Anna Vered

notes on running a business at 21

[Anna Vered @annavered]

HOW I WENT FROM $0 TO $15K/MO AT 21 (and now going to $50K/MO)

Let me give you the quick version of how I got here starting all the way from 6 years ago…

——— 15yo - $200/mo ———

I was in 10th grade studying on weekdays, working as a dance and fitness coach on weekends

Rented a class in my hometown’s “House of Culture” and posted about “first free lesson” in local groups

I created a big hype around this event cause I was the first one doing it there (dance classes for women, not kids)

Intuitively I used marketing skills and got… 40 fucking girls coming offline to that first class

Will never forget the moment of staying in front of all of them at 15 and having to teach them smth I barely knew how to do myself

But it worked, it worked great for 2 goddamn years

I was making $200 working 16 hours a month while going to school

My relatives talked behind my back, they all said that I'm not normal for working as a girl at 15

My mom, on the other hand, was always scared of my ambitions but she still trusted me and supported along the way (thanks a lot for this)

Anyways, I didn't give a fuck what anyone else thought because I already knew the average path wasn’t for me and there was no plan B in my head

——— 16yo - $400/mo ———

Corona hit, I’m in 11th grade, school went online which gave me an opportunity to… go ALL IN

I convinced the entire school to let me skip

They saw me twice in the whole year

I didn’t study even online

How I pulled it off?

I was a good communicator so I negotiated with the director and teachers that I will not fucking come there

I was working for school for years, now it was time for school to work for me

They didn't allow it openly, but I did it anyways

The whole year, I was working 7 days a week and yet finished with 11.2 out of 12 average score

Why?

Because I always achieve what I want

People do what I want them to do for me to achieve my goals, and no - not in a bad way, but because of the way I was negotiating

I knew what to say to who at what moment and was never afraid of anything

Some call it manipulation, Robert Greene calls it 48 Laws of Power

I agree with the second option

One of the ways I learned it was by changing 4 schools in my life and in each and every one of them - in every class - I was a leader

Imagine having an ability to build authority from scratch 4 goddamn times while being a kid

This is the school of life

——— 17yo - $500/mo ———

As a fitness coach I had to constantly promote myself and my services, right?

That’s how people in my hometown knew I was good at marketing

So someone recommended me to a local restaurant as a social media manager (guys I didn't know a damn thing about it)

But in 2 months I was not just social media manager, I became a marketer there

Then I quit (the director was a 40yo woman who couldn’t handle memes)

——— 18yo - $1,200/mo ———

I worked as a sales manager barely speaking English

Thanks to my charisma and ability to get out of shitty situations, they gave me a shot and hired

Thanks to this job I learnt how to speak English while working

But there was a downside as well

For 5 months I was waking up at 4am and working 12 hours a day

I made some savings so it was time to quit and finally work on my REAL goal

——— 18yo - $0/mo ———

Started building smth online, tried 20+ niches, offers, methods of outreach

Spent 3 months cold calling, emailing and DMing

I thought in 3 months I'd be making $10k/mo

(as every YT guru was saying)

But…

You know how much I made in 3 months?

Zero fucking dollars

My savings from that job were running out

And that’s exactly when I closed my first client for $300/mo

Spoiler: didn't bring him any results

Closed a 2nd client for $1,500/mo - didn't bring any results either

Did I think “it’s not that easy at all, man”?
Absolutely

Did I think “maybe it won’t work and I should give up”?
Not a single day in my life

——— 18yo - $1800/mo ———

That’s when I tried different approach

Why not go to the place where people already look for social media growth?

I created an Upwork profile to get clients and delegate to contractors

First project for social media managing that I closed for $800/mo - I delegated straight away

It was shitty, so I was doing and teaching that 15 year old at the same time

——— 19yo - $5k/mo ———

At 19, with this setup I made first $5k/mo after a year of trying

Hired a few contractors

Found a future project manager who now runs all day-to-day operations (she had 0 experience)

——— 20yo - $10k/mo ———

At 20 I hit $10k/mo benchmark and started to work with softwares on rev share as marketing partner

Always thought this moment would feel amazing, but in fact, I felt that moment for 5 seconds

——— 21yo - $15k/mo ———

Now I'm 21 and I lead 10 contractors, grow personal brands for retainer clients and run faceless pages with 600k+ followers

I still do some hands job, but the most focus is on big stuff like creating internal course for the team, making decisions, generating ideas for new money flow, leading and directing people so shit gets done

And now I talk in terms of “We”, not “I”

——— 21yo - $50k/mo ———

This week we’re launching a paid network on that 600k+ audience to hit $50k/mo before the end of 2025

The math:

$15k/mo → $50k/mo in 2 months
That's 3.3x growth in 8 weeks

Big jump? Yeah

But I know exactly how we’ll do it because we’ve been building an audience for a year (traffic), we’re not selling courses, we made everything ready for launch in 2 months

Final touches and we fucking launch this shit

There are few scenarios for what’s gonna happen:

1 - We get thousands of people into the sales funnel and hit that amount smoothly

2 - The hype isn’t that big and we make “something”

3 - We don’t make a cent out of it (0.1% probability)

I share this experience here along with failures, wins and lessons (it’s time to start documenting after all)

What about you?

You have 2 options

Option 1: There’s no option, you can’t have plan B bro

Option 2: Start doing shit, asking questions, failing and trying again, learning from others and setting big ass goals

I’m going with option 2 anyways

By the end of 2025 I either make $50k/mo OR I create a new way to hit $50k/mo

Talk soon

- AV

[Anna Vered @annavered]

@ItsMeBenChan 100% you were built to be a winner

[Anna Vered @annavered]

Whether you’ll become successful or not is determined by what you do at the ages of 13–17.

If you’re lame and not ambitious at this age, it’s highly unlikely it will change.

If you didn’t work any job at this age, didn’t read even the simplest book about money/psychology, never questioned what the system is and whether you want to be a part of it or break out of it - your mind is already blocked.

You believed so hard in what people in your bubble say is true that your mind doesn’t even question what ground it stands on.

That’s what determines whether you’ll be a winner or a follower.

The only way to step outside and choose is to question things, test ideas and become an active player in life.

[Anna Vered @annavered]

most young people expect the world to gift them all their dreams one day

this day never comes

opportunities come only to those who take them by the neck

visual example attached

[Anna Vered @annavered]

i got sick
the team said i’ll win:

[Anna Vered @annavered]

I created a TV Show “Situationships” to show employees their fuck-ups from a 3rd party perspective

No one in the entire world has done this concept before…

One employee had a task that should’ve taken one day. Three days later it’s still not done. I’m like “okay, what’s the problem here?”

And this brilliant idea comes up…

***FOR CONTEXT***

We invented the “TV show format” concept for content a while ago.

If someone likes one reel in a specific format, they’ll scroll your page looking for more of that exact format. If they don’t find it, they leave.

People love repetition, they want more of what they liked. That’s why TV shows work.

***THE EXACT PROCESS***

So I made the 1st episode: “R can’t complete her task”

Let me walk you through the structure

1: 3-DAY CONVO

- took screenshots of the entire 3-day convo between R, her PM, and me

- added timestamps showing when each message happened and how much time passed

- described what happened in each screen from 3rd party perspective

*example:
“1:37 pm - R asks if Jeff who’s 9,000 km away recorded a voiceover while watching tutorials. She shares her feelings but doesn’t ask a clear question, doesn’t say any conclusion, complains about the situation.”

- added memes to make it entertaining

- formatted in a doc + recorded a loom

2: CONCLUSION

I just wrote a single line:

— 52 hours and 47 minutes —

3 people wasted 52 hours 47 minutes to NOT complete a one-day task.

Then I described 6 points of what exactly went wrong and connected it to the BIG GOAL this team has:

“Imagine you’re a member of the best marketing team in the world and you see this happening in another agency, what would you think about that worker, is he a professional? Does he really care about the project? Does he respect other team members?”

3: HOW IT SHOULD’VE BEEN DONE

I showed exactly how a member of the best marketing team in the world would’ve solved this.

With timestamps, templates for how to write questions, describe problems, ask for help.

In my scenario it took 8 hours 40 minutes.
Time saved: 44 hours 7 minutes.

4: CLOSING

Ended with one question:

“Next time you have a problem, will you solve it like a member of the best marketing team in the world or will we continue to be in kindergarten?”

***RESULT***

Next day she wrote updates using the exact concept I showed. Task was completed the same day.

***

Disclaimer:

It’s not for pussies or corporate american jobs, that’s for young people who work in a high-achieving environment.

I didn’t just say “here’s your mistake” (that doesn’t work anyway). I showed how this employee’s actions jeopardize other people and the whole workflow.

***

Managing people is the hardest part of business nobody talks about.

There’s no REAL tactical or strategic advice I’ve ever found.

I’ve tried so many approaches over the past year and a half, you can’t imagine.

***

If you need the exact doc I made, drop a comment

getting shit done,
- AV

[Anna Vered @annavered]

If you need to learn any skill in the shortest time period, find or create a job where this skill is required to do a job and make others believe once you learn it - you'll outperform everyone

[Anna Vered @annavered]

@ItsMeBenChan first you work with clients who doesn’t ahve budget and need money now

then you attract ones who have money and want to be become #1 in the niche

but without working with the 1st group, you’ll never attract 2nd

[Anna Vered @annavered]

The point of a business is to pay as little as possible for as much value as possible

[Anna Vered @annavered]

old Hormozi’s videos are underrated
i sort everything by “oldest” now and get the best insights

[Anna Vered @annavered]

employee fucks up and feedback doesn’t work… try this:

“when you come to a coffee shop, is there another barista standing over your barista giving adjustments on how to make your coffee?

what if your barista put vodka in your cappuccino instead of milk and you spit it all over your new white dress? how would you feel?

now imagine this barista does this every day for a year and you keep telling him to use milk but he puts vodka, would you keep going to that coffee shop?”

here’s 6 analogies i gave my employee that led her to the conclusion herself and improved the performance:

1. coffee shop - barista
2. beauty salon - nail master
3. gym - coach
4. taxi - driver
5. beauty salon - hairdresser
6. hospital - doctor

it worked exceptionally well

[Anna Vered @annavered]

@ItsMeBenChan that’s wild

[Anna Vered @annavered]

worst phrase ever someone can say is “if you say so” or “whatever you say”

it’s admitting you don’t have an opinion or courage to disagree so you don’t respect yourself and the person you say it to

it’s like “you’re right not because you logically explained something, but because you’re the BOSS”

[Anna Vered @annavered]

@ItsMeBenChan we need to talk, meeting in 30

[Anna Vered @annavered]

you have a kindergarten instead of a team?
read this one

one of the team members texted: “hey, the markers aren’t erasing on the whiteboard properly, i’ll send a video later”

i stared at my screen for a solid minute
you’re asking me how to solve a MARKER problem?

so i had to explain what is a problem-solving skill

direct speech:
“the reason you never hear about organizational, financial, or technical problems from me - which by the way happen EVERY DAY - is because i just solve them because that’s my responsibility

you should solve YOUR problems and only come to me in an extreme unsolvable scenario

what you should’ve done: ‘hey, markers weren’t erasing properly, took everything to the shop, they said wrong whiteboard, bought the correct one for $ to hit deadline’

i don’t need a video showing markers not erasing, i need filmed content by deadline
you’re responsible for content creation - YOU solve these problems”

this isn’t about whiteboards at all
this is about the fundamental difference between someone who executes tasks and someone who owns their domain

a waiter doesn’t run to the owner when a customer asks for extra napkins
a teacher doesn’t escalate to the principal when a student forgets a pencil

they figure it out because that’s what the job IS

if you can’t solve a $20 whiteboard problem without escalating it, how are you ever going to do anything in life?

problem-solving isn’t a nice-to-have skill
it’s the baseline for participating in adult life

[Anna Vered @annavered]

@ItsMeBenChan picture of what, didn’t get you

[Anna Vered @annavered]

I believe if you need lots of words to say what you want, you’re not that smart

Yet any time I write it‘s a long ass essay

Lesson in there

[Anna Vered @annavered]

I was avoiding harsh conversations with employees and important decisions to make

3 months ago I changed that with 2 simple steps:

1. Acknowledged that I know enough, smart enough and do it since 15
2. Accepted to take full responsibility in a case of the fuck up and solve it

How I implemented it:

Had a tough call with an employee who’s performance and communication became shitty and was ready to fire if it’s not changed in 2 weeks despite good relationships

Since then she produces the best work in her entire career and our relationships became only better in the correct “leader-employee” status

[Anna Vered @annavered]

it broke my brain
guy also bought a mentorship to do it BEFORE making any money

you don’t need to buy anything to record looms or do outreach or close clients
you’re absolutely capable of figuring it out by yourself

[Anna Vered @annavered]

“i’ve sent 16 looms over the past month, but didn’t get a single response, not even a view on most of them, i follow up consistently”

[Anna Vered @annavered]

You think productivity is about focus and eliminating distractions

So you work alone, online, grinding in your isolated bubble every day

2 years ago i had this belief: if i can’t figure something out by myself, i’m stupid

So i’d sit there forcing solutions alone, thinking that’s what smart people do

In reality you’re stupid for NOT working with someone

The ‘figure it out alone’ mentality isn’t strength - it’s a ceiling you’ve put on yourself

I needed to write a 7-day message sequence for a free telegram channel - daily content to keep people engaged and moving toward paid

My partner and i sat across from each other at a round table, both on our laptops, writing in the same doc. In 6 hours we made 42 pieces of content

Not because we worked twice as hard - because when you have another brain in the room, the feedback loop is instant

Two brains aren’t 2x the output. They’re exponentially better because you’re catching blindspots you can’t see alone

Finding someone to work with offline while building online is rare and takes luck

But if the opportunity exists and you’re not taking it because you think you should be able to do it solo is the real limitation