Floundering Like a Weltmeister!

Am I in the dip?

No, I have not even started a real business yet, I haven’t sold much of anything yet! Although I have completed a few validations with 1 successful (Ebook) and 1 fail (Ebook template) and 1 so-so (another Ebook).

Seth Godin wrote that the dip is when the going gets tough for your business, you gotta push through it.

Early this year I publicly declared my goal of becoming rich in 5 years.

I spent  a lot of time in the definition phase, I’m glad I did that, I believe in my definition more than ever now. It’s good to look back at it and remind myself of where I am on this journey.

BUT ... right now I’m floundering like a weltmeister!

As usual I have too many ideas and although I have joined AppSumo, I’m still validating too many things at once.

Scott Adams even told me straight up my problem:

“you are not focused”

From: Scott Adams <dilbertcartoonist@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: Call for Content
To: >

Hi xxx,

You seem all over the map here :-)

I can't evaluate this pitch, as it is unfocused,  but I appreciate you showing me your stuff. 

Thank you.

Scott

This has been my problem ever since I hit 30.

Despite this ... I am indeed in a good place:

I have joined AppSumo, I have the best advice/advisors in the world, I still don't have a mentor but I am surrounded by very good individuals that may be better than one single mentor.

So I gotta get back in front of the power curve —  validate a business —  get my first three paying customers.

FOCUS!

My other challenges and excuses:

1. I have to do all this while taking care of my family — Austin Kleon did this, so can I dammit!
2. I am still in a great cushy, but mediocre job which “takes” my time.

Time is the problem.

Or better said, how I manage my time is the problem.

Do not shove the responsibility to something/someone

else like “time”! Own your problems dammit!

How do I split my time?

How do I “create” time for my business?

How do I resolve this?

When I am on vacation everything is so great, I’m relaxed, the ideas come freely and abundantly, I am more productive than ever on the things I need to be productive on ... I AM FOCUSSED!

Once I get back home , I’m in the grind, my time is entirely taken up by job and family — where do I get that 25th hour dammit!?

Ideas:

1. Quit my job:
1. No way! Not even near the success and income targets to do this. Don’t be stupid! My job is a gold mine, I would have killed for it 20 years ago. It is also my enabler right now.  Geary -TAG+HYPERLINK- from 4hwwk said his biggest tipping point was when he quit his job and could dedicate every day to his biz. Well I’m not there yet, he already had built his biz and had grown his income.
2. Do private stuff at work — OH! did I say that?! Sh*t - comment not heard, cut the tape!
3. Take vacation, away from family and work, just to develop/validate my businesses.
4. Hire subcontractors to do stuff for me:
1. Odesk
2. Fivver etc.
3. see 4hwwk
5. Schedule my time more efficiently and HARDCORE evil style, mercilessly cutting out the waste:
1. certain “friends” who waste my time:
1. Leeching Larry #1
2. Distracting jerks at work
1. R.N. , M.P. and K.H.
2. Schedule a meeting room EVERY day and plow through it dammit!
3. Ignore them — mercilessly! They are the rude ones not you!
1. Use J.L. and J.P. as an example —  they are meisters at it.

“the secret to doing your job effortlessly is to do something unpleasant everyday” — MARK TWAIN?? (needs to be verified)

6. Quant based marketing!
1. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
2. Why isn’t this part of the AppSumo 1000k/month course???
3. Do this now for your top selling graphics and Ebooks!
1. Put them in Etsy
2. A/B adwords
3. “Just in time for Christmas”

Specific Activities that waste my time:

1. Facebook
2. Facebook
3. Facebook
4. Facebook
5. Facebook ...
6. Telephone conversations with unwanted callers
1. Do not answer anonymous or unknown callers
2. Turn off cellphone or put in silent mode

Activities I should be doing right now:

PRIO 1 — FULFILL CUSTOMER ORDERS!

1. Navy Book
2. USAF Book
3. Book 1
4. Guide 1
5. How to Vid 2 (see vid 1 first)

PRIO 1 — ART SHOW THIS OCTOBER!

1. 10 Graphics!
2. Identify
3. Rough drafts
4. Blue builds
5. Flyer
6. see Trello

Plus:

1. Never go to work without a purpose -- Zig Ziglar
1. Restart Zig/Mandino goals sheet, review everynight for next morning at work.
2. Conversly, never go home without a purpose — when leaving work, make a goal sheet for me to do once I get home. Usually once I get home I slump into my habits — get a coffee and relax and --oops!-- totally forgot what I wanted to do and there’s the rest of the day and my focus down the drain.  I also noticed I have greater clarity before I go to work and before I go home, so write down my goals at this time and stick to ‘em!

2. My secondary income has taken a hit, all the way down back to zero since I evicted my loser tenant.
1. Back to square one!
3. Invest in my target stocks now that my bank is set up.
4. TARGET — 1000 in business income by end of this year!

Damn! It’s December 1st!..... knees are knocking, biting fingernails...

Invent Right!

Holy sh*te!
There is so much valuable stuff in Tim Ferriss' blog!
Stuff that you would normally only find in an expensive book or business seminar.
Check out these 2 guest posts from Stephen Key.
How much time would that save you?
How much money would you pay for that information?
Just getting the first step right on your way to entrepreneurship is worth its weight in gold.
Tim's blog is also how I found out about AppSumo, the awesome business course that I'm doing right now.

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/11/26/a-beginners-guide-how-to-rent-your-ideas-to-fortune-500-companies-plus-video/

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/11/27/how-to-rent-your-ideas-to-fortune-500-companies-part-ii-plus-hacking-japan-tips/

VALIDATION 101

Noah Kagan, The Good 'ol Basics of Closing the Sale Psychology

Noah Kagan -- Words of Wisdom

The more I read Okdork.com and Noah Kagan's posts, the more I wonder "damn! This guy doesn't stop!"

There are so many quality in depth posts at OKdork and Noah's are some of the best.

Like my Japanese Judo Sensei - he was an unfathomable deep well of experience. Everytime you got better, he beat you, just that little bit better than you got!

If you are ever in Orange County, learn Judo from the best Judoka - Nori Bunasawa.

If you are starting a business, learn from the best business Sensei - Noah Kagan:

SHAMELESSLY SCRAPED FROM OKDORK.COM AND MY NEW ROLE MODEL NOAH KAGAN:

Why I Quit Mint.com (and lost out on $1.7 million)

JUNE 25, 2013 - GET FREE UPDATES OF NEW POSTS HERE

My friend Jonathan Abrams (a great dude who founded Friendster) and I have a running joke that if a company wanted to be super successful they should hire me…and then fire me.

First it happened with Facebook (read about the day I was let go).

Then it happened with Mint.

Mint is a free personal finance tool and was bought by Intuit for $170 million less than two years after it started. At the time I owned 1% of the company.

While I was at Mint I was #4 and in charge of all things marketing. Fact: Before we launched we had more traffic than all of our competitors combined. Here’s how we were able to grow a huge waiting list before we launched. Now it is true that Mint was and is a great product.

Marketing is easy when you have a great product. (click to tweet)

Stop. Read the sentence above again.

So why would I quit and leave money on the table? Here are four things I learned by quitting Mint:

1. Know what you want.

I wanted to run my own company and specifically wanted to be location independent. It was a dream of mine to work remotely on the beaches of Thailand. If I stayed at Mint, I would never be able to do that. By quitting, I was able to work on my Facebook games company (another story for another day) from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Chilling in Buenos Aires

2. Don’t take risks.

I am not a risk taking entrepreneur. While at Mint I started building Facebook apps at night. Until I could cover my minimum costs ($3,500/month) I had no intention of quitting. This meant many late nights, but it goes back to #1. It was very clear to me that I was going to do my own thing and it’s what I wanted.

3. Do the math in your biz.

I figured the company would sell for around $200 million. In a startup you get stock that takes four years to actually own all of it. If we sold for $200 million and I stayed around, I would make $2,000,000. Sounds sweet right? When you consider time and taxes it’s not so sweet.

Here’s what I mean by “do the math in your biz”:

• $200,000,000 * 1% = $2,000,000. (My ownership at 1%)
• $2,000,000 * 50% = 1,000,000. (The Government takes half for taxes)
• $1,000,000 / 4 = $250,000. (The total spread out over 4 years)

Plus I would have had to stay at the new parent company, Intuit. So I figured that within a four year window I could come close to making $1,000,000. After four years I didn’t quite make a million but with Gambit (the Facebook app company) I ended up making a few hundred thousand dollars (AFTER taxes).

4. Keep Learning.

When I started at Mint I learned a shit ton. The founder was extremely liberal in allowing me to do what I wanted to do. We had town halls with our users, we did user experience testing (completely new to me at the time), a content network, spending on advertising, and more. It was all new. But towards the end it was less and less new things. You could say I became too comfortable and stopped growing. And then they hired someone above me. In hindsight, it was my ego that said I had nothing more to learn and I’d be a gopher for the new person. But I probably could have learned something from her too.

I want to hear from you about a time you missed out on making it big and what you learned. Leave a comment below.

Living-n-learning,
Noah

Monthly Progress Report - You Are What You Measure/Monitor

I don't know where I heard this first,
either Noah Kagan, or Jason at DividendMantra.com, at any rate, I believe in it.
The benefits of monthly/weekly/daily tracking of your business are NOT optional or nice to have - they are definitively MANDATORY.

So here in the spirit of AppSumo, which I recently joined, is my first -totally embarrassing- measly report [shit! do I really want to post this?!?!]

KPI's for Aug/Sept 14.
Note - the "fine art" input is not monthly! That is the grand total that I have ever made selling my photos and paintings online :-(
[yet another reason for joining AppSumo - please God help me! ....]

Instant Business - Just Add Water

Holy cräp!
I probably have enough money right now to buy one of these sites/businesses.
But do I have the time and know-how to make them work?
Once again I am faced with the reality-check, work my 8 hour job and have a couple hours left over to pursue my 'side' business ... or take the plunge and sh*t-can the job and go full time with a new  business acquisition.
Right now this is definitely over my head, let's stick with the first goal - 1000$ a month and finish the AppSumo program.
But I am definitely keeping my eye on this channel, it looks juicy indeed!

My new motto:
"Validating Businesses is my Hobby!"

BENCHMARK:
Brad Gosse:
http://goo.gl/StKFqH

Incentive-Accountability-Milestones

I think I will incentivize myself, I've been eye-ing these watches for a while, when I make my first 1k with AppSumo; one of these will be my reward.

I Just Joined AppSumo - Awesome!

On my way to the first million, one of my milestones, or first targets is to make 1,000 bucks a month.
I have sold a few things online before, from T-shirts to fine art and graphics.
But not consistently.
This step is a self-motivator to kick myself in the ass and get going.
I was thinking of just following the steps in Noah Kagan's blogpost on Tim Ferriss' Fourhourworkweek blog.
I love making landing pages, and graphic art, so after three months of farting around I finally admitted -- I was procrastinating.
Yes the entire process is in the blogpost, so no need to buy the course right? Can do it all on my own right?
Well seems like the "for free" mentality doesn't quite work.
The 300$ spent will get me more serious and start me on my way.
Kinda proud that I made the move, at the same time embarrassed that it took me over 3 months to get over my procrastination - which is always based in FEAR!
Double Ultra plus points to Noah and Arielle for giving me the course at the old price of 300$ instead of the new current price of 45$ a month.
[monthly fees are the devil!]