HacksSolopreneuring

“You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”

- Robin Williams

Guy Bieber, Founder Karmas LLC 2017/02/21

Copyright 2017 Karmas LLC

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Hacks and Lessons

1.Hacking You: Why, Mindset, and Fun! 2.Co-founder Optional, but Help

Required! 3.Where’s the Business? 4.You Can (and Should) Bootstrap 5.Hacking Marketing 6.Getting Official 7.Throwing the Book at It 8.Hacking Speed: Minimum Viable

Desirable Product 9.Pay it Forward

Hack 1. Hacking You:

Why, Mindset, and Fun!

Regular Day Job VS Day, Night, and Weekend Job You need to love it, if you’re going to do it!

Emotional Risk

1. Quantity overcomes Rejection • People: 5 positive - 1 negative = 0 • Startups: 1 YES per 100s of NOs

2. Failure -> Experiment and Learning 3. Growth Mindset -> There will be

obstacles but you can figure it out. 4. Focus: what and when

Entrepreneurship is hard! You better bring the Joy and Fun!!

Hypothesis: I can create value/serve people, have more fun, & meet my financial needs.

Financial Risk

1. A business exists to serve / create value for others.

2. Money is an artifact doing 1 well 3. Know your runway 4. Scrappiness = Happiness 5. Progress obliterates Anxiety

We all have limited resources and unlimited resourcefulness.Learn to shake it off!!

Bucket List

Downside • Lose 1 or 2 years of high

salary job • Need to live cheap • Have to get a job

Decisions! Decisions!

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” - Goethe

Upside • Help many people • Work on that Bucket List • Learn a ton (10x + MBA) • Own my destiny; More joy • Earn Financial Freedom

My name is _______ and I can do anything!!

Do • Research • Write • Prototype • Blog • Market • Business Model

Learn • Inbound Marketing

• Heroku, Restlet, Angular,

ML • Wordpress

• Restlet • Photoshop, Illustrator

• Publishing, Scrivener

Business = Product + Fit + Marketing + Sales

Get Creative • Funding • Marketing

Automate

• Social – Buffer

• Mailing –

Mailchimp

• Incorporate –

IncFile

• Grammarly

Delegate

• VideoLoco

• Fiverr

• Upwork

• eBricks.

GeShiDo Basics

1. Capture 2. Eliminate, Prioritize, Plan 3. Offload – Automate and Delegate 4. Do - Learn, Systems, and Creativity 5. Reflect and Optimize

Elon Musk’s To-Do List

Solve Renewable Energy 1. Launch the biggest factory on

the planet 2. Redefine solar power and

storage

Solve Transportation 1. Launch the new Tesla with

autonomous driving 2. Get the first Hyperloop working

Create a Backup of Humanity 1. Make rockets reusable and get

to Mars. 2. Plan a colony on Mars.

Remember whatever you are doing, your to-do list is easier than...

Lesson 2. Co-founder Optional, but Help Required!

I get by with a little help from my

friends…

https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional/

You must have a cofounder to be funded.

Companies raising more than $10M

1 2 3 4 >= 5Companies with a successful exit

1 2 3 4 >= 5

You can do it all yourself.

• Mentors –Entrepreneurs with mentors raised 7x the

capital and grew 3.5x faster (Smartcuts).

• Community

• Task / Project Based Help

• Virtual Staff / Staff –We all hope to grow big enough that we need

some help

Know when to ask for help and be grateful.

Solopreneuring != Going it Alone

Lesson 3. Where’s the Business?

Information Crisis • Massive Quantity • Quality Issues • Humans haven’t

evolved to consume information faster

2x Information Every 1.5 Years

Education Crisis • Cost versus Payoff • Half Life of Knowledge • Need Continuous Learning

Models

Cost of a Degree: +1127% since 1978

Work Crisis • Workforce Engagement • High Skill Shortage • Med / Low Skill Overage • Productivity and Creativity

Demands • Need cheaper ways to

improve life situation • Good versus Bad Automation • Push to Freelancing and

Creating your own work.

87% Disengaged at Work

Almost any problem can be solved by learning, doing, creating, and the right mindset.

Help people reach their potential faster.

Step 1: Research 100s of books, 1000s of articles, & many Courses

DOING MINDSET

GROWTH

Creativity

How to consume 10x information: Words Per Minute -> Insights per Minute

• Right Content: Find -> Select -> Deconstruct -> Sequence (material beats method)

• Layering: Description, Abstract, Talk, and then Audiobook depending on insight density.

• Format: Video or Audio (forget speed reading; accelerated format)

• Rate 1x to 3x: The max rate you can create reusable knowledge

• ABCs: Always be Capturing, Connecting, and Compressing.

• Bonus: Always be researching. Have a sentence about why you saved a link.

20% Effort 80% Results

Pareto’s Law and the power of selection

Step 2: ~400 pages of notes

Step 3: A Really Big MindMap

Step 4: Condense into 5 Infographics

Step 6: Business Model CanvasStep 5: Personas

Step 7: Researched Delegation Services

aText

Skitch

Step 8: Researched Automation Tools

Missing • Recommendations

• Delegation • Automation • Learning

• Machine Learning • Triggers

Team / Project Management

Step 9: Looked at and used the Competition

Time Analysis

Project Organization

Time Tracking

Seven Questions for Disruption – Peter Thiel

1. Engineering Question – Discover the fastest, cheapest ways of doing and learning.

2. Timing Question – Crisis in information, education, work, and automation.

3. Monopoly Question – Niche the market initially. 4. People Question – Using the crowd. 5. Distribution Question – Application through app stores.

Book through Amazon. Affiliates for content, courses, automation, services, and mentoring.

6. Durability Question – People will always need to get things done and learn.

7. Secret Question – Amplify people through automation and delegation. This is the beginning of Jarvis.

Lesson 4. You Can (and Should)

Bootstrap

Bootstrap: Originated in 19th century US (particularly in the the phrase “pull oneself over a fence by one’s bootstraps”), to mean an absurdly impossible action.

- Wikipedia

Why Bootstrap?• The more investment you take the more it is like working for

someone else and the less potential rewards.

• You can make a much better funding deals once you show market traction.

• It is not as expensive as you think to start an online business. In fact, you can get a lot for free.

• It reduces complexity. You can focus on satisfying your customers and employees without worrying about what investors want.

• Multiple Revenue Streams help – Book, Speaking, Service

• You need to plan your runway and manage expenses.

Hacking Crowdsourcing

• You can do multiple campaigns

• Look at similar campaigns that were most successful

• Expect 2 months of prep for a 1 month campaign.

• You need a great video

• You need to do your own marketing – People that will donate on the pre-launch – People that will share the launch – Ads and landing pages

• You need to line up some PR to write about it

• Have your updates ready pre-campaign.

• Back other projects!!!

https://adespresso.com/academy/blog/facebook-ads-for-kickstarter-guide/

Hack 5. Hacking Marketing

Start Marketing Early… Marketing is user research…

TheGuyBieber

ThePotentialBook.com

karmas.co

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My Social Landscape

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What is the most important brand: you, your business, or your product?

Hey you got all this book content, blog it.

You create the businesses, and the business creates the product…

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Getting the right audience…

1. Target: Characterize your customer… 2. Find: Find the people on twitter that have your

customers 3. Steal: Steal their customers

• Look at their feed. Comment and like others comments.

• Search for their hashtags and twitter handle 4. Get Trendy: Position messages that around what is

trending 5. Get Live: Simultaneously tweet to live conferences

target. 6. Automate: Save time and maximize your social

channels • Buffer, Mailchimp, Tweetful, Instagress

7. Blog Weekly: Learn Inbound Marketing. 8. Story: Tell your story. Share interesting stuff.

• SUCCESs – Simple, Unexpected, Credible, Concrete, Emotional, Stories

10x my social media footprint in 3 months 300 -> 3k twitter followers (top 1%)

Create Content Concept Manual Delegate Automation

Attract

Problem Clarifying Content

• Net Promoter Score, Tasks, Project, Time Saved

• Time to Next Delight: Content, Automate, Delegate, Systems

• Promote / Mentoring Volunteering

• New Doing Paths • New Learning Paths • In App Chat • Success Stories • Recommendation

Promotions

Delight

Delight

Convert

Solution Clarifying Content

• CTA Get App • CTA Get Book • Email Follow-up • Social Follow-up

Close

Feedback

Growth Hacking

Mail Campaigns

Social Automation

Marketing Tool Chain

Tweetful

TheGuyBieber

KG

KKG P

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Twitter Dashboard

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Publish ContentGK P

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PK

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Instagress

Hey you should try

People still like mailing lists. Make one.

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Lesson 6: Getting Official

What’s in a Name?

• Corporate Names

• Domain Names

• Social Accounts

Incorporate LLC + EIN

Name Business Domain Name

Website & Email

Bank Account

Social Accounts

Social Automation

DoSystemizeAutomate DelegateKeyForm Corporation

Incorporation• When should you incorporate? – Taxes: Before the end of year 1 so you can deduct from your taxes – Travel, Training, Cost of Goods, Development, Internet, Phone, Home… – Investing: Retirement Advantages SEP-IRA (20% of income up to $54K and the

company can match) – Name: To lock in a name – Selling: You need to sell product and corporate protections.

• How should you incorporate? – Going for VC funding – Delaware C-Corp – Double taxing (corporate + individual) – Bootstrapping – LLC – Can be taxed like – Sole Proprietorship (individual) – S-Corp (individual + distributions (no SS or Med tax)) – C-Corp (corporate + individual)

• It’s a high class problem if you have to restructure to a C-Corp to take funding.

Websites made cheap and easy…1. Dreamhost + Wordpress + Google

Analytics • Dreamhost: Free SSL, free email, and

free Wordpress hosting for the price of a domain name.

• Free: Google Analytics and Wordpress 2. Themeforest for cheap, powerful themes • Salient or Be Theme are nice

3. Wordpress Must Have Plugins: 1. EWWW Image Optimizer 2. Google Analytics Dashboard 3. Really Simple SSL 4. Spam Protection by CleanTalk 5. WP Super Cache 6. Yoast SEO

4. Free Images: Pixabay, Unsplash, Google 5. Performance Testing: Pingdom,

website.grader.com

Use Dreamhost, Wordpress, and Themeforest.

Hack 7. Throwing the Book at It

Hacking Super-Credibility

1. List: Make a list of people whose endorsement would help your launch. Include A and B players.

2. Write: Write a compelling general letter, keep it short, and make it as easy as possible for them to help. Provide something they value or speak to their values.

3. Customize: Customize for each person.

4. Connect: Hack your connections – Guessing Email addresses is easier & more effective than you

think – first.last or first – @company_url, @gmail.com, @charity_url

– LinkedIn – just wait

5. Follow-up / Give Back: Make request and only one follow up. Always offer to give back.

6. Create Extra Email Accounts: bookings@...

You need other email accounts to look credible.

Hacking Networking on LinkedIn1. Connect: Connect to everyone you meet in

person. You never know who you can help or who can help you.

– People they interviewed, people they hire, etc.

2. Introduction: Linked in shows you all the people that are connected to you and someone you are trying to connect to.

3. Group Message: If you join a group that they are part of you can group message them for free.

4. Follow Then Connect: If you follow people on twitter and start commenting you can make an introduction on LinkedIn more easily, especially if they ever comment back.

Lesson 8. Minimum Viable Desirable Product

SCRAPPINESS =

HAPPINESS

MVPs V1 is about speed and cost V2 is about architecture V3 is about profit V4 is about scale

Rough Angular Prototypes

Go with the larger ecosystems. There is more free and cheap stuff. You’ll get there faster.

Rough Wizard of Oz Prototypes

API Design Tool Chain

Data Model

Rest API Development

REST API in SWAGGER

Angular JSON Model

Client SDK

Restlet is the easiest way to develop you APIs and generate code.

Server SDK

Dev Services

Karmas App (JS)

Native Chat App

NewExist

Device HostedService Architecture

Affiliate Content,

Automation, & Services

ML Architecture

AmazonS3

? Amazon Machine Learning

Trigger

REST REST

SMS

Anonymized Data

SMS Adapter

REST

Nextmo, Twilio, Plivo, AWS SNS, Tropo

• Amazon • Audible • Getabstract • Blinkist • YouTube • TED • Fiverr • Upwork • Google Calendar • Linkedin • Facebook

• UI: Angular • Chatbot:

Superscriptjs • Chat: ?Candy-chat • Storage: Html5 local

storage • Diagram: html5

canvas • Charts: d3js.org

Architecture

Karmas Watch

(IOS, Android)

Later

??

• XMPP Chat Server?

BucketeerKarmas Service

Karmas Learning

Data

Heroku is easier to setup and manage than raw AWS.

Tool Chain

Testing DeploymentConfiguration Management

Developer Collab

Marketing Automation

Operations Monitoring

Password Sharing

Website

File Sharing

Continuous Integration

Continuous Delivery

Continuous Deployment

Continuous Feedback

Accounting Automation

R&D / Production

HR

Gusto

TodoDoneLater

Tweetfull Instagress Salient Theme -> Be Theme

Lesson 9. Pay it Forward

If you are lucky enough to do well, it’s your responsibility to send the elevator back down. - Kevin Spacey

In the spirit of making Phoenix the most generous startup community in the World…

1. 25% off Potential: For Phoenix Startup Week $19.99 -> $14.99

2. Mentoring: Help You get a Mentor – Read Potential – Send your 3 most important lessons – Send me what you want from a mentor – I will help find you a mentor or mentor you if we

are a fit (targeting mentoring 3 to 5 startups this year)

3. Investing in You: I believe in you, so if you complete number 2…

– First 100 people will get a 100% refund on the book

– That personally costs me 30% per book, but you are worth it!!

I BELIEVE YOU HAVE POTENTIAL!!!

Think differently. Shock everyone. Do the impossible.

?

QUESTIONS

theguybieber@karmas.com

Inspire ✦ Be Inspired ✦ Create Amazing Experiences

Thank You

@theguybieber

Guy Bieber, Founder of Karmas LLC

karmas.cothepotentialbook.com

Connect to Your

PotentialWhen you need the Guy:

Copyright 2017 Karmas LLC