Marketplace Tuesday! (December 29, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- Marketplace Tuesday! (December 29, 2020)
- UPDATE: Building A Candle Kit - What I've Learned
- Always be content, but never satisfied!
- From 9-5 jobs to landscaper to SaaS
- Brand naming strategies
- How to Split Profits in a Partnership!
- Is it not normal to see shipping costs before a Purchase Order?
- How Shitexpress.com Earned $10,120 in 30 Days by Sending Horse Manure: Amazing Kickstart of a Marketing Experiment
- Ever built a product when didn't find anything online?
- Business banking - how to set it up?
- How to respond to angel investors
- How do you think the internal monologue or inner thoughts of a successful entrepreneur is compared to the average person ?
- How to get an app built for you
- Legitimate question - Hiring sales reps
- How to import liquor from Mexico into the USA
- Are 200 signups in a week and a half on our landing page a good number?
- Holding company
- Looking for a cofounder
- Have a business license I never used from 2019. Is it possible to convert it to support my current endeavor? Is this even a good idea or should I start from scratch? (CA)
- I made an animated summary of "Blink by Malcolm Gladwell". I hope this is useful to you.
- Top entrepreneur personalities on Clubhouse
- Any podcast recommendations similar to How I Built this?
- Launched yesterday
- I built the system but I dont have money to promote any advice will help.
- free website
| Marketplace Tuesday! (December 29, 2020) Posted: 29 Dec 2020 05:07 AM PST Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members. We do this to not overflow the subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread. 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]  |
| UPDATE: Building A Candle Kit - What I've Learned Posted: 29 Dec 2020 10:31 AM PST Hi All! So I've completed the very first month of being in business selling my candle kits. It's been such a rollercoaster of emotions. I got some amazing feedback and messages from people, so I wanted to provide a real world update on the state of my business, MYO Candles. For those of you who didn't see my original post, you can find that here. Launch Date - 11/27 Total Units Sold - 77 Customer Return Rate - 12% Advertising Spent - $500 My business partner and I targeted Black Friday as our launch day. Ideally we would have launched well in advance to build anticipation and have some brand awareness, but logistically we were still waiting on some materials so couldn't swing it. The day we launched, I put up some social media posts on FB, Instagram, and Twitter to spread the word. Obviously, our friends and family were enthusiastic and by early morning we got our first sale! Words can't describe the feeling of seeing the notification pop-up showing that someone was willing to spend their hard earned money on your product. In fact, that feeling has not yet gone away. We quickly realized that in order to capitalize on December buying, we needed to get some ads up and running. I created multiple Google and FB ads with different images and text that targeted different features of our product (Soy wax, sustainable, luxury, unique, etc.) and blasted it off. I wish we had more money to spend, but we had to settle no a budget of $500 for the month, which we have since scaled back. Google seems to be giving us the most return for our investment, as our conversion costs are roughly $.66/person who clicks through to our site. Facebook is a tad higher, but not by much so we still use it. Additionally, I reached out to a few YouTubers to see if they would be interested in reviewing our products (we would have paid them), but none got back to me. I plan to reach out to more soon. I also reached out to a woman who runs a blog reviewing candles, and her prices were reasonable, however, when I asked her how many people visit her blog every month she told me it was just shy of 200. That's not enough for me to spend money on banner ads, considering that with a 1-2% click through rate, I'd be looking at 2-4 people per month clicking onto my site. Over the course of the first month, we've been able to add two new fragrances, which brings our total number up to 6. We will be adding four more in the near future as we begin planning for spring. We've learned that most people are interested in the single kit as opposed to the subscription, and we have a theory on why that is. No one knows who we are yet. It's hard to convince someone to spend money month after month on something when they have no idea about the quality or the value. Or maybe people just don't like the idea of having to make a candle every month. Either way, we are going to see if we get traction over the next few months in our subscription offering, and if not, we may scrap that so save costs. Our focus for January is going to be on brand awareness and marketing. We both recognize that we need to do better about connecting with others. Logistically, we hit a snag with our first few shipments. First of all, we were using these clear circle stickers to keep our box closed, but for whatever reason, they don't seem to adhere to the box material, so some of our first packages to family showed up open! Then, the worst thing happened, when two of our boxes showed up with wax opened when we realized that a small space in the spot we were putting the wax containers was allowing them to open during shipping. We solved both problems and have had no problems since. In fact, we've been getting wonderful feedback from people! It's definitely a learning experience, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. Let me know if you have any questions and I'd be happy to answer. :) [link] [comments]  |
| Always be content, but never satisfied! Posted: 28 Dec 2020 10:53 PM PST This is something we all need to understand. We should always be happier where we are, but always strive for better. Healthy growth IMO... As my husband And I struggle to reach 10k with our lead gen business those statements are a good reminder for us. We could be in a much worse off situation, but we are still striving for 10k and eventually beyond that! [link] [comments]  |
| From 9-5 jobs to landscaper to SaaS Posted: 29 Dec 2020 09:05 AM PST This post briefly describes our journey from being an employee to a local lawn care business owner, then software business. If you're a wantrepreneur, just starting out, landscaper, or SaaS owner, hope you find it applicable. 6 years ago, my SO and I (engineer and accountant) were grinding our 9-5 jobs. We knew we don't want to be employees for the rest of our career. We realized the lack of good quality landscapers in our city (Phoenix) and decided to start a landscaping business. We had no prior landscaping experience and came up with a new way to get more lawn care clients through an instant price quote system. We calculate lawn maintenance pricing using some algorithm we developed. We built other software features to help manage our business, from booking, scheduling, invoicing to payment. It took us about a year to plan and build the software. Our local landscaping business has grown very well. We do have some client cancellations due to job loss. Our sales still went up 50% from 2019. We surpassed 28k service appointments with multiple crews focus mainly on residential yard, lawn care clients with decent margin (~20%). I made a post 6 months ago about our landscaping business (industry, operations, tips) if you want to take a look. Some hard work from our crews: Sales over the years: New entrepreneursIf you're a wantrepreneur or plan to start your business, don't wait. You just need to start. As for ideas, you don't need to look too far. What services, products you use frustrate you. Look up competitors' reviews, the legit bad ones. Maybe you can offer a better solution that can delight customers and stand out from competitions. Finding an industry you're passionate about is great. It gives you more drive but it isn't necessary. We're not particularly passionate about landscaping. You do need to be obsessed with customer service. Take the necessary time to research the market but don't get delay by analysis paralysis. There's no better way to learn the industry by doing it, making revenue. If you have a full-time job and hate it, strong suggest don't quit yet and start a new business unless you have strong industry experience. Don't tell your boss or coworkers you're planning a business or doing a side hustle. It's difficult to juggle time between your job and side business. Good time management is essential. Support from your family and friends is a plus. Some may not like your idea. Prove them wrong with your launch success. Don't ignore your health too. You need a strong body and mind to be productive. You can only work so many 14 hours day. Eat, sleep well, exercise often. It's good to take a vacation at least once or twice a year. What're your tips to achieve work life balance? LandscapersWe've learned a ton in the past 5 years about the landscaping industry. We run and manage the business, but we don't do the heavy-duty work. My SO tags along often with the crew mainly to learn the trade and provide support. Phoenix summer is no joke. 110F are now typical in the summer. Few times my SO almost passed out in the field. Landscaping is hard on your body. A backpack blower weighs 20lbs. Wear it all day can't be good for your back. Lawn mower can be hard to push if it isn't self-propel. This is why you don't want to work in the business. Have a system that works for you, so you don't work in it. Job notification, service reminder, payment system, invoice generation should be automated. Hire the right people and delegate tasks you're not good at to others. Challenge Managing clients and crews aren't easy. We all have our fair share of client complaints, justified or not. Unfair bad reviews that aren't your fault. It can ruin your day when you see one. Respond professionally. Many potential customers will read it and know who's in the wrong. Some clients don't pay, time away to follow up with overdue accounts. Landscaping business is quite seasonal. Luckily, Phoenix doesn't snow, there's plenty of work all year round. We met many local landscapers over the years. The challenge for them is not so much about doing the work, it's how to get more clients, increase sales. Marketing Many use printed ads, flyers, doorhangers, thumbtack, angie's list, homeadvisor. We rely mostly on our website, clients book online, and Google My Business (GMB) page. For most, GMB and a facebook page are what you need. Make sure both are done well. Post photos, updates regularly, encourage clients to post google reviews. Optimize your keyword on your website if you have one. Don't use Yelp, try Nextdoor instead, we've been getting many referrals from Nextdoor lately. They started monetizing their platform with ads. Something to look into. Our business model focuses on residential clients. Some prefer commercial, HOA if you want larger contracts. If you go this route, you probably need to pitch to property managers, HOAs, or already have connections with them. Most commercial landscaping companies we know of have an annual run rate around $5M+. 15% net is a pretty good business. This comes at the expense of higher overhead/turnover of the crew and takes a long time to get paid. There's also no guarantee you will get the big contract renewed so there's some unknown factor you need to consider. Residential clients are more predictable if you have many routine maintenance clients. How's your landscaping business doing? Any tips you'd share with us? SaaSAbout a year ago, we got a couple of FB messages from out of state landscapers. They saw our pricing website and asked how they could use something like ours. We told them we built it ourselves. They asked are we selling it. We knew our local business success largely thanks to our booking system. Get more clients, saves time, and get paid faster. This leads to the idea of making our software into a SaaS app and available to other landscapers. Maybe they can benefit from it too. We made a quick demo site and let some local landscapers try it. They all love it. Some already use similar software but it's too complex for them with too many features they don't need. I did some free trials on competitive products and feel the same. Market We looked further into the industry for home service providers software. Plenty of software solutions. 1, in particular, has raised $400M. They raised a series D round in 2018. They offer software to many contractor industries (plumber, electrician, landscapers, home cleaning, etc). This confirms there's a market for it. Our advantage would be the instant quote system most other competitors don't have. Our customers will have their own private label website, hosted by us, powered by the instant quote system. Their clients can book online. We started planning and development a few months ago. If our niche is successful, we'll expand to other industries compete head on with others. If you plan to build a SaaS app, you don't need to target a huge market. When you market to everyone, you market to no one. Pick a smaller niche you know well. Your niche makes it easier to target your audience when it comes to marketing and advertising. Focus your app's benefits, not features. Show why your customers want it. It's better if your app's value prop helps customers make more money, get paid faster than something nice to have. Cost If the dev quotes you X number of hours, add 50% additional time as a buffer. Add another 20% of your own time to collaborate with them (questions, feedback, testing, deploy, ongoing support). If you go with the freelance route, you'll get a wide range of quotes. It takes time to go through the interview process. Be prepared to spend at least a few weeks on that. The requirements need to be clear to avoid scope creep. You should have at least 1 final meeting to over every feature including testing, QA, live rollout. All should be agreed upon before start. Make sure you allocate extra resource after release. Your app will have bugs that need fixed. We did two revisions in 5 years. Development We don't have any coding experience and are fortunate to be able to fund the dev ourselves. Even that, you still wear many hats. You are the project/product manager, tester, marketer, customer support. It's better to have some knowledge about the dev process and project management. It's very likely the schedule will slip but it's your job to make sure it doesn't become a multi-year long project. We use scrum framework to manage the project. Let your end customers use it asap even it's just an MVP or limited feature app. The feedback will help you prioritize and plan the product roadmap. SaaS app has added complexity to the admin dashboard. Analytics, new signup, churn, customer upgrade/downgrade plans. You can build these tools in-house. You can also consider paid solutions to help you manage the SaaS business. Leads/customers will have questions about your product. Create good documentation of your app, how-to guides, self-paced training to help customers. Have a staging server set up to test new work from the dev. A SaaS app could involve many parties. Ours takes online payments for the landscapers from their clients. It's very important that the payment system works. User case diagram helps when testing your app. Some features may need fast response and you will need to test it with the dev in real-time. You need to make sure the devs and you communicate often and well. We use slack. I don't personally like it much but that's what we have. If the devs lack communication or technical skills, fire them quickly, don't waste each other's time. Marketing I don't have many insights on this as the app's still under development. Our local landscaping business doesn't need much marketing. We do have a small following on social media and plan to leverage it into the SaaS business. We started some content marketing and may do some paid ads. Still coming up with a strategy. We do have the buyer persona. I'm currently taking some social media marketing, and blogging courses. Need to find where landscapers hang out the most then decide on the channels. We may outsource that part of the effort. Any suggestions are welcome. 2020's been difficult for many entrepreneurs. If you're struggling this year, we hope 2021 will turn the corner for you. For those who do well in 2020, we hope your winning streak continues! For those who are launching soon, we wish you great success! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 09:37 AM PST Usually when I am trying to come up with a name i list out a bunch of words that i associate with the product or the vibe i want the brand to be tied to. From there i use like or thesaurus.com or something similar and find other words. Eventually I'll have a list of maybe 100 words and I'll start pairing or altering them slightly till i find one that clicks. I'm curious though how others approach this process. Do you have a specific technique that has worked for you? [link] [comments]  |
| How to Split Profits in a Partnership! Posted: 29 Dec 2020 01:51 PM PST Hello! I have a beginner question for anyone with experience in being in a partnership! Me and three other people have started up a small business. We make and sell key chains and accessories, nothing too big. We are planning to start selling mid January and want to get everything in place so it is easy for us to start. I had a question to do with diving up profits. We have a budget in place so that a percentage of our profits goes to supplies, some to our personal profit, some for advertisement, etc. In regards to the percentage that goes towards our personal profit, we're deciding how to split it up. There are four of us and we were going to initially split everything up evenly in fours. However, it came to my mind that this won't be fair for those of us who are putting more money into things such as supplies, advertising, etc. I came up with the idea of splitting it based on who funds it more. For example, if 70% of the funds for one month are out of my pocket, then I get 70% of the profit for that month. I was wondering if someone could review this idea and let me know if this is a good idea and what I would refer to this as. Thank you in advance, I am very new to all of this so I will appreciate any help I can get! [link] [comments]  |
| Is it not normal to see shipping costs before a Purchase Order? Posted: 29 Dec 2020 01:58 PM PST I have supplier, I send Purchase Order that says it is pending approval of shipping charge. They don't give a damn and just ship. Aka I have no idea how much shipping is. I want to see shipping to see total cost if it is worth it then adjust my order quantity. Why is buying from suppliers so archaic. I really hate the model of sending a PO through email to buy. Why don't these suppliers have a website. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 01:28 PM PST Let me introduce our business briefly. Shitexpress is a service allowing people to order a box filled with horse poop and send it anonymously to anyone, everywhere in the world. Paying with Bitcoin ensures 100% anonymity of the buyer. Buy now for $16.95 - packaging, shipping and a personalized message included. Check this out:In 30 days, we made whopping $10,120 in sales, without spending a penny on advertisements or marketing in general. More than 490,000 unique visitors generated hundreds of thousands social shares, likes, tweets and comments. We got media attention from almost 500 websites; and referral traffic from 1,625 sources in total. As of December 4th, we've already shipped poop to 36 different countries. From Idea to RealityIn the past 7 years, I've gained some good experience in online business and entrepreneurship. Not only by participating in development of dozens of internet projects, websites, eshops and apps for our clients, but also by running a few own projects in various business areas. Not all projects turned into massive success. Nevertheless, starting 3-5 projects a year, I'm pretty sure at least one of them could succeed. This is my motivation which I believe in. Free ebooks, piano sheet music, contests and giveaway services, or some super simple infosites; that's what kept me busy for years. The rest got forgotten, but I've learned a lot from all the mistakes. I'll definitely employ all this knowledge in the future. Let's Get Shit RealThe idea of sending poop in mail (either fake or real) wasn't new to me. It's easy to find thousands of unusual, crazy, useless, odd or worthless businesses around. But I was curious what if such an idea became global success, with people talking about it in random places around the world. From the many ideas I usually have I chose this particular one, which I was really curious about. It's not a piece of cake to get attention these days, so it was quite a challenge. I also realized this could be serious waste of time if it won't turn out to be a good idea to start with. As a big fan of MVP - Minimum Viable Product, I was quite sure how to start. The website was created during one long evening, including all the texts, images and functions. Everything was set up and ready to welcome first visitors... Big surprise - nobody came. At this point the hesitation started. What if someone placed an order? How to proceed? Where to get horse poop in this city? What about suitable, yet affordable packaging? What is the right size and weight? How to wrap it? What else should be added? How to convince customs this is a real gift, valued at $3-5? And what about that weird feeling of bringing a box of horse feces to the post office? If one is able to pose so many questions, it's very easy to start questioning even more. Hence the procrastination started. The only one thing I was able to do from March to October was to ask a few friends, living close to farms and stables, if they were willing to do all the packaging and shipping for me. Of course, everybody was surprised by the idea, but nobody actually wanted to get involved. I knew from the start that there was no one else to blame but me. It's the founder who has to show the biggest effort at the beginning. If there is someone else to help, the founder is the one who accepts and makes decisions. After having procrastinated for several months, I discussed it all over again with people around me. That's often the only way to estimate the size of your "problem". Horse manure, packaging, stickers, payment processing, worldwide shipping...is this even doable? "You live next to horse stables and the horse manure is almost for free, duh!" Suddenly, I realized I'm literally one step from starting this business. Somehow, I got energy from the last sun rays of September and convinced myself to sit down and start to work hard. I did some research and found a few websites that could bring visitors for free. People like to comment on controversial stuff. Free feedback on shit - that was exactly what I was looking for. I posted first announcement to Bitcoin Forum, since the uniqueness of this project is based on taking advantage of cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin or Dogecoin etc). I translated the website to French and Spanish and posted announcements to appropriate categories. This was a good move because the language-specific categories have less topics, which means more attention in the end. Then, I posted a link to Reddit. I chose subreddits Bitcoin and Startups (subreddit = category). Reddit is a very good source of traffic, even if the feedback tends to be quite irrelevant and often difficult to understand. But the traffic is of high quality and you never know who appears among your visitors. [link] [comments]  |
| Ever built a product when didn't find anything online? Posted: 29 Dec 2020 05:39 AM PST So I have been developing sites for last 10 years and I bookmarked around 2000 links. It is definitely not 10000 links like some devs have but 2k was still huge to manage. I tried different bookmark managers and I don't want to take any names here but they all had their own problems. The most famous one doesn't even have folders. If you import your bookmarks in it, it will disregard your folder structure and sandwich all your links in one infinite scroll. So as any dev would do, I sat with my team and started building it ourselves. We built something small and clean to manage our links and then shared it in a few communities like discord, slack and here and everyone loves it so far. The most important thing for us was it should look nice and not something from the 90s. So finally today we have launched it for everyone on ProductHunt to try it. Respecting the rules here so skipping the link in the post. [link] [comments]  |
| Business banking - how to set it up? Posted: 29 Dec 2020 10:01 AM PST State is Maryland if that is helpful. So long story short I've been doing business illegally for a while and I'm trying to become legal. I got the proper licenses that I need and started an LLC for my protection. Goals: I will be filing a Trade name (dba) in my state as I have a few different things that I do and I'd like to have them as separate "businesses". For example - LLC name is XYZ Businesses, LLC. Some of my customers know me as XYZ home improvement. Others know me as XYZ Home Cleaning. I have recently been getting into get into property management as well, and will use my other businesses as a way of fulfilling these tasks. Consider this a 3rd - XYZ Management. 1) So now, here's what I need to wrap my head around. Should I be starting 2-3 separate bank accounts (and another later)? One for LLC and one for each business? Or would it all be under my LLC? 2) Should customers be paying me to the LLC name or the trade name? This probably depends on the answer to # 1. I feel like I'm overthinking it, but I really don't have my head fully around the idea of a trade name under and LLC. 3) When writing contracts, do I need to put XYZ Businesses, LLC dba XYZ Home Improvement or can I just use XYZ Home Improvement? [link] [comments]  |
| How to respond to angel investors Posted: 28 Dec 2020 07:59 PM PST I'm a 19 year old solo founder still in college and I feel so lost in this process...I was wondering if anyone had any experience or advice on being approached by an investor. What questions should I ask them? What should I look out for? I'm working on building a company right now and I haven't launched yet but a lot of opportunities have arisen recently in a short time frame... I'm not sure how to move forward and I feel very overwhelmed and scared even tho the opportunities are exciting. I don't have the network to ask for any guidance on how this process would work so I'm asking Reddit haha. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their knowledge. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 01:20 PM PST What do you think the internal monologue of a very successful entrepreneur is like compared to the average person ? If there's anyone who has become very successful in regards to business what is your though process like ? [link] [comments]  |
| How to get an app built for you Posted: 29 Dec 2020 12:58 PM PST First thing to know is this is not instructional. I would like to open a discussion on the best practices to approach when considering having someone build an Android and ios app. Here are a few questions to get the conversation initiated:
Hopefully this conversation can answer some questions for people with good app ideas stuck at this hurdle. All info, comments and speculation is welcome [link] [comments]  |
| Legitimate question - Hiring sales reps Posted: 28 Dec 2020 08:03 PM PST Hi guys, So, I have an ecommerce store in which a good amount of my sales comes from different marketplaces. Recently, facebook marketplace decided to change the algorithm up on me & now my posts get literally 5-10 views. I've boosted them, etc, and nothing really helps. To combat this, I want to hire sales reps. This position would literally be someone posting photos I send to them, with caption I send on their facebook marketplace. If they get the sale, I let them keep 15% of the money. Literally, all the rep would have to do is post, and answer inquiries. Where do you think I can find reps for something like this? It sounds scammy, but I swear it's actually not. It's a way for me to expand, and a way for someone who's looking to make some extra cash, to make some extra cash. Any input would be appreciated - Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| How to import liquor from Mexico into the USA Posted: 29 Dec 2020 12:18 AM PST I want to get into the liquor business and support rural communities in Mexico where the liquor would be produced. Currently live in California and want to learn about importing liquor and selling it in the US. Does anyone have experience with this? What types of licenses are needed? Things to consider, etc. Thank you in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Are 200 signups in a week and a half on our landing page a good number? Posted: 28 Dec 2020 06:35 PM PST We are doing a grocery delivery service and managed to hit 200 signups after a week and a half of launching our signups page to gauge number of interested customers within our region (we haven't started service yet). This is our first startup project so we're not entirely sure if these are good signup numbers or if we should be aiming higher. Would be great to know everyone's thoughts. Cheers. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 09:48 AM PST Hi all! So, my dream is to have my own holding company. I want to start up/buy many different kinds of business, stabilize them and move on to the next one. I was wondering if you know people who lead this kind of life so I can read up about them, listen to interviews etc. Also, I'll be glad if you can refer me to recommended reading metrial that might help me out. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 09:30 AM PST Hi, in the last one month I've been trying to Kickstart a digital agency (heytechme.com) and it is going on well. I am looking for a technical cofounder (based in the US or UK). carlos@heytechme.com for all the deets.thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 09:05 AM PST Want a business license in "other services to buildings and dwellings," but instead of starting from scratch is it possible to convert one I got last year but never use? I'm in California. I have a sellers permit and a FEIN set up with the IRS for textiles (thought I could sell clothes, but never made a single sale) the license, etc might be expired or whatever. I've never responded to them or reached out CA about it. [link] [comments]  |
| I made an animated summary of "Blink by Malcolm Gladwell". I hope this is useful to you. Posted: 28 Dec 2020 03:10 PM PST Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rie9Pkp4Ktk I've made over 80 summaries of the best self improvement books, here's a full playlist of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE&list=PLaNTB6oQAa0AYuul0tqUscg1ZLj_arZga I release a new video every other day, 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: Summary of Blink By Malcolm Gladwell
When you pay attention to your intuition or what your gut is communicating, it becomes easier to make quick and effective decisions that can be, according to Malcom Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, much more effective than decisions made after conscious deliberation. According to the author, "There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis." The Premise Of The Book Blink is about how to make intuitive, effective decisions, to listen to your gut and use it to make snap judgment calls all the while avoiding wrong assumptions. "Blink" is about the moments when we know something without knowing why." Malcolm Gladwell In this book summary, we look at the main principles discussed in the book and more importantly, how you can apply these principles into your life right now to achieve amazing results immediately: Lesson 1: Understand And Use The Power Of Intuition One standout characteristic of being human is that we are capable of drawing accurate conclusions from small amounts of data; Malcolm Gladwell calls this thin-slice, our ability to combine small amounts of information with intuition and our experiences to make informed decisions. "Anyone who has ever scanned the bookshelves of a new girlfriend or boyfriend – or peeked inside his or her medicine cabinet – understands this implicitly; you can learn as much – or more – from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face." Malcolm Gladwell The concept of thin-slicing, using little information to make smart, intuitive decisions with minimal deliberation is a core principle Gladwell shares in the book. Our subconscious mind is very intuitive and fast at filtering information. When presented with new information, the subconscious mind has the ability to sift through the information, toss out irrelevant and trivial factors, and rapidly analyze the main factors to present you with an intuitive decision. The subconscious mind has the ability to recognize connections and patterns long before the conscious mind does. "Our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, and we can't look inside that room. Guided by experience a person can become expert." Malcolm Gladwell Lesson 2: Your Gut/Intuition Is Not Always Right While snap-second decisions tend to be more accurate than overanalyzed decisions–thanks to our subconscious ability to see patterns and relate them—they are not always correct. In some cases, untrained intuition can lead to stereotypes, prejudiced, and biased decisions. For example, because the subconscious mind connects patterns, when you get into a situation you have been in before, your subconscious mind can draw similarities from these experiences, thus leading to an ineffective decision. This makes experience and preconditioning very important aspects of intuitive decision-making. "In the blink of an eye, a single expert can usually tell you more than a mountain of survey data." Malcolm Gladwell Some situations can also compromise your intuitive ability, the ability to make decisions in a blink. Take the example of high stress situations. When you are in a high stress situation, it compromises your ability to thin-slice through information–such as reading facial expressions. When this happens, your subconscious mind, the intuitive mind, focuses only on what it considers the most important, imminent bits of information. Often, concentrating on what it considers a threatening, imminent piece of information leads to prejudiced decisions. To ensure your intuition does not make prejudiced, snap-decisions, aim to minimize arousal. For instance, work to minimize stress so that the subconscious mind can recalibrate its internal filter and stop being on overdrive or concentrating on an impeding threat. "Arousal leaves us mind-blind." Malcolm Gladwell Lesson 3: Calibrate Your Filter At the center of our ability to make decisions in the blink of an eye is our subconscious mind's ability to filter and relate information to and from our experiences. Stressful situations cause prejudiced intuition because they filter what information the subconscious mind considers important. "[Research] suggests that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act – and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment – are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize." Malcolm Gladwell Other than stress, common experiences ingrained deeply in our subconscious mind can also jeopardize our intuitive ability. The best way to counter this is to create personal filters and screens that help ensure irrelevant information does not reach the subconscious mind in the first place. For instance, if you look into your life and notice areas where you make biased decisions, create screens and filters that reduce the amount of information reaching your subconscious mind—reduce the flow of information by up to 40%. It will significantly improve your intuition and decision making abilities. "The power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves." Malcolm Gladwell Conclusion Cultivate present mindfulness of yourself so that you can know when to trust your instincts–and use it to make intuitive, snap decisions—and when to give decisions deep conscious thought. Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rie9Pkp4Ktk I've made over 80 summaries of the best self improvement books, here's a full playlist of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOImyOGN9UE&list=PLaNTB6oQAa0AYuul0tqUscg1ZLj_arZga I release a new video every other day, if you're interested in subscribing here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfbLDMh6uGOZePAfqqjVZ-g?sub_confirmation=1 [link] [comments]  |
| Top entrepreneur personalities on Clubhouse Posted: 29 Dec 2020 08:44 AM PST Clubhouse is up to 600,000 users already. For those that don't know.. it's an audio-only social network that lets you jump into conversations with top experts in their field. There are VC rooms, pitch rooms, and loads of entrepreneur/marketer influencers. I connected with the casting director of Shark Tank on there. And participated on panels with Myron Goldman, Peng Joon, Russell Brunson, Billy Gene, among others. Who's on it? I have one invite I am giving away. [link] [comments]  |
| Any podcast recommendations similar to How I Built this? Posted: 28 Dec 2020 09:49 PM PST |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 05:03 AM PST Launched yesterday! Hey all, My business just launched yesterday and I just wanted to explain a bit about what we do and hopefully get some advice/help from the members of this sub. Rainier is a platform aimed at helping students land their dream jobs in hard to break into industries. We are doing this by connecting students looking for jobs/internships with students at top universities who have previously secured offers in those jobs/companies. Currently we are trying to tackle the investment banking industry. We have 20 very talented coaches on our platform who are willing to give reasonably priced prep to students from beginners topics like: what is investment banking, to advanced concepts like elite technicals and modeling. Again, if anyone has any advice/insights after looking through our service it would be much appreciated. Also if you know anyone for whom this service would be relevant, or if it comes up in conversation at some point in the future it would be great if you could keep us in mind. Thank you, and good luck to everyone! [link] [comments]  |
| I built the system but I dont have money to promote any advice will help. Posted: 29 Dec 2020 03:15 AM PST Hello, I created a e-commerce website with POD service. I created 1800+ products with good designs. I hired designer to make logo,designs and website. Website is good, domain is 6letter and .com has 20k+ backlink and 1m on alexa but I dont have any money to promote or do anything. I looked to godaddy's domain value checker and it says domain worth $1300+. I spend my whole money to website but I need money to pay bills and my rent. What can I do at this point ? Should I sell the domain or whole website ? Because I dont have money to promote my website to make sale and I need urgent money. Any advice will help. Thank you in advance... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2020 02:20 AM PST I wanna create a simple website for me to post my story and its chapters on. the thing is, I have no amount of penny to host a thing, so I am looking for a free solution. I know it sounds absurd, but I am in a financially difficult situation, so I have no other choice. what suggestions can you guys give to me? [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