This 24-year-old works 30 hours a week to make ₹2.15 crore. Here’s his secret to success | Trending
Steven Guo moved from the United States to Bali and revealed that he works just 30 hours a week and earns a $254,000 ( ₹2.15 crore) a year. The 24-year-old entrepreneur told CNBC Make It that he moved away from the US to seek work-life balance. Steven Guo began his entrepreneurial journey at 12 when he would host Minecraft servers and earned $10,000.(Instagram/stevenguo.io) “Bali really is a place where my work-life balance finally makes sense. Mornings are mostly for running my business, (and) afternoons are for surfing, exploring the landscapes or enjoying the vibrant culture here,” he said First business at 12He said he began his entrepreneurial journey at 12 when he would host Minecraft servers to play the game. “Turns out, other people decided to start playing on it as well, and because of that, someone offered me $50. I didn’t realise you could make money off the internet,” he said, adding that the endeavour made him $10,000 in a few months. To explore his passion for video games, he tried to start a game development company but “failed miserably” and lost all his money. “But I learned a really valuable lesson, which was: marketing is extremely important for any business,” he said. (Also read: Zomato driver earns ₹300 after delivering 8 orders on Diwali night. Video) The experience made him “obsessed” about learning to run a business. He studied business economics at the University of California but was more focused on his entrepreneurial ventures and scored a meagre 2.7 GPA. “Because my GPA was so bad, I knew that getting a high-paying job was probably unlikely, and that pushed me to work even harder on my own businesses,” he said.Now, he runs a 19 employee-company across the US, Philippines, UK and India. What he does in a dayTalking about his typical working day, he said he works from Monday to Friday six hours a day, or 30 hours a week, and spends roughly 40% of his time doing market research on his clients and their products. Among his successful businesses are an online retailer that sells dates to customers, a K-pop-inspired merch store and a company that sells premium car covers for luxury cars. The 24-year-old said that apart from focusing on money he also explored his passion for traveling and visited 15 countries, before he chose to settle in Bali. (Also read: Woman abuses matrimonial match after realising he earns ₹3 LPA, not ₹30 LPA) Impressed Bali’s affordability and community, he shares a four-bedroom villa with friends and entrepreneurs. “I’m definitely much happier in Bali because of how great the lifestyle is,” he said, adding that he is blown away the quality of life he can have at a “fraction of the cost” of what it would be back in California. “I get to spend tons of time with my friends. I also get to spend a lot of time doing the activities that I like, such as surfing,” he said.