NooB Monday! - (November 30, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- NooB Monday! - (November 30, 2020)
- Why some people can receive more answers in the forum than others? We invite you to take our survey.
- I’m Not Special - 3 Lessons from $3MM - Part 1
- 11 Productivity hacks from an ex-workaholic
- Finally, one of my products went viral: 150k traffic in 24 hours
- I made an animated summary of "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel. I hope this is useful to you.
- Small Business Little Victory: I sold out of stock for the first time!
- Avoiding burnout after a hard year: I am the owner of a small landscaping business and feeling burnout
- I used to think I had to be an "expert" to sell advice/ebooks/services. But most people don't feel like experts and think you have to lie. You don't. I've made $120,000 online and never claimed myself an expert once. Here's how I went about it:
- Looking for a startup idea? Here's another problem worth solving.
- Yard sign business opportunity?
- Looking for invoicing software
- Money Laundering - Sample Newsletter - Walt Elias Disney
- Are there jobs that combine marketing and computer science
- If you had $10k, what would you start?
- The Little Nudge You Need to Craft a More Effective Print Ad copy
- Advice on entering the engineering-related government contracting space?
- I started an events based business January 2020...
- Anyone here have experience getting a letter of intent for a B2B product that doesn't have an MVP yet?
- For the first time One of my clients asked for a refund and it feels sucks ��
- What The F*ck Is Simplicity? — On Designing Better Products And Companies
- When to drop a price
- Product Hunt Successful Launch Database
- I own a 500k instagram account, large brand want to use my page shop to sell their products. I have no idea how much I should charge them.
- Looking to start an online business selling mushroom teas and extracts. What are some things I should look out for?
- Thinking about selling a fitness e-book/online course but have some questions!
| NooB Monday! - (November 30, 2020) Posted: 30 Nov 2020 05:12 AM PST If you don't have enough comment karma here's where we can help. Everyone starts somewhere and to post in /r/Entrepreneur this is the best place. Subscribers please understand these are new posters and not familiar with our sub. Newcomers welcome! Be sure to vote on things that help you. Search the sub a bit before you post. The answers may already be here. Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Why some people can receive more answers in the forum than others? We invite you to take our survey. Posted: 19 Nov 2020 08:55 PM PST You may notice that some people receive a lot of answers to their questions, while others do not. What are the influencing factors for this phenomenon? We are a group of researchers headed by the PhD candidate Francois Lachapelle at University of British Columbia, Canada. And we would like to approach this question by studying people's personalities and their impact on knowledge sharing in online forums. To our knowledge, this is the first study on this topic with our approach, and we truly appreciate if you can participate and contribute your thoughts. The study should take you about 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Your participation in this research is voluntary. Your replies will be securely stored, and you ID will be anonymized in the data analysis stage. Please read the full privacy terms before you start. You may withdraw at any point if you do not wish to continue with the survey. To express our gratitude, we will randomly draw 10 participants to receive an Amazon e-giftcard worth US$50 once we receive 150 completed surveys. If you are interested in participating in this survey, please click the following link. Thank you very much. [link] [comments]  |
| I’m Not Special - 3 Lessons from $3MM - Part 1 Posted: 30 Nov 2020 05:26 AM PST This is my fourth year in business. Starting originally in 2016, my content marketing agency has grown from personal freelancing work to ~$1.5MM ARR and, this year, we crossed a major milestone — $3 million in lifetime revenue. Here's a screenshot of the path. (FWIW: This is showing cash accruals, hence the dip for Q3 and Q4 2020. And we've netted ~$400k after my salary and all other expenses.) Reflecting on that, I decided that I wanted to create a short series about the big lessons that I've learned as an entrepreneur on the path to $3MM revenue. This is the first piece. As always, feel free to follow me on Twitter where I share updates on my business + content marketing, SEO, and startup stuff. I'm Not SpecialEntrepreneurship can feel like a zero-sum game. If I'm winning, it somehow diminishes your ability to find success. If I land a big sale, that means your revenue will suffer. This also means that we often look at the success of others and feel a pang of jealousy. Worse yet, that subtle discomfort can grow to resentment—and we can turn it inward, convincing ourselves that someone else's success is actually an indicator of our own failure. That shit sucks. Self-doubt and imposter syndrome can be crushing to an entrepreneur. And it's easy to look at others who have been successful and pick apart a million ways that they're ahead and convince yourself that you'll never catch up. Maybe other entrepreneurs are just smarter than you or better at sales or have more experience. But, I'm here to tell you that you don't need some magic combination of skills, experience, and brains to build a successful business. I know that because I'm proof that it's true. I'm not special. There is nothing about me as a person—my smarts, my experience, my natural abilities—that is significantly different or better than anyone else. Setting my ego aside, I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that there are thousands of other people who could have started and built the same business as me—or maybe even been more successful! In fact, I know that's true. Because there are hundreds or thousands of other content marketing agencies out there run by other smart, capable people. Some are bigger. Some are smaller. And probably none of them had the same journey as me. Did I work hard and do I consider myself to be reasonably smart? Yes—of course. But, I don't possess any superhuman abilities. I'm not a genius. My days aren't pristine rituals driven by Zen and unshakable habits. I lose focus just like everyone else. I've made a million mistakes. And I'll probably make a million more. This tells me that it was never my IQ or my work ethic that made my company grow. Instead, I think it was one specific thing that I happened to get right—mostly by chance and laziness—that's a truly universal strength for successful entrepreneurs. I leaned heavily on my strengths and I ran like hell away from my weaknesses. Strengths vs WeaknessesWhen I was thinking about writing this piece, I decided to reflect on my own skills and try to create a true accounting of what I'm good at and what parts of the business I'm bad at. I made two lists. Here's what I do well:
These three things are good and they certainly gave me some advantages in certain parts of running a business. But, just like all humans, I also have innate weaknesses. And those also detracted from my success. I'm bad at a lot of things:
So, what I realized is that my company was not successful because of my specific combination of strengths and weaknesses. Someone else who is a poor writer but a better salesperson could have been just as successful as me. Instead, I think that the only thing that truly mattered about my strengths and weaknesses as an individual is that I leaned heavily into the stuff I was good at, and I built the business around avoiding the things I didn't like or lacked experience with. For instance, I knew from the get-go that I was not a salesperson. If I got on the phone with someone who had a vague interest in working with us, but I had to work hard to convince them it was the right choice, we'd probably still be trying to land our first customer. So I built the company around this weakness. I focused on doing everything that I could to build an inbound sales model where only highly-interested leads would contact us about working together. In fact, I actively try to disqualify people by putting our pricing right on the website. I want to scare people away rather than have uncomfortable conversations about why our prices are higher than our competitors. Without really knowing it, I made a lot of decisions like this in the early days of the company. I subconsciously leaned on my own strengths and steered away from anything that would force me to do things that I'm not good at. I think there's a lesson in here for all entrepreneurs. Instead of assuming that your strengths and weaknesses will dictate or limit your success, accept them as they exist and figure out how to build a business around them. In other words: Be strategic. If you're bad at sales like me, then don't build a company that will rely on you going out and cold calling a million people a day. Figure out how to shift the business model to take advantage of your skills instead of trying to swim upstream. Take a hard look at your own strengths and weaknesses. Are you embracing your abilities or battling them every day? What can you do differently to make things less of a struggle and more of a fit for you, as an entrepreneur? At the end of the day, I think this is the only "special" thing about my company. As an entrepreneur and as a human, I don't credit my success to any remarkable talents or traits. It was a combination of decisions that made the best use of my skills and minimized the time and energy I have to spend battling my weaknesses. Hopefully, as you're thinking about your own entrepreneurial journey, you can use this insight to your advantage and also combat the moments of imposter syndrome that crop up for us all. Believe in yourself, friends. [link] [comments]  |
| 11 Productivity hacks from an ex-workaholic Posted: 30 Nov 2020 03:38 AM PST A new week is about to start, and I'm not planning to work 15 hours a day like a year ago. Here is what I've learned from a [almost] mental breakdown to building a $10mm company: 1) You shouldn't be proud to work 15 hours a day. 15 hours a day is a demonstration of bad time management/lack of productivity. You will be tired after 3days and mentally weak because of the lack of social interactions with your friends & family. 2) Money should never be your sole source of motivation. I've always dreamed about having a Porsche. I was focused on the car as opposed to what I should do to get it.Then, I rented one for 2 weeks. I realized one thing. And, it reflects 30 years of disillusion. The best sensations don't come from the exhaust. But from the person on your side. Money won't make u happy. People around you will. 3) Compare yourself with 'yourself' of yesterday. The only person you need to impress is yourself. Be proud of yourself and learn to enjoy small victories. Comparing with people that are miles away will only demotivate you. Success comes from the compounded victories. 4) Track everything you do. Download Trackmator or any other productivity tracking tool (it doesn't matter which one, just get one). The sooner you do it, the sooner you will be able to achieve more in less time. Work 5 hours without social networks and phone. You will achieve more than in your 15 hours of "work". 5) Set long-term goals as a north star. Set bitesize short-term goals as your weekly/monthly tasks. You don't climb Everest in one go. You set targets and you go step by step to the top. Looking at the top from the bottom will only demotivate you. 6) Execution is more important than planning. I could read 10s of articles on how to write a good Reddit post. Hire copywriters to correct my grammar, etc. Or I could do it myself, ship faster, and iterate down the road with your feedback. In the end, execution and distribution beat everything. 7) Spend time where it mattersDon't spend it on your Investor Deck to choose the right icons, the right taglines, design. If your project/startup sucks, it's because of its metrics and/or positioning [most of the time correlated]. Not because of the style of your deck. 8) Kill perfectionism. You're not working at McKinsey. Nobody cares about the style of your ppt strat file. Nor your typo and alignment. Pareto rules the world. 80% of the results come from 20% of the input. Minimum input, maximum output. 9) There is no shortcut. Sometimes, you may feel that what you're doing is useless. But it's not. It will help you to connect the dots at some point in your journey. Don't lose faith. Success rarely comes overnight. 10) Don't rely on other people to do something. If someone is the bottleneck, start by yourself, and iterate down the road. ie: Don't wait because your logo is not top-notch. Use a simple flaticon free logo, and change it afterward. Same for 90% of what you will do. 11) Keep pushing. I'm a "nobody". I'm not better than anyone. I just enjoy the ride, in {almost} everything I do. Because obstacle is the way. Enjoy the ride, not the destination You're not alone. We're all in the same boat. This was originally posted on my twitter. Let me know your thoughts about your productivity flow. I'm very curious to know more about you and your experience :) [link] [comments]  |
| Finally, one of my products went viral: 150k traffic in 24 hours Posted: 30 Nov 2020 06:19 AM PST Hey everyone, At my startup, I try to work on many projects that can help the startup ecosystem, I do like helping, but also hope that some of that can help in building my startup's brand among other startups. Many of the projects have seen moderate success. But this time my product, Scale, went viral - well, that's a first for me. So, I thought of sharing the experience and also my lessons. Working on the productI have been working on Scale, since April - of course, being a side project, I worked on it when I could. The concept was simple - to offer high-quality illustrations for free to be used anywhere without attribution. Then some additional nuance - people can change the colors of the illustrations, choose the gender of their illustrations, etc. The official launch was last week and as you can imagine, I had a lot of my hopes pinned on Product Hunt. If you want to know what Scale is, here's a quick preview of Scale. Product Hunt, not very reliable? 🤔But the Product Hunt launch failed. It was quite bizarre, to be honest. Overall, PH as a platform seems to be lesser and lesser reliable to me. Single page articles are launched as products and end up doing well, while genuine products seem to be languishing. There were some questionable delays in scheduling the product and also a random spam trigger, I guess. That pushed our product from the Top 2, to the 8th position. Was quite frustrating and I started to look at ways to salvage the hard work that had gone into Scale. Reddit the saviour! 🙌Just to give some background, I have largely been a passive consumer of content on Reddit. Marketing on Reddit never felt quite comfortable to me. But that day, I stumbled across the InternetisBeautiful subreddit. I noticed that people were freely sharing their products there along with a crisp description. I did the same and and it just went crazy! Upvotes just started flowing in and Scale ended up with: => 24,500 upvotes => 700+ comments => 150,000 traffic All this in just 24 hours 😬. Here's a screenshot of the google analytics dashboard (realised this subreddit doesn't have images enabled). Overall, lessons for me (and possibly for you?) 😇1) Firstly, I learnt the absolute need to diversify my launch strategy from Product Hunt to other platforms. I am not saying that I won't launch on PH again - of course, I will. But I will spend less energy on it and instead work on finding other avenues too. 2) Also, while making the pitch about Scale, I didn't write it in a pitchy/ marketing fashion. I wrote it in simple language: "I made 100 high-quality illustrations, totally free. Will continue to add a new one each day. Use it anywhere without attribution." I think it spoke to them rather than "sold" to them. Of course, I think the quality of the illustrations and the fact that they were free yet needed no attribution, also helped. ------------------------------------------------------------ There are possibly more lessons from this experience which I am still internalising and will share in another post. But thought of quickly sharing this experience with you :) [link] [comments]  |
| I made an animated summary of "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel. I hope this is useful to you. Posted: 29 Nov 2020 09:00 PM PST Link to video: https://youtu.be/RGtQjkSUahc I release new videos often, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1 If you'd prefer to read the script instead of watching the video, here it is: Zero To One by Peter Thiel Peter Thiel is one of the greatest business minds in the world. Besides authoring Zero to One, he is also the cofounder of PayPal along with several other companies. The book is primarily about how businesses can be successful. And owing to the fact that this book is written by a serial entrepreneur having cofounded multibillion dollar companies, you can bet that it is packed with real life next level wisdom taking business to the next level. Chapter 1 and 2: The Challenge of Future and Party Like it is 1999 The first chapter begins with Thiel discussing his most favorite question: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" According to Thiel, this is an important question, which can help readers to figure out the real truth behind things as it is something that not most people agree on. This question helps readers to reflect on the knowledge they can create for themselves and enables them to think differently and outside the box. Also, this readers to figure out what they need to build their startups on so that they can use that truth to convince a large group of people. The second chapter talks about the economic landscape of 1999, including the economic crash that occurred in Thailand, investments migration in USA and the commencement of the dot.com mania, and talks about how one should enjoy life like it is still 1999. Chapter 3 and 4: All Happy Companies are Different And Competition Is Noble In chapter 3, Thiel highlights how all successful companies that are completely different can create a monopoly by catering to a different problem experienced by the different segments of the society. It also highlights how all the unsuccessful companies are same because they somehow fail to fight the competition and make a difference in the market. In chapter 4, the author talks about the reasons why people and companies compete with one another. According to the book, companies compete when they follow the Marx Model, which states that they have dissimilar goals and ideas, or when they follow the Shakespeare model, which states that all the combatants are more or less similar. Hence, when companies set out on a war against one another, it is because of either of the two reasons. Chapter 5 and 6: Last Mover Advantage In chapter 5, Thiel talks about the characteristics of a company that holds a monopoly such as starting with a niche market, providing a better solution than other companies in the market, taking advantage of economies of scale and excellent branding. It then moves on to talk about how to build a monopoly using different strategies such as choosing the right target market, expanding to adjacent markets and creating something influential then disrupting the market. Then he goes on to talk about how nobody can control his/ her future as nobody is a lottery ticket so it is futile to work out life based on assumptions. To shape a successful future, one has to see it as something clear and definite, as this provides a basis for targeted action. Chapter 7, 8 and 9: Follow the Money Thiel talks about the 80/20 rule in this chapter and discusses how one should follow the money and understand how it is made to draw abundance and wealth towards their business. Then in chapter 8, the author centers on the importance of believing in secrets all around you and looking for secrets i.e. new ways to perform better in life and in business. This includes all types of secrets including business, technological and success secrets. It also discusses how companies fail and their success drops low when they stop looking for secrets around them using the example of Hewlett Packard and how its net worth dropped from $135 billion in 2000 to $23 billion in 2012. In the chapter that follows, Thiel highlights three important elements related to any organization: its ownership, which comprises of its founders, investors and employees; its possession, which lies with its managers; and its control which is under its board of directors. He also highlights the need of everyone belonging to the three categories to be fully involved in the business to make it work. Chapter 10-14: The Mechanics of Mafia, If You Build it, Will They Come? And Man and Machine The 10th chapter highlights the importance of building a cult by your business like Apple Inc. did to become successful. In the 11th chapter, Thiel discusses how building a cult isn't only integral to the success of a business; startups must also worry about their sales just like they do about their product. The 12th chapter talks about using technology and human resource simultaneously in the business to make it successful. In the 13th chapter of the book, Thiel discusses 7 questions every business must ponder on before starting off to become successful, including questions on the right time to commence a business, how to create a breakthrough with technology and what type of team to select for the business. The last chapter highlights the significance of having great founders for a business as they lead the company towards success. If you are looking to build a successful business, this book is a must-read for you. I hope that was useful, have a great day! I release new videos often, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1 I've made over 60 summaries of the best self improvement books, the links are below. Full playlist of them all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE&list=PLaNTB6oQAa0AYuul0tqUscg1ZLj_arZga Here are the links: Make Your Bed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7mBNcI2H1c The power of the subconscious mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNi9zDGaZtw Getting things done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCNN2pyO5Yc The power of intention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ezM3fIKHTY Deep work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SOQpjHKESA The magic of thinking big: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdQRQ82AED8 The alchemist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQjBghtxMU Blink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rie9Pkp4Ktk Atomic Habits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6u0X0CDEqU The E-Myth Revisited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctHTVZRnE7g Mindset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QU5Q3lyTqo The art of war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_5qhA2y-E4 Rework: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsaZU-HW18k The lean startup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6QPZp--lJE The hard thing about hard things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl_Q3E5d33U Crush it!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onbmkc-29KI Delivering Happiness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiUWCZkHbA8 The personal MBA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFpXccN3YEU The $100 startup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqa1LqahOLE Zero to One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGtQjkSUahc Grit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doUSy1Eo76s Start with why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgMnlf4jcYY The compound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nSIiAMnDY0 The Prince: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzVmhWFdwBQ The willpower instinct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz5EXLYxWDQ The slight edge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sItMk2xS_ZU Meditations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul2nuHOnCPI Who moved my cheese?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhJkIPHiyw The One Thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS5lgHhbUoM The richest man in babylon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbnHlWFnWLs The power of habit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d366w-o8nhA Secrets of the millionaire mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1WjeoCw30g The 6 pillars of self esteem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5NRiB_-w10 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nGzZ9m_Xsg Thinking Fast and Slow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqw9dwxiKSw The 4 hour work week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCWzSlAqO0g The power of positive thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAdxM_19KBc The power of now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa7mAlLhD3w Think and grow rich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btQNKjSy8Ww 12 rules of life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9InBOOy1eTU The 5 love languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPq4Vxh74jY Rich Dad Poor Dad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV31Wpr2Fl8 How to win friends and influence people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s61o8y22BpM The inside out revolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68OwvuqZEGo Models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs0d7Da8ufo Man's search for meaning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyXFQ5W0bMk The subtle art of not giving a fuck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE How to stop worrying and start living: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUQXrEk52Ug The millionaire fastlane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrtjXONWVfA 5 extremely powerful techniques to master motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmRzDIisUeM Quiet by Susan Cain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzRcYLq63dU Extreme Ownership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMWeEyqWHe0 [link] [comments]  |
| Small Business Little Victory: I sold out of stock for the first time! Posted: 30 Nov 2020 12:17 PM PST Hi everyone! I just recently started a new journey in ceramics & pottery and have begun selling my work online. Last night as a spur-of-the-moment decision, I put the current inventory in my shop on sale so I could make room for new pieces (everything was priced at $10 which is a more than 50% discount on some items) and all of my items SOLD OUT! I wasn't expecting anyone to buy anything at ALL since it was such a last-minute thing with no real advertisement - I have a very small following (~300 on Instagram) and having this happen is so heartwarming. Although I didn't make a ton of money (about $100 total due to the heavy discount) and had some minor shipping pricing issues, I'm SO stoked that all of my pieces sold by 11:30am today!!! Plus, I now have more space to sell new and improved work, which was the main goal of this sale anyway. Anyway, although this is a small victory to some, this is a huge victory for me! Had to share the excitement :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Nov 2020 12:48 AM PST I am the only employee of the company, we average sales of $100-$150k annually, before COVID, and right now it's about half that. Recently I am just feeling burnt out... this year has been super hard for us all.. Any advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Nov 2020 04:42 AM PST I used to struggle with choosing a niche to sell ebooks and online courses on. There were a few things I felt I had good knowledge in, but I deffo didn't feel like an expert. Now I really wanted to make money online. And next to winning the lottery, it represented my dream way to make a living. But I felt like an imposter and used to think "how can I sell others shit if I don't feel like a pro myself?" In my head I had two options:
I genuinely considered both, but neither properly appealed to me. Fortunately I found my answer while playing darts in my friend's garage. My buddy (who runs a local burrito takeout) helped me realise a simple workaround. Here's what he said: "Why don't you position your ebooks, course and entire business for beginners only?" "You. Fucking. Genius" I said. Let me explain. Say I'd been working out for 4 years and knew how to build a good physique - but by no means was an expert. Instead of trying to be the guru who knew all the tricks, I could simply be the guy who helps newbies learn how to put on their first 10kg of muscle. Now most people think this won't work. Because in their head unless you're the absolute granddaddy of your niche they think others won't care. This is as wrong as it gets. Think about this. The majority of any market is beginners. Guys who want to achieve something, but feel clueless or lost on how to do it. Now… They've likely tried and failed a few times. Suddenly you have an opening like no other. Instead of trying to compete with hundreds of fake gurus all screaming "I'm the best. I know every trick and secret there is" you saying: "Hey man I'm the guy who will get you from 0 to your first 10kg of muscle. I'll be straight with you, after your first 10kg it gets harder and more complicated and that's not my area of expertise. However if you're not there yet I'll show you a damn-near fullproof method to put on your first 10kg of shredded muscle. And I mean that man. Don't worry if you've tried and failed before. That's because most fitness gurus have long forgotten what it's like to start out - and a result 80% of their advice is either unnecessary or utterly useless to beginners. Follow me and let me cut out the crap. And get ready to pack on real muscle at a rate like you've likely never thought possible" It's easy and bloody hell is powerful. While everyone else is trying (and failing) to be the Michael Jordan in their niche, you swoop in and become the Phil Jackson! My friend's suggestion has been the backbone of my first $100k to $120k online. Until then I stuck exclusively to the beginner market. And it meant I had to the freedom to earn an income without feeling like a fraud in the process. Now my experience is with one business. And it may not hold in all situations. But by all means give it a go, and if you sell ebooks and online courses be sure to check out r/internetmarketing where there's tips and advice like this every day [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for a startup idea? Here's another problem worth solving. Posted: 30 Nov 2020 07:08 AM PST Hey everyone! I post regularly about business ideas and opportunities. If you want to see more, you can do so here. This week, I'm back with a more in-depth post on a problem that if tackled correctly could be a pretty sweet business or side project. Here's what I've been thinking about - Credit Card Points & Rewards Are Tough To ManageThis week's pain point comes from a consumer trying to play the credit card points "game" - "A problem I face daily is managing my credit card points. Currently, I'll use 5 credit cards at any given time or place depending on which one gives me the best cashback and rewards for the purchase. The challenge is both remembering which card to use, where to use it, and making sure I am remember to use my points for each card." - Anonymous Credit Card User Market Background/Opportunity Size: The topic of credit card usage can be polarizing - there are some strong opinions out there. Regardless of where you stand, it's undeniable that credit cards are the most widely used way to purchase goods and services for both businesses and consumers. To give you a sense of how popular credit cards are, there are over 1.1 billion credit cards issued in the US alone and the average American carries 4 credit cards. Maybe you didn't need convincing that the credit card industry is massive, but there's an ancillary industry that's picking up steam. One of the major factors in credit card success is the cash-back rewards you get from using them. People see terms like: "Make money every time you spend money!" - and who doesn't like the sound of that? While it may seem straightforward, the complexities lay in finding the right credit card that gives you the best rewards for your spending situation - and there are 1,000+ different credit cards to choose from with varying rewards associated with them. These complexities have led to a number of companies creating big businesses helping people understand credit card rewards. Let's take a look at some major players in the credit card rewards industry. Major Players Here are some big players in the ancillary industry of helping you understand, pick, and managing your credit cards -
Note: These companies aren't credit card companies, but rather major players in the ancillary industry of helping you understand, pick, and managing your credit cards (among other things). The Pain Points: While many of the major players mentioned above are helping people make better decisions about what credit card is right for them and how the rewards work, I don't think they are perfect. Three clear pain points that I see are:
The Opportunity: I think there are a wealth of opportunities in this space ranging from small side projects to large VC backable companies. Here are some ideas:
Current Solutions:
Note: These companies don't appear to offer the exact same solutions as the ideas outlined above. How To Execute: If I were building this business, here's what I would do -
Challenges: My assumption is that most of the challenges here are going to be on the technical side (where I'm the least well-versed). Financial data appears to be tricky to work with.
Thanks for reading! I'll be handing out in the comments for a while to answer any questions or have a discussion. [link] [comments]  |
| Yard sign business opportunity? Posted: 30 Nov 2020 02:12 PM PST When I lived in Texas for a summer, I saw something I've never seen in my home state. Whenever a company did work on the outside of a home - put on a new roof, painted house exterior, repaved the driveway - the company would put a small sign in the lawn (like those Trump or Biden 2020 sized signs with metal prongs to stick in the grass). The sign would have the company logo/number and stuff like "I love my new roof!" - Peterson Roofing company. Or "Ask me about my new driveway!" Things like that. They would put the sign in the lawn for a week or so. Like I said, I've never seen anyone do this where I live. Is there a business opportunity there? I'm not sure if it's profitable to drive around to houses and put up signs for companies and take them down a week later. I'm curious if anyone else has ideas around this. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for invoicing software Posted: 30 Nov 2020 01:59 PM PST I run a lead generation agency for property manager and I have a 2 tiered pricing. I charge per meeting set plus a percent of annul projected revenue broken up into monthly payments for closed deals. So far I've been able to keep up with closed deals manually but is there a software that I can send a client separate bimonthly bills for meetings set then another monthly one for closed deals. For closed deals, I'd want individual line items with each address and this would be recurring monthly. Any ideas? Right now been using the free software from my bank and it's working fine but would like some automation for recurring billing. [link] [comments]  |
| Money Laundering - Sample Newsletter - Walt Elias Disney Posted: 30 Nov 2020 01:16 PM PST 👋 Hi there, I am working on a newsletter that resonates with my experiences in entrepreneurship which sadly is failure. Failure over multiple internet products that I've tried to launch. I wanted to give others hope and by creating a newsletter that focuses on business failures that turned into success, I thought would be my way to give to the community. I enjoy this so much but I wanted to post a sample article here to get feedback. What's good vs what can be improved? Anyhow below is a sample article. TDLR: Walter Disney went through ups and downs throughout his life quest to becoming an accredited animator and eventually a wildly successful businessman. Although he didn't live long enough to see Walt Disney in its glory he was a visionary, hard worker, and determined to achieve the results he sought. In this third issue of the newsletter, I wanted to tell the story of Mr. Walter Elias Disney. It's a fascinating journey with various ups and downs. That is something that we all can relate to if you have ever attempted entrepreneurship. I think this is an important story to tell and aligns with the Failure to Success mantra this newsletter is all about. Walter was born on December 5th, 1901, and since early childhood took a liking to art. Initially, Walter copied newspaper cartoons that honed his artist style and slowly introduced crayons and watercolors. In high school, Walter became the artist for the school newspaper and peppered it with various illustrations. After high school, Walter applied to the army forging his application, and ultimately was rejected, settling on drawing sketches on the side of ambulances. The point is when Walter was passionate about an idea whatever that was, he had the drive and work ethic to really focus on that particular thing. Even after experiencing various roadblocks in his quest to become an animator. While back in Kansas City Walter worked as an apprentice artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio. An important event occurred which changed the direction of Walter's life. Meeting and befriending Ub Iwerks. During this period Walter worked on various animations, but always put his own personal spin on them, eventually leading to his own company.
Things once again didn't go well for Walter and Laugh--O-Gram as they claimed bankruptcy a short time later. Walter left Kanas City and made his way to Hollywood. However, Walter, Ub Iwerks, and others worked on a short film called "Alice's Wonderland" which was eventually sold.
After the sale of Alice's Wonderland, the creation of Disney Brothers Studio was formed with Walter's brother Roy. Working on a new series called "Oswald the Lucky Rabit" (image above) this new direction was refreshing to Walter and he was excited about it. However, Oswald the Lucky Rabit was eventually taken away from Walter, and even most of his staff. This was due to the rights belonging to Universal Studios. What is interesting is that you can really see the resemblance between Oswald and Mortimer Mouse. Walter and Ub Iwerks put their minds together once more and created a new mascot called Mortimer Mouse. Eventually, Mortimer was renamed Mickey Mouse! Walter and his wife worked on this new character together and Walter added a voice to Mickey which catapulted this character and Walter's career both now and in the future. Walter continued work on various shorts and animations while expanding his team of artists and creators. [link] [comments]  |
| Are there jobs that combine marketing and computer science Posted: 30 Nov 2020 08:50 AM PST im currently pursuing a CS degree, but truthfully i don't exactly love math and I enjoy marketing much much more than CS. I know you are much more valuable with a CS degree and can get into marketing even if you don't study it. Im curious if there are any jobs that combine the role of a product manager and marketing manager - or just anything that combines the two disciplines. [link] [comments]  |
| If you had $10k, what would you start? Posted: 29 Nov 2020 04:43 PM PST I'm just curious what others would do if they had $10K cash to start a company, what would you start and why? [link] [comments]  |
| The Little Nudge You Need to Craft a More Effective Print Ad copy Posted: 30 Nov 2020 12:07 PM PST Here goes: Be flexible and vulnerable enough to openly listen to your graphics designer. Backstory: I worked as a graphics designer for six years (interned, freelanced, and full time) before I now become a one-man marketing team of a promising tech startup. Over these years, I worked with countless clients, most coming to me with distinct demands for their print ad copies. And I am proud to say that these people often got exactly what they were looking for. Needless to say, I got better with time. Throughout my career as a graphics designer, I realized a noticeable pattern exhibited by several of these people (my clients). Most will come to me running on a program coded by the marketing departments of their companies — do this, not this or that because the books say so and so. My clients in school running their little startups and needing print copies (as I worked freelance in college), will also come operating on the uneditable scripts written by their marketing mentors on YouTube. "I want this copy to be of this exact wording! These are the elements of every great copy and printing without it will be akin to wasting my money," they would say. If only both opened their minds to the endless and vast universe of what great designs really are: Less is more in every design, and especially in print advertising. This, I must admit, was one of the toughest parts of the job — asides from choosing colors, of course. It is not hard to give these people what they wanted, but suppressing the voice in me trying to tell them what is better to go with was uncomfortable, to say the least. The little nudge you need in crafting the perfect print ad copy is to honestly and openly listen to your graphics designer, be it in-house or freelancers. Your design doesn't have to include everything, despite what you heard. A single word on the right design can be better than an entire paragraph that followed all the rules of advertising. Forget AIDA and WIIFM for a minute and work with your graphic designers. Focus on explaining what you want, not how you want it to look like. All these rules only apply when, and only when, you can grab your audience's attention with a breathtaking effect upon their glance at the ad copy. Print ad copies should be visually appealing, and trading relevance with what we connote under our definition of a perfect (or even effective) ad copy will only set it further from this goal. I also write on Medium and Quora about marketing, startups, and business. [link] [comments]  |
| Advice on entering the engineering-related government contracting space? Posted: 30 Nov 2020 11:46 AM PST I am a 21-year-old passionate engineer and I have always been very entrepreneurial. I have always wanted to pursue building my own engineering firm. I have worked at a few engineering companies and a well-known space agency, but I have never really felt fulfilled no matter how cool the work was. Recently, I looked back into government contracts, especially the smaller engineering-related contracts and I feel like as far as execution I could pull them off, but I have no experience in this type of government contracting. Any advice or direction would be truly appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| I started an events based business January 2020... Posted: 30 Nov 2020 11:40 AM PST On-site Popcorn. I always thought about getting into the popcorn business and ran countless numbers on returns when I worked in wealth management. I see posts from this group on a daily basis and it has helped me so much. Just knowing I'm not the only one working and figuring it all out helps my mental state I swear. With all our events cancelling, I ramped up my hobby YouTube channel and started making about $4 a day from that. Definitely not substantial enough with the new baby we welcomed into the house a few months earlier. Farmer's markets became our main source of revenue and as they started drying up for winter we launched an online store! We specialize in fresh popped, so orders are popped after they are submitted. I'd like to offer all y'all 100% off a small bag with code "reddit" as a thank you to everyone here. Shipping is $6 nationwide no matter what you order. Any questions on the popcorn hustle or your thoughts on events based biz going forward I'd love to hear. Always looking to prepare and get ready for the next thing. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Nov 2020 11:34 AM PST What was your process like pitching to decisionmakers? How many calls/points of contact did it take/ [link] [comments]  |
| For the first time One of my clients asked for a refund and it feels sucks �� Posted: 30 Nov 2020 11:30 AM PST I created a course about self development /Self and time management /Habits and all... I have soo mony positive feedback I relaunched it yesterday with a HUGE discount.. So the course went from 100$ to 9.9$ And in only few hours i hit 20 sales.. one of new students just contacted me asking for a refund :-( The reason is "I checked the course I gave it a brief look and there's nothing new inside the course" It's totally fine.. I refound the money with ease but How can i deal with... There's nothing new attitude? Its a self development course.. of course you will hear some old fashioned / Classic advices! Soo what do you think about that.. And how can i handle it..? [link] [comments]  |
| What The F*ck Is Simplicity? — On Designing Better Products And Companies Posted: 30 Nov 2020 10:55 AM PST TLDR: Simplicity is still a controversial topic. Most argue that consumers desire simpler products. Some argue that they want simplicity but only if it is executed correctly (what that means is often left undefined). And a few believe that it's actually complexity that makes consumers buy. This disagreement is rooted in the fact that no one seems to agree on what simplicity means. I suggest avoiding using it in any professional capacity, in favor of a more precise tool kit. What motivates the buying decision are the 3 components of the Fogg Behavior Model: motivation, ability, and prompt. Motivation, in order to make the sale, can be further broken down into the Job To Be Done (why is the consumer hiring the product?) and acute satisfaction (how badly do they want it in that moment?). Ability, making a behavior easier or harder to do, can be subdivided into time, money, physical effort, mental effort, repetition, social deviance, location in space, and location in time. Getting comfortable with these concepts will give you a productive framework to work with when deciding what features to include/exclude, and help you create products people actually want to buy, use, and recommend. WHAT CHANGES BEHAVIOR?One of the most fundamental theorems to have come out of behavior science is that shine changes behavior. What's shine? Shine is the emotion you feel when you feel successful. When you aced that job interview, got your first customer, or finally won that match in your game or sport. [1] By making behavior easy to do, you increase the probability that you'll succeed instead of fail. When you succeed, you feel successful which reinforces the connection in your brain between that behavior and that positive feeling, and that leads to behavior change. Simplicity → Shine → Behavior Change. THUS BY TRANSITIVITY, WE GET SIMPLICITY CHANGES BEHAVIORBecause simplicity means so many different things to so many different people, a more precise way to think about it is in terms of ability. High ability means a behavior is easy to do. Low ability means it's hard to do. So when you're thinking about consumer behavior change, think about increasing ability, making it easy to do. For the purpose of this essay you can use consumer and user interchangeably. Obvious right? Well, no. The problem with fields like behavior science is tool bias. Which I described in Covid-19 And Human (Ir)Rationality — PART 1:
I.e. behavior science suffers from hindsight bias because it's so easy to understand. It all appears obvious ex post facto. If something seems easy, we think "that must BE easy." But if you were to ask around as to what creates behavior change, you'd get many different answers (mainly around motivation) but making things easy to do wouldn't be one of them. [2] COMPLEXITY AS A HEURISTIC FOR VALUEOkay, if simplicity or more precisely, increasing ability is so important (and obvious) then why are products so complicated? Because it's that very complexity that sells. When we see something that's complex, we think "that must have a lot of value." If you're a consultant giving simple answers to complex problems, it seems as though you're not very smart or, at the very least, you aren't taking it seriously. When you make it so complex that people can hardly follow along, it becomes hard for people to estimate the boundaries of your knowledge. E.g. suppose you hire a consultant to help you with next year's strategy. If they give you a thick stack of papers that supports their conclusion, you'll perceive it more favorably than if they give you a single sheet with 2 paragraphs on it, sharing that same conclusion. Complexity acts as a heuristic for value. [3] An obvious, but important nonetheless note, is that truth has to be measured by truth, not truthiness. Complexity impacts truthiness but it has no correlation with truth. I.e. just because something is complex doesn't make it true. Just because something is simple doesn't make it false. But that's exactly the cognitive bias we have and partly explains our obsession with data-driven arguments. Read Your Data Is Lying To You And You're Listening for more on that. COMPLEXITY IN PRODUCTS TO IMPROVE SALESIs this only true in information? No. You see the same phenomenon from consumer products to enterprise software. According to Thompson, Hamilton, and Rust (2005), increasing the complexity of a product can have a positive effect on consumer satisfaction because of an increase in perceived capability. Look at the following products: Stripey toothpaste: Why do they go to so much trouble to make sure stripey toothpaste comes out of the tube, well… stripey? An overly logical engineer would see that and claim that you should just mix the products. It would have the exact same effect on oral hygiene and you'd actually save on cost. But that's only correct if your customers were logical robots. But they're emotional humans. Consumers simply don't believe your toothpaste has 3 functions if they don't see it. ''Healthy gums. Strong teeth. Fresh breath." Show me, don't tell me. Dishwashing tablet: Same argument. Just blend all the ingredients into one homogenous tablet. But again, I, the consumer, wouldn't believe you. Toilet rim block: Look at how these simple blocks have grown in complexity. Multiple liquids in a container, different colored solid spheres, sticky discs you shoot onto your bowl, etc. [4] Coffee machine: The most expensive ones have the most gizmos. More features to increase perceived capability, which is exactly what I, the consumer, want. Take Dolce Gusto machines for example. A manual lever to flip to make coffee? What am I, a 17th-century peasant?! I'll take the model with the fancy LCD touch screen so I can feel like Louis the 14th thank you very much. iOS: Remember that the original "iPhone OS" didn't even have an Appstore yet? Just the 15 apps that shipped with the phone. Now you got an app for everything, cameras that rival mirrorless cameras and DSLRs in the right conditions, and more power than many laptops. GOT IT! JUST ADD MORE FEATURESIt seems that if we want to sell more, we should simply add features. Well, yes. But also… well, no. There are many UX experts that advocate precisely this. "Simplicity is overrated and consumers, ceteris paribus, want more features because they want the most powerful products." This is partly true. Would you pay more for a phone that does less? It has a basic camera, or perhaps no camera, it has less memory, it's not fast, it's missing features (even if you don't use them). Probably not. While one can imagine an audience of minimalists for that, one can't imagine that they'd pay more for it than the flagship phone which sets the anchor for that particular price hierarchy. But if that's the whole story, that raises the question, why do products ever get disrupted? Surely, if features sell then Yahoo wouldn't have gotten disrupted by Google. Or Netflix by Blockbuster. Or Facebook by Myspace. Or any other startup, since pretty much all of them started very simple. The erroneous assumption here is that simple means getting rid of features. But a car that's missing two wheels, the engine, and the body, that's not simplicity. That's not even a car. A bagless vacuum cleaner — > a cordless bagless vacuum cleaner — > the Dysons we have now with all kinds of attachments, different vacuum heads, and automatically adjusting suction levels… now you've got my attention. The "simple" Dysons still had high usability despite lower capability. So it's not just about removing features, it's about being diligent about which features you do add. And your customers are the arbiter that decide whether or not you got it right. On top of that, Rust, Thompson, and Hamilton (2006) demonstrated that an increase in features (even the right features) doesn't automatically translate into more consumer satisfaction. In fact, as perceived capability increases, perceived usability decreases. This is known as feature fatigue. (Thompson, Hamilton & Rust, 2005; See also Kemenade, 2018). THEN WHAT DOES MAKE PEOPLE BUY?So if we can't simply add or remove features, how should we think about getting consumers to buy? The user needs to want it (motivation), they need to be able to buy it (have the ability), and be provoked into buying it (prompt). (Fogg, 2009). Ability usually isn't the most constraining factor. If a consumer really wants to buy something, they'll take care of any cognitive dissonance for you. E.g. "I don't have the space for this new guitar. But damn, I really want it. Okay, I'll just clean up the attic, and then I'll have enough space." (Which they won't do). Not carrying (enough) money is also not really an issue anymore with Apple Pay and the like. You could imagine a physical constraint. E.g. they wanna buy but the product is too big to take home in their car. That's a place where you could offer some delivery service to solve for ability. E.g. Ikea or AptDeco. Or your site only accepts credit cards, which are never used in The Netherlands. In which case the user probably wouldn't buy because it's too much of a hassle. Prompts aren't perfect in 2020 but rarely do products fail because they were so amazing yet the company simply forgot to tell people about it. And pretty much the only thing marketers actually understand is CTA: Call To Action, which is just another word for prompt. So buying is primarily a motivation issue. And secondarily an ability issue. INFLUENCING CONSUMER BUYING MOTIVATIONThe following two concepts are the main levers in getting a consumer to buy your product. JTBD: The Job To Be Done. Just like an employer hires an employee for a certain job, a consumer hires a product to accomplish certain tasks. (Christensen, Anthony, Berstell & Nitterhouse, 2007) Acute Satisfaction: How much pleasure is the consumer getting from your cool features in that very moment. To come back to the aforementioned question, the reason why startups disrupt bigger companies is that they're better at delivering the JTBD. Netflix wasn't a shitty Blockbuster, it solved the annoying issue of late fees, going to stores, and having to go back. Their 1st business model was letting you pick a movie online, then delivering the DVD to you by mail. Google wasn't a shitty Yahoo, it solved the annoying issue of being stuck on a messy homepage. No one believed there was any money in search so instead, the name of the game was to keep users on the homepage as long as possible and then monetize that. Think about the jobs a consumer has and what products they can hire to solve that problem. Why would they hire yours? Why does your product solve those jobs better? Which features do you need to add, improve or get rid of to do that? When a product doesn't deliver on the JTBD, it's gonna be a tough sell. But the more subtle takeaway is that acute satisfaction is distinct from long term satisfaction. This means that while you can seduce a consumer with gratuitous features because they're in the "bang for buck" mindset, as soon as acute satisfaction wears off and reality sets in, the decreased usability will hinder consumer satisfaction, damage brand perception, and prevent future purchases. [5] REMEMBER THAT YOU'RE PLAYING A SUPERGAMEIt's important to keep in mind that, from a Game Theory perspective, you're not playing a one and done game (single stage game), you're playing a repeating game over a long period of time (called a supergame). When you optimize each individual event, you'll maximize the short-term at the expense of the long-term. This is very common in public companies that are forced to optimize quarterlies. And as Mark Ritson has pointed out in bothism, is one of the reasons their marketing is shit. It's hard to create good marketing when you can't do anything that doesn't pay off within 36 hours and 17 minutes.
You have to think about long term consumer satisfaction just as much as getting the sale. And as much as people like to deny it, brand is as much a part of a great product as engineering is. My favorite is when people on Twitter or YouTube complain about "Apple sheep", without ever raising the question "why does my favorite brand suck so much that no one wants to associate themselves with it?" It's almost as if they think that dedicated fans are a gift bestowed upon that brand by Zeus, and it's unfair that their favorite brand didn't get blessed instead. The thought that it's the result of conscientious but psychological instead of technical work, seems to escape them. Superior engineering feels fair, superior branding does not. In order to do a good job at brand, you have to think through the entire user experience. From the first time they come into contact with your product, to the purchase, to when they've been using it for a year, to telling their friends, and to their next purchase. As the father of modern branding theory Marty Neumeier says:
And if they say it's shit, they'll never buy again. And neither will their friends. I recommend reading the section on ergodicity in How Our Physics Envy Results In False Confidence In Our Organizations. In it, we talk about making sense of systems by averaging over a large number of events done once vs. one person repeating an event a large number of times and then averaging that. Most people don't distinguish between those, and if you're lucky, it doesn't matter. But when it does (that system is non-ergodic), you're hosed. So it's important to make the right assumptions when analyzing a system, otherwise, you'll be rigorous but wrong. E.g. Single stage games. vs. supergames. THE 6 COMPONENTS OF ABILITYJTBD and acute satisfaction help us influence buying motivation. But how can we influence ability? In "A behavior model for persuasive design", BJ Fogg (2009) gives us 6 components of ability. These can be used to lower the need for high motivation when you're selling the product but I think they're most useful when you're still creating the product. Time: Time and ability are correlated. As something requires more time, it becomes harder to do/use. So you can make things easier by decreasing the amount of time required. E.g. Amazon 1-Click Ordering. Money: It's easier to buy things that don't cost a lot than the opposite. It's worth pointing out that people trade time and money. If a (young) person has little money but lots of time, they'll prefer cheap/free things. If a(n) (old) person has little time but lots of money, they'll prefer expensive things if that means saving time. This means, for example, you might be able to charge significantly for an out-of-this-world customer service department if you have a userbase that values time more than money. Think about price architecture and other pricing strategies. E.g. $10 a month vs. a one time payment of $170. [6] Physical Effort: How much physical effort is required with your product? Things that require a lot of physical effort are perceived as harder to do. Going grocery shopping and preparing a meal requires a lot of physical effort. Getting food with Blue Apron or Uber Eats requires much less physical effort. Brain Cycles (Mental Effort): If something is cognitively taxing, it'll be perceived as harder to do. This is where Kahneman's work on system 1 (automatic and fast) and system 2 (slow and deliberate) thinking comes in handy. This is one of the biggest contributors of annoyance post-purchase. Is your product so easy to figure out, it doesn't need a manual? Social Deviance: The degree to which a solution breaks the rules of a certain culture. A lot of great software isn't used because all professionals in a certain industry use X. So in order to appear serious, you'll have to use X too. [7] One of the reasons Zoom adoption was so slow pre-pandemic is because of social deviance. If you're competing for business with multiple firms, all of whom get on a flight to see the client, and you're doing it over Zoom, you're not getting the client. Non-Routine (Repetition): The more people do something, the easier it becomes. If a behavior is new it tends to be perceived as harder. This is one of the reasons for things like loss leaders in the retail world and cheap lead magnets in online. It's easier to get someone to go from paying a little to paying a lot than it is from paying nothing to paying a lot. The following two aren't in BJ's paper but I've found them to be useful empirically: Location in space (Environment): Things can be harder or easier to do in certain locations. I look my best on holidays. I don't wanna eat too much, I make sure I lift daily, and my NEAT is higher (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, i.e. energy expenditure that isn't exercise) since I'm sightseeing, swimming, and so on. The reason is because I spend a lot of time with my shirt off and because of social pressure I wanna look my best. Contrast that to winters at home where there's no social pressure, my motivation plummets, and I have to use ability levers such as physical effort and repetition. But you don't have to make a big change to the environment. Small changes to an environment can have a disproportionate impact. One of the reasons you see so many different flavored chips in retail is because that maximizes shelf space and increases the probability that you'll buy a bag of their brand. The job of Rice Fusion Peking Duck with Hoisin Sauce chips isn't to sell, it's merely advertising for the original and paprika chips. Also, a lot of choice architecture work is simply about making subtle changes to the environment. Thorndike, Sonnenberg, Riis, Barraclough, and Levy (2012) got hospital staff and visitors to make healthier choices simply by changing how drinks were arranged in the room. By making water easily available at all drink stations soda sales at the hospital dropped by 11.4 percent and bottled water sales increased by 25.8 percent. Location in time (Time of Day): You can make things harder or easier to do by moving them through time. So if you want to get your users to adopt a new behavior, at what moment of their day does it fit in best in their life? Generally mornings tend to work best. And although ego-depletion is on shaky legs right now, it does seem like people's motivation levels are higher in the morning than evening. (Friese, Loschelder, Gieseler, Frankenbach & Inzlicht, 2019) ABILITY PROFILESDifferent people have more or less of these resources in different contexts. Some people have a high tolerance for social deviance when it comes to new technologies. These are the people Airbnb targeted when they were first getting started and sleeping in a stranger's home was considered sketchy as hell. Read: The Dumbest Startup That Ever Worked — What You Can Learn From Airbnb Some people have a lot of time they're willing to spend on something. Others don't want to think too much. All of this depends on the person and the situation they find themselves in. You can use these ability components to sketch out a quick ability profile of your users. Treat this more like a business model canvas than computing a derivative. It's not supposed to be rigorous and quantifiable, it's intended to give you a rough idea of the ability profile of your users. Ability is constrained by the scarcest of these components. So if their scarcest component is time, then when prompted they may not engage in the desired behavior. Even if the other components are high. So in that case you'd wanna start by addressing the time component first. When you're thinking about how to make something easier to do, think about which one(s) of these components are holding them back the most and tackle them in order. Hopefully, with your new-found understanding of motivation, JTBD, acute satisfaction, and the components of ability, you have the tools you need to create the right kinds of products and solve the problems that arise. Good luck. -------------------------------------- Hope you found this useful :) I write about entrepreneurial science and business design at YounglingFeynman.com Have a good one, RJ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Nov 2020 10:42 AM PST So as the title points out when is it time to lower your prices on exchange for more business? I recently started a ecommence activewear store online and after a couple hundred visits to the site my products don't seem to be selling, the majority of the traffic bounce on the front page where my "featured collection". The pricing of my products are all simular to my competition, do i need to undercut to secure business or should i stay true to my prices and just market more ? Thanks in advance [link] [comments]  |
| Product Hunt Successful Launch Database Posted: 30 Nov 2020 10:42 AM PST A friend put together this free database of successful product hunt launches over the last 5 years. I thought it was kind of cool and that some of you may find it interesting/valuable. Also it's free. Interesting to recall when some of these products actually launched and how launches perform across different categories and months. Win at Product Hunt - Successful Product Launch Database (gum.co) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Nov 2020 04:28 AM PST Hi, for 3 years I've been growing an Instagram account in the travel niche, currently my account is going viral, I'm ganing more than 100k followers a month and all my videos are going viral with millions of views. Recently, a large brand in my niche reached to me and asked me if I would accept to let them use my shop fuctionalities on my page to let them sell their products directly to my audience. Now the problem is that I really don't know how should I charge them to have access to my audience, I've never worked with that kind of partnership, normaly I charge between 900 to 1500$ for the creation of one post and posting it on my account. I would like to have some pointers from someone who has deal with a similar situation so I can come with a proposal for the client. Currently I identified 3 aspects of the partnership where I can charge them : -fixed amount for granting them access to my audience data -monthly amount for letting them have their products on my shoppoing page -monthly amount for creating content featuring their products and posting them to my page. Thanks in advance for your help, and sorry for bad grammar, english is not my first language. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Nov 2020 10:24 AM PST For clarification, I am located in Canada and plan to use shopify and Amazon as my main platforms. [link] [comments]  |
| Thinking about selling a fitness e-book/online course but have some questions! Posted: 30 Nov 2020 10:16 AM PST Hi, I'm planning on selling a fitness related e-book/online course in the near future, I have some questions/doubts though: I started training 4 years ago when I was 16 and I've put on quite a bit of muscle since the gyms reopend some months ago. Currently I'm 20 years old and I want to give advice to people my age, students and beginners that are struggling with gaining muscle for example, be it with an e-book or online course. The content would be short, simple and straightforward (but crucial!) for succes. I would use inta ads because that's were my target group is. I live in The Netherlands and I want to target this country only, because the market worldwide is too large(I think). I plan to make it 10-15 pages, with or without pictures of exercises, I'm not sure yet. The price would be €10 - €20, competitors make really complex and long e-books (that my target group usually won't read) that costs €40 - €60. I think that my target group would rather watch an online course as opposed to reading an e-book, but I'm still doubting between these two options. What do you think about my ideas? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Entrepreneur. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment