19th February, 2021
In the eight years since Raphael Vargas turned 20, he has been able to build an incredible life for himself. What carried him through continual difficulties and deceptions? Learning how to take lessons from failure and frauds.
This mindset is what set Raphael apart from his peers, who were often out partying in his busy neighborhood. At the age of 20 he was working to support his mother and trying to get into the music industry.
One day he encountered a house flipper, who bragged about his success and promised to teach Vargas everything that he knew in exchange for $3,000 upfront. Instead of delivering on that promise, the stranger took the money and left. While this was a crushing financial blow, Raphael decided that he would get his money’s worth one way or another. He gave up on his career as an aspiring musician after doing research online and seeing how much money could be made from flipping a single house.
He sold everything of value that he owned, including his prized Spizzikes Jordan’s and musical equipment. After that, all of his time and money went into learning how to succeed at real estate. He read books, listened to free online conferences and podcasts, and contacted successful people for potential mentorship.
He did everything he could to learn the trade, relying on Google until he found a mentor. His persistence finally paid off after 9 months of research and cold-calling. The first year he landed only two deals, with the first being the result of countless hours cold-calling. To many people that would have been seen as difficulty and failure, but to Vargas it was enough to prove that he had been right to shift his focus. By his third year he had generated 1.5 million dollars and knew that he needed a team.
He used his success to start his company “Real Empire”, where he not only worked in real estate but taught others how to be successful doing the same.
Despite his overwhelming success in real estate and being able to retire his entire family off of his passive real estate income, Vargas remained flexible in his pursuits and saw that the time to change careers was nearing. When covid began spreading on the other side of the planet Vargas decided to heed the warnings of a mutual friend, who predicted that it would reach the United States and severely hamper the real estate business.
So, Vargas shifted his focus to e-commerce, providing the same mentorship services for an online audience in “Real Ecom”. His new business model? Teaching individuals how to generate passive income through Amazon Automated Stores. With this new company Vargas takes the accounting work out of running an online store and makes sure that his clients are successful. “We manage the entire store. They don’t have to do anything.”
His company has found incredible success being awarded position #281 from Inc. 5000 for 2019. Vargas credits his success to listening to God, not forgetting his roots and treating his company with the same values he determined in his early years.
To be transparent with people, to be aware of the value of every individual, even those who are often overlooked, and to not allow failure to stop him from pursuing the path he set out for himself. “The fact that I know my family could have used a little extra help, and knowing that that was [now] me.” Want to learn more about the opportunities REal Ecom provides?