Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain
This is password protected portion of the website contains stories, advice and personal experiences that I would only tell to close friend and confidants.
This is an invite-only portion that is hosted off my own servers. Please enter your user/pass (if you’ve been given one by me).
Analyzing myself, am I where I want to be right now? And am I on the track to being where I want to be in five years? NO. I have accomplished a lot more things in my life than the average college student my age, but it is not even close to enough. I have high expectations for myself, and whenever I meet them…I raise them.
I’ve had in my mind a few things to start which I haven’t. I keep blaming school for interfering with my side projects, but that is no excuse.
I need to accomplish these few things within the next few months, definitely before I leave college:
–Videotape traffic patterns, contact traffic engineer researcher on campus and implement my traffic strategy on I-35 with a crew.
–Do research on starting my advertising company idea.
–Start Resumite Personal Sites and make it the largest of its kind on the internet. Fast turnaround, lots of services, upfront/cheap pricing.
–Trademark the name Resumite (even if it gets rejected, at least you now know how).
These few things are accomplishments I would like to have at least tried before I leave college. Even if they all fail they will bring in an untold amount of knowledge and experience. I also want to have the stigma of being a go-getter and someone who GETS THINGS DONE. Laziness and lack of ambition sicken me.
Current Assests as of 11-23-2004:
General Account: $1,390
Business Balance: $676
Spending Account: $310
Investment Account: $1,093
Permanent Savings: $2,764
Backup CD Savings: $5, 036
Stock Portfolio Value: $5, 034
Credit Card Balance: $0
HouseOfRave.com:
Rave, Club, Party and Light Up Supplies.
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BodyMonkey.com:
Entertainment and Gift Supply
The start of BodyMonkey
(Shut down to go full time with HouseOfRave.com)
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Palm R e p o r t . com:
Online Palm Reading website that I made around 2006/2007:
Someone once told me I had a small “Money Line” on my hand. I was trying to play a joke back on them and prove them wrong, and was surprised to see a lack of places to get your palm read online.
Seeing an opportunity, I had my favorite Romanian developing team create a custom system that could accept image uploads and Palm R e p o r t was born. Of course finding a palm reader that wasn’t totally full of BS was a whole other adventure!
Recently sold it. (links removed after sold)
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Enwon Inc:
The parent company for an of my ventures.
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FacebookProfile.com: (Sold)
Facebook ASCII Art, Tips, Tricks, Hacks & Apps Reviews.
Started it for $220 in May 2006.
Sold it in August 2007 for $5,500.
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Resumite.com: (sold)
Custom Resume Webpages
To earn some extra cash in college I started Resumite which developed resume websites for individuals. It worked decently well, mainly I got all my business around the UT campus from flyers I posted.
I stopped doing this and site laid dormant for a long time, I later put it up for sale and got around $200 for it.
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NevBlog.com:
Personal blog of Neville Medhora.
Starting at the age of 22 I started documenting my financial situation for all to see. This made me get serious about my own finances and get serious about improving the situation. Since the start this blog has been featured in many large publications like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. I used to track all the income I made, but I recently removed it. I don’t consider this blog to be a business, but I have experimented with putting up advertising several times (1, 2, 3) to see if I could make money.
I enjoy maintaining this blog because it helps me keep track of what I’ve been doing and it helps me meet all sorts of interesting people I otherwise would not have met.
I think by far the thing most people enjoy is the Bottled Water Selling Experiment and the Scratch Lottery Experiment. The story that’s helped the most people (I get emails about this every single day) is the House Of Rave story which explains how I setup a drop shipping business from my high school computer.
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Other Projects:
I’ve always loved starting websites, and I won’t go into great detail here about all the small projects I’ve started then stopped over the years. Every one of them COULD have been a success had I devoted all my effort. However some of them were either just not worth the effort, or more importantly, just not interesting to me.
At one point I remember having a wall covered with 10 different to-do lists from 10 different sites I created. From there I realized one of the most cliched pieces of advice is actually true: You’ve got to love what you do.
Oddly enough the most successful things I’ve done were things I really enjoyed doing. My earliest example was “Neville’s Cool Car Archive” from when I was 16. I was obsessed with cars, so I would take pictures from internet, Photoshop the backgrounds black and post them online as computer desktop wallpapers. I did this from the only domain I owned: Neville1.com. Back then the site was getting so much traffic it kept overloading my hosting account, and since I never thought of trying to make money from it, I eventually turned it into a personal website.
A million in liquid assets is an extremely lofty goal. Is it even possible? Of course. To make $1,000,000 in five years I will need to:
Save $200,000 per year
Save $16,666 per month
Save $3,846 per week
Save $549 per day
Keep in mind this is saving $X.XX per year and does not include expenses.
I mandatorily put away $400 per month for investing and permanent savings, and after I get paid (from any source) I put away 60% if not more. Since I started working, I have been putting away roughly $685 per month. My current savings per month needs to increase by 2,400% immediately to meet my goal by 27.
After several bad and good trades over the last few years, my portfolio is several hundred dollars in the green. My current holdings are:
DYN – Dynegy – Good Performer
SYNT – Syntel – Good Performer
SCON – Superconductor Technologies – Poor performer
Why does your page look so simple?
-I’d rather focus on content than site layout.
You seem to be all about money. What’s up with that?
-This is a financial blog, therefore everything I write will somehow pertain to money.
I’ve noticed you don’t write too much about about current events, why?
1.) My opinion doesn’t matter unless I am going to take action on the event.
2.) It seems pointless to simply reiterate and comment on the news.
For a personal financial blogger, you do not seem to be very frugal.
-That’s because I have no trouble spending within my means. I spend in areas where it counts and I only will spend what I can truly afford.
Won’t all work and no play make Nev a dull boy?
-I work hard and play even harder. I also find being entrepreneurial to be “fun”. Working at a job is alright, but entrepreneuring is often enthralling, even when performing mundane tasks.
What are your views on the books “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and “The Millionaire Next Door”?
-Rich Dad – I think it is a decent inspirational book that can novices start managing their financial affairs better.
-Millionaire Next Door – This is the way most Americans (or anywhere) with a steady job should live their lives.
What reading material do you like?
Why should I take financial advice from you?
-You shouldn’t.
What was your major in college?
-Political Science with a business minor (from The University of Texas).
Shouldn’t you have gone for a business degree since you are more finance minded?
-No.
How often do you post?
-Every other day except weekends. I might post once a day if I feel like it. No, scratch that…I’ll post whenever the hell I feel like it.
Do you report EVERY penny you have on the site?
-I (used) to post accurate information about many of my accounts.
Do you post all your business adventures on the site?
-No. Many of my ventures are not posted as some require a certain level of anonymity for different reasons. The best stuff is often the most confidential.
What is the purpose of this site?
-I created this site for one selfish purpose, to keep track of my fiancial progress. If someone learns something in the process, that’s a great bonus.
This is where I will put any links.
Disco Balls – The best selections of Disco Balls on the internet, including full mirror ball sets that are ready to light a party.
Glowing Fingernails – this is a really cool item on House Of Rave that was recently added. It’s a set of 10 mini-glowsticks in fingernail form that you affix to your fingers with the included self-adhesive strips. A really cool product!
Glow Bracelets – A tube of 50 glowing bracelets.
Oggz – Oggz Color-Morphing Eggs. Oggz are soft, ever-changing accent lights that operate without wires and are rechargeable! Watch the Oggz slowly change color like magic, transforming colors through the whole rainbow. Oggz are ideal as a centerpiece for your dinner table, outdoor patio parties, holidays, and more… and of course, we clubbers can just imagine the cool possibilities of taking the soft squishy Oggz with us to a club and watching the crowd just go nuts for this unique light.
Burning Man Lights – Lights and equipment for Burning Man.
High Intensity Glow Sticks – Crack these glow sticks and they last extremely bright for about 30 minutes before fading to the intensity of a regular glowstick.
Party Strobe Light – If you’re throwing a little shindig and need a strobe light, this is the page to find it on.
Finger Lights – Lights that slip onto your fingers to illuminate whatever you want.
Disco Ball Set Up – If you need to know how to setup a disco ball, this is the place. We’ve got a quick tutorial, and also the disco balls, motors and lights you need to setup a disco party.
Name: Neville Medhora
Age: 27
Location: Austin, TX.
Ethnicity: Indian
Religion: Parsi Zoroastrian
Occupation: Entrepreneur. Notably HouseOfRave.com (how it works)
High School: Langham Creek High School (Houston, TX.)
University : University of Texas Austin, graduated in 2006 in Political Science and Business minor.
Instruments Played: Guitar, Bass Guitar, Doumbek, Piano, drums. A little bit of harmonica. Not great at any of them, but if it makes noise it easily amuses me.
Idolize: People who are self-made.
This blog was originally started for the sole purpose of keeping a track of my financial goals and status. I often use this blog to look back on what I was doing at (x) time this year, so I try to keep it populated with financial events in my life. Occasionally I try to help people learn something new.
Here’s a quick story of how I got started in entrepreneurship.
After reading my blog, many people have personally told me:
Money sources:
Online Business: $300 to $1000 per month pure profit.
Work: Two paydays per month, usually between $230 and $320 per check.
Parents: $60 per month.
Where the Money Goes:
Permanent Savings: Deposit $40 per week + 30% of money brought in.
Investment Account: Deposit $60 per week + 30% of money brought in.
Spending Account: Deposit $10 per week + 20% of money brought in.
General Account: Whatever is leftover from business + 20% of money brought in.
Current Assests:
General Account: $1,349
Business Balance: $652
Spending Account: $371
Investment Account: $963
Permanent Savings: $2,654
Backup CD Savings: $5, 036
Stock Portfolio Value: $5, 094
Credit Card Balance: $0
Synopsis:
Monthly Mandatory Additions to Perm. Savings: $160
Monthly Mandatory Additions to Inves. Account: $240
Monthly Mandatory Additions to Spend Account: $40