For anyone who is trying to build their own business, you’ll know that it’s no easy task.

To get a business up and running, you first need an idea of what you’re going to sell or a service you might provide. Then, you typically need some money to help you start it all up – but this guy was determined to do it all from scratch.

Mike Black was the owner of a seven-figure business, but ditched his life of luxury to see if he was able to rebuild his life and business again in 12 months.

Making matters even harder, Mike was trying to do it in the middle of the pandemic in 2020.

In 2020, Mike Black ditched his successful business to start over (@themikeblack/YouTube)

Why did he do it?

In a video posted earlier this year reflecting on the experiment, Mike explained that he’d seen many of his friends and family lose their business and their jobs during COVID.

Seeing this for himself, and knowing millions of others across the world were going through the same thing, Mike thought he should do start over too and prove that starting from scratch isn’t always a bad thing and you can still be successful.

“I wanted to actually start over and give someone a framework to go step-by-step to change their life,” Mike said.

“People are building new businesses who have never done it before, and I want to do it with them.”

Mike’s story went on to garner worldwide attention (@themikeblack/YouTube)

The project

So, on July 10, 2020, Mike left behind his life as he knew it to try and start from ‘nothing’ with the goal of going from ‘$0 to $1 million in 12 months’.

He started without a penny in his bank account and changed his name to Scott – taking on the identity of an ‘aspiring videographer’.

Mike also left his house behind, cut off all family, friends, and work friends, and only took a phone, pair of clothes, some COVID PPE, and camera equipment along with him.

The rules as per his website stated: “The $1 million in 12 months can ONLY come from revenue generated from businesses I start during the project or money I make working.

“Any revenue generated as a result of the youtube series will not count towards the $1 million goal.”

The results

Mike admitted that he ‘messed up a lot’ during the one-year experiment, but noted ‘it’s okay to mess up’ and he wanted people to see ‘even someone with experience was messing up’.

In a video on May 2021, he explained despite going from being ‘homeless’ to then making the first $350,000 profit, living out of an RV, signing a contract, and then getting a house, ultimately by nine months in, the project had ‘derailed’.

By week 43, with just two months left, Mike explained his ‘personal health‘ had ‘declined’ so much he had to end the project early.

In a final money tracker report, from 10 July, 2020 to 10 May, 2021, Mike revealed his total revenue was $64,158.95 – a far cry from his goal of $1 million.

“I still think if the cards fell a little bit different maybe I could have,” he notes. “But it’s still pretty cool to go from absolutely nothing to $10,000 in monthly revenue.”