Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I have a side business that, through some diligent effort and a lot of market analysis, is poised to explode over the next 18-24 months. Enough to ERE in full, if all goes well. I never, ever expected this. It is something I stumbled upon, frankly -- never part of long-range planning.
I am curious -- anyone here have this happen with a business, a product, or an unexpected windfall? A stock portfolio or a huge risk that took off? I am talking about the out-of-the-blue event, not a long-awaited windfall.
If so, would you share your story? Any warnings? We are not quitting day jobs until/unless the capital we need to retire is in the bank, so we aren't acting on assumptions.

No windfalls here, but I have been playing more lottery. Only a matter of time now.
I know personally I don't count anticipated money until it is actually in my account. I would not count the chickens until they've hatched an all that... Still great job, must be exciting.

Inheiritance in January has solidified my plans, lopping a couple years off the conservative estimate of when I could exit. I still have external constraints that limit how soon I can retire, but if everything else falls in place, then I'm on track for meeting the earliest possible date.

Congrats to you!
Haven't hit FI yet, but this year I have definitely been having more success than anticipated with my own side business. Currently, I don't factor the side business income into my FI targets (it has only started to be "significant" in the past 12 months), so if it continues to do well I may be able to readjust and shave some time off, which would be cool. My eventual goal is to have the business doing well enough to support my day to day expenses and also have a large enough nest egg stockpiled that I don't really have to worry about "saving for retirement" anymore (so basically, live off the business but have backup funding if the business goes bust or takes a nosedive).

Not yet, but I've been trying to consider what kinds of risks would be best. A $200k hand of blackjack? A single aggressive stock pick? I always think it would be fun to play the lottery (even though I'm good at math), but I'm really too lazy to hit up a convenience store. In NY, you can get a lottery subscription which would be sweet (I think it's $2 per week?).

Dragoncar, blackjack is too risky. Take the $200K to the roulette table and put half on red and half on black.
Oh, wait...

Hmmm, WWTB? (What Would Taleb Do)
Thanks, all. I am not counting my dollars until they are in the bank, though. Just wondering if others have seen this actually play out.

Can't say that I have. But when I got a large bonus, the first thing I always did was pay down debt with most of it.
Assuming you have no debt, I think I would just put in all in something boring and safe for a year while I contemplated my options. Definitely calls for a "cooling off" period and probably a vacation.
BTW, what Taleb does is maintain a "barbell" strategy, where most his money is essentially in cash with a tiny portion in bets (like way out of money options) that will probably lose, but could win big. I don't think most people have the temperment for his strategy the way he implements it, because it requires multi-year patience -- I know I like to see something doing something positive during the year.

That happened to me, my side business grown and now I'm working on it full-time. Its AdSense + Affiliates, but will deploy other services by summer or end of the year.