, a psychological list, but it could be something in them where if you're successful at that, it shows they could have been successful at something else they wanted to do. So they want to not feel guilty that they're not more successful than they are. So they push, I don't know, it could be that. But when I was first starting a number of people told me to give up even family. Okay. I'm not going to name any names, but I had family members who told me, Hey, you need to just work a nine to five, like a normal person. Why are you being so crazy? You should give up. So right at the beginning, a lot of people said to give up along the way. There was a lot of times where I considered giving up marketing, wasn't working, had employee problems. It's like, I should just give up. And a lot of times the difference between success and failure is just when you give up, when you give up, you fail. But even if you have setbacks, as long as you keep getting up and keep going, it's never actually a failure. So work hard, solve a problem. Don't give up. So number four lesson, I wish I'd learned this when I was younger and it's going to sound cliche. Okay. But I want you to not let this be cliche. I want you to soak it in. Okay. Money does not make you happy. And some of you immediately just turned off your brains because you said, Oh yeah, of course everybody says that. But I mean this, you can ask almost anyone who has money and they will tell you the same thing that, Oh wow, money did not make me nearly as happy as I thought it was going to. There was a time where I thought, okay, if I can build my dream house, that will be the epitome of what I'm looking to accomplish in life. And we built my dream house. Okay. I'm very thankful for what the Lord has provided. We have a great house that is pretty, we designed it. My wife designed it cause I have no design skills, but we have our dream house that I was after most of my childhood. My goal was I'm going to build my dream house. I'm going to build my dream house. But what I found was, okay, you build your dream house and maybe for a couple of weeks, honestly, that's all it was where I felt really good about, wow, look at this pretty soon. It's okay. Now what's the next thing? And then, okay, I can get a nice car. Okay. What's the next thing? Oh, I can get a yacht. Okay. I can get a vacation home. Oh, I can go on more trips. And it's just this never ending thing. And the reason is because none of that actually satisfies you. None of that actually makes you happy. And Ecclesiastes Solomon calls it chasing after the wind because that's what it is. It's just, you're chasing it. And then when you get there, you're, whoa, there's nothing there. So know that money won't make you happy. And so what I would encourage you instead is focus on gratitude. So thanking the Lord, Deuteronomy says, beware, lest you say in your heart, Hey, it's by my power that I've gotten all this wealth. Remember the Lord, your God, it is he who gives the ability to make wealth. So anything that you have, you say, Hey Lord, thank you. This is not something I got on my own. Thank you, Lord, for providing this for me. You shift your mind from what else can I get to being grateful for what you have. And then you'll start to develop a contentment. God, you've been so good to me. Thank you, Lord. And you can enjoy it as from him. And also, if you understand that money doesn't make you happy, then you need to, whatever you do, you need to do it with integrity. Okay. It's pretty easy actually to make money without integrity. You can start a YouTube channel. You can lie. You can do all sorts of things. I've seen many, many influencers and there is temptation for that. Sometimes there's gray areas in your job or in your business where it's okay. I can make this small compromise morally and make a million dollars and it can be a tough thing, even for a Christian, even for someone who follows the Lord, they say, I love God with all my heart, soul and mind, but wow, if I make this small moral concession, I can make a million dollars. Surely God, you'd want me to do that trade. And I'm just telling you, it is not worth it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? What would a man give in exchange for his soul? And if you understand money doesn't make you happy, having a clear conscience and having good integrity is just more important. Keep that in you. And then along with that, I'll talk more about this in a minute as well, but be gracious, be generous to other people. Again, don't be inward focused. What else can I get with this money? That's how most people look at money. What can I get? Or maybe they'll expand it out. What can my family get? But I want you to just open it up completely. How can I use this money to serve people that God has brought into my life? It's going to be way more joy in that. And then lesson number five is invest for eternity. Okay. We're going to be dead a lot longer than we're alive. And how I define wisdom is long-term thinking. So for example, my kids, they think like one day at a time. If you tell your three-year-old you can have one piece of candy, the three-year-old a lot of times takes the one piece of candy today. Now, as we get older, we should hopefully be thinking longer term. So hopefully, you know, in your twenties, you're kind of thinking maybe a five year timeframe and you know, traditional wisdom would say, well, okay, maybe you should think about 30 years in the future, 40 years in the future, but I'm telling you true wisdom is when you focus on 10,000 years in the future, 10 million years in the future, 10 billion years in the future, I'm looking for ways that I can invest now. Sure. Yeah. I would love to get a return in the next 20 to 30 years. I'm in my thirties now. So maybe, maybe I have 50 years to live. Sure. I want some investments that last me for that time, but the real good investments, the investments I'm really looking for are the ones that in 10 million years, I will still be profiting from. So marketing guy, few calls to action for you. Okay. I want you to take these calls to action. First off, is there maybe a business that you should be starting? Do you not like your nine to five? Let me know in the comments. I don't know. Maybe most people like their nine to fives and they're fine with that life. I've met people who are like, I love my nine to five. I don't want to ever do anything different. Differently, excuse me, adverb, and that's fine, but let me know. Do you like your nine to five? Would you prefer to own your own business? Would you prefer to have a side hustle where you're making a little bit of extra money on the side? I want you to ask yourself, where can you provide value? What are you good at? If you're having problems, maybe go to chat GPT, ask chat GPT. Hey, what are some questions I could ask myself to figure out where I can add value? If you're artistic, I'm not artistic Tanveer. My thumbnail designer is artistic, so he provided value to me. I have a lot of people who approached me for jobs and I'm like, well, what are you, what can you do? And they say, whatever you need, sorry, that's not helpful. Okay. It's like, what value do you offer? Tanveer is good at thumbnails. Okay. Cass is good at video editing. Okay. Come, I'll give you money in exchange for what you are good at. Tyco, my collab manager, pocket, my community manager, all offer value. And then there's money compensated to them. So what is some value you can offer? And then is there a business? Is there a side hustle that you can do that matches up with that? That's my first question. Second question. Are you chasing money? Let me know down in the comments. Are you grateful for what you have now? Or are you always thinking, well, if I could have this, this, and this, then I'd be happy and I'll say this. This is true. Okay. You're not, you might not believe it, but this is true. If you are not content with what you have now, you will not be content. If you get more and you're going to say, no, that's not true. I can't, I get mad. If I had $10 million, I'd be content. I'm telling you, you are wrong. Okay. Generosity is the same way. All money does is amplify who you truly are. So again, if you're not content with what you have, you're not going to be content if you get more. In the same way, if you're not generous with what you have, you're not going to be generous if you get more. And again, a lot of you are going to say, no, that's not true. I would give all my, you know, I give 50% of my money away. If I made a billion dollars, you might think that, but it's not true. Jesus says, whoever is faithful with a little, I will entrust with much. So if he's given you a little and you've not been content with it, you've not been generous with it, why would he entrust you with more? So last question for you, how long term are you investing for? So if you, if you don't believe God and the Bible, your chances are, you're probably investing for the next 50 years. Okay. 40, 50 years. And there's more wisdom in that than investing for just the next day. But I will tell you, you only live to be 70 or 80 or maybe 90 years old. And it's foolish to focus on that. True wisdom is investing for the next 20 billion years. I believe that what I do now will affect my eternity will affect my joy for eternity. And you know what? That's exciting. That gives me every day. I wake up with purpose where it's like, wow, what I do today is going to have an eternal impact in myself and in the people that I interact with. It's exciting. It gives me purpose each and every day. And if you have more questions, you want to talk through this more. I'd love to talk with you one-on-one. If you just want to get together and pray, would love that. I will leave my link to schedule a meeting below. We'll just get together, talk and pray a little bit. Love to meet my subscribers. Appreciate you guys watching. God bless you all and have a great rest of your day.