Hey everyone. I’m Otis. I became a millionaire
when I was still in high school. And I made all that money myself. I made a decision. I worked really hard
and was able to reach my goal. But I ultimately ended up
losing all the money I made. It all happened within a year and a half. How did I manage to get rich so quickly and
then lose it all just as fast? You’ll find out when you hear my story. My dad died when I was little. He had worked at a paint factory for years. He had been exposed to so many chemicals that
his body couldn’t take it. After that, my mom had to work two jobs
to support our family. On weekdays, she worked at a flower shop,
and on weekends at a pizzeria. My sister and I barely saw her. She’d leave before we got up and come back
after we’d gone to bed. That was the only way she could
manage to pay all the bills. One morning, we woke up and mom was home. She had a fever and a bad cough. She stayed in bed for 3 weeks. We realized during that time that if mom couldn’t
work, we’d literally go hungry. We didn’t have any savings
for situations like these. The fridge was empty within a week, and the pantry within two weeks. By the third week there was
nothing left to eat. My mom still wasn’t feeling great but she
had to go back to work. That’s when I started thinking about money. At first, it wasn’t about
getting rich or anything. I wondered how I could help my mom so that at least she wouldn’t have
to work on weekends. If you come from a poor family, you often
grow up to be poor too. My grandparents had problems
with money all their lives. Sadly, poverty is passed down through generations. It’s not easy to break that cycle but I
was determined to do it. I got a piece of paper and wrote:
“How can I make money?” I searched the internet for hours. I wrote down everything I found. Then I began to try the ideas
that made sense to me. The first thing I decided to try
was pretty ridiculous. I was going to pick up money that people dropped. Initially, this seemed like a great idea because I was going to go to places
where people werelikely to drop their money, like vending machines. Let’s say you drop a coin while you’re
putting money into a vending machine. What do you do? You casually look at the floor. If you don’t see the coin right away, you reach into your pocket for another one. So I started going around
to vending machines after school to see if I could find any loose change. The other place I thought I could
find money was restaurant drive-thrus. You have to reach your hand out of the car
window to make a payment and get change. If some change drops to the floor, few people would get out of their car
to pick it up. So in addition to vending machines, I also
went to drive-thrus to look for money. Did I find any? Yes, but very little. It would take me a hundred years to make some
decent money like this. So I decided to give up on this strategy
after a week. It was a bad idea to depend on
finding change on the floor. I also crossed out winning the lottery, finding
oil in the backyard, and suddenly inheriting money from an unknown relative from my list of potential options. I had to find more rational ways to make money. I looked through my list again. When I was researching ways to make money,
I had made a section called “entrepreneurship” and noted some ideas. The first one was starting a Youtube channel. Then starting a website and
then making a mobile game. When I saw the next one, I stopped: finding
a unique product idea. Wait a second! I actually already had such an idea. In fact, when I told people about it, they
all said “It would totally sell.” Want to know what this great idea is? An umbrella for dogs! I started jumping with joy. I found what I was looking for. Every time I took our dog Taco out
in the rain, I always wondered “Why isn’t there a
special umbrella for dogs?” Taco would always get so wet during his walk. And then he’d make a huge mess at home when
we came back. A dog umbrella would solve this problem. And on top of that, dogs wouldn’t get cold
from being wet. My sister had a small umbrella that
she used when she was younger, so I decided to use it
for my first prototype. After a lot of work, I finally did it. At first, Taco didn’t like it and tried
to get rid of it. But I was sure he’d love it when he saw
how well it worked when it rained. I was proud of it. It looked great. More importantly – it was functional. All dog owners would want to buy this. But now there was a huge obstacle ahead. How would I be able to mass-produce it? Also, people had to be able to buy it in places
like supermarkets and pet shops. How could I manage that? I didn’t have any money
so I needed to find an investor. But who would trust a 15 year old
with their investment? And even if they did, could I trust them? What if they stole my idea? How could I protect myself? An hour ago, I was super happy
but now I was so stressed. I started thinking “I can never do this. I got my hopes up for nothing.” Here was a great opportunity,
but I couldn’t make it work. Then I had an idea. Only someone around my age would support me. I remembered a young entrepreneur
that I saw on Youtube. “What do I have to lose? I’ll just DM him on Instagram” I said
to myself. I trusted him so I told him a bit about
my idea and asked “Would you support something like this?” I gave him my phone number. He called the next day. “I had unbelievable challenges when I was
building my business. So I try to support good ideas
as much as I can. Let’s meet tomorrow and talk. I think this product has a customer base.” he said. Things moved really quickly after that. I had a partner now. I felt like I was in a dream. We started working immediately. We got a professional team to help us finalize
the design of the umbrella. Then we found a factory
that would produce it. We started advertising on social media when
we got the first umbrellas. They received a lot more attention
than we anticipated. Almost every dog that was out in the rain
now had one of our umbrellas. I was so proud of myself. And just as I had dreamed –
I was making a lot of money. I wanted to buy a house in the best neighborhood
and move there with my family. I looked at houses with a real estate agent. I found a really beautiful one. I wanted to show it to my mom
before buying it. But my mom said she didn’t want to move. “I can’t change my life so quickly. Plus, we lived here with your dad
for many years. I don’t want to leave our memories behind.” she said. I was so surprised. I insisted. But she wouldn’t change her mind. “If you want, you can live in that house. It’s your right. Your sister can come and stay
with you from time to time. But I have a condition. Don’t drop out of school. I want you to at least graduate high school”
she said. I went to the office the next day. I told my partner I was going to buy a house. He said, "Don’t do i!". He had just partnered with a new venture that
was trading cryptocurrencies. “Rent the house instead of buying it. You should invest that money in bitcoin. You’ll make enough money to buy 3 houses
next year” he said. I trusted him so I followed his advice. I wanted to support his new firm anyways. So I invested all my money in crypto currency,
or bitcoin to be precise. Our umbrellas were selling like hotcakes. I still couldn’t believe how quickly my
dreams had come true. But I didn’t handle getting rich
so quickly very well. I was still just a kid. I spent so much money on stuff
I didn’t need. For example, once I saw an Iron Man costume online that was the same as the one used the movie. in I didn’t even look at the price
and just bought it. Now I realize that costume cost
as much as a luxury car. By the way, I did have 3 amazing sports cars but I was too young to have a license
so I couldn’t even drive them. That was another weird thing that I did. 3 or 4 months went by. One day my partner called me in for a meeting. He said our sales were falling very quickly. The dog umbrella was easy to imitate so we
had a lot of competition now. Business was great when ours was the only
one on the market, but not anymore. If we didn’t do something, we’d go bankrupt. We immediately came up with new product ideas. For example, we made a raincoat for dogs. But it didn’t sell. I really thought it would. We had thousands of raincoats
that we couldn’t sell. So we lost a lot of money. Around the same time that the umbrella sales
plummeted, the worst thing happened. Bitcoin, which I had invested all my money
in, lost a lot of value overnight. My partner said “Don’t worry, it’ll
go back up again.” But it didn’t. I lost all my money. I couldn’t even pay my rent. I sold the cars and whatever
I had in the house. That money lasted only 3 or 4 months. Normally, that money should have lasted me
3 or 4 years but I had gotten used to spending a lot and couldn’t stop even when I didn’t
have the same income anymore. When I ran out of money,
I moved back to my mom’s house. I only had the Iron Man costume with me because
I couldn’t find anyone to buy it. My mom said “Welcome home”
and hugged me. I’d been sending her money every month. It turned out that she saved it all because
she kept on working. “This money is for college for you
and your sister” You proved yourself once. When you finish school, I’m sure you’ll
be successful again. In fact you’ll be even more successful because
you’ll have learned from your mistakes,” she said, making me feel better. You might find it weird but I wasn’t so
sad after losing all my money. Now I understand why. My life had changed so quickly. When I was rich, it all felt like a dream. So when I lost it all, it still felt like
it was a dream. Since it was all like a dream, it didn’t
make sense to be upset. Thanks for listening to my story. If you like stories based on real life, you
can subscribe to this channel now. Bye.
