I listened to a portion of a Rich Roll podcast today while on a jog. His coach said the simplest, inexpensive, most underestimated way to make progress and get better AT ANYTHING is establishing a baseline. "The Only Way to Move Forward is to Have a Line in the Sand".
"Where are you starting from?" is vital in deciding how you are getting to there AND how long its going to take to get there. And the more clear that starting point is, the more direct the route is.
When we are developing our software, our branding, our culture, GoNextWorld is passionate on establishing a baseline. In the case of our Rewards software, WE draw a line in the sand for restaurants using it. They gain a brand-new, vivid perspective for their customer base. AFTER UNDERSTANDING THIS, its much easier to move forward. They know who to market to, what specials bring people back, etc.
The more they understand about where they stand, the more informed decisions they can make, and the more progress they have.
We've become slightly obsessed with this mentality. We know that it is transferrable to way more than just jogging or customer tracking for restaurants.
- Establish a baseline
- Set Your Goal
- Track Your Progress and Adjust
It sounds simple... because it is. Just #HitYourMark
This article was based on a GoNextWorld article found here.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Super-Human
The more and more I learn about the background of successful entrepreneurs, the more and more evident it is that they were once normal people and not so "super-human".
I'm not saying this to cut these people down or take any credit away from them. Their achievements are awesome. I am just saying it to break the huge misperception that they were gifted with super-human talents from birth, or that normal people like you and me do not contain these attributes to live a boundary-less lifestyle.
Rich Roll is a recovering alcoholic. He's also one of top ultra athletes in the world at 45 years old.
Richard Branson is dislexic. He also owns over 100 Virgin brands. He is also working on making space flight commercially available.
Chris Jaeb's first business completely flunked and he was in the hole a quarter million dollars. He also was co-founder of Broadcast.com with Mark Cuban (bought by Yahoo after the most successful IPO in history at that time).
In almost all cases, work ethic, persistence, ad self-adjustment were the key ingredients to their success. I'm not a doctor, but those aren't super-human qualities. They are qualities that can be developed over a long period of time.
Do some research on a successful person that has done something similar to what you want to achieve. You will gain context into:
I'd love to hear some other examples, so feel free to share them on this post.
I'm not saying this to cut these people down or take any credit away from them. Their achievements are awesome. I am just saying it to break the huge misperception that they were gifted with super-human talents from birth, or that normal people like you and me do not contain these attributes to live a boundary-less lifestyle.
Rich Roll is a recovering alcoholic. He's also one of top ultra athletes in the world at 45 years old.
Richard Branson is dislexic. He also owns over 100 Virgin brands. He is also working on making space flight commercially available.
Chris Jaeb's first business completely flunked and he was in the hole a quarter million dollars. He also was co-founder of Broadcast.com with Mark Cuban (bought by Yahoo after the most successful IPO in history at that time).
In almost all cases, work ethic, persistence, ad self-adjustment were the key ingredients to their success. I'm not a doctor, but those aren't super-human qualities. They are qualities that can be developed over a long period of time.
Do some research on a successful person that has done something similar to what you want to achieve. You will gain context into:
- Where they started their journey
- What imperfections they have
- How they addressed those imperfections and overcame adversity
- How they failed and how adjusting to failure shaped their work ethic
I'd love to hear some other examples, so feel free to share them on this post.
Friday, March 22, 2013
You Start With a Brick
I am starting to love programming, and the mindset that programmers have.
When I started programming, I had some trouble because I would focus on getting the project done quickly vs. getting it 100% correct. Granted, that was mainly because I didn't know a lot, but I had to adjust my mindset from maintaining a schedule, to building robust programs, at all costs.
I didn't realize that those simply programs I was writing would be the foundation to what I am doing now. Programming is learning how to do perform a simple action as perfectly as you can, and building upon it the next day.
It's simple:
You don't set out to build an entire wall. Don't start by saying "I am going build the biggest baddest wall there ever was". You don't start there.
You start with a brick.
You take that brick and you take the time and energy to set that brick as perfectly as you can. Then lay the next one, and then the next one. If you do that day in and day out, in time, you will soon have that biggest, baddest wall. Starting with a brick is just one of the examples of how to constantly self improving found on GoNextWorld.
Wait until you see the size of #ProjectHailMary...
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Flexible and Focused
One of my favorite occurrence for me is the realization that I am avoiding a mistake because of a previous Lessons Learned. Learning from your mistakes is awesome, especially when it saves you a lot of time, effort, and capital.
Yesterday was one of those awesome days.
We had a conference call deciding what features need to be in our new online advertiser website. Scott brought up a slight issue with our current configuration and we needed to discuss how to resolve it. This issue isn't a bug & isn't urgent in nature, but could affect future capabilities to our software. We had two directions we could have taken.
Option A) re-scope the project to correct the issue, modify existing database & objects, and add weeks to current schedule.
Option B) clearly identify that the feature is not currently important, BUT ensure we have flexibility in our software to come back and fix it if people start demanding it.
Far too many times in the past had we gone with Option A because we didn't understand:
- How important the feature was to our success
- How to build flexibility in our software in case it becomes important to our success in the future
We used to stop all projects, adding time, cost, and LOADS of frustration to incorporate last minute features.We wanted everything to be perfect IN CASE these features were needed. And guess what, most of the time that feature ended up never being used.
So instead we chose Option B. It isn't important enough to take the resources to add now. But we carefully walked through our current software and made sure that it was adaptable & flexible enough that we could add it in the future IF people request it. BUT if they do not request it, then we just saved a bunch of time, money, and sanity.
It may sound like a simple difference between the options, but believe me... taking time to make sure we have flexibility to respond to the market is way easier than trying to cover every capability under the sun.
Yesterday was one of those awesome days.
We had a conference call deciding what features need to be in our new online advertiser website. Scott brought up a slight issue with our current configuration and we needed to discuss how to resolve it. This issue isn't a bug & isn't urgent in nature, but could affect future capabilities to our software. We had two directions we could have taken.
Option A) re-scope the project to correct the issue, modify existing database & objects, and add weeks to current schedule.
Option B) clearly identify that the feature is not currently important, BUT ensure we have flexibility in our software to come back and fix it if people start demanding it.
Far too many times in the past had we gone with Option A because we didn't understand:
- How important the feature was to our success
- How to build flexibility in our software in case it becomes important to our success in the future
We used to stop all projects, adding time, cost, and LOADS of frustration to incorporate last minute features.We wanted everything to be perfect IN CASE these features were needed. And guess what, most of the time that feature ended up never being used.
So instead we chose Option B. It isn't important enough to take the resources to add now. But we carefully walked through our current software and made sure that it was adaptable & flexible enough that we could add it in the future IF people request it. BUT if they do not request it, then we just saved a bunch of time, money, and sanity.
It may sound like a simple difference between the options, but believe me... taking time to make sure we have flexibility to respond to the market is way easier than trying to cover every capability under the sun.
Monday, March 18, 2013
And his Name was Pip
About 5 years ago, Fallat and I went to a "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" real estate seminar in downtown Pittsburgh. it was a three day long seminar in which I had to fly back from Idaho (where I was working at the time) and call off work to attend. I'll never forget the speaker. Mainly, because his name was Pip. And he was a total cheese ball.
We took a ton of notes, met alot of people, and had a lot of takeaways. But the major takeaway that I got from this seminar was Pip's message on motivation.
Pip said that if you are setting out to get RE investments just to make money, you will probably end up failing. In fact, you probably won't make it to the starting line. Because your underlying purpose isn't BIG enough. He used a cheesy phrase that still sticks in my head.
He said to truly reach your goals, the "why" has gotta make you "cry".
Even typing it right now makes me realize how cheesy it is. But, he's got a great point. The reason for doing something has to be greater than yourself. The reason "why" you are doing it, must be profound OR ELSE you will find excuses not to do it.
There is a profound purpose behind GoNextWorld. GoNextWorld is a business that will eventually be synonymous with progress. Our business is build on the desire to positively impact the end users progress in every day life. Four years ago, that meant throwing awesome parties and creating memories. Today, it means building software to help businesses build their client base. Tomorrow... who knows. All that I know that what we stand as GoNextWorld is much more than ourselves... and that's some serious motivation.
#PipIsAWeirdDudeName
We took a ton of notes, met alot of people, and had a lot of takeaways. But the major takeaway that I got from this seminar was Pip's message on motivation.
Pip said that if you are setting out to get RE investments just to make money, you will probably end up failing. In fact, you probably won't make it to the starting line. Because your underlying purpose isn't BIG enough. He used a cheesy phrase that still sticks in my head.
He said to truly reach your goals, the "why" has gotta make you "cry".
Even typing it right now makes me realize how cheesy it is. But, he's got a great point. The reason for doing something has to be greater than yourself. The reason "why" you are doing it, must be profound OR ELSE you will find excuses not to do it.
There is a profound purpose behind GoNextWorld. GoNextWorld is a business that will eventually be synonymous with progress. Our business is build on the desire to positively impact the end users progress in every day life. Four years ago, that meant throwing awesome parties and creating memories. Today, it means building software to help businesses build their client base. Tomorrow... who knows. All that I know that what we stand as GoNextWorld is much more than ourselves... and that's some serious motivation.
#PipIsAWeirdDudeName
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
A Moving Target.
When we wrote our initial business plan for GoNextWorld, we had my uncle review it. Looking back, I am soooo sorry that I wasted his time. Haha. The original business plan was probably 50 pages long, completely ridiculous, and pretty much none of it applies to our business model anymore.
We have been through countless (and I mean COUNTLESS) revisions of the business plan as we have more ideas and progress. Many of those business plans contained dead end projects that lead absolutely nowhere.
Although many of those dead end projects (and some of those business plan rev's) never saw the light of day, it would be silly to say that they a waste of time. We had ideas in our head, set goals to turn them into reality, and then worked towards them and produced them. We reached the goal we set out to reach. That's the tough part. Once the idea was a reality, we simply realized that we wanted to reach for something else. Something better. And that's a good thing.
The countless hours spent on those projects definitely taught us several vital lessons in business (and life).
1. A step in any direction is better than no step at all.
2. Treat your goals as a moving target.
3. Minor accomplishments add up to the big ones
Even if the target you were aiming at led you to a dead end, action is better than inaction. Every time you aim towards something and you work your tail off to get to it, you start to get a clearer vision of what you REALLY want. And there is absolutely NOTHING better than having a clear vision of what you want in life AND taking action to reach it.
We have been through countless (and I mean COUNTLESS) revisions of the business plan as we have more ideas and progress. Many of those business plans contained dead end projects that lead absolutely nowhere.
Although many of those dead end projects (and some of those business plan rev's) never saw the light of day, it would be silly to say that they a waste of time. We had ideas in our head, set goals to turn them into reality, and then worked towards them and produced them. We reached the goal we set out to reach. That's the tough part. Once the idea was a reality, we simply realized that we wanted to reach for something else. Something better. And that's a good thing.
The countless hours spent on those projects definitely taught us several vital lessons in business (and life).
1. A step in any direction is better than no step at all.
2. Treat your goals as a moving target.
3. Minor accomplishments add up to the big ones
Even if the target you were aiming at led you to a dead end, action is better than inaction. Every time you aim towards something and you work your tail off to get to it, you start to get a clearer vision of what you REALLY want. And there is absolutely NOTHING better than having a clear vision of what you want in life AND taking action to reach it.
Monday, March 11, 2013
The Mullet Balance
So I was rooting around in some of my old GoNextWorld stuff and found the image below. Wow. I think that I created this at my old job one day at least 5 years ago. Its called the Mullet Business Model. No, I did not learn this at Harvard School of Business.
Mullet (noun) 1. Business in the front, party in the back.
No clue to exactly what I was trying to say when I created this. But what I take away from it now is that you need to have a "party" component while you work.
You have to be having fun. Have to be.
You know, the "whistle while you work" mentality. Without the fun, without the party, there is no passion. And without passion, you will go absolutely nuts... especially while you are going through the struggles of building a business. In Fact, if you aren't having fun (no mullet)... you will fail.
Steve Jobs said it best. Below is a quote and corresponding video about having fun and loving what you are doing. The more progress that GoNextWorld has, the more I realize how important the mullet is. Enjoying what you are do is vital.
You need a lot of passion for what you're doing because its so hard. Without passion, any rational person would give up. So if you're not having fun doing it, if you don't absolutely love it, you're going to give up. And thats what happens to most people, actually. If you look at the ones that ended up being successful in the eyes of society, often times its the ones who love what they do, so they could persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didnt love it, quit. Because they're sane, right? Who would put up with this stuff if you don't love it? So its a lot of hard work and its a lot of worrying constantly. If you don't love it, you're going to fail.
#ProjectHailMary
Other Mulleteers:
http://www.nextworldmike.com/2013/03/gobabygo.html
http://gonextworld.tumblr.com/post/44232944329/cant-stop-wont-stop
Mullet (noun) 1. Business in the front, party in the back.
No clue to exactly what I was trying to say when I created this. But what I take away from it now is that you need to have a "party" component while you work.
You have to be having fun. Have to be.
You know, the "whistle while you work" mentality. Without the fun, without the party, there is no passion. And without passion, you will go absolutely nuts... especially while you are going through the struggles of building a business. In Fact, if you aren't having fun (no mullet)... you will fail.
Steve Jobs said it best. Below is a quote and corresponding video about having fun and loving what you are doing. The more progress that GoNextWorld has, the more I realize how important the mullet is. Enjoying what you are do is vital.
You need a lot of passion for what you're doing because its so hard. Without passion, any rational person would give up. So if you're not having fun doing it, if you don't absolutely love it, you're going to give up. And thats what happens to most people, actually. If you look at the ones that ended up being successful in the eyes of society, often times its the ones who love what they do, so they could persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didnt love it, quit. Because they're sane, right? Who would put up with this stuff if you don't love it? So its a lot of hard work and its a lot of worrying constantly. If you don't love it, you're going to fail.
#ProjectHailMary
Other Mulleteers:
http://www.nextworldmike.com/2013/03/gobabygo.html
http://gonextworld.tumblr.com/post/44232944329/cant-stop-wont-stop
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