Podcasts about create radically successful businesses

We're exploring the growing anti-Agile sentiment among developers as the agile-industrial complex has stitched together a grotesque imitation of what was once a vibrant movement. Like Frankenstein's creation, what began with noble intentions has transformed into something both villagers and developers flee from in horror!Before lighting our torches and brandishing our pitchforks, we examine the common complaints: lightning-rod meetings that drain life force, the monster of micromanagement wearing agile's skin, the cruel illusion of self-organization, and the chains of cross-team dependencies binding teams to their suffering. We dissect the organizational structures that, like misguided scientists, fundamentally misunderstand the natural advantages of agility, creating abominations that shamble through corporate hallways.#AgileLeadership #ProductDevelopment #TeamEmpowermentReferences:AA199 - W. Edwards Deming's Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations, 2025Eric Ries - The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, 2011Jeffrey Bezos - Bezos API Mandate, 2002Who Moved My Cheese - Spencer Johnson, 1998Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win - Jocko Willink, 2017= = = = = = = = = = = =YouTube= = = = = = = = = = = =Subscribe on YouTubeAppleSpotify= = = = = = = = = = = =Toronto Is My Beat (Music Sample)By Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1554: Colin Wright delves into the concept of business incubation, highlighting the value of experimenting with multiple ideas to discover what truly works. By fostering curiosity and flexibility, you can uncover innovative paths and build ventures that align with your evolving goals. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://exilelifestyle.com/incubate-businesses-startups/ Quotes to ponder: "Starting multiple projects helps you uncover what works and what doesn't." "Entrepreneurship thrives on curiosity, experimentation, and adaptability." "Each idea, successful or not, contributes to your growth as a creator." Episode references: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1554: Colin Wright delves into the concept of business incubation, highlighting the value of experimenting with multiple ideas to discover what truly works. By fostering curiosity and flexibility, you can uncover innovative paths and build ventures that align with your evolving goals. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://exilelifestyle.com/incubate-businesses-startups/ Quotes to ponder: "Starting multiple projects helps you uncover what works and what doesn't." "Entrepreneurship thrives on curiosity, experimentation, and adaptability." "Each idea, successful or not, contributes to your growth as a creator." Episode references: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shaun Clowes is the chief product officer at Confluent and former CPO at Salesforce's MuleSoft and at Metromile. He was also the first head of growth at Atlassian, where he led product for Jira Agile and built the first-ever B2B growth team. In our conversation, we discuss:• Why most PMs are bad, and how to fix this• Why great AI products are all about the data• Why he changed his mind about being data-driven• How to build your B2B growth team• How to choose your next career stop• Much more—Brought to you by:• Enterpret—Transform customer feedback into product growth• BuildBetter—AI for product teams• Wix Studio—The web creation platform built for agencies—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-great-ai-products-are-all-about-the-data-shaun-clowes—Where to find Shaun Clowes:• X: https://x.com/ShaunMClowes• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun-clowes-80795014/• Website: https://shaunclowes.com/about-shaun• Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/profiles/shaun-clowes—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Shaun's background(05:08) The state of product management(09:33) Becoming a 10x product manager(13:23) Specific ways to leverage AI in product management(17:15) Feedback rivers(19:20) AI's impact on data management(24:35) The future of enterprise businesses with AI(35:41) Data-driven decision-making(45:50) Building effective growth teams(50:18) The evolution of product-led growth(56:16) Career insights and decision-making(01:07:45) Failure corner(01:12:32) Final thoughts and lightning round—Referenced:• Steve Blank's website: https://steveblank.com/• Getting Out of the Building. 2 Minutes to See Why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbMgWr1YVfs• OpenAI: https://openai.com/• Claude: https://claude.ai/• Sachin Rekhi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachinrekhi/• Video: Building Your Product Intuition with Feedback Rivers: https://www.sachinrekhi.com/video-building-your-product-intuition-with-feedback-rivers• Confluent: https://www.confluent.io• Workday: https://www.workday.com/• Lenny and Friends Summit: https://lennyssummit.com/• A conversation with OpenAI's CPO Kevin Weil, Anthropic's CPO Mike Krieger, and Sarah Guo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkvVZua28k• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira• Ashby: https://www.ashbyhq.com/• Occam's razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor• Breaking the rules of growth: Why Shopify bans KPIs, optimizes for churn, prioritizes intuition, and builds toward a 100-year vision | Archie Abrams (VP Product, Head of Growth at Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shopifys-growth-archie-abrams• Charlie Munger quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11903426-show-me-the-incentive-and-i-ll-show-you-the-outcome• Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company• The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led• Metromile: https://www.metromile.com/• Tom Kennedy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-kennedy-37356b2b/• Building Wiz: the fastest-growing startup in history | Raaz Herzberg (CMO and VP Product Strategy): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-wiz-raaz-herzberg• Wiz: https://www.wiz.io• Colin Powell's 40-70 rule: https://www.42courses.com/blog/home/2019/12/10/colin-powells-40-70-rule• Detroiters on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80165019• Glean: https://www.glean.com/• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Humanity/dp/1250103509• Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges: https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Simple-Everyday-Parenting-Challenges/dp/0997459301• Empress Falls Canyon and abseiling: https://bmac.com.au/blue-mountains-canyoning/empress-falls-canyon-and-abseiling—Recommended books:• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898• Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love: https://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers-Love/dp/0981690408—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Get all the news you need by listening to WBZ NewsRadio 1030 on the free #iHeartRadio app! Or ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio.

Astro themes of October! (00:01:33) October 1st - 2nd: Correction.  The Sun Mercury cazimi and the Libra eclipse - Something is wrong. (00:02:42) October 3rd - 7th: Analysis.  Mercury square Mars creating challenge in decision making. (00:04:07) October 8th - 13th: Intuition Mercury in Libra trine Jupiter in Gemini - Manifesting time! (00:07:11) October 14th - 19th: The beginning of transformation Venus opposite Uranus - What or who is draining your wealth and energetic resources? (00:12:34) October 20th - 24th: Refinement Mercury trine Saturn rx - Get clear headed on things. (00:15:30) October 25th - 31st: Picking your battles Mars sextile Uranus - A boost of freedom Books!!! (00:18:19) Aries Book Picks: Purpose, destiny and evolution of networks. The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion by Elle Luna. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. (00:19:05) Taurus Book Picks: Being unapologetically the self and evolution of your professional goals. Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries (00:19:50) Gemini Book Picks: Making your own luck and intense spiritual growth The Luck Factor: The Four Essential Principles by Richard Wiseman The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer (00:20:20) Cancer Book Picks: Innovative visions and or Financial transformation Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom Kelley and David Kelley You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero (00:21:07) Leo Book Picks: Rebirth in alliances and the evolution of connections with others. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown The Power of Connection: How Relationships Help Us Heal by Dr. David F. Drake (00:21:51) Virgo Book Picks: Deep focus on wellness and health regeneration. How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Dr. Michael Greger Lifeforce: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life & Those You Love by Tony Robbins (00:22:53) Libra Book Picks: Taking a risk in making changes Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown The Art of Risk: The New Science of Courage, Caution, and Chance by Kayt Sukel (00:23:44) Scorpio Book Picks: Power struggles in work and/or family and rebirth of emotional foundations Family Ties That Bind: A Self-help Guide to Change Through Family of Origin Therapy by Dr. Ronald W. Richardson It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are by Mark Wolynn (00:24:20) Sagittarius Book Picks: Time is money and the evolution of managing your mindset Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel (00:25:05) Capricorn Book Picks: Control of wealth and developing motivated negotiations in partnerships  The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich by David Bachwhere Bach Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen (00:25:58) Aquarius Book Picks: Rebirth of identity and unconventional self-reinvention The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (00:26:41) Pisces Book Picks: Letting go of the past and empowerment through surrender The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life* by Mark Manson

Design and Development Principles for LLMOps // MLOps Podcast #254 with Andy McMahon, Director - Principal AI Engineer at Barclays Bank. A huge thank you to SAS for their generous support! // Abstract As we move from MLOps to LLMOps we need to double down on some fundamental software engineering practices, as well as augment and add to these with some new techniques. In this case, let's talk about this! // Bio Andy is a Principal AI Engineer, working in the new AI Center of Excellence at Barclays Bank. Previously he was Head of MLOps for NatWest Group, where he led their MLOps Centre of Excellence and helped build out their MLOps platform and processes across the bank. Andy is also the author of Machine Learning Engineering with Python, a hands-on technical book published by Packt. // MLOps Jobs board https://mlops.pallet.xyz/jobs // MLOps Swag/Merch https://mlops-community.myshopify.com/ // Related Links Andy's book - https://packt.link/w3JKL Andy's Medium - https://medium.com/@andrewpmcmahon629 SAS: https://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html SAS® Decision Builder: https://www.sas.com/en_us/offers/23q4/microsoft-fabric.html Data Engineering for AI/ML Conference: https://home.mlops.community/home/events/dataengforai Harnessing MLOps in Finance // Michelle Marie Conway // MLOps Podcast Coffee #174: https://youtu.be/nIEld_Q6L-0The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses book by Eric Ries: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Eric-Ries/dp/0307887898 --------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ ------------- Join our slack community: https://go.mlops.community/slack Follow us on Twitter: @mlopscommunity Sign up for the next meetup: https://go.mlops.community/register Catch all episodes, blogs, newsletters, and more: https://mlops.community/ Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/ Connect with Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-p-mcmahon/ Timestamps: [00:00] Andy's preferred coffee [00:09] Takeaways [02:04] Andy's book as an Oxford curriculum [06:13] Register for the Data Engineering for AI/ML Conference now! [07:04] The Life Cycle of AI Executives Course [09:55] MLOps as a term [11:53] Tooling vs Process Culture [15:01] Open source benefits [17:15] End goal flexibility [20:06] Hybrid Cloud Strategy Overview [21:11] ROI for tool upgrades [25:41] Long-term projects comparison [29:02 - 30:48] SAS Ad [30:49] AI and ML Integration [35:40] Hybrid AI Integration Insights [42:18] Tech trends vs Practicality [44:39] Gen AI Tooling Debate [51:57] Vanity metrics overview [55:22] Tech business alignment strategy [58:45] Aligning teams for ROI [1:01:35] Communication mission effectively [1:03:45] Enablement metrics [1:06:38] Prioritizing use cases [1:09:47] Wrap up

Brian chats with financial planner-turned-business coach Elizabeth Jetton, M.Ed., CFP. Elizabeth has made igniting passion a throughline of her career, evolving from the first female stockbroker in Atlanta to founding a financial planning firm and now working as a business coach and teacher. On the episode, Elizabeth gets to the heart of what makes a mission-driven business successful. She dives deep into how to identify your unique gifts and utilize them to create a business that serves your needs and makes an impact. Episode Highlights Mission-driven businesses reflect their owners' golden threads. Mission-driven businesses reflect what their owners deeply care about and the difference they want to make in the world. When that sense of purpose is then combined with the owners' unique gifts and talents, Elizabeth says the result is “golden threads.” “Golden threads are those sort of innate gifts we bring to our lives that we can bring to our work to make a difference,” Elizabeth said. “A mission-driven business is that beautiful intersection of what we are capable of doing, what we are skilled and competent at doing, and what we have the gifts to do.” Think about what you don't delegate.  If you're stuck on finding your golden threads, Elizabeth recommends thinking about what you're drawn to. It can also be helpful to reflect on the tasks that you don't like to delegate. “That's the passion piece,” she said. “Sometimes we try to delegate something when in fact that's the very thing we actually love to do easily, and then we're frustrated because the people we delegate it to just don't get it or because nobody's going to get it like we do.” Say no -- especially when you're just starting. As a business owner, it's essential to escape the scarcity mentality that can lead you to take on work that doesn't reflect your golden threads. Elizabeth emphasized the need to be selective in the projects you take on and to say no to things that don't align with your mission. While many business owners struggle with saying no, she says the problem is especially prominent among novice business owners. “When we're novices, we don't have the experience, so we don't have the conviction and confidence,” she said. “When we're in that state, that's when we have a tendency to say yes too much because we think we have something to prove.”  Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Elizabeth is a big believer in prototyping. Especially when you're just starting a business, you can't get too attached to what you think the business will be because it will change. “Don't wait until you think you've got it perfect,” she said. “You're going to learn more from having a client and seeing what worked and what didn't than anything else. Perfection is the enemy of good enough." Resources + Links The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Reis Follow Elizabeth Jetton Online: LinkedIn Brian Thompson Financial: Website, Newsletter, Podcast Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.

Business leaders face uncertainty everyday, it's unavoidable. But one of the most important things leaders can do to help their companies thrive is to confront uncertainty and reframe it as an opportunity for growth. Rebecca Homkes is a lecturer at London Business School's Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, a faculty member at Duke Corporate Executive Education, and the author of the book, Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times.Rebecca and Greg discuss her three steps for growth strategy and how the pandemic shaped these ideas, the significance of utilizing uncertainty as an advantage, and why agility must be aligned with strategy if you want to avoid chaos.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Agility without strategy is chaos44:45: What I hear often, and I'm sure you've heard something similar is, strategy is great. But we're not going to do strategy this year because we want to be more agile. And you have to pause, smile, and say, the definition of agility is making good decisions quickly aligned with strategy. Lacking a strategy, you cannot have agility. You have speed, but it's not aligned speed. And that's the key words you're looking for: aligned speed. Alignment without speed is too slow to matter. Speed without alignment is chaotic. You're building aligned speed, which comes from the true definition of agility: making good decisions quickly aligned with strategy. But you can't do that lacking a value-creating strategy, because then I don't know what's most important and why. And I might be making great decisions, and you're making decisions, but if they're not aligned with each other, we're not rowing in the same direction as an organization.Directions give teams alignment25:04: Directions are okay. And the direction gives the team the alignment they need from leadership while preventing you from falling into that delusion trap that you've got. Because as soon as you've communicated a firm message, you will also be less likely to be heads up looking for any information that might go against it.What's the advantage of really surfacing uncertainty as one of the key things that leaders need to focus on?02:30: If you want to grow consistently and successfully through every market cycle, you've got to start by reframing. The definition of uncertainty is a series of future events which may or may not occur. Whether or not those events are good or bad depends on what we're trying to do and how we're set up. So if you see your role as doing that, figure out what we're trying to do, and then get set up rather than reducing uncertainty, you've just opened the opportunity set to an order of magnitude more than others you're competing against.The best pivots are changes38:15: The best pivots are changes, not these big, massive "we're doing A, and now we're going to do B." It's about these small micro-changes and micro-adjustments as we're learning, and not necessarily tactical, right? But these micro-changes and adjustments—you know, this was one of my muscle memories and battles—you know, I'm going to kind of shift, like, you know, of these two sub-things I'm resourcing, I'm going to go from one to the other. And I'm doing that because I've got my belief tracker up.Show Links:Recommended Resources:The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric RiesOODA loopPorter's Five ForcesGuest Profile:Professional WebsiteHer Work:Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times

Bio Luke Hohmann is Chief Innovation Officer of Applied Frameworks. Applied Frameworks helps companies create more profitable software-enabled solutions. A serial entrepreneur, Luke founded, bootstrapped, and sold the SaaS B2B collaboration software company Conteneo to Scaled Agile, Inc. Conteneo's Weave platform is now part of SAFe Studio. A SAFe® Fellow, prolific author, and trailblazing innovator, Luke's contributions to the global agile community include contributing to SAFe, five books, Profit Streams™, Innovation Games®, Participatory Budgeting at enterprise scale, and a pattern language for market-driven roadmapping. Luke is also co-founder of Every Voice Engaged Foundation, where he partnered with The Kettering Foundation to create Common Ground for Action, the world's first scalable platform for deliberative decision-making. Luke is a former National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion and has an M.S.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. Luke loves his wife and four kids, his wife's cooking, and long runs in the California sunshine and Santa Cruz mountains.    Interview Highlights 01:30 Organisational Behaviour & Cognitive Psychology 06:10 Serendipity 09:30 Entrepreneurship 16:15 Applied Frameworks 20:00 Sustainability 20:45 Software Profit Streams 23:00 Business Model Canvas 24:00 Value Proposition Canvas 24:45 Setting the Price 28:45 Customer Benefit Analysis 34:00 Participatory Budgeting 36:00 Value Stream Funding 37:30 The Color of Money 42:00 Private v Public Sector 49:00 ROI Analysis 51:00 Innovation Accounting    Connecting   LinkedIn: Luke Hohmann on LinkedIn Company Website: Applied Frameworks    Books & Resources   ·         Software Profit Streams(TM): A Guide to Designing a Sustainably Profitable Business: Jason Tanner, Luke Hohmann, Federico González ·         Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (The Strategyzer series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur ·         Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (The Strategyzer Series): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos ·         Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play: Luke Hohmann ·         The ‘Color of Money' Problem: Additional Guidance on Participatory Budgeting - Scaled Agile Framework ·         The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Eric Ries ·         Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2, Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres ·         The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering: Brooks, Frederick Phillips ·         Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud ·         Ponyboy: A Novel, Eliot Duncan ·         Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel, Bonnie Garmus, Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes ·         What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry ·         Training | Applied Frameworks   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku   So I have with me Luke Hohmann, who is a four time author, three time founder, serial entrepreneur if I say, a SAFe fellow, so that's a Skilled Agile Framework fellow, keynote speaker and an internationally recognised expert in Agile software development. He is also a proud husband and a father of four. So, Luke, I am very honoured to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. Thank you for making the time. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much for having me, I'm very happy to be here, and hi everyone who's listening. Ula Ojiaku Yes, I'm sure they're waving back at you as well. I always start my conversations with my guests to find out about them as individuals, you know, so who is Luke? You have a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Computer Science and Engineering, but you also studied Cognitive Psychology and Organisational Behaviour in addition to Data Structures and Artificial Intelligence. AI is now making waves and is kind of at the forefront, which is interesting, you had the foresight to also look into these. So my question is, what took you down this path? Luke Hohmann Sure. I had a humble beginning in the world of technology. I worked for a large company, Electronic Data Systems, and it was founded in the mid 60s by a gentleman named Ross Perot, and it became a very, very large company. So my first job at Electronic Data Systems was working in a data centre, and we know what data centres are, but back then, data centres were different because they were predominantly mainframe-based data centres, and I would crawl underneath the floor, cabling the computers and cabling networking equipment. Now, when we think networking, we're really thinking one of two kinds of networking. We think of wireless networking or we think of some form of internet networking, but back in those days, there were varieties of network protocols, literally the standards that we use now weren't invented yet. So it was mainframe networking protocols and dial ups and other forms of networking protocols. From there, I worked my way from beneath the ground up. I had some great managers who saw someone who was worthy of opportunity and they gave me opportunity and it was great. And then eventually I started working in electronic data systems and there was, the first wave of AI came in the mid 80s and that's when we were doing things like building expert systems, and I managed to create with a colleague of mine, who's emerged as my best friend, a very successful implementation of an expert system, an AI-based expert system at EDS, and that motivated me to finish off my college degree, I didn't have my college degree at the time. So EDS supported me in going to the University of Michigan, where as you said, I picked up my Bachelor's and Master's degree, and my advisor at the time was Elliot Soloway, and he was doing research in how programmers program, what are the knowledge structures, what are the ways in which we think when we're programming, and I picked up that research and built programming environments, along with educational material, trying to understand how programmers program and trying to build educational material to teach programming more effectively. That's important because it ignited a lifelong passion for developing education materials, etc. Now the cognitive psychology part was handled through that vein of work, the organisational behaviour work came as I was a student at Michigan. As many of us are when we're in college, we don't make a lot of money, or at university we're not wealthy and I needed a job and so the School of Organisational Behaviour had published some job postings and they needed programmers to program software for their organisational behaviour research, and I answered those ads and I became friends and did the research for many ground-breaking aspects of organisational behaviour and I programmed, and in the process of programming for the professors who were in the School of Organisational Behaviour they would teach me about organisational behaviour and I learned many things that at the time were not entirely clear to me, but then when I graduated from university and I became a manager and I also became more involved in the Agile movement, I had a very deep foundation that has served me very well in terms of what do we mean when we say culture, or what do we mean when we talk about organisational structures, both in the small and in the large, how do we organise effectively, when should we scale, when should we not scale, etc. So that's a bit about my history that I think in terms of the early days helped inform who I am today. Ula Ojiaku Wow, who would have thought, it just reminds me of the word serendipity, you know, I guess a happy coincidence, quote unquote, and would there be examples of where the cognitive psychology part of it also helped you work-wise? Luke Hohmann Yeah, a way to think about cognitive psychology and the branch that, I mean there's, psychology is a huge branch of study, right? So cognitive psychology tends to relate to how do we solve problems, and it tends to focus on problem solving where n = 1 and what I mean by n is the number of participants, and where n is just me as an individual, how do I solve the problems that I'm facing? How do I engage in de-compositional activities or refinement or sense making? Organisational behaviour deals with n > 1. So it can deal with a team of, a para-bond, two people solving problems. It can deal with a small team, and we know through many, many, many decades of research that optimal team structures are eight people or less. I mean, we've known this for, when I say decades I mean millennia. When you look at military structure and military strategy, we know that people need to be organised into much smaller groups to be effective in problem solving and to move quickly. And then in any organisational structure, there's some notion of a team of teams or team engagement. So cognitive psychology, I think, helps leaders understand individuals and their place within the team. And now we talk about, you know, in the Agile community, we talk about things like, I want T-shaped people, I want people with common skills and their area of expertise and by organising enough of the T's, I can create a whole and complete team. I often say I don't want my database designer designing my user interface and I don't want my user interface designer optimising my back end database queries, they're different skills. They're very educated people, they're very sophisticated, but there's also the natural feeling that you and I have about how do I gain a sense of self, how do I gain a sense of accomplishment, a sense of mastery? Part of gaining a sense of mastery is understanding who you are as a person, what you're good at. In Japanese, they would call that Ikigai, right, what are the intersections of, you know, what do I love, what am I good at, what can I make a living at and what do people need, right? All of these intersections occur on an individual level, and then by understanding that we can create more effective teams. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. I've really learned something key here, the relationship between cognitive psychology and organisational behaviour, so thanks for breaking it down. Now, can we go quickly to your entrepreneurship? So there must be three times you started three times a company and you've been successful in that area. What exactly drives you when it comes to establishing businesses and then knowing when to move on? Luke Hohmann Sure. I think it's a combination of reflecting on my childhood and then looking at how that informs someone when they're older, and then opportunities, like you said, serendipity, I think that's a really powerful word that you introduced and it's a really powerful concept because sometimes the serendipity is associated with just allowing yourself to pursue something that presents itself. But when I was young, my father died and my mum had to raise six kids on her own, so my dad died when I was four, my mum raised six kids on her own. We were not a wealthy family, and she was a school teacher and one of the things that happened was, even though she was a very skilled school teacher, there were budget cuts and it was a unionised structure, and even though she was ranked very highly, she lost her job because she was low on the hiring totem pole in terms of how the union worked. It was very hard and of course, it's always hard to make budget cuts and firing but I remember when I was very young making one of those choices saying, I want to work in a field where we are more oriented towards someone's performance and not oriented on when they were hired, or the colour of their skin, or their gender or other things that to me didn't make sense that people were making decisions against. And while it's not a perfect field for sure, and we've got lots of improvement, engineering in general, and of course software engineering and software development spoke to me because I could meet people who were diverse or more diverse than in other fields and I thought that was really good. In terms of being an entrepreneur, that happened serendipitously. I was at the time, before I became an entrepreneur in my last job, was working for an Israeli security firm, and years and years ago, I used to do software anti-piracy and software security through physical dongles. This was made by a company called Aladdin Knowledge Systems in Israel, and I was the head of Engineering and Product Management for the dongle group and then I moved into a role of Business Development for the company. I had a couple of great bosses, but I also learned how to do international management because I had development teams in Israel, I had development teams in Munich, I had development teams in Portland, Oregon, and in the Bay Area, and this was in the 2000s. This is kind of pre-Agile, pre-Salt Lake City, pre-Agile Manifesto, but we were figuring things out and blending and working together. I thought things were going pretty well and I enjoyed working for the Israelis and what we were doing, but then we had the first Gulf War and my wife and I felt that maybe traveling as I was, we weren't sure what was going to happen in the war, I should choose something different. Unfortunately, by that time, we had been through the dot-bomb crisis in Silicon Valley. So it's about 2002 at the time that this was going on, and there really weren't jobs, it was a very weird time in Silicon Valley. So in late 2002, I sent an email to a bunch of friends and I said, hey, I'm going to be a consultant, who wants to hire me, that was my marketing plan, not very clever, and someone called me and said, hey, I've got a problem and this is the kind of thing that you can fix, come consult with us. And I said, great. So I did that, and that started the cleverly named Luke Hohmann Consulting, but then one thing led to another and consulting led to opportunities and growth and I've never looked back. So I think that there is a myth about people who start companies where sometimes you have a plan and you go execute your plan. Sometimes you find the problem and you're solving a problem. Sometimes the problem is your own problem, as in my case I had two small kids and a mortgage and I needed to provide for my family, and so the best way to do that at the time was to become a consultant. Since then I have engaged in building companies, sometimes some with more planning, some with more business tools and of course as you grow as an entrepreneur you learn skills that they didn't teach you in school, like marketing and pricing and business planning etc. And so that's kind of how I got started, and now I have kind of come full circle. The last company, the second last company I started was Conteneo and we ended up selling that to Scaled Agile, and that's how I joined the Scaled Agile team and that was lovely, moving from a position of being a CEO and being responsible for certain things, to being able to be part of a team again, joining the framework team, working with Dean Leffingwell and other members of the framework team to evolve the SAFe framework, that was really lovely. And then of course you get this entrepreneurial itch and you want to do something else, and so I think it comes and goes and you kind of allow yourself those opportunities. Ula Ojiaku Wow, yours is an inspiring story. And so what are you now, so you've talked about your first two Startups which you sold, what are you doing now? Luke Hohmann Yeah, so where I'm at right now is I am the Chief Innovation Officer for a company, Applied Frameworks. Applied Frameworks is a boutique consulting firm that's in a transition to a product company. So if this arm represents our product revenue and this arm represents our services revenue, we're expanding our product and eventually we'll become a product company. And so then the question is, well, what is the product that we're working on? Well, if you look at the Agile community, we've spent a lot of time creating and delivering value, and that's really great. We have had, if you look at the Agile community, we've had amazing support from our business counterparts. They've shovelled literally millions and millions of dollars into Agile training and Agile tooling and Agile transformations, and we've seen a lot of benefit from the Agile community. And when I say Agile, I don't mean SAFe or Scrum or some particular flavour of Agile, I just mean Agile in general. There's been hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars shoved into Agile and we've created a lot of value for that investment. We've got fewer bugs in our software because we've got so many teams doing XP driven practices like Test Driven Development, we've got faster response times because we've learned that we can create smaller releases and we've created infrastructure that lets us do deployments automatically, even if you're doing embedded systems, we figured out how to do over the air updates, we've figured out how to create infrastructure where the cars we're driving are now getting software updates. So we've created for our business leaders lots of value, but there's a problem in that value. Our business leaders now need us to create a profit, and creating value and creating a profit are two different things. And so in the pursuit of value, we have allowed our Agile community to avoid and or atrophy on skills that are vital to product management, and I'm a classically trained Product Manager, so I've done market segmentation and market valuation and market sizing, I've done pricing, I've done licensing, I've done acquisitions, I've done compliance. But when you look at the traditional definition of a Product Owner, it's a very small subset of that, especially in certain Agile methods where Product Owners are team centric, they're internal centric. That's okay, I'm not criticising that structure, but what's happened is we've got people who no longer know how to price, how to package, how to license products, and we're seeing companies fail, investor money wasted, too much time trying to figure things out when if we had simply approached the problem with an analysis of not just what am I providing to you in terms of value, but what is that value worth, and how do I structure an exchange where I give you value and you give me money? And that's how businesses survive, and I think what's really interesting about this in terms of Agile is Agile is very intimately tied to sustainability. One of the drivers of the Agile Movement was way back in the 2000s, we were having very unsustainable practices. People would be working 60, 80, death march weeks of grinding out programmers and grinding out people, and part of the Agile Movement was saying, wait a minute, this isn't sustainable, and even the notion of what is a sustainable pace is really vital, but a company cannot sustain itself without a profit, and if we don't actually evolve the Agile community from value streams into profit streams, we can't help our businesses survive. I sometimes ask developers, I say, raise your hand if you're really embracing the idea that your job is to make more money for your company than they pay you, that's called a profit, and if that's not happening, your company's going to fail. Ula Ojiaku They'll be out of a job. Luke Hohmann You'll be out of a job. So if you want to be self-interested about your future, help your company be successful, help them make a profit, and so where I'm at right now is Applied Frameworks has, with my co-author, Jason Tanner, we have published a bold and breakthrough new book called Software Profit Streams, and it's a book that describes how to do pricing and packaging for software enabled solutions. When we say software enabled solution, we mean a solution that has software in it somehow, could be embedded software in your microwave oven, it could be a hosted solution, it could be an API for a payment processor, it could be the software in your car that I talked about earlier. So software enabled solutions are the foundation, the fabric of our modern lives. As Mark Andreessen says software is eating the world, software is going to be in everything, and we need to know how to take the value that we are creating as engineers, as developers, and convert that into pricing and licensing choices that create sustainable profits. Ula Ojiaku Wow. It's as if you read my mind because I was going to ask you about your book, Software Profit Streams, A Guide to Designing a Sustainably Profitable Business. I also noticed that, you know, there is the Profit Stream Canvas that you and your co-author created. So let's assume I am a Product Manager and I've used this, let's assume I went down the path of using the Business Model Canvas and there is the Customer Value Proposition. So how do they complement? Luke Hohmann How do they all work together? I'm glad you asked that, I think that's a very insightful question and the reason it's so helpful is because, well partly because I'm also friends with Alex Osterwalder, I think he's a dear, he's a wonderful human, he's a dear friend. So let's look at the different elements of the different canvases, if you will, and why we think that this is needed. The Business Model Canvas is kind of how am I structuring my business itself, like what are my partners, my suppliers, my relationships, my channel strategy, my brand strategy with respect to my customer segments, and it includes elements of cost, which we're pretty good at. We're pretty good at knowing our costs and elements of revenue, but the key assumption of revenue, of course, is the selling price and the number of units sold. So, but if you look at the book, Business Model Generation, where the Business Model Canvas comes from, it doesn't actually talk about how to set the price. Is the video game going to be $49? Is it going to be $59, or £49 or £59? Well, there's a lot of thought that goes into that. Then we have the Value Proposition Canvas, which highlights what are the pains the customer is facing? What are the gains that the customer is facing? What are the jobs to be done of the customer? How does my solution relate to the jobs? How does it help solve the pain the customer is feeling? How does it create gain for the customer? But if you read those books, and both of those books are on my shelf because they're fantastic books, it doesn't talk about pricing. So let's say I create a gain for you. Well, how much can I charge you for the gain that I've created? How do I structure that relationship? And how do I know, going back to my Business Model Canvas, that I've got the right market segment, I've got the right investment strategy, I might need to make an investment in the first one or two releases of my software or my product before I start to make a per unit profit because I'm evolving, it's called the J curve and the J curve is how much money am I investing before I well, I have to be able to forecast that, I have to be able to model that, but the key input to that is what is the price, what is the mechanism of packaging that you're using, is it, for example, is it per user in a SAS environment or is it per company in a SAS environment? Is it a meter? Is it like an API transaction using Stripe or a payment processor, Adyen or Stripe or Paypal or any of the others that are out there? Or is it an API call where I'm charging a fraction of a penny for any API call? All of those elements have to be put into an economic model and a forecast has to be created. Now, what's missing about this is that the Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas don't give you the insight on how to set the price, they just say there is a price and we're going to use it in our equations. So what we've done is we've said, look, setting the price is itself a complex system, and what I mean by a complex system is that, let's say that I wanted to do an annual license for a new SAS offering, but I offer that in Europe and now my solution is influenced or governed by GDPR compliance, where I have data retention and data privacy laws. So my technical architecture that has to enforce the license, also has to comply with something in terms of the market in which I'm selling. This complex system needs to be organised, and so what canvases do is in all of these cases, they let us take a complex system and put some structure behind the choices that we're making in that complex system so that we can make better choices in terms of system design. I know how I want this to work, I know how I want this to be structured, and therefore I can make system choices so the system is working in a way that benefits the stakeholders. Not just me, right, I'm not the only stakeholder, my customers are in this system, my suppliers are in this system, society itself might be in the system, depending on the system I'm building or the solution I'm building. So the canvases enable us to make system level choices that are hopefully more effective in achieving our goals. And like I said, the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas are fantastic, highly recommended, but they don't cover pricing. So we needed something to cover the actual pricing and packaging and licensing. Ula Ojiaku Well, that's awesome. So it's really more about going, taking a deeper dive into thoughtfully and structurally, if I may use that word, assessing the pricing. Luke Hohmann Yeah, absolutely. Ula Ojiaku Would you say that in doing this there would be some elements of, you know, testing and getting feedback from actual customers to know what price point makes sense? Luke Hohmann Absolutely. There's a number of ways in which customer engagement or customer testing is involved. The very first step that we advocate is a Customer Benefit Analysis, which is what are the actual benefits you're creating and how are your customers experiencing those benefits. Those experiences are both tangible and intangible and that's another one of the challenges that we face in the Agile community. In general, the Agile community spends a little bit more time on tangible or functional value than intangible value. So we, in terms of if I were to look at it in terms of a computer, we used to say speeds and feeds. How fast is the processor? How fast is the network? How much storage is on my disk space? Those are all functional elements. Over time as our computers have become plenty fast or plenty storage wise for most of our personal computing needs, we see elements of design come into play, elements of usability, elements of brand, and we see this in other areas. Cars have improved in quality so much that many of us, the durability of the car is no longer a significant attribute because all cars are pretty durable, they're pretty good, they're pretty well made. So now we look at brand, we look at style, we look at aesthetics, we look at even paying more for a car that aligns with our values in terms of the environment. I want to get an EV, why, because I want to be more environmentally conscious. That's a value driven, that's an intangible factor. And so our first step starts with Customer Benefit Analysis looking at both functional or tangible value and intangible value, and you can't do that, as you can imagine, you can't do that without having customer interaction and awareness with your stakeholders and your customers, and that also feeds throughout the whole pricing process. Eventually, you're going to put your product in a market, and that's a form itself of market research. Did customers buy, and if they didn't buy, why did they not buy? Is it poorly packaged or is it poorly priced? These are all elements that involve customers throughout the process. Ula Ojiaku If I may, I know we've been on the topic of your latest book Software Profit Streams. I'm just wondering, because I can't help but try to connect the dots and I'm wondering if there might be a connection to one of your books, Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play, something like buy a feature in your book, that kind of came to mind, could there be a way of using that as part of the engagement with customers in setting a pricing strategy? I may be wrong, I'm just asking a question. Luke Hohmann I think you're making a great connection. There's two forms of relationship that Innovation Games and the Innovation Games book have with Software Profit Streams. One is, as you correctly noted, just the basics of market research, where do key people have pains or gains and what it might be worth. That work is also included in Alex Osterwalder's books, Value Proposition Design for example, when I've been doing Value Proposition Design and I'm trying to figure out the customer pains, you can use the Innovation Games Speed Boat. And when I want to figure out the gains, I can use the Innovation Game Product Box. Similarly, when I'm figuring out pricing and licensing, a way, and it's a very astute idea, a way to understand price points of individual features is to do certain kinds of market research. One form of market research you can do is Buy-a-Feature, which gives a gauge of what people are willing or might be willing to pay for a feature. It can be a little tricky because the normal construction of Buy-a-Feature is based on cost. However, your insight is correct, you can extend Buy-a-Feature such that you're testing value as opposed to cost, and seeing what, if you take a feature that costs X, but inflate that cost by Y and a Buy-a-Feature game, if people still buy it, it's a strong signal strength that first they want it, and second it may be a feature that you can, when delivered, would motivate you to raise the price of your offering and create a better profit for your company. Ula Ojiaku Okay, well, thank you. I wasn't sure if I was on the right lines. Luke Hohmann It's a great connection. Ula Ojiaku Thanks again. I mean, it's not original. I'm just piggybacking on your ideas. So with respect to, if we, if you don't mind, let's shift gears a bit because I know that, or I'm aware that whilst you were with Scaled Agile Incorporated, you know, you played a key part in developing some of their courses, like the Product POPM, and I think the Portfolio Management, and there was the concept about Participatory Budgeting. Can we talk about that, please? Luke Hohmann I'd love to talk about that, I mean it's a huge passion of mine, absolutely. So in February of 2018, I started working with the framework team and in December of 2018, we talked about the possibility of what an acquisition might look like and the benefits it would create, which would be many. That closed in May of 2019, and in that timeframe, we were working on SAFe 5.0 and so there were a couple of areas in which I was able to make some contributions. One was in Agile product delivery competency, the other was in lean portfolio management. I had a significant hand in restructuring or adding the POPM, APM, and LPM courses, adding things like solutions by horizons to SAFe, taking the existing content on guardrails, expanding it a little bit, and of course, adding Participatory Budgeting, which is just a huge passion of mine. I've done Participatory Budgeting now for 20 years, I've helped organisations make more than five billions of dollars of investment spending choices at all levels of companies, myself and my colleagues at Applied Frameworks, and it just is a better way to make a shared decision. If you think about one of the examples they use about Participatory Budgeting, is my preferred form of fitness is I'm a runner and so, and my wife is also a fit person. So if she goes and buys a new pair of shoes or trainers and I go and buy a new pair of trainers, we don't care, because it's a small purchase. It's frequently made and it's within the pattern of our normal behaviour. However, if I were to go out and buy a new car without involving her, that feels different, right, it's a significant purchase, it requires budgeting and care, and is this car going to meet our needs? Our kids are older than your kids, so we have different needs and different requirements, and so I would be losing trust in my pair bond with my wife if I made a substantial purchase without her involvement. Well, corporations work the same way, because we're still people. So if I'm funding a value stream, I'm funding the consistent and reliable flow of valuable items, that's what value stream funding is supposed to do. However, if there is a significant investment to be made, even if the value stream can afford it, it should be introduced to the portfolio for no other reason than the social structure of healthy organisations says that we do better when we're talking about these things, that we don't go off on our own and make significant decisions without the input of others. That lowers transparency, that lowers trust. So I am a huge advocate of Participatory Budgeting, I'm very happy that it's included in SAFe as a recommended practice, both for market research and Buy-a-Feature in APM, but also more significantly, if you will, at the portfolio level for making investment decisions. And I'm really excited to share that we've just published an article a few weeks ago about Participatory Budgeting and what's called The Color of Money, and The Color of Money is sometimes when you have constraints on how you can spend money, and an example of a constraint is let's say that a government raised taxes to improve transportation infrastructure. Well, the money that they took in is constrained in a certain way. You can't spend it, for example, on education, and so we have to show how Participatory Budgeting can be adapted to have relationships between items like this item requires this item as a precedent or The Color of Money, constraints of funding items, but I'm a big believer, we just published that article and you can get that at the Scaled Agile website, I'm a big believer in the social power of making these financial decisions and the benefits that accrue to people and organisations when they collaborate in this manner. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for going into that, Luke. So, would there be, in your experience, any type of organisation that's participatory? It's not a leading question, it's just genuine, there are typically outliers and I'm wondering in your experience, and in your opinion, if there would be organisations that it might not work for? Luke Hohmann Surprisingly, no, but I want to add a few qualifications to the effective design of a Participatory Budgeting session. When people hear Participatory Budgeting, there's different ways that you would apply Participatory Budgeting in the public and private sector. So I've done citywide Participatory Budgeting in cities and if you're a citizen of a city and you meet the qualifications for voting within that jurisdiction, in the United States, it's typically that you're 18 years old, in some places you have to be a little older, in some places you might have other qualifications, but if you're qualified to participate as a citizen in democratic processes, then you should be able to participate in Participatory Budgeting sessions that are associated with things like how do we spend taxes or how do we make certain investments. In corporations it's not quite the same way. Just because you work at a company doesn't mean you should be included in portfolio management decisions that affect the entire company. You may not have the background, you may not have the training, you may be what my friends sometimes call a fresher. So I do a lot of work overseas, so freshers, they just may not have the experience to participate. So one thing that we look at in Participatory Budgeting and SAFe is who should be involved in the sessions, and that doesn't mean that every single employee should always be included, because their background, I mean, they may be a technical topic and maybe they don't have the right technical background. So we work a little bit harder in corporations to make sure the right people are there. Now, of course, if we're going to make a mistake, we tend to make the mistake of including more people than excluding, partly because in SAFe Participatory Budgeting, it's a group of people who are making a decision, not a one person, one vote, and that's really profoundly important because in a corporation, just like in a para-bond, your opinion matters to me, I want to know what you're thinking. If I'm looking in, I'll use SAFe terminology, if I'm looking at three epics that could advance our portfolio, and I'm a little unsure about two of those epics, like one of those epics, I'm like, yeah, this is a really good thing, I know a little bit about it, this matters, I'm going to fund this, but the other two I'm not so sure about, well, there's no way I can learn through reading alone what the opinions of other people are, because, again, there's these intangible factors. There's these elements that may not be included in an ROI analysis, it's kind of hard to talk about brand and an ROI analysis - we can, but it's hard, so I want to listen to how other people are talking about things, and through that, I can go, yeah, I can see the value, I didn't see it before, I'm going to join you in funding this. So that's among the ways in which Participatory Budgeting is a little different within the private sector and the public sector and within a company. The only other element that I would add is that Participatory Budgeting gives people the permission to stop funding items that are no longer likely to meet the investment or objectives of the company, or to change minds, and so one of the, again, this is a bit of an overhang in the Agile community, Agile teams are optimised for doing things that are small, things that can fit within a two or three week Sprint. That's great, no criticism there, but our customers and our stakeholders want big things that move the market needle, and the big things that move the market needle don't get done in two or three weeks, in general, and they rarely, like they require multiple teams working multiple weeks to create a really profoundly new important thing. And so what happens though, is that we need to make in a sense funding commitments for these big things, but we also have to have a way to change our mind, and so traditional funding processes, they let us make this big commitment, but they're not good at letting us change our mind, meaning they're not Agile. Participatory Budgeting gives us the best of both worlds. I can sit at the table with you and with our colleagues, we can commit to funding something that's big, but six months later, which is the recommended cadence from SAFe, I can come back to that table and reassess and we can all look at each other, because you know those moments, right, you've had that experience in visiting, because you're like looking around the table and you're like, yeah, this isn't working. And then in traditional funding, we keep funding what's not working because there's no built-in mechanism to easily change it, but in SAFe Participatory Budgeting, you and I can sit at the table and we can look at each other with our colleagues and say, yeah, you know, that initiative just, it's not working, well, let's change our mind, okay, what is the new thing that we can fund? What is the new epic? And that permission is so powerful within a corporation. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that, and whilst you were speaking, because again, me trying to connect the dots and thinking, for an organisation that has adopted SAFe or it's trying to scale Agility, because like you mentioned, Agile teams are optimised to iteratively develop or deliver, you know, small chunks over time, usually two to three weeks, but, like you said, there is a longer time horizon spanning months, even years into the future, sometimes for those worthwhile, meaty things to be delivered that moves the strategic needle if I may use that buzzword. So, let's say we at that lean portfolio level, we're looking at epics, right, and Participatory Budgeting, we are looking at initiatives on an epic to epic basis per se, where would the Lean Startup Cycle come in here? So is it that Participatory Budgeting could be a mechanism that is used for assessing, okay, this is the MVP features that have been developed and all that, the leading indicators we've gotten, that's presented to the group, and on that basis, we make that pivot or persevere or stop decision, would that fit in? Luke Hohmann Yeah, so let's, I mean, you're close, but let me make a few turns and then it'll click better. First, let's acknowledge that the SAFe approach to the Lean Startup Cycle is not the Eric Ries approach, there are some differences, but let's separate how I fund something from how I evaluate something. So if I'm going to engage in the SAFe Lean Startup Cycle, part of that engagement is to fund an MVP, which is going to prove or disprove a given hypothesis. So that's an expenditure of money. Now there's, if you think about the expenditure of money, there's minimally two steps in this process - there's spending enough money to conduct the experiments, and if those experiments are true, making another commitment to spend money again, that I want to spend it. The reason this is important is, let's say I had three experiments running in parallel and I'm going to use easy round numbers for a large corporation. Let's say I want to run three experiments in parallel, and each experiment costs me a million pounds. Okay. So now let's say that the commercialisation of each of those is an additional amount of money. So the portfolio team sits around the table and says, we have the money, we're going to fund all three. Okay, great. Well, it's an unlikely circumstance, but let's say all three are successful. Well, this is like a venture capitalist, and I have a talk that I give that relates the funding cycle of a venture capitalist to the funding cycle of an LPM team. While it's unlikely, you could have all three become successful, and this is what I call an oversubscribed portfolio. I've got three great initiatives, but I can still only fund one or two of them, I still have to make the choice. Now, of course, I'm going to look at my economics and let's say out of the three initiatives that were successfully proven through their hypothesis, let's say one of them is just clearly not as economically attractive, for whatever reason. Okay, we get rid of that one, now, I've got two, and if I can only fund one of them, and the ROI, the hard ROI is roughly the same, that's when Participatory Budgeting really shines, because we can have those leaders come back into the room, and they can say, which choice do we want to make now? So the evaluative aspect of the MVP is the leading indicators and the results of the proving or disproving of the hypotheses. We separate that from the funding choices, which is where Participatory Budgeting and LPM kick in. Ula Ojiaku Okay. So you've separated the proving or disproving the hypothesis of the feature, some of the features that will probably make up an epic. And you're saying the funding, the decision to fund the epic in the first place is a different conversation. And you've likened it to Venture Capital funding rounds. Where do they connect? Because if they're separate, what's the connecting thread between the two? Luke Hohmann The connected thread is the portfolio process, right? The actual process is the mechanism where we're connecting these things. Ula Ojiaku OK, no, thanks for the portfolio process. But there is something you mentioned, ROI - Return On Investment. And sometimes when you're developing new products, you don't know, you have assumptions. And any ROI, sorry to put it this way, but you're really plucking figures from the air, you know, you're modelling, but there is no certainty because you could hit the mark or you could go way off the mark. So where does that innovation accounting coming into place, especially if it's a product that's yet to make contact with, you know, real life users, the customers. Luke Hohmann Well, let's go back to something you said earlier, and what you talked earlier about was the relationship that you have in market researching customer interaction. In making a forecast, let's go ahead and look at the notion of building a new product within a company, and this is again where the Agile community sometimes doesn't want to look at numbers or quote, unquote get dirty, but we have to, because if I'm going to look at building a new idea, or taking a new idea into a product, I have to have a forecast of its viability. Is it economically viable? Is it a good choice? So innovation accounting is a way to look at certain data, but before, I'm going to steal a page, a quote, from one of my friends, Jeff Patton. The most expensive way to figure this out is to actually build the product. So what can I do that's less expensive than building the product itself? I can still do market research, but maybe I wouldn't do an innovation game, maybe I'd do a formal survey and I use a price point testing mechanism like Van Westendorp Price Point Analysis, which is a series of questions that you ask to triangulate on acceptable price ranges. I can do competitive benchmarking for similar products and services. What are people offering right now in the market? Now that again, if the product is completely novel, doing competitive benchmarking can be really hard. Right now, there's so many people doing streaming that we look at the competitive market, but when Netflix first offered streaming and it was the first one, their best approach was what we call reference pricing, which is, I have a reference price for how much I pay for my DVDs that I'm getting in the mail, I'm going to base my streaming service kind of on the reference pricing of entertainment, although that's not entirely clear that that was the best way to go, because you could also base the reference price on what you're paying for a movie ticket and how many, but then you look at consumption, right, because movie tickets are expensive, so I only go to a movie maybe once every other month, whereas streaming is cheap and so I can change my demand curve by lowering my price. But this is why it's such a hard science is because we have this notion of these swirling factors. Getting specifically back to your question about the price point, I do have to do some market research before I go into the market to get some forecasting and some confidence, and research gives me more confidence, and of course, once I'm in the market, I'll know how effective my research matched the market reality. Maybe my research was misleading, and of course, there's some skill in designing research, as you know, to get answers that have high quality signal strength. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for clarifying. That makes perfect sense to me. Luke Hohmann It's kind of like a forecast saying, like there's a group of Agile people who will say, like, you shouldn't make forecasts. Well, I don't understand that because that's like saying, and people will say, well, I can't predict the future. Well, okay, I can't predict when I'm going to retire, but I'm planning to retire. I don't know the date of my exact retirement, but my wife and I are planning our retirement, and we're saving, we're making certain investment choices for our future, because we expect to have a future together. Now our kids are older than yours. My kids are now in university, and so we're closer to retirement. So what I dislike about the Agile community is people will sometimes say, well, I don't know the certainty of the event, therefore, I can't plan for it. But that's really daft, because there are many places in like, you may not for the listeners, her daughter is a little younger than my kids, but they will be going to university one day, and depending on where they go, that's a financial choice. So you could say, well, I don't know when she's going to university, and I can't predict what university she's going to go to, therefore I'm not going to save any money. Really? That doesn't make no sense. So I really get very upset when you have people in the agile community will say things like road mapping or forecasting is not Agile. It's entirely Agile. How you treat it is Agile or not Agile. Like when my child comes up to me and says, hey, you know about that going to university thing, I was thinking of taking a gap year. Okay, wait a minute, that's a change. That doesn't mean no, it means you're laughing, right? But that's a change. And so we respond to change, but we still have a plan. Ula Ojiaku It makes sense. So the reason, and I completely resonate with everything you said, the reason I raised that ROI and it not being known is that in some situations, people might be tempted to use it to game the budget allocation decision making process. That's why I said you would pluck the ROI. Luke Hohmann Okay, let's talk about that. We actually address this in our recent paper, but I'll give you my personal experience. You are vastly more likely to get bad behaviour on ROI analysis when you do not do Participatory Budgeting, because there's no social construct to prevent bad behaviour. If I'm sitting down at a table and that's virtual or physical, it doesn't matter, but let's take a perfect optimum size for a Participatory Budgeting group. Six people, let's say I'm a Director or a Senior Director in a company, and I'm sitting at a table and there's another Senior Director who's a peer, maybe there's a VP, maybe there's a person from engineering, maybe there's a person from sales and we've got this mix of people and I'm sitting at that table. I am not incented to come in with an inflated ROI because those people are really intelligent and given enough time, they're not going to support my initiative because I'm fibbing, I'm lying. And I have a phrase for this, it's when ROI becomes RO-lie that it's dangerous. And so when I'm sitting at that table, what we find consistently, and one of the clients that we did a fair amount of Participatory Budgeting for years ago with Cisco, what we found was the leaders at Cisco were creating tighter, more believable, and more defensible economic projections, precisely because they knew that they were going to be sitting with their peers, and it didn't matter. It can go both ways. Sometimes people will overestimate the ROI or they underestimate the cost. Same outcome, right? I'm going to overestimate the benefit, and people would be like, yeah, I don't think you can build that product with three teams. You're going to need five or six teams and people go, oh, I can get it done with, you know, 20 people. Yeah, I don't think so, because two years ago, we built this product. It's very similar, and, you know, we thought we could get it done with 20 people and we couldn't. We really needed, you know, a bigger group. So you see the social construct creating a more believable set of results because people come to the Participatory Budgeting session knowing that their peers are in the room. And of course, we think we're smart, so our peers are as smart as we are, we're all smart people, and therefore, the social construct of Participatory Budgeting quite literally creates a better input, which creates a better output. Ula Ojiaku That makes sense, definitely. Thanks for sharing that. I've found that very, very insightful and something I can easily apply. The reasoning behind it, the social pressure, quote unquote, knowing that you're not just going to put the paper forward but you'd have to defend it in a credible, believable way make sense. So just to wrap up now, what books have you found yourself recommending to people the most, and why? Luke Hohmann It's so funny, I get yelled at by my wife for how many books I buy. She'll go like “It's Amazon again. Another book. You know, there's this thing called the library.” Ula Ojiaku You should do Participatory Budgeting for your books then sounds like, sorry. Luke Hohmann No, no, I don't, I'd lose. Gosh, I love so many books. So there's a few books that I consider to be my go-to references and my go-to classics, but I also recommend that people re-read books and sometimes I recommend re-reading books is because you're a different person, and as you age and as you grow and you see things differently and in fact, I'm right now re-reading and of course it goes faster, but I'm re-reading the original Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck, a fantastic book. I just finished reading a few new books, but let me let me give you a couple of classics that I think everyone in our field should read and why they should read them. I think everyone should read The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks because he really covers some very profound truths that haven't changed, things like Brooks Law, which is adding programmers to a late project, makes it later. He talks about the structure of teams and how to scale before scaling was big and important and cool. He talks about communication and conceptual integrity and the role of the architect. The other book that I'm going to give, which I hope is different than any book that anyone has ever given you, because it's one of my absolute favourite books and I give them away, is a book called Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Comics or graphic novels are an important medium for communication, and when we talk about storytelling and we talk about how to frame information and how to present information, understanding comics is profoundly insightful in terms of how to present, share, show information. A lot of times I think we make things harder than they should be. So when I'm working with executives and some of the clients that I work with personally, when we talk about our epics, we actually will tell stories about the hero's journey and we actually hire comic book artists to help the executives tell their story in a comic form or in a graphic novel form. So I absolutely love understanding comics. I think that that's really a profound book. Of course you mentioned Alex Osterwalder's books, Business Model Generation, Business Model Canvas. Those are fantastic books for Product Managers. I also, just looking at my own bookshelves, of course, Innovation Games for PMs, of course Software Profit Streams because we have to figure out how to create sustainability, but in reality there's so many books that we love and that we share and that we grow together when we're sharing books and I'll add one thing. Please don't only limit your books to technical books. We're humans too. I recently, this week and what I mean recent I mean literally this weekend I was visiting one of my kids in Vermont all the way across the country, and so on the plane ride I finished two books, one was a very profound and deeply written book called Ponyboy. And then another one was a very famous book on a woman protagonist who's successful in the 60s, Lessons in Chemistry, which is a new book that's out, and it was a super fun light read, some interesting lessons of course, because there's always lessons in books, and now if it's okay if I'm not overstepping my boundaries, what would be a book that you'd like me to read? I love to add books to my list. Ula Ojiaku Oh my gosh, I didn't know. You are the first guest ever who's twisted this on me, but I tend to read multiple books at a time. Luke Hohmann Only two. Ula Ojiaku Yeah, so, and I kind of switch, maybe put some on my bedside and you know there's some on my Kindle and in the car, just depending. So I'm reading multiple books at a time, but based on what you've said the one that comes to mind is the new book by Oprah Winfrey and it's titled What Happened to You? Understanding Trauma, because like you said, it's not just about reading technical books and we're human beings and we find out that people behave probably sometimes in ways that are different to us, and it's not about saying what's wrong with you, because there is a story that we might not have been privy to, you know, in terms of their childhood, how they grew up, which affected their worldview and how they are acting, so things don't just suddenly happen. And the question that we have been asked and we sometimes ask of people, and for me, I'm reading it from a parent's perspective because I understand that even more so that my actions, my choices, they play a huge, you know, part in shaping my children. So it's not saying what's wrong with you? You say, you know, what happened to you? And it traces back to, based on research, because she wrote it with a renowned psychologist, I don't know his field but a renowned psychologist, so neuroscience-based psychological research on human beings, attachment theory and all that, just showing how early childhood experiences, even as early as maybe a few months old, tend to affect people well into adulthood. So that would be my recommendation. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much. That's a gift. Ula Ojiaku Thank you. You're the first person to ask me. So, my pleasure. So, before we go to the final words, where can the audience find you, because you have a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience, and I am sure that people would want to get in touch with you, so how can they do this please? Luke Hohmann Yeah, well, they can get me on LinkedIn and they can find me at Applied Frameworks. I tell you, I teach classes that are known to be very profound because we always reserve, myself and the instructors at Applied Frameworks, we have very strong commitments to reserving class time for what we call the parking lot or the ask me anything question, which are many times after I've covered the core material in the class, having the opportunity to really frame how to apply something is really important. So I would definitely encourage people to take one of my classes because you'll not get the material, you'll get the reasons behind the material, which means you can apply it, but you'll also be able to ask us questions and our commitment as a company is you can ask us anything and if we don't know the answer, we'll help you find it. We'll help you find the expert or the person that you need talk to, to help you out and be successful. And then, and I think in terms of final words, I will simply ask people to remember that we get to work in the most amazing field building things for other people and it's joyful work, and we, one of my phrases is you're not doing Agile, if you're not having fun at work, there's something really wrong, there's something missing, yeah we need to retrospect and we need to improve and we need to reflect and all those important things, absolutely, but we should allow ourselves to experience the joy of serving others and being of service and building things that matter. Ula Ojiaku I love the concept of joyful Agile and getting joy in building things that matter, serving people and may I add also working together with amazing people, and for me it's been a joyful conversation with you, Luke, I really appreciate you making the time, I am definitely richer and more enlightened as a result of this conversation, so thank you so much once more. Luke Hohmann Thank you so much for having me here, thank you everyone for listening with us. Ula Ojiaku  My pleasure. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!   

Was bedeutet es eigentlich, die Stärken eines Teams in den Vordergrund zu stellen? Und welche Auswirkungen hat das auf ein Unternehmen?Genau darum geht es in dieser Episode mit Ulf Kossol, Director People Experience bei der Telekom MMS. Er erklärt, wie eine stärkenbasierte Führungskultur den Schlüssel zum Erfolg darstellt und auf welche Weise die Telekom MMS diese Philosophie implementiert. Ulf teilt wertvolle Einblicke in die Entwicklung und Umsetzung von Strategien zur Stärkenfindung und den Einfluss auf die Mitarbeitendenführung und -zufriedenheit sowie wie der stärkenbasierte Ansatz nachhaltig in der Unternehmenskultur verankert wird.Das erwartet dich:1. Erfolgreiche Implementierung einer stärkenbasierten Kultur.2. Positive Effekte der Stärkenorientierung auf Mitarbeitendenführung und -motivation.3. Strategien für die nachhaltige Verankerung einer Stärkenorientierung im Betrieb.4. Einblicke in die Entwicklung und Etablierung einer stärkenbasierten Kultur bei der Telekom MMS.___________Finde Ulf Kossol auf LinkedIn und schreibe ihm: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulfkossol/Ulfs Buchempfehlung:The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses von Eric Ries | https://www.amazon.de/dp/1524762407Ulfs Podcast-Empfehlungen: Betreutes Fühlen mit Leon Windscheid & Atze Schröder | https://tinyurl.com/2pxj7mzv (Spotify) | https://tinyurl.com/2vz2phcs (Apple Podcasts)Scaling Champions – Skalierung von IT-Unternehmen mit Johannes Rasch & Eric Osselmann | https://tinyurl.com/94hzcbr7 (Spotify) | https://tinyurl.com/3etkf3bp (Apple Podcasts)Ulfs Video-Empfehlung: https://tinyurl.com/3fxx7t9y___________Details über Telekom MMS:Webseite: https://www.telekom-mms.com/Branche: IT Services und IT-ConsultingGröße: 1.001-5.000 BeschäftigteGründung: 1995___________Über unseren Host Johannes Füß:Johannes Füß ist Vice President von EGYM Wellpass, die mit ihrer Firmenfitness den perfekten Corporate Health-Benefit für ein produktives, gesundes und ausgeglichenes Team bietet. Der in München geborene Schokoladen-Liebhaber hat eine große Leidenschaft für die Alpen, das Wandern und Skifahren.Melde dich bei Johannes Füß auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-f%C3%BC%C3%9F/___________Der Level Up HR Podcast wird von unseren Freunden von SAWOO produziert – https://www.sawoo.io 

Kelli Thompson reveals how to beat the cycle of overwhelm through smarter delegation. — YOU'LL LEARN — 1) Why you seem less capable when you don't delegate 2) The four mindsets that hinder effective delegation 3) How to ensure others don't screw up delegated tasks Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep929 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT KELLI — Kelli Thompson is a women's leadership coach and speaker who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. She has coached and trained thousands of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career they love. She is the founder of the Clarity & Confidence Women's Leadership Program, and a Stevie Award winner for Women in Business—Coach of the Year. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck.• Book: Closing the Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential, and Your Paycheck • Website: KelliRaeThompson.com • LinkedIn: Kelli Thompson • Instagram: @kelliraethompson — RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Study: Women in the Workplace 2023 • Book: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries • Book: Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus • Book: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chriss Voss and Tahl Raz • Past episode: 311: Communication Secrets from FBI Kidnapping Negotiator Chris Voss • Past episode: 528: Building High-Performing Teams through Psychological Safety with Aaron Levy • Past episode: 805: How to Boost Your Confidence and Advocate for Yourself with Kelli Thompson — THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Wildhealth. Take control of your health and get 20% off at wildhealth.com/AWESOME with code AWESOME.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Eric Ries is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE). He's also a multi-time founder and currently advises startups, VC firms, and larger companies on business and product strategy. In today's episode, we discuss:• The current state of the Lean Startup methodology• Common misconceptions about the Lean Startup methodology• Understanding how to actually think about MVPs (minimum viable products)• When to pivot and when to stay the course• Thoughts on AI and how to deal with uncertainty• How to structure your company around core values and create products that benefit humanity• The philosophy behind Eric's current big idea: the Long-Term Stock Exchange• Much more—Brought to you by Sanity—The most customizable content layer to power your growth engine | Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian's new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams | LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/reflections-on-a-movement-eric-ries-creator-of-the-lean-startup-methodology/#transcript—Where to find Eric Ries:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/• X: https://twitter.com/ericries• Website: https://theleanstartup.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Eric's background(04:46) Eric's recent activities and projects(06:23) Eric's start in advising and first-principles thinking(10:56) Lessons from designing the Lean Startup process(14:04) The current state of lean startup methodology(22:33) Common misconceptions about the methodology(24:28) Changes Eric would make in an updated version of Lean Startup(27:52) An explanation of minimum viable product (MVP) and why Eric still stands by the process(37:36) An example of “Less is more”(41:24) More on MVPs and the importance of testing your hypotheses (41:24) How LTSE had to pivot after a partnership fell apart(48:37) Eric's take on the concept of craft(53:36) Why getting fired for standing by your conviction can be a career accelerator(55:17) Tech's mental health crisis(56:28) Advice for founders stuck in a “zombie company”(1:00:16) How continuous pivots shape a company's vision, with a real-life story(1:08:20) Challenges in assessing companies from an external perspective(1:13:17) Practical advice for businesses considering a pivot(1:18:42) The impact of artificial intelligence(1:26:59) The current capabilities of ChatGPT and its potential use as an equalizer in the marketplace(1:31:26) Eric's current work with founders on human flourishing(1:42:40) Advice for founders who want to build ethical companies (1:49:37) Examples of first-principles thinking(1:53:42) Why shareholder primacy theory is wrong(1:55:19) The “spiritual holding company” (1:58:12) Lightning round—Referenced:• The Long-Term Stock Exchange: https://ltse.com/• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898• Lean manufacturing: https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/definition/lean-production• Six Sigma: https://www.6sigma.us/six-sigma.php• Clay Christensen: https://claytonchristensen.com/• Eric Ries on 4 Common Misconceptions About Lean Startup: https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/eric-ries-on-4-common-misconceptions-about-lean-startup/286701• Anakin Skywalker meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/for-the-better-right• Linear: Building with taste, craft, and focus | Karri Saarinen (co-founder, designer, CEO): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/inside-linear-building-with-taste-craft-and-focus-karri-saarinen-co-founder-designer-ceo/• Snow Crash: https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0553380958• IMVU: https://about.imvu.com/• Ben Silbermann on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silbermann/• Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley: amazon.com/Wonder-Boy-Zappos-Happiness-Silicon/dp/1250829097• Understanding Steve Jobs's Reality Distortion Field: https://www.emexmag.com/understanding-steve-jobs-reality-distortion-field• Paul Graham's website:http://www.paulgraham.com/raham• Segment: https://segment.com/• Loom: https://www.loom.com/• The Slack story: https://www.paperflite.com/blogs/slack-story• The Social Network on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/70132721• Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shift: https://www.simplypsychology.org/kuhn-paradigm.html• Conway's Law: the little-known principle that influences your work more than you think: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/what-is-conways-law-acmi• Monty Python and the Holy Grail Guards Scene on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVWH01E2weA• Toyota Production System: https://global.toyota/en/company/vision-and-philosophy/production-system/• Warren Buffett's Forbes bio: https://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-buffett• The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary Tales of Business Pioneers Who Tried to Do Well by Doing Good: amazon.com/Enlightened-Capitalists-Cautionary-Business-Pioneers/dp/0062880241• The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty): https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Kings-Dandelion-Dynasty/dp/148142428• All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries: https://www.amazon.com/All-Systems-Red-Murderbot-Diaries/dp/0765397536• Star Wars: Andor on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/star-wars-andor/3xsQKWG00GL5• Tesla Powerwall: https://www.tesla.com/powerwall• Levoit Classic 300S ultrasonic smart humidifier: https://www.amazon.com/LEVOIT-Humidifiers-Ultrasonic-Essential-Customized/dp/B09C24TYGQ• The Law of Sustainable Growth: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20121015181612-2157554-the-law-of-sustainable-growth/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Episode 40 looks at employee entrepreneurship and why it is important to recognise that the idea is not at the centre of innovation. Our guest is Ahi Gvirtsman, co-founder and chief knowledge officer at Spyre Group, an international innovation and ecosystem design consulting firm. Ahi's expertise is in empowering management teams with the insights and tools they need for innovation success and cross-functional collaboration. Having worked with Ahi and his team, Uli and Markus can draw on their own experience. Uli, Markus and Ahi discuss innovation as a strategic management process rather than an ideational event. Ahi emphasises that a tailor-made infrastructure and an entrepreneurial process are the basis for marketable innovations. The lively discussion highlights the importance of managers thinking like investors and employees acting like entrepreneurs. To find out more, click here: - Spyre Group website and profile of Ahi Gvirtsman : https://www.spyre.group and https://www.spyre.group/about - Reference „The PEAK Innovation Principles: Turn your organization into an innovation powerhouse“ by Ahi Gvirtsman https://amzn.eu/d/cfA7DvX - Reference „Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works“ by Ash Maurya https://amzn.eu/d/flxJry3 or http://runlean.ly/3e - Reference „The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses“ von Eric Ries https://amzn.eu/d/4bOlPh8 - Reference „Corporate Entrepreneurship & Innovation“ by Michael H. Morris, Donald F. Kuratko, and Jeffrey G. Covin https://amzn.eu/d/6hdZDWP - Reference „Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)“ by Clayton M. Christensen https://amzn.eu/d/6siV1Fn Your feedback on the episode and suggestions for topics and guests are very welcome! Connect and join the discussion: - Ahi Gvirtsman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahigvirtsman/ - Ulrich Irnich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulrichirnich/ - Markus Kuckertz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markuskuckertz/ Contributors - Hosts: Ulrich Irnich & Markus Kuckertz // Production: Daniel Sprügel, Maniac Studios (https://maniacstudios.com/) // Editorial: Marcus Pawlik © Digital Pacemaker Podcast 2023

Folge 39 beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, wie Startups die größten Hürden auf dem Weg zum Erfolg überwinden können. Zu Gast ist Stephan Schulze, CTO und Managing Director bei Project A Ventures, einer operativen Venture Capital Gesellschaft, die nicht nur investiert, sondern mit über 100 Mitarbeitern die Portfolio-Unternehmen dabei unterstützt, besser zu werden. Stephan arbeitet bei Project A Ventures hauptsächlich im Bereich Operational Services. Das bedeutet, dass er eine starke operative Perspektive und viel Erfahrung aus der Startup-Praxis mitbringt. Uli, Markus und Stephan diskutieren über die zentrale Bedeutung eines gesicherten Produkt-Markt-Fits für Startups und die Rolle permanenter Optimierungen am Markt. Darüber hinaus betont Stephan die Notwendigkeit einer ausgewogenen personellen Zusammensetzung über die verschiedenen Phasen eines Startups hinweg. Nicht nur die Größe, sondern auch die Zusammensetzung des Teams sollte im Auge behalten werden. Das praxisorientierte Gespräch macht aber auch deutlich, wie wichtig eine am aktuellen Bedarf orientierte technische Umsetzung ist. Sowohl Über- als auch Unterdimensionierung hat Stephan bereits in der Praxis erlebt. Wer mehr erfahren möchte, findet hier weitere Informationen:: - Project A Ventures Angebot und das Profil von Stephan Schulze https://www.project-a.com und https://www.project-a.com/team/stephan-schulze/ - Literaturhinweis „The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses“ von Eric Ries https://amzn.eu/d/4bOlPh8 - Literaturhinweis „Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future“ von Peter Thiel https://amzn.eu/d/9cWdodq - Literaturhinweis „The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better To Live More“ von Chris Guillebeau https://amzn.eu/d/3Fl8qyy - Literaturhinweis „Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers“ von Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur https://amzn.eu/d/gPryJtS - Literaturhinweis „The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers“ von Ben Horowitz https://amzn.eu/d/5WtKvwb Euer Feedback zur Folge und Vorschläge für Themen und Gäst:innen sind sehr willkommen! Vernetzt euch und diskutiert mit: - Stephan Schulze: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephan-schulze/ - Ulrich Irnich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulrichirnich/ - Markus Kuckertz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markuskuckertz/ Mitwirkende - Hosts: Ulrich Irnich & Markus Kuckertz // Produktion: Daniel Sprügel, Maniac Studios (https://maniacstudios.com/) // Redaktion: Marcus Pawlik © Digital Pacemaker Podcast 2023

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Yevgeny Pats, CEO and Founder of CloudQuery, which has raised $18.5 Million in funding. Topics Discussed: Yevgeny's background in cybersecurity intelligence and his misguided debut as an startup founder  What kind of person inspires Yevgenny as an entrepreneur and the real but limited inspiration he had from books  How the idea for CloudQuery originated and developed and how Yevgeny got his first paying customer What you must do to make your startup rise above the noise of competition  Limitations that Yevgeny sees in giving advice to others, and what advice he would give to himself Favorite book:  The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

David Subar is the Founder and Managing Partner of Interna, an IT Services and Consulting company focused on making product development successful and effective. We discuss the foundation of the lean startup approach, failure as a catalyst for learning, and ways to deliver better products faster.   Time Stamps [00:50] David's entrepreneurial journey [03:27] How to deliver better products faster [04:57] Ways to make the best market bets [07:56] How to align market bets with your business strategy  [10:37] The role of failure in learning  [13:20] How to measure results against the objective [15:49] The consumption of new releases for B2B businesses  [17:27] The lean startup approach [20:10] Balancing business goals with customer goals [21:37] How to create a practical test environment for your business [24:50] Parting thoughts    Links and Resources Steve and Greg Cleary's Book: Pinnacle: Five Principles that Take Your Business to the Top of the Mountain Work with Steve - Stevepreda.com David's LinkedIn Interna.com The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries 

Learn on your terms. Get the PDF, infographic, full ad-free audiobook and animated version of this summary and a lot more on the top-rated StoryShots app: https://www.getstoryshots.com ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the StoryShots podcast now to help us grow and create more amazing content for you! What should our next book be? Comment on Spotify/iTunes or vote it up on the StoryShots app. Interested in sponsorship? Contact support@getstoryshots.com StoryShots Book Summary and Review of The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Life gets busy. Has The Lean Startup been on your reading list? Learn the key insights now. We're scratching the surface here. If you don't already have Eric Ries's popular book on business, technology and entrepreneurship, order it here or get the audiobook for free to learn the juicy details. Introduction Do you want to learn the secret to a successful startup? The key lies in understanding that a startup is different to a traditional business. You can't afford to waste time and resources where they are not getting results. A startup needs to be lean, informed and adaptable. Now there is a guide to help you achieve that with your company.  The Lean Startup is a New York Times bestseller. It has sold over one million copies and has now been translated into over thirty languages. It is a guide for entrepreneurs, business owners, and innovators alike.  The book provides a framework for creating successful businesses. The lean startup methodology is a systematic approach. It involves continuous innovation, experimentation and data-driven decision-making. This allows a business to maximize success while minimizing risk.  The Lean Startup process focuses on quickly validating ideas before investing too much time or money into them. This allows entrepreneurs to identify which ideas are worth pursuing and which should be discarded early in the process, saving valuable resources. Toyota's lean manufacturing revolution inspired the Lean Startup. This revolution incorporated:  attending to the ideas and knowledge of the workers, making smaller batch sizes, implementing just-in-time production, and accelerating cycle times.  It is better to have cross-functional teams that each focus on different stages of the growth cycle. As the product ages, it gets shifted from one team to the next. “In my Toyota interviews, when I asked what distinguishes the Toyota Way from other management approaches, the most common first response was genchi gembutsu—whether I was in manufacturing, product development, sales, distribution, or public affairs. You cannot be sure you really understand any part of any business problem unless you go and see for yourself firsthand. It is unacceptable to take anything for granted or to rely on the reports of others.” – Eric Ries The book is structured in three parts: Vision, Steer, and Accelerate. We'll draw out the key points from each part.  About Eric Ries PART 1: Vision StoryShot #1: Startups Require Responsive Management StoryShot #2: What is a Startup? StoryShot #3: Collect Data and Learn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Lean StartupThe Lean Startup Full Book Introduction We have entered an era of unprecedented entrepreneurial renaissance, but the success rate of today's startups is very low due to the absence of effective management. How to improve a startup's chances of success has become an inevitable question for every entrepreneur. This book proposes the idea of ‘lean startup'. By developing minimum viable products and failing fast, a business could validate whether its product meets the customers' needs or not at the minimum cost and in the shortest time. During the process, a startup can acquire “validated learning” and improve its chance of success. Author : Eric RiesThe author, Eric Ries, is the Co-Founder and CTO of IMVU as well as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School. His idea of ‘lean startup' has been extensively reported in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, and many other media. He also provides consulting services related to business and product strategy for a number of startups, large companies, and venture capital institutions. Overview | Chapter 1Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. In an era of unprecedented entrepreneurial renaissance, how could a startup stand out from fierce competition and succeed? A great product? An amazing team? Or an extraordinary idea? The answer is none of these. A business with a great product could easily fail if its marketing strategy is improper. But even a perfect marketing strategy does not guarantee success. A startup with both a good product and a marketing strategy in line with market demands might gain some early success, but it could still fail from blind expansion and excessive operating expenses. Even a world-renowned company like Kodak could eventually go bankrupt due to its inability to adapt to market changes and transform its business. On top of idea, product, team, and other elements, a startup that wants to be successful and continue to grow needs to have a set of scientific management practices. If a company can do this, it will develop and grow in an orderly manner and put itself in a nearly invincible position. Many startups fail due to improper management practices, so some entrepreneurs try to imitate the management practices of those long-established enterprises. But they neglected one fact: Although the traditional enterprises have mature management models, their models are not applicable or appropriate for startups. The practices of traditional enterprises are based on a stable market environment, while startups face a chaotic market environment with extreme uncertainty. As a result, the conventional management practices are not helpful to the development of startups, and sometimes those practices may even introduce bureaucracy and kill creativity instead. On the other hand, some other entrepreneurs do the exact opposite: They completely abandon the conventional management principles and just follow their instincts. But this also doesn't guarantee success and can be problematic. So, how exactly should entrepreneurs manage their startups in order to succeed? This book proposes the idea of a ‘lean startup'. By developing a minimum viable product (MVP), a startup could quickly validate if a product meets customers' needs at the minimum cost and in the shortest time. The process is called ‘validated learning', which can help entrepreneurs improve their chances of success. The concept of ‘lean startup' was...

If you're looking for a new role, or you're responsible for Recruitment in the organisation you work for, this episode of HR Coffee Time is here to help. You'll get to hear from Tansel Omer, the CEO and Founder of a new Recruitment platform - Presentus. Tansel joins Career Coach, Fay Wallis on the show to talk through how Presentus is a unique solution to your recruitment challenges.Key Resources Mentioned in This EpisodeThe special HR Coffee Time link to visit the Presentus website and register as a candidate (if you're looking for a new role).The special HR Coffee Time link to visit the Presentus website to learn more and register as an organisation (if you're interested in using Presentus to fill your vacancy/vacancies).Connect With Fay & TanselConnect with Fay on LinkedInConnect with Tansel on LinkedInFay's website: Bright Sky Career CoachingTansel's Book Recommendations(Disclosure: these book links are affiliate links, which means Fay will receive a small commission from Amazon if you make a purchase through it).Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies, by Reid Hoffman & Chris YehThe Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric RiesRate and Review the PodcastIf you found this episode of HR Coffee Time helpful, please can you rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? If you're kind enough to leave a review, please do let Fay know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: fay@brightskycareercoaching.co.uk. Enjoyed This Episode? Don't Miss the Next One!Be notified each time a new episode of HR Coffee Time is released and get access to other free career tips, tools and resources, by signing up to receive the free weekly HR Coffee Time email.How Fay & Bright Sky Career Coaching Can Help YouIf you've been enjoying the podcast & would like some support from Fay or her colleagues at Bright Sky, they can help you through:1:1 coaching to overcome your career challengesGroup coaching – build your confidence, credibility & influence in 6 weeks through Fay's signature programme, Inspiring HRInterview coaching to succeed in your next...

Show Notes:Introduction: Who is Carol Hill?Carol's origin story and journey to LEGO EducationGlobal insights that led to successIdentifying a problem before falling in love with a solutionThe meaning of being agileDeveloping an agile, growth mindset in colleagues and studentsBuilding psychological safety and promoting a nimble approachCarol's preferred structure/framework for agile workThe importance of providing quality feedbackCapturing deep levels of thinking while being agile and working with othersKey Quotes:"If you don't have that psychological safety, really, not a whole lot is going to come of the conversations in the room.""Don't fall in love with the solution; fall in love with the problem.""It's so impactful to take the time, and it does take time to build these kinds of skills [problem identification]."Listener Challenge:Share ideas you gathered from the conversation with us on social media. What resonated with you?Resources Mentioned in Show:Carol Hill's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-rueckert-hill/List of books from her post and discussionRadical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity https://amzn.to/43GuoEQThe Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth https://amzn.to/40jEZCuRebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking https://amzn.to/3mFBKrnNonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships (Nonviolent Communication Guides) https://amzn.to/3MLqEMdEMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products (Silicon Valley Product Group) https://amzn.to/3A2o2lxINSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group) https://amzn.to/43GyuNeCascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change https://amzn.to/3MPCOnbBuilding a Culture of Innovation: A Practical Framework for Placing Innovation at the Core of Your Business https://amzn.to/3KJZFhjSeeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen https://amzn.to/3L7cljISense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously https://amzn.to/3KN46YGPirates in the Navy: How Innovators Lead Transformation https://amzn.to/3mNIu6qBe Less Zombie: How Great Companies Create Dynamic Innovation, Fearless Leadership and Passionate People https://amzn.to/40hJFsuThe Corporate Startup: How established companies can develop successful innovation ecosystems https://amzn.to/3A5XEad The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses https://amzn.to/3ULUFxdThe Agile Leader: How to Create an Agile Business in the Digital Age https://amzn.to/3UJPJsOSucceeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) https://amzn.to/3A3YNz1Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice https://amzn.to/3GPSF1mStrategyzer (5 book series) Kindle Edition https://amzn.to/3KQCmmeWhat's Your Problem?: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve https://amzn.to/41dVoK7 Favorite Ideas from the Conversation:Building psychological safety for learnersFocusing on understanding the problem rather than jumping to solutionsDeveloping an agile mindset that embraces iterative development, testing, adapting, and dealing with uncertaintyUsing LEGO bricks as a storytelling tool to express thoughts and feelings more comfortablyThe power of tangible building activities (e.g., using LEGO) in facilitating communicationJUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE IDEAS FROM THE CONVERSATION! 

“Something that doesn't slice the pie differently or steal someone else's breakfast, but something with a potential to grow the overall pie,” is Omri Yacubovich's description of Lama.ai, of which he is co-founder and CEO. Lama.ai provides business lending to banks, credit unions, SaaS companies, fintech and B2B brands. Through his research, Omri found that 80 percent of businesses that applied for a loan through their primary banking relationship were declined. Alternative methods included exorbitant APRs that could reach as much as 400%, as well as a very high cost of acquisition and capital. Lama. ai offers to lower these expenses to nearly zero while also offering a more specialized strategy to fit varying needs of businesses versus a cookie cutter plan. Omri offers insights into the number of entrepreneurs who have emerged from Israel. He speculates that it has something to do with having to perform mandatory service at 18, having major responsibilities and decisions to make. He and Brendan discuss the myth of the young Ivy league-educated entrepreneur success story–the vast majority of majorly successful business people had years of experience–even whole careers under their belts before founding their first big business. There is a balance between the bravery of youth where you have very little to lose and the experience and wisdom that come with being older. Omri shares his unpopular opinion on the concept of work/life balance. He talks about what he might have done differently if he had the process to do all over again. Quotes: “There are 1000s, or tens of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of startups that fail.. the validation was an important piece.” (15:13-15:27 | Omri) “What we've done, which I think is also important for the first time founders that are listening to this episode, is we left some room for strategic investors...including my previous CEO.” (24:32-25:26 | Omri)  “The Northern Lights or where you want to go and what you want to sell is way more important than the actual technology and features that you're building and you're probably very proud and excited about. So, my recommendation is to talk about the problem and why you and your team are the right ones to solve that problem.” (27:31-27:52 | Omri)  “If you're not running fast enough, if you're in the right or wrong direction, you're never going to get to the finish line. So I think it's crucial for startups to have the ability to move fast. And unfortunately, moving fast requires a lot of dedication and working hours. So, it's not popular, but that's my opinion." (35:47-36:13 | Omri) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926    Connect with Omri: Omri.y@lama.ai lama.ai Check out Omri's recommended books: Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer https://bookshop.org/p/books/start-up-nation-the-story-of-israel-s-economic-miracle-dan-senor/16646834?ean=9780446541473   The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-building-a-business-when-there-are-no-easy-answers-ben-horowitz/6432758?ean=9780062273208 Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters https://bookshop.org/p/books/zero-to-one-notes-on-startups-or-how-to-build-the-future-peter-thiel/9402001?ean=9780804139298   The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries  https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lean-startup-how-today-s-entrepreneurs-use-continuous-innovation-to-create-radically-successful-businesses-eric-ries/9422262?ean=9780307887894 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Welcome to episode 198 of Gathering The Kings Podcast with your host, Chaz Wolfe. Today we have an exciting guest, Joseph Watson, the CEO at K9 Sport Sack.Joseph Watson, a high school guidance counselor, stumbled upon his entrepreneurial spirit in 2009 when he found a dog in a dumpster. He built a carrier for the dog to put on his bike and that was the start of K9 Sport Sack. In 2011, Joseph incorporated the business, and now K9 Sport Sack sells e-commerce dog carriers all around the world.In this episode, Joseph shares the natural progression of creating a pet carrier for sports activities, the process of figuring out how to make a quality product, and the importance of testing your product and getting customer feedback. He also talks about the beauty of cross-promotion in the pet industry.Join Chaz Wolfe as he speaks to Joseph Watson, who runs the business with his wife, the COO, who runs the show while they raise their three children. K9 Sport Sack has 20 employees, several of whom work remotely and others at the office in Utah, including family members that have skills they know they need.Don't miss out on this insightful conversation!During this episode, you will learn about;[02:12] Intro to Joseph and his business[03:14] The history of K( Sport Sack[09:34] Joseph first tradeshow [14:30] A key decision Joseph made in the business[19:57] Joseph's approach on solving problems that haven't materialized yet[22:11] A bad decision Joseph made in the business[24:34] Switching your mindset to be about customer experience vs. your own[30:58] Joseph's #1 KPI[33:38] How Joseph developed his mindset around taking good care of employees[37:58] Joseph's opinion on intentionally networking & masterminding[41:55] How Joseph goes all in with family and his business[44:51] What would Joseph tell his younger self?[46:15] How to connect with Joseph [47:49] Info on Gathering The Kings MastermindNotable Quotes"The reality is, until a perfect stranger pulls out their wallet and votes with their dollars, you just don't know. There's no way to know. And so it's all risk up to that point. You just have to jump." - Joseph Watson"It speaks a lot to the power of our product that my own ineptitude didn't just crush the business outright." - Joseph Watson"I'm not making these bags for me. I'm making 'em for a customer." - Joseph Watson"You gotta make sure they're gonna be customers for it. If it doesn't solve a problem, then it really doesn't serve much purpose at all." - Joseph Watson"We value your feedback. We really do. We view our customers as our R & D department." - Joseph Watson"Perfection is an exercise in futility, so you have to go with good enough." - Joseph WatsonBooks and Resources Recommended:Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Publishing Group.https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/Let's Connect!Joseph Watson:Website: https://www.k9sportsack.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-watson-45849b17b/Chaz Wolfe (Host): Linktree: https://linktr.ee/chazwolfe?utm_source=linktree_admin_shareWebsite:

“I think, if you're doing business right, you're evolving every two or three years,” says Bryan Clayton Co-Founder and CEO of GreenPal, an app that works like an Uber for lawn services, which bootstrapped $30 million. And that includes growing alongside your customer. The early days of GreenPal were spent putting brochures on door handles around Nashville until they eventually grew into a nationwide business in 180 cities. Bryan still spends an hour a day on customer service as that is the heart of his business, and, ideally, everyone else's.   Too many startups become enamored with innovation or bells and whistles. Meanwhile, the customer is simply concerned with the product or service, fixing the problem in a timely manner, even more than they're concerned about the best price. Many tech startups forget that their business is not just the app, but the business the app addresses and all the problems that go with it.  In today's discussion Bryan shares what he learned about business and life from his 3-month faux retirement in Costa Rica and what it means to lead from stewardship versus abdication.  Quotes: “It wasn't like people were throwing capital at us. And so we kind of had to self fund it. And that was a lucky thing for us, because funding the business off of its own revenues, has always course-corrected us to focus on one thing, and that's customers. Are we making people happy? Or are people coming back to us? The products we need to make, we need to grow sales by 50% next month. So that's been a nice course correcting mechanism. That's kind of gotten us where we are today. (8:07-8:32 | Bryan) “There's nothing wrong with raising capital, so long as you know what you're signing up for. And I think for most entrepreneurs getting the rocket fuel is a bad bet. It's like putting that rocket fuel in your Toyota Camry and wondering why the engine blew up.” (9:35-9:52 | Bryan) “That's why I got back in. And I'm glad I did, you know, because looking back 10 years, you know, I'm a completely different person, and know all sorts of different skills and things I didn't know, then, then the business required me to learn those things. If I had not done it, I'd be the same, you know, person I was 10 years ago, and what a tragedy that'd be, you know, you want to be growing and evolving. The business requires that of you. And that's one of the cool things about it.” (13:36-13:59 | Bryan)  “There's a reason why it's broken. And when you develop an app in that space, all of those problems now become your problems. And they become your problems to solve.” (17:54-18:07 | Bryan) “We thought we were building a cheaper solution. Why? Because it's the competitive dynamics, you get multiple quotes, and you can compare and read reviews and hire the cheapest contractor if you want. But as time went on, and as customers were interacting with what we built, we became to understand that no, actually the price almost needs to be market, it doesn't need to be cheaper. What matters is reliability and speed. That's what people care about, do they get it done on the day they're supposed to, and then can they get it done quickly.” (23:07-23:42 | Bryan) “When you raise capital, it really, it changes the goalposts, you know, it moves the goalposts out further for whatever those are, a lot of times you're building a product that investors like, and not necessarily one that customers like.” (41:27-41:41 | Bryan)  “And I think that's what holds up a lot of new founders. They aren't willing to do the crappy work.” (46:43-46:49 | Bryan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926    Connect with Bryan Clayton:https://www.yourgreenpal.com/ Check out Bryan Clayton's recommended books: My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781434117052   The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307887894   The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+Startup+Owners+Manual   The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062969743 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Pete Kazanjy is the author of Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook and the founder of Modern Sales Pros, an invite-only peer learning community focused on sales operations and sales leadership. He's also the co-founder of Atrium, a B2B SaaS company that provides data-driven sales solutions. Pete got his start in product at VMware and then dove deep into the art and science of sales. In today's episode, we talk about the importance of founder-led sales and how to methodically scale a sales department. He explains the difference between old-school sales and modern sales, which focuses on human connection and solving problems for customers. He also shares actionable tips to improve your sales technique and explains how to use data to monitor your success at different milestones in the sales process.—Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/founder-led-sales-pete-kazanjy-founding-sales-atrium/#transcript—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny• Flatfile—A CSV importer that says yes instead of error: mismatch: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny• Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app: http://merge.dev/lenny—Where to find Pete:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kazanjy• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kazanjy/• Website: https://kazanjy.svbtle.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—Referenced:• Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/Founding-Sales-Go-Market-Handbook-ebook/dp/B08PMK17Z1• Brianne Kimmel's SaaS school: http://briannekimmel.com/saas-school/• Modern Sales Pros: https://modernsaleshq.com/• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898• The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful-Strategies/dp/1119690358/• Pete's presentation on founder-led sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAXIVAZJyPA• Pete's guest post on Lenny's newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/sales-bottom-up• The Cadence: How to Operate a SaaS Startup: https://medium.com/craft-ventures/the-cadence-how-to-operate-a-saas-startup-436aa8099e8• Maker vs. Manager Schedule: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/• Atrium: https://www.atriumhq.com/• Greenhouse: https://www.greenhouse.io/• Pete's ICP Template: https://www.foundingsales.com/2-product-marketing#building-narrative• Marissa Fuhrer Bell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissafuhrer/• Data-driven sales master class: https://salesnerds.atriumhq.com/msp-nailing-science-of-sales-figma-webinar-video• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951• The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership: https://www.amazon.com/Score-Takes-Care-Itself-Philosophy/dp/1591843472• All-In podcast: https://www.allinpodcast.co/• Encanto on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/encanto/33q7DY1rtHQH—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) How Pete met Lenny (05:05) Pete's background(07:20) Modern sales vs. old-school sales(09:17) What is founder-led sales, and why is it so important?(14:58) When to hire your first salesperson (18:20) Why you should keep your in-person events to around 10 people(19:34) What a sales motion is and why it needs to be updated regularly (20:55) What are the leading indicators of success?(23:54) Why founders don't need to be rock stars at sales(28:28) Sales mindset changes—the number-one tip to improve your sales(33:30) How modern sales should focus on helping customers solve problems(36:00) A few tips to help you get better at sales(36:40) ICP and personas(39:14) Why you should hire junior sales staff in the early stages(45:40) Signs your new hires aren't a good fit(47:38) The importance of using metrics for success(49:33) Month-by-month expectations for sales hires(51:19) Why work from home is bad for junior salespeople(54:19) Why you shouldn't be afraid of sales(55:19) Lightning round—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Stephanie Paul is the Founder of Stephanie Paul Inc. and author of Unlock The Magic of Story. Her proven approach, the Powerful Emotional Engaging Presentations, draws on over 30 years of rich and diverse entertainment experience. As a trainer, keynote speaker or MC, Stephanie has the uncanny knack for turning any bored room into a lively, spirited and connected one.  In today's episode, you'll learn why storytelling in sales is so effective, how to capture the audience's attention with an engaging narrative, and how to use stories to win more sales and make a bigger impact. What You'll Learn: - The art of storytelling in sales - Why storytelling is sales leader's best skill  - Storytelling techniques to elevate your sales pitch - Facts and data versus storytelling - Great storytelling exercises for awakening creativity - Using stories to connect and understand your audience - First steps toward skilful storytelling - How to create a story database from scratch - Connecting with others through vulnerability - Stephanie's advice to her younger self on how to become better at selling Storytelling is one of the most powerful ingredients you can add to your sales leadership activities. It's even more effective when you use it in your proactive selling activities. Regardless of what you're selling or what your audience is, incorporating the art of storytelling into everything you do allows you to entertain, engage, and build rapport with your audience.  Links and Resources: - Special giveaway for Full Funnel Freedom listeners - https://stephaniepaulinc.com/fffreedom/ - When you need to hire top sales professionals, turn to a recruiting partner that speaks sales. Alaant Workforce Solutions. Learn more and book a discovery call at www.fullfunnelfreedom.com/alaant - The perfect CRM system, streamlined business processes and happier customers – Eligeo CRM Inc can make it happen for your business. Go to www.fullfunnelfreedom.com/eligeo for more info - Stephanie Paul's website - https://stephaniepaulinc.com/ - Stephanie's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepaulinc/ - “Unlock the Magic of Story: How to Use Neuroscience Secrets to Engage and Influence Any Audienc”e by Stephanie Paul https://amzn.to/3AKyjCA  - “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Ries https://amzn.to/3AOFpWZ  - “Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions” by Carmen Simon https://amzn.to/3D1QPcK  - “Tame the Primitive Brain: 28 Ways in 28 Days to Manage the Most Impulsive Behaviors at Work” by Mark Bowden https://amzn.to/3BgBbIY  - The power of vulnerability by Brené Brown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o - “Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business” by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss https://amzn.to/3BhxItF  - ‘Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results” by Judith E. Glaser https://amzn.to/3QlKko2  - Full Funnel Freedom https://fullfunnelfreedom.com - The Sandler Summit 2023 https://www.hamish.sandler.com/orlando  - Sandler on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sandler_yyc/  - Sandler in Calgary - www.hamish.sandler.com/howtosandler

In this episode, I interview Nicole Baldinu, an entrepreneur and Co-Founder of WebinarNinja & The $100 MBA. She's based in Sydney, Australia. Nicole was an ESL teacher for 12 years, went to film school, and then pursued a career in entrepreneurship. After working as an ESL teacher, Nicole decided to co-develop an idea, which is The $100 MBA that was launched in 2013; later on, WebinarNinja, which was established in 2014, earned 1 million ARR in USD in 2021.  According to Nicole, the approach that small-medium business owners should develop and maintain is having an optimal state of mind because that's where your productivity depends. She said, “So the ability to call yourself out, when you recognize you're actually not in an optimal state of mind… realizing that hang on and making an emotional decision.” This Cast Covers: How Troy found Nicole Baldinu. Webinars and Podcasts. Nicole's journey before heading out as an entrepreneur. Alpha and Beta stages of The $100 MBA and WebinarNinja. What is The $100 MBA? What is WebinarNinja? How both companies are funded. Having a healthy peer system, mentors, and coaches. Keeping an optimal state of mind. The importance of resiliency. Links: Nicole's LinkedIn Nicole's Twitter Nicole's Website Additional Resources: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Free Time by Jenny Blake Deploy Empathy by Michele Hansen     Quotes: “Never to promise an exact date. Those early second estimates, then you double it.” —Nicole Baldinu “You're part of this creation of something that didn't exist until you decide to make it happen. And then you see other people using that thing. That's an incredible feeling.” —Nicole Baldinu “When leading a team; you have certain standards, you have certain beliefs in the way that you want things to be in the way you think they should be.” —Nicole Baldinu “It's the creative process; nothing in business is fixed or permanent. You're constantly in flux, you're constantly in change. And that's exciting.” —Nicole Baldinu “Focus on the work.” —Nicole Baldinu   Music from https://filmmusic.io “Cold Funk” by Kevin MacLeod https://incompetech.com. License: CC by http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 

In this week's episode, Michael interviews James Baker, the Co-Founder of Varicon, a construction cost management software, based in Hobart, Tasmania. James is all about efficiency in business, it's what drove him to co-create Varicon.    James helps small to medium business owners, especially startups by convincing them to be as efficient as possible and recommending them to use the BMC (Business Model Canvas), which he states is a powerful tool for business owners. It shows all of the key building blocks of the business and how it comes together, aiding business owners in being efficient in costs. Leading to a well-understood value proposition. James has spoken from experience that “before we go and spend a lot of effort on something, we want to find out how we can do this as cheaply as possible, with as little possible capital investment.” This Cast Covers: The importance of efficiency in business startups. Carefully evading possible risks. Proving the significance of your product in the market. A business owner should be an expert. The advantages and disadvantages of being an expert. Generating capital for the startup. Constantly thinking of ways to innovate. Finding ways to involve customers in your business. Utilizing the Business Model Canvas. Business owners should be more curious and humble, listen to customers. Links:  James' Linkedin Additional Resources: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses   _______________________________________________________________________   Quotes: “So we went through before even incorporating our business, we spent about a year just interviewing as many potential customers as we could.” — James Baker. “So as a business owner, you might be the expert in this thing that you do. And sometimes being an expert is a massive advantage. But sometimes it can be a big disadvantage.” — James Baker. “But the experimentation journey didn't definitely didn't finish there. We're doing it all the time. And a lot of the time, we're doing things like things very manually, that will be done in the future by software.” — James Baker. “But the reality is that for someone to come and ask for something doesn't cost them anything. Whereas on that journey, we get our customers more and more involved. And this is what any small business owner can be doing.” — James Baker. “If there was one thing that I could recommend to any business owner to do is to be more curious and to be humble.” — James Baker.   __________________________________________________________________________ Music from https://filmmusic.io “Cold Funk” by Kevin MacLeod https://incompetech.com. License: CC by http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this special episode, host Brian Thompson shares how to build a proper foundation for your business to ensure it can support long-standing success. He outlines eight essential tasks to check off when starting a company that can help minimize risk and give you a solid foundation. Episode Highlights Starting a business can be daunting and setting up a solid foundation to grow from is critical for future success. Here are eight first steps to start your business on solid ground. Step 1: Pick your company name. As new parents know, picking a name isn't as easy as it may sound. A business name can ultimately help -- or hinder -- your success.  A good business name not only communicates who you are and what you do but also drives branding and marketing efforts. When thinking of business names, it helps to clarify your vision and purpose, know your ideal clients, and how you'll add value. Creating a one-page business plan can also help you think clearly. “Remember that a name doesn't have to be perfect. You can change it as you need to.” Step 2: Pick a business structure. Your business structure is the legal framework of the company you're building. Common small business organizational structures include limited liability companies (LLC), partnerships, and S corporations. The type of business structure you choose will impact numerous aspects of your business, from the paperwork you need to file to how you pay taxes. “While taxes shouldn't be the only concern when picking a business structure, you'll want to consult with a tax professional to make sure you're making the best choice for your situation.” Step 3: Register your business. Once you have a business name and structure, it's time to register your business. In most states, you can register with the Secretary of State's office. However, if you want to protect your name on a national level, consider registering with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Also, don't forget to make sure your company can be found on the web! Before registering, check website domain registrars like GoDaddy and Google Domains to ensure your domain is still available. Step 4: Apply for your Employer Identification Number. Similar to a Social Security number, your Employer Identification Number (EIN) is a federal tax number used to identify your business. You can use it to get a business license, open bank accounts, obtain credit lines, and pay taxes. Technically, you don't need an EIN unless you have employees or plan to form a partnership, LLC, or corporation. But even if you don't need an EIN, it doesn't hurt to have one. It can keep your personal Social Security number private. “You can apply online in just a couple of minutes and reduce the chance of identity theft.” Step 5: Get a business license and permits. All sorts of complex rules exist with different licensures. Depending on what type of industry you're in, a federal, state, or local agency may regulate your business. You'll likely need a state, county, or city license, and you may need permits or state registrations to do business across state lines. “Make sure to research your state, county, and city regarding regulations for your particular type of business.” Step 6: Open bank accounts and set up a cash flow system. With the regulatory hurdles out of the way, it's time to look at the operational side of your business. It's essential to get a business account and set up your cash flow system. Opening separate bank accounts will keep your business and personal assets separate, which is critical for tax and legal purposes. It also establishes your company as a separate entity should you need a loan and allow you to set up merchant accounts for faster payment. Having an account is one thing, but successfully managing your cash flow is another. Mike Michalowicz's Profit First System is a great way to ensure that your business is profitable, that you're ready for your quarterly tax bill, and that you're paying yourself a reasonable wage. Step 7: Get an accounting system. While you're addressing operations, it's a great time to set up an accounting system like QuickBooks or Wave. These systems allow you to start tracking your business income and expenses right away. They also help you take advantage of tax deductions. “As a tax attorney, I represented clients who didn't keep good records before the IRS and it was brutal. It's much easier to start the habit early.” Step 8: Find the proper insurance. Now that you have a business, you're going to want to protect it. One way to do that is by getting the appropriate type of insurance. Common types of business insurance include general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, and home-based business insurance. “While your business structure will protect you from personal lawsuits, you'll want to make sure your business is protected as well.” Resources + Links Articles “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.” Eric Ries. “One-Page Business Plan Templates.” Susan Ward, The Balance Small Business. Websites Fizzle U.S. Small Business Administration United States Patent and Trademark Office “Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) Online.” IRS Tools The Profit First system by Mike Michalowicz Relay Quickbooks Wave More From Brian “Purpose And Profit: 4 Keys To Creating A Profitable Mission-Driven Business.” Forbes. “Can I Deduct That As A Business Expense?” Forbes. “Should I make an S-Corp Election?” BT Financial. Episode 7: Being Profit First with Mike Michalowcz Brian's Social Media: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast  Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.

I want to share some of the biggest areas impact driven entrepreneurs waste their time and money. To help you stop pouring your money into the things that will not move the needle. Within this podcast episode, I'm going to share my personal lessons on how I started making money in my business without a fancy website, branding and perfect offerings. Try instead to focus on investing your time in the 3 things I'm going to share from my decade of experience mentoring startups and impact driven entrepreneurs. If you LOVED the episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift. KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS The 3 things you need to stop wasting your time and money on in your business The 3 things you need to try instead My personal experience and those of my clients SHOW RESOURCES CHECK out Bring Your Vision to Life - HERE READ this book “ The Lean Startup - How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries” - HERE CHECK out my podcast with Jade - HERE CHECK out my podcast with Emma - HERE FOLLOW me on INSTAGRAM - HERE FREE tools and guides to support your journey - HERE Join the FREE FACEBOOK COMMUNITY - HERE Find out more about how to WORK WITH ME - HERE If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift. Bless it be. With love, Laetitia!

Do you like puzzles? If you do, you're far from alone. An estimated 50 million people do crosswords every day and more than 450 million Rubik's Cubes have been sold. People like puzzles. In his new book, today's guest, A.J. Jacobs, quotes Maki Kaji—the late godfather of Sudoku, who said puzzles are a journey, articulated with just two punctuation marks: ? → ! “Kaji said the key is to embrace the middle part, the arrow, the journey. Don't be obsessed with endings and perfection.” Today, we're talking about that arrow, the journeys we find ourselves on, and the different ways puzzles can come up in our lives. More About A.J.: A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer, and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self-help. Today we're talking about his latest book, The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life.

Daphne Koller is the co-founder of Incubate, a social enterprise that helps entrepreneurs build companies. She's also the author of "So You Want to be CEO: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Your Dreams into a Reality" and "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses". In this episode, we talk about insolations, multicuspid teeth, and how to make the best gestures.

In today's edition of Sunday Book Review: ·      The Business of the 21st Century by Robert Kiyosaki ·      The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries ·      Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Theil ·      Sustainability and Supply Chain Management 12th edition Jay Heizer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we choose ambitious goals, we're going to create stories about them. But nothing lasts forever: our jobs, our achievements, our friends, our relationships... or our stories. If we attach our identities to ephemeral stories (and aren't all our stories ephemeral?), we will suffer.Noah Rasheta, the host of the Secular Buddhism podcast and author of three books on Buddhism, abandons the story he told himself and others, that he was a successful entrepreneur. He takes us on a journey of self-discovery, finding comfort with unknown challenges, changing stories, and new pivots that may be needed. From entrepreneur to school bus driver to ... well, you decide if he's an entrepreneur or just having fun.LinksMindful Agility Web Site, for links to the Mindful Agility podcast, resources, and blogSecular Buddhism Web Site, for links to the Secular Buddhism podcast and resourcesSteve Blank, "Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything," Harvard Business Review (May 2013).Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Currency (2011).

Check out Meez: www.getmeez.comMeez on Instagram - [@getmeez]Meez on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/getmeezKorin: Justinkhanna.com/KorinDoorDash: Justinkhanna.com/DoordashYelp: Justinkhanna.com/YelpCheck out Meez: www.getmeez.comMeez on Instagram - [@getmeez]Meez on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/getmeezThe E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It - https://amzn.to/3tsYURcHigh Output Management - https://amzn.to/373R1dpSetting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business - https://amzn.to/3CetqC7Re-Work - https://amzn.to/3vCTxl3The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - https://amzn.to/3HGsQyqPlaying Bigger Than You Are: How to Sell Big Accounts Even if You're David in a World of Goliaths - https://amzn.to/36W3XBXFooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets - https://amzn.to/3hFeu6MZero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - https://amzn.to/3hBDbRk—What's next?

Every start-up and entrepreneur faces the challenge of reaching and attracting clients. However, content marketing comes in handy when surviving and thriving in the industry without pitching the goods. Hence, developing an online content platform that draws new clients is critical to business success. First, however, it is vital to understand how to position yourself as an informational leader in your niche and create well-liked content produced by traditional media companies. Today, our guest is someone who coined the term "content marketing" way back in 2001. It has since grown to become the fastest growing industry in the internet marketing industry. Joe Pulizzi, the author of 'Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses,' joins us today to share his wisdom on content creation and content marketing.Content Inc. has been a top direct marketing bestseller since September 2015. Through this book, Joe introduces a new business model that uncovers how entrepreneurs with limited resources can build a massive online audience as the engine that drives their entire businesses. In addition, this book suggests a systematic process any entrepreneur or small business owner can use to dominate the market without initially selling anything.Other than being an author, Joe is a successful entrepreneur, speaker, and podcast host. Over his career, Joe has spoken at over 400 sites in 16 countries to promote content marketing. From Fortune Magazine's Leadership Summit to SXSW to NAMM to Nestle to DuPont to SAP to HP and Dell, he has given keynote talks at various high-profile events and organizations.Starting the conversation, Joe states how his two children and his desire to help people motivate him right now in his life. Joe started his career in publishing, and then he found out something called content marketing. Although Joe shifted his writings to mysteries and thrillers later, he is back as a content creator, focusing on a whole new business. In his words, these days, he is going down the rabbit hole. In 2007, Joe left a six-figure job as an executive to start his own business. He has founded several companies, including the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). It is the top content marketing educational resource for enterprise brands, which Inc. magazine named the fastest growing business media company in 2014 and 2015. Moreover, Joe is the founder of The Tilt, an email newsletter. Through this, he aims to assist lonely content creators in turning their business into a content empire. The Content Council named Joe as the winner of the 2014 John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, fortune Magazine named Joe's third book, Epic Content Marketing, one of the "Five Must Read Business Books of the Year" in 2013. Killing Marketing, his most recent book, was released in September of this year. ResourcesConnect with JoeLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joepulizzi/Twitter: twitter.com/JoePulizziInstagram: instagram.com/joepulizzi/Mentioned in the podcastContent Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses: goodreads.com/book/show/26222932-content-inc?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=0nro1aQ24E&rank=1MrBeast YouTube Channel: youtube.com/c/MrBeast6000

Félix Bélisle-Dockrill is the co-founder of Axya. With a background in mechanical engineering, Félix co-founded Axya in 2019. Having worked at Bombardier in supplier quality control, he witnessed first-hand the complexities of dealing with suppliers and managing global supply chains. Since then, Axya has connected its network over 450+ buyers to 250+ local Axya suppliers specialized in metalworking parts. They have enabled numerous companies to localize portions of their global supply chains and mitigate the impacts of worldwide production delays— especially those caused by the unprecedented circumstances of the past year. Axya is now a team of 30+ employees working from anywhere in the world. Aim to be data-driven and multifaceted in my management approach, and Félix is constantly looking for ways to improve his leadership and lifelong learner skills. He was swimming at a competitive level while studying, and he did martial arts my whole life. Before launching his first business, he opened a martial arts school and taught for one year. He runs around 40km a week to stay in shape, and he looks forward to training again with partners. Books recommended in the show; Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, by Gino Wickman. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, by Erin Meyer The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, by John Doerr Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, by Timothy Lister & Tom DeMarco Feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn here; https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-adrien-belisle-dockrill Learn more about his business here; https://axya.co/en https://ca.linkedin.com/company/axyaplatform. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/grad4

This is another Bali special episode, but before you zone off, this one is eCommerce and Amazon related, so stay on the line. My guest today is Daniel Fernandez. Daniel is the CEO and Founder of AMZ Clever. His team helps sellers grow their sales on Amazon. His secret is simply the large number of hours he has spent looking at Amazon sales and ads data for his clients which is why now he knows what works and what doesn't work. His services include Amazon Marketplace Management, PPC Advertising Management, and AMS Advertising Management. Daniel is also very well-traveled. So today we are going to talk about Amazon, about Daniels' journey, and about travels.   Links from the episode: Apple Inc. - https://www.apple.com/ Tai Lopez - https://www.tailopez.com/ “Life On Fire” Masterminds by Nick Unsworth - https://lifeonfire.com/   Books Daniel Recommend: “Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!” by Robert Kiyosaki - https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor?tag=10mj-20 “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” by Simon Sinek - https://www.amazon.com/Start-With-Why?tag=10mj-20 “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time” by Brian Tracy  - https://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog?tag=10mj-20 “Managing Oneself: The Key to Success” by Peter Drucker - https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Oneself?tag=10mj-20 “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Ries - https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup?tag=10mj-20 “Work The System” by Sam Carpenter - https://www.amazon.com/Work-The-System?tag=10mj-20 “No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent: No Holds Barred, Take No Prisoners, Guide to Getting Really Rich”, by Dan Kennedy - https://www.amazon.com/No-BS-Marketing-?tag=10mj-20   Connect with Daniel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfernandezamazon/ Email Address: daniel@amzclever.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielfernandez888 Company Website and Social Media: AMZ Clever - https://www.amzclever.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/amzclever/   Want to sit down with Anatoly 1 on 1 ? Even though I keep saying I AM NOT A GURU, many of you ask to sit down and pick my brain. I have decided to do a 1h HELP calls. There are 2 purposes: 1st to support you in your journey and second also to be able to break even on the production of this podcast (each episode editing, marketing, guest research etc takes about $60 - $150 to produce). Now you can schedule 1h with me, and we can talk about launching products, hiring, product research, keywords, mindset, how I did an Ironman or anything at all. Link is here - https://calendly.com/anatolyspektor/anatoly-connsulting-1h    ANATOLY's TOOLS:   Product Development: Helim10 - I use it for  Product Research, Keyword tracking and Listing Optimization .  SPECIAL DEAL: Get 50% your first month or 10% every month: http://bit.ly/CORNERSIIH10  Pickfu - I use it for split testing all of my products and for validation ideas .  SPECIAL DEAL: First split test 50% 0ff  https://www.pickfu.com/10mj Trademarking: Trademark Angels - For all my trademarking needs.  SPECIAL: Mention Anatoly and 10MJ podcast and get 10% Off your trademark.   HR: Fiverr -  I hire my 3dMockup person and images label designer here on Fiverr - http://bit.ly/10mjFIVERR Upwork - I hire people long term on Upwork - upwork.com  Loom.com - for creating SOP's, I record everything on Loom and give to my VA's Keepa.com - to track historical data such as prices   ANATOLY's  3 Favorite  Business Books: DotCom Secrets by Russel Brunson - I think this is a must read for every online entrepreneurs - http://bit.ly/10MJDotCom 4 hours work week by Tim Ferriss  - This book changed my life and made my become an entrepreneur - http://bit.ly/10MJ4WW The Greatest Salesman In The World  by Og Mandino - Old book but it goes to the core of selling -  http://bit.ly/10MJGREATSM    DISCLAIMER: Some Links are affiliate, it costs you nothing, but helps to keep this podcast on the float   Have questions? Go to https://www.10millionjourney.com Follow us on Instagram: @10millionjourney

Harsh Pokharna and I discuss how to make apps for Bharath, unusual influencers, cracking Y Combinator, building Trust, killing idea babies and so much more!Resources Mentioned:Lean Startup - How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.Y CombinatorPS: Proceeds from the Amazon link above go to my Thick Chocolate Shake Fund. Thanks In advance.About our sponsor: Kaleyra, Inc. (NYSE American: KLR, KLR WS) serves omni-channel communication solutions to businesses worldwide. It is a globally trusted cloud communication platform that helps enterprises and organizations connect with billions of users in a scalable, reliable, and secure manner.To know more about Kaleyra's offerings, visit http://bit.ly/38KcPJ5Stay in touch:LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/3cGxUFpTwitter - https://bit.ly/3vtjBN7Facebook - http://bit.ly/3rX46LdInstagram - https://bit.ly/38OLo0IReach out to Harsh:Instagram: elpsykongroo_Linkedin: Harsh PokharnaOkCredit: https://okcredit.in/  

Chris Yeh is an entrepreneur, investor and author of several books, including two with the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, the most recent of which is called "Blitzscaling." Today we cover the fascinating topic of blitzscaling - how to scale a business in record time, how to take advantage of significant market opportunities that are in front of you, how to focus on distribution, and leverage network effects. Whether you're a founder, a CEO, an investor in early stage companies, a developer, or leading a business unit or a function in a large organisation which might be at risk of going ex-growth, you'll learn valuable lessons from a lifelong learner such as Chris Yeh. What is Covered:  - The definition of blitzscaling: prioritising speed over efficiency in the environment of uncertainty - What kind of companies can blitzscale and in what kind of markets - Key growth factors and key growth limiters in blitzscaling - The counterintuitive rules of blitzscaling and what kind of CEO it requires - Examples of the companies which successfully blitzscaled  Key Learnings and Takeaways:  - A company would decide to blitzscale if it is facing a winner take most market that could be worth billions or trillions of dollars, and the company's objective should be to win that market. - In blitzscaling, product market fit is necessary but insufficient; necessary, because without product market fit, you can't have sustainable success, but insufficient, because other things like the winner take most market and the distribution are ultimately more important. - The reason to raise the money is not to spend it, but to give you that ability to adapt, and then ultimately to move faster when the time comes.  - The main danger for entrepreneurs is getting caught up in a local market that is not large enough to give them a stable position within the overall global economy. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:  - “Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies” by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh https://www.blitzscaling.com/  - “The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age” by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh https://www.amazon.com/Alliance-Managing-Talent-Networked-Age/dp/1625275773  - “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Ries https://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Eric-Ries-audiobook/dp/B005MM7HY8/  - Blitzscaling Ventures https://www.blitzscalingvc.com/  - Blitzscaling Academy https://www.blitzscalingacademy.com/  - Chris Yeh Podcast https://anchor.fm/chris-yeh-podcast  - Chris Yeh Website https://chrisyeh.com/  - Greylock Partners https://greylock.com/  - Greymatter Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/greymatter/id1089013200  - Sahar Hashemi OBE: Anyone Can Do It - Sahar's Remarkable Entrepreneurial Journey on OutsideVoices https://outsidelens.com/anyone-can-do-it-sahars-remarkable-entrepreneurial-journey/  - Safi Bachall: Loonshots - Innovation Through the Lens of a Physicist on OutsideVoices https://outsidelens.com/safi-bachall-loonshots-innovation-though-the-lens-of-a-physicist/  Connect with Mark Bidwell: - LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbidwell/  - Twitter https://twitter.com/markehb

Jonathan Puddle is the author of You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You, and is a pastor and podcast host himself. Today, Jonathan shares the first time he was moved by the Holy Spirit, deconstructing his faith for a season, and falling in love with Jesus all over again. Jonathan's love for the Lord comes through as he shares his story and it's a really beautiful way to reflect on the goodness and nearness of Him. Jonathan's story reminds us that God loves us deeply. Listen to Jonathan's story now! Stories Jonathan shared: Quitting his day job to become a writer Growing up as a YWAM kid around the world Moving to Toronto to join the Toronto blessing His mom leading him through the “sinner's prayer” at four Being moved at a Delirious concert by the Holy Spirit How to think about supernatural experiences Getting into the house church movement Experiencing God while making pizza with a friend Deconstructing shortly after he got married Moving to Finland and not going to church for a season Discovering Jesus through the Eastern tradition How church history helped him Going to a Roman Catholic church and drawing from multiple Christian streams How the Holy Spirit spoke to him about his faith community Deciding to start his podcast Great quotes from Jonathan: I never renounced the faith that's never occurred to me I just couldn't make it all work in the package I'd been given. When you're in the wilderness, God feeds you from his own hand. We were taught that pride is the unworthy thing and the antidote is self-hatred. [That experience] has given me a faith in God's willingness and God's ability to come and disrupt our lives. The issue with pride is self-righteousness not thinking too highly of yourself. Resources we mentioned: Jonathan's website You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices by Frank Viola Related episodes: Paul Edwards and Serving God's Other Children Tricia Lott Williford and How God Works in the Waiting Iain Bradbeer and God as the Architect The post Jonathan Puddle and the Nearness of God appeared first on Eric Nevins.

Starting your own business with little to no knowledge can only get you so far. To see your vision through, you need business development strategies in place.  In this episode, Jon Margalit shares the things he learned in his entrepreneurship journey. He discusses the importance of building the best team by hiring people with strong values. Jon also talks about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. He emphasizes the need for innovation and creativity. Along the way, entrepreneurs should also know how to identify and pitch to investors. It comes down to knowing your product, your customer, and your investor.  If you are interested to learn some successful business development tips, this episode is for you. Tune in and apply some of these to your business today! Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Find out how Jon effectively merchandises his goods to big retailers. Explore essential strategies in building your team. Learn more about raising capital and attracting investors for business development. Resources Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Interview with Brad Martineau Some resources where you can find angel investors:   Pasadena Angels Tech Coast Angels Orange County Angel Network Archangels Investors Crunchbase AngelList Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Episode Highlights Jon's Background At an early age, Jon recognized that he didn't want to work for anyone. Jon's first attempt in business was when he spent $5,000 for a sandwich shop. After two weeks, he found himself cleaning the bathrooms and making sandwiches. Running this business has taught him to be cautious in choosing opportunities in his life. If you want to buy a brick-and-mortar business, observe the traffic that's going into the business. Listen to the full episode to know how Jon was able to turn the business around and sell it.  The Key to Business Development Business development won't happen if you don't have the people driving it. To accomplish this, pay yourself less or equal to the amount you pay to those you hired.  You will eventually earn more in the future; sacrificing early on is the key.  In the early period of your business, take the profit and invest it back into the business.  By doing so, you invest in your team members. They, in turn, will buy into your vision.  The Definition of an Entrepreneur Jon explains that somebody who tries to start a business without turning a profit yet is just canoeing. Jon emphasized that entrepreneurs should initiate things.  Jon differentiates this from business owners who buy a franchise. They didn't have to do marketing, branding, and product development. A true entrepreneur is somebody who creates. They identify a problem and innovate a solution. Building the Best Team Jon believes that references and resumes are irrelevant. What he does is conduct extensive interviews with applicants. Salespeople usually like the colour green. Jon observes that candidates who identified one of their parents as their role models had better values. They were successful and stayed with him for a long time.  When Jon built a finance business, he looked for people who had strong values, understood people's needs, and were good listeners.  Justifications on Sharing Profits For Jon, the only thing that matters in a business is sales. As you undergo business development, see which areas you can use to generate profit. You need to add more revenue streams and profit centers to the business. Next, crack the code in marketing by conditioning your buyers to spend money on as many places as they can. Listen to the full episode to learn how integrating a dry cleaning spindle increased the sales in Jon's sandwich shop.  Acquiring Capital for Business Development Jon shares that investors want to see you stretch money to get traction. They want to know if the entrepreneur has a way to address and minimize the risks. If an investor sees that you have a well-oiled machine that has yielded profits, they'll be more confident that you can grow.  You need to be methodical when dealing with money. Test out what works and what doesn't in small chunks.  Remember to report your financials to your investors.  How to Pitch to Investors Jon shares that he raises money for his business by cold emailing angel investors on LinkedIn. “You don't want to miss out on this.” Jon uses this phrase to attract investors. Attend as many networking events as you can.  Look for angel networks in your community.  Join pitch competitions. You know your business if your pitch is 3 minutes or less.  More Tips from Jon For Jon, keeping rejected emails as notes is a huge motivation. There was an instance where an investor outlined his reasons for not supporting Jon. He kept this in a folder with other rejections.  Jon looks forward to when he can email those who said no and say that they missed out.  Getting into Retail In major and big-box retailers, it is important to understand your audience. The key is to create a concise pitch deck or product deck.  You write an email to your buyers about your next big product. Instead of marketing your product to the big retailers, focus on how you can sell the product to their customers. You need to know how to merchandise correctly. Learn the specific details in the full episode. Making Slides to Get into Retail You attach the slides to the emails you send to the big box retailers. The slides contain your product, the problem, the solution to the problem, and merchandising.  In this instance, you're showing that your product can solve a problem that a target group has.  5 Powerful Quotes “You can have a great business model; you can have a great business plan; you can have a great idea. But if you don't have great people executing, it means nothing; it's worth zero.”  “When you take that money, and you put it right back into your people, it will pay back 100 fold. I promise.” “I feel that the true entrepreneur is somebody that innovates, somebody that creates, somebody that disrupts what's going on, not somebody that jumps in the stream that's already going one way and just start swimming with it.” “You want to spend the least amount of money possible and get the most traction. And just because you get funding, that's not a green light to go spend money. It is in a way as long as you're methodical about it and you do your testing in small chunks that are controlled.” “And I have a folder in my email that says, you know, ‘Nos,' and putting those nos in there. And I do it for a reason. It's because it's so much motivation.” About Our Guest Jon Margalit is the founder and CEO of Togally.com. His company is an innovative online photography platform aiming to “uberize” the sourcing and booking of local photographers. He is also the CEO of TowelMate. This company is a consumer product startup dedicated to solving key and mobile phone storage for gym users. Jon graduated from San Diego University with a strong background in business management, sales and marketing, and merchandising. He has over 12 years of experience in startup business development. In this period, Jon has launched various startups from financial service businesses to consumer packaged goods.  Jon won first place at the 2018 Lyfebulb and UnitedHealth Group Startup Pitch Competition. He was also awarded at the 2015 CyberTECH'S Pitchfest for his Togally pitch. If you want to reach out to Jon, you can email him directly at jon@togally.com. Learn more about his businesses at togally.com and TowelMate. Enjoyed This Podcast? Jon shares some business development tips and tricks to help aspiring entrepreneurs hit the ground running.  If you enjoyed the podcast, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so this can inspire them to take ownership of their lives. For episode updates, visit our website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.  PS. Do you already have a successful business, meaning you're up, running, and paying your bills with some profit left over? Are you interested in growing your business, automating/streamlining things, and staying one step ahead of your competition?

David Gagnon is a researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the director of the learning research lab Field Day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the course of our conversation, we hammer out a definition of learning, discuss David's work creating educational video games for elementary school students, and talk about how to create environments that foster experimentation, curiosity, and, ultimately, growth. During the episode, we touched on: - Learning—what is it? What isn't it? - Dave's social constructivist approach to learning - Literacy—what does it mean today? And the New London Group's multiliteracy manifesto - Using video games for learning (e.g., Jo Wilder and the Capitol Case created by David's research lab) - The desire—in business, in education—to be right all the time… even when being “wrong” fosters learning - The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (2011) by Eric Reis - The humility that can come from having an understanding of complex, complicated systems - If it's possible to go overboard with radical transparency when working with outside partners? - Deschooling Society (1971) by the radical Catholic priest Ivan Illich - Attending to participants' feelings when navigating organizational change… and how artists and storytellers can lead the way

John and Mark X. Cronin are a father-son team that founded John's Crazy Socks. John is an entrepreneur who just happens to have Down syndrome. You may know them for being named EY Entrepreneurs of the Year or testifying before Congress or speaking at the UN. You may know them because John became “Sock Buddies” with President George H.W. Bush. Or you may know them for having grown a bootstrapped start-up to a $5 million dollar business in less than three years.  John's Crazy Socks is an internationally recognized social enterprise with a mission to spread happiness and show what people with differing abilities can do.  Their mission infuses all aspects of their business. More than half of their employees have a differing ability. Their Giving Back Program starts with a 5 percent pledge of profits to the Special Olympics and has raised over $375,000 for their charity partners. They have attracted over 27,000 online five-star reviews. John's Crazy Socks has over 230,000 Facebook followers and 50,000 Instagram followers. You will love their socks, but the socks are just the physical manifestation of the happiness they share. Here's What We Cover in This Episode Test your ideas People have differing abilities, not disabilities Know your values Know your purpose 4 Pillars to build upon- inspiration and hope, giving back, socks you can love, making it personal John and Mark's Book Recommendation https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591846447/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=successascent-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591846447&linkId=98353e98d401bbba1e37f3d3403e0381 (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307887898/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=successascent-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0307887898&linkId=4437bffd49758edba6ce2690fec34f04 (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries) Connect with John & Mark https://johnscrazysocks.com/ (Website) https://www.facebook.com/johnscrazysocks/ (Facebook) https://twitter.com/JohnsCrazySocks (Twitter) https://www.instagram.com/johnscrazysocks (Instagram)

Irina's changing the world one entrepreneur at a time by helping to create self-managing teams. She's an executive coach and IT project manager. She's also the founder of TrackMage.com, a shipment tracking software for eCommerce businesses. And she is a certified Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Needless to say, Irina is a master of project management. In this episode, we discuss the differences between Agile and Lean project management, the common theme that leads to all challenges in project management, what is a knowledge base, the story of how she started her company while living in China, and more! Connect with Irina on LinkedIn or at Trackmage.com You can also get a free report at: trackmage.com/boost5x Resources mentioned: Lean Six Sigma Here's a great YouTube video that explains Agile Methodologies in more detail Notion: One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized. This is the knowledge base application that Irina mentioned. Jira [Project Management Software for Developers] ClickUp (a personal favorite of mine when it comes to project management tools) A book that wasn't mentioned in this episode but, one that I have found to be immensely useful is “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Ries. If you want to start your own business or work specifically in a start-up environment, I recommend reading this first! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kennysoto/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kennysoto/support

In this episode of Small Business Connections, Ann talks about entrepreneurship, their passion for helping small businesses, and the Lean Framework with Brad Eisenburg of BELeanBusiness.com. Brad got an early start in entrepreneurship and he had many signs that showed him the way. Brad went from Mechanical Engineering to Engineering Businesses. As a child, Brad wanted to design roller coasters, pursued an engineering degree at the University of Maryland and while at school fell in love with entrepreneurship. Brad's passion for helping businesses developed while working on a school project where he developed a bicycle-sharing company paired with working for an energy efficiency business. Brad saw ways to incorporate a new concept with the bicycles and ways to improve the energy business's efficiency. Brad helps small businesses adopt "Lean" strategies and technology to become scaleable. He enjoys building systems and showing companies how to be a sustainable business. Brad focuses on helping businesses save time, money and build consistency all the way through their processes. Brad offers a free Lean Assessment Tool for you to explore and find one thing you can fix or streamline in your business today. The Be Lean Assessment will help you pinpoint the weakest link and give you recommendations to improve and obtain your business goals.   Brad's Favorite Books of Business The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey This episode is brought to you by ChimneyTEK, Maryland's Trusted Chimney & Fireplace Experts for 26 years. ChimneyTEK has serviced thousands of Maryland homes and is committed to keeping homes and families warmer and safer since 1994. Family-owned and operated, licensed and insured, full-service chimney and venting care at your service. Ann reminds everyone to have their chimney inspected before you have your first fire of the season. The Small Business Connections Podcast is hosted by Ann Brennan, owner of ASMM Digital Marketing. The podcast was created as a means of helping her clients build a community around their brands. Since its inception, the podcast has grown to include guests from around the world and has been listened to in over 20 countries. Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe.  

Send Message Please support our Podcast by clicking the link below. Thank you! https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support Book Summary: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support

Send Message Please support our Podcast by clicking the link below. Thank you! https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support Book Summary: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support

Send Message Please support our Podcast by clicking the link below. Thank you! https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support Book Summary: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support

Send Message Please support our Podcast by clicking the link below. Thank you! https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support Book Summary: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support

Send Message Please support our Podcast by clicking the link below. Thank you! https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support Book Summary: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support

Send Message Please support our Podcast by clicking the link below. Thank you! https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support Book Summary: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaudiobookspodcast/support

Episode 163: Best-Selling Author and Career Coach Dan Miller shares his entrepreneurial successes and failures and how he guided his children who also entrepreneurs. Guest Biography Dan is author of the New York Times best-selling 48 Days To The Work You Love  Over 140,000 people have subscribed to his weekly newsletter, his 48 Days Podcast consistently ranks in the top 3 under Careers on iTunes, helping those seeking to find – or create – work they love.  In this episode, you'll learn: How having a positive outlook has helped Dan get out of tight financial spots including once being $430k in debt The importance of planting seeds with our children Examples of people (Dan's kids) finding their zone of genius and finding their purpose Show notes: http://www.inspiredmoney.fm/163 Find more from our guest: www.48days.com Special Landing page for Inspired Money Makers 48 Days Podcast 48 Days DISC Personality Profiles Facebook Twitter YouTube Mentioned in this episode: Zig Ziglar Dr. Wayne Dyer Earl Nightingale Brian Tracy Deepak Chopra Ray Edwards, a Direct Response Copywriter and Communications Strategist Michael Hyatt, Top Leadership Expert and Business Coach Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income Tom Ziglar Mark Victor Hansen Books: 48 Days to the Work and Life You Love by Dan Miller A View from the Top: Moving from Success to Significance by Zig Ziglar Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh  Chicken Soup for the Soul by Mark Victor Hansen Runnymede Money Tip of the Week This is when making a career decision based on money is a good idea by Anisa Purbasari Horton Join the Inspired Money 30-day Fear Challenge Inspired Money Maker of the Week: Lael Sturm of LPSS Thanks for Listening! To share your thoughts: Leave a note in the comment section below. Share this show on Twitter or Facebook. Join us at the Inspired Money Makers groups at facebook and LinkedIn To help out the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser.com, or wherever you listen. Your ratings and reviews really help, and I read each one. Email me your address, and I'll mail you an autographed copy of Kimo West and Ken Emerson's CD, Slackers in Paradise. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Special thanks to Jim Kimo West for the music.

In today’s episode, Jeffrey Palermo sits down virtually with Daniel Vacanti, the co-founder and CEO of ActionableAgile.    Daniel is a 20-year software industry veteran who got his start as a Java Developer/Architect. He has spent most of the last 15 years focusing on Lean and Agile Practices. In 2007, he helped develop the Kanban Method for knowledge work. He even managed the world’s first project implementation of Kanban that year and, ever since, has been conducting Kanban training, coaching, and consulting. As the co-founder and CEO of ActionableAgile, Daniel provides industry-leading predictive analytics tools and services for any Lean-Agile process.   Daniel Vacanti shares all about how teams can optimize their software process through better forecasting and predictability. He highlights some of the major recurring lessons that he advises teams about, his recommendations for getting started with the forecasting and predicting, and tips for managers struggling to get the right results with the software process. He also shares some general advice for management and teams starting from scratch on how to get more stuff done, mitigate risk, and more!   Topics of Discussion: [:38] Be sure to visit AzureDevOps.Show for past episodes and show notes. [:46] About The Azure DevOps Podcast and Jeffrey’s offer to speak at virtual user groups. [1:42] About today’s episode with Brady Gaster! [1:55] Jeffrey welcomes Brady to the podcast. [2:07] Daniel shares some of the backstory of how Kanban began. [3:29] How Daniel views DevOps and why Kanban is a great fit for it. [4:17] Daniel highlights some of the major recurring lessons that he advises teams about the software process, specifically forecastability, and predictability. [8:02] For new project teams being put together, Daniel gives some recommendations with regards to getting started with the forecastability and predictability in the software process. [13:02] Daniel’s tips for managers struggling to get the right results with the software process. [15:15] A word from Azure DevOps Podcast’s sponsor: Clear Measure. [15:46] The fundamental problem with every software organization being that they have more work to do than the capacity will ever be on their team, does that mean that unless there is an intentional governor, that it’s almost guaranteed to be development gridlock? Daniel provides some recommendations on how to tackle many items/tasks through the software process. [18:57] Lessons from Kanban (especially for development managers). [21:32] Daniel’s advice for management, getting more stuff done, and mitigating risk. [25:03] Tips from wise managers. [26:48] Daniel shares his favorite start-up tips and key strategies for teams starting from scratch. [31:24] What does Daniel do to quickly determine the age of items (i.e. how long they have been in progress)? Are there tools that monitor aging for you? [33:53] Daniel speaks about how he likes to get teams started (prior to coding) with Kanban. [35:49] Jeffrey thanks Daniel for joining the podcast. [36:26] Where to find Daniel online.   Mentioned in this Episode: Azure DevOps Clear Measure (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon! bit.ly/dotnetdevopsebook — Click here to download the .NET DevOps for Azure ebook! Jeffrey Palermo’s Youtube Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events! The Azure DevOps Podcast’s Twitter: @AzureDevOpsShow Daniel Vacanti @DanVacanti on Twitter Email: Daniel@ActionableAgile.com  ActionableAgile Kanban Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts, by Annie Duke The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries   Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Tracey Williams, a Service Design Director for Absa Bank in South Africa, discusses learning service design on the job, growing design skills on her team, and building organizational service design standards with Dawan Stanford, your podcast host. Show Summary Tracey’s career didn’t begin in design; she started in financial services, and went through a graduate program focused on business targets and goals. She’d always had an interest in problem-solving, and while working at Absa, she got involved in numerous projects that she found new and exciting outside of her specific role. She had studied marketing, and found that much of the old-school marketing thinking aligned with some of the thinking in design spaces. She submitted an idea to a social entrepreneurship course and was accepted. Tracey then proceeded to learn service design and design thinking as she led her team through development of the idea. Her biggest challenge during the project was using the tools of design, which were still new to her; she had to learn through doing, and through failure and then trying again. She learned that design is about looking at a problem from a different perspective. Tracey hosted the first Absa Women Forum at the Wentworth Angels headquarters to celebrate the role of single mothers and women. Listen in to learn: How Tracey developed her design skills What service design skills she has learned on her job Why she was called a design “Padawan” Who Tracey is bringing onto her team for service design How Tracey is developing new designers at Absa What she wishes more people understood about her work How she protects her work from being devoured by the larger system  Books Tracey used to learn service design on the job Our Guest’s Bio Tracey is a designer with seven years of experience in financial services. She is currently a Service Design Director for the Absa Bank Design Office, where she has played a key role in establishing and demonstrating the value of Service Design. Her teams have worked across different areas of the business and engaged with several stakeholders along the way, including those in Relationship Banking, Business Banking, Card, and most recently, Home Loans. She enjoys working with cross-functional teams to solve complex, wicked problems with solutions that address both customers' needs and meet the business objectives. Beyond the delivery of design work, she has a passion for developing young talent and worked with a colleague to start the first design graduate program at the bank focused on transforming and growing its future design leaders. Show Highlights  [02:33] How Tracey became involved in banking projects early on in her career. [03:43] Tracey’s experiences in a social entrepreneurship course. [06:24] Tracey talks about her early challenges in working with service design. [10:30] Tracey talks about a design graduate program she co-founded with a colleague. [12:30] Her leadership team’s work to create a skills matrix for designers. [14:21] How Tracey is developing new designers to fit the strategic objectives of the bank.  [16:20] Her work to create solid service design standards for the bank. [19:10] What she wishes others understood about service design. [20:39] The concept of “go slow to go fast” and making sure pacing is comfortable and sustainable. [23:13] How Tracey is able to prevent her project being devoured by the larger system.  [25:46] The short term and long term views and value of service design. [30:09] How Tracey is working  to better tell service design success stories to other staff at the bank, and also to the bank’s customers. [32:25] Ways other banks can use service design. [36:27] Maintaining quality within a larger team and keeping up with service design standards. [42:29] Books and resources that have helped Tracey during her journey.   Links Tracey on LinkedIn Design Thinking 101 Fluid Hive Design Innovation Absa Bank SDN Conference 2019 Book Recommendation: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely Book Recommendation: Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman Book Recommendation: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely Book Recommendation: Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Book Recommendation: Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, by Mark Manson   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   A Design Thinking Practitioner’s Shift into Higher Education and the Potential for Design Thinking in Higher Education with Fred Leichter — DT101 E4   Public Sector Design + Outcome Chains + Prototyping for Impact with Boris Divjak — DT101 E26   The Evolution of Teaching and Learning Design with Bruce Hanington — DT101 E39 ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Tracey Williams, a Service Design Director for Absa Bank in South Africa, discusses learning service design on the job, growing design skills on her team, and building organizational service design standards with Dawan Stanford, your podcast host. Show Summary Tracey's career didn't begin in design; she started in financial services, and went through a graduate program focused on business targets and goals. She'd always had an interest in problem-solving, and while working at Absa, she got involved in numerous projects that she found new and exciting outside of her specific role. She had studied marketing, and found that much of the old-school marketing thinking aligned with some of the thinking in design spaces. She submitted an idea to a social entrepreneurship course and was accepted. Tracey then proceeded to learn service design and design thinking as she led her team through development of the idea. Her biggest challenge during the project was using the tools of design, which were still new to her; she had to learn through doing, and through failure and then trying again. She learned that design is about looking at a problem from a different perspective. Tracey hosted the first Absa Women Forum at the Wentworth Angels headquarters to celebrate the role of single mothers and women. Listen in to learn: How Tracey developed her design skills What service design skills she has learned on her job Why she was called a design “Padawan” Who Tracey is bringing onto her team for service design How Tracey is developing new designers at Absa What she wishes more people understood about her work How she protects her work from being devoured by the larger system  Books Tracey used to learn service design on the job Our Guest's Bio Tracey is a designer with seven years of experience in financial services. She is currently a Service Design Director for the Absa Bank Design Office, where she has played a key role in establishing and demonstrating the value of Service Design. Her teams have worked across different areas of the business and engaged with several stakeholders along the way, including those in Relationship Banking, Business Banking, Card, and most recently, Home Loans. She enjoys working with cross-functional teams to solve complex, wicked problems with solutions that address both customers' needs and meet the business objectives. Beyond the delivery of design work, she has a passion for developing young talent and worked with a colleague to start the first design graduate program at the bank focused on transforming and growing its future design leaders. Show Highlights  [02:33] How Tracey became involved in banking projects early on in her career. [03:43] Tracey's experiences in a social entrepreneurship course. [06:24] Tracey talks about her early challenges in working with service design. [10:30] Tracey talks about a design graduate program she co-founded with a colleague. [12:30] Her leadership team's work to create a skills matrix for designers. [14:21] How Tracey is developing new designers to fit the strategic objectives of the bank.  [16:20] Her work to create solid service design standards for the bank. [19:10] What she wishes others understood about service design. [20:39] The concept of “go slow to go fast” and making sure pacing is comfortable and sustainable. [23:13] How Tracey is able to prevent her project being devoured by the larger system.  [25:46] The short term and long term views and value of service design. [30:09] How Tracey is working  to better tell service design success stories to other staff at the bank, and also to the bank's customers. [32:25] Ways other banks can use service design. [36:27] Maintaining quality within a larger team and keeping up with service design standards. [42:29] Books and resources that have helped Tracey during her journey.   Links Tracey on LinkedIn Design Thinking 101 Fluid Hive Design Innovation Absa Bank SDN Conference 2019 Book Recommendation: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely Book Recommendation: Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman Book Recommendation: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely Book Recommendation: Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Book Recommendation: Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, by Mark Manson   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like   A Design Thinking Practitioner's Shift into Higher Education and the Potential for Design Thinking in Higher Education with Fred Leichter — DT101 E4   Public Sector Design + Outcome Chains + Prototyping for Impact with Boris Divjak — DT101 E26   The Evolution of Teaching and Learning Design with Bruce Hanington — DT101 E39 ________________   Thank you for listening to the show and looking at the show notes. Send your questions, suggestions, and guest ideas to Dawan and the Fluid Hive team. Cheers ~ Dawan   Free Download — Design Driven Innovation: Avoid Innovation Traps with These 9 Steps   Innovation Smart Start Webinar — Take your innovation projects from frantic to focused!

Hear with Rachel Sipperley from the founder of the multi-million dollar fitness app that started her career as a food blogger and used the negativity from a former boss to fuel her fire!What you will learn in this episodePerception of rejection as redirection: hear how Natalie fostered negativity and downspeak from a former boss as inspiration to launch her company What scaling a startup looks like to attract venture capitalThe difference between startups and small business and how it changes fundingHow Natalie's “failed fundraising” impacted the trajectory of their explosive growth and helped them forge the path to profitabilityTangible TipsTest your product on as many people as you can before you decide to build an app and try to build your business without an app if possibleConnect with other founders as much as possible to establish a baseline to help you track progress and establish accountability with goalsTreat workouts like meetings: schedule them & show up to themResourcesCollective 31- group of women entrepreneurs and founders in Dallas - https://www.collectivethirtyone.com/the-collective-listGolden Seeds- Angel Network that only invests in women owned companies - https://goldenseeds.com/The Lean Startup - How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=the+lean+startup&qid=1577126717&sr=8-3More About Natalie Wolfe Natalie Wolfe is the CEO and founder of StudioHop, an all-in-one fitness membership to a variety of boutique gyms. She and her husband and co-founder, Ryan, grew StudioHop from the ground up to a multi-million dollar startup.Born in Dallas, raised in Austin, Natalie graduated from Southern Methodist University with degrees in journalism and Spanish. She's passionate about variety and is a big believer in giving your body what it needs whether that be a yoga class or a chocolate chip cookie. Her goal is to make “working out” fun, friendly and something that gives you the confidence that makes you feel on top of the world. Natalie loves long walks on the Katy Trail with her husband Ryan and puppy Annabelle, weekend getaways to her hometown Austin, Texas and margaritas.You can learn more about Natalie and StudioHop Here:https://www.studiohopfitness.comInstagram: www.instagram.com/studiohopfit | www.instagram.com/thatfoodiegirlFor questions, comments, or to stay in touch please check out Thefemalefounderpodcast.com or email rachel@thefemalefounderpodcast.com

Episode 118: Best-selling author and Content Marketing Institute founder, Joe Pulizzi shares how important goal setting is to your personal life, business, spiritual, and charitable pursuits. Guest Biography Joe Pulizzi is the Amazon bestselling author of Killing Marketing, Content Inc. and Epic Content Marketing, which was named a “Must-Read Business Book” by Fortune Magazine. His latest book is The Will to Die, his debut novel. He has founded three companies, including the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), and has launched dozens of events, including Content Marketing World. In 2014, he received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Content Council. His podcast series, This Old Marketing with CMI's Robert Rose, has generated millions of downloads from over 150 countries. He is also the author of The Random Newsletter, delivered to thousands every two weeks. His Foundation, The Orange Effect, delivers speech therapy and technology services to children in over 25 states. In this episode, you'll learn: Tips for goal setting -- how often you should review them, change them, and different categories. We'll talk about content marketing and the power of an email newsletter. Why periodically unplugging from devices is healthy and can help you see things in a different way. Show notes: http://www.inspiredmoney.fm/118 Find more from our guest: joepulizzi.com LinkedIn.com facebook Twitter instagram Mentioned in this episode: Content Marketing Institute Content Marketing World Conference and Expo The Orange Effect Foundation Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century (Think and Grow Rich Series) by Napoleon Hill The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone I Just Ended a 12-month Sabbatical. This Is What I Learned. Joe's blog post Video: UBM Acquires Content Marketing Institute Video: CMWorld 2015: What is Content Marketing World? Joe's books: Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less by Joe Pulizzi Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses by Joe Pulizzi Killing Marketing: How Innovative Businesses Are Turning Marketing Cost Into Profit by Joe Pulizzi Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi Managing Content Marketing: The Real-World Guide for Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand by Joe Pulizzi The Will to Die by Joe Pulizzi Runnymede Money Tip of the Week 8 ideas for picking a financial goal for 2020. Thanks for Listening! To share your thoughts: Leave a note in the comment section below. Share this show on Twitter or Facebook. Join us at the Inspired Money Makers groups at facebook and LinkedIn To help out the show: Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Your ratings and reviews really help, and I read each one. Email me your address, and I'll mail you an autographed copy of Kimo West and Ken Emerson's CD, Slackers in Paradise. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Special thanks to Jim Kimo West for the music.

She was surviving, but not thriving, and so she decided to reevaluate everything and leave her safe corporate job to lead a social impact startup. Lisa Thee shares the good, the bad, and the ugly of those early days, how to define success for yourself, and how to blow up your career and reinvent it as something that serves you better.   FOLLOW OUR GUEST Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn and Twitter Learn more about Bark and Parenting in a Tech World on Facebook   LINKS TO BOOKS WE DISCUSSED Tribe of Mentors, by Tim Ferriss TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking, Chris Anderson On Managing Yourself, Harvard Business Review Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley, Emily Chang Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World, Rachel Ignotofsky   LINKS TO WHAT WE DISCUSSED Twitter post about Calendly Calendly Lisa's article: “Pivoting My Career Focus: Significance vs. Success” Startup Podcast Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Lean Canvas Model   RATE & REVIEW Rate & Review on iTunes! Leave me a review and let me know what you liked about this episode or what you'd like to hear more about.   CONNECT WITH EMILY On Twitter & LinkedIn - @heyemilykennedy Sign up for the email newsletter: www.emilykennedy.org   QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE “If not me, then who?” “Do I want to impact a million lives, or do I want to make a million dollars?”    Music by: Taste the Vibe - “Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine? (Mungø Remix)” unedited, via Creative Commons

Eric Ries (@ericries) recently joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) in San Francisco to chat with some of the founders of our portfolio companies. Eric is a Village Global LP, friend of the firm, and author of The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.Over the nearly 75-minute session, Eric gave a masterclass in Lean Startup techniques, addressed questions from founders on some of the finer details of the framework, and shared what he has learned from his entrepreneurial journey in the early 2000s as well as more recently as founder of the Long Term Stock Exchange.Eric and Ben start out by talking about uncertainty as the core of a startup and the stark contrast between planning in an early-stage company versus in a large enterprise. Eric points out that those in the startup world take for granted certain startup best practices that “would get you fired in any big company.” He talks about the need for structure around entrepreneurial exploration, including making one’s hypotheses explicit and rigorously testing them.Eric discusses the difference between customer discovery and customer validation. He tells the story of a founder who interviewed prospective customers and was told that the product was great and that they would use it, but that when he asked those same customers to put their name to a letter recommending their bosses purchase the product, not one would do so.“The ideas that sound big are usually not the things that end up big.”They move on to a discussion of pivots and why Eric says that in virtually all cases, after having pivoted, founders say they wish they had done so sooner. He explains why every six weeks is an ideal cadence for a “pivot or persevere” meeting.MVP (minimum viable product) has become household term that was popularized by Eric. He discusses how founders can get over their fear of shipping something they perceive as incomplete and why he says the ideal MVP has “way fewer features than you think it needs.” He fields questions from Village founders on MVPs and talks about how small companies should think about their MVP when targeting large companies as customers.“Engineers always think that more features will solve any problem.”Eric explains what he means when he says that “entrepreneurship is a process of self-discovery” and why managing yourself and your own emotions as a founder can be equally as important as managing those of your team. He also addresses some of the criticisms of the Lean Startup methodology and common misunderstandings of the framework.“I truly believe that entrepreneurship is a process of self-discovery. I think that two people working on the exact same company, encountering the exact same evidence, and deciding on a pivot, would probably choose two different pivots if they had different values. You discover something about what you really care about.”Along the way, they discuss some of the seminal works in entrepreneurship, like The Four Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank and Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Eric Ries (@ericries) recently joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) in San Francisco to chat with some of the founders of our portfolio companies. Eric is a Village Global LP, friend of the firm, and author of The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.Over the nearly 75-minute session, Eric gave a masterclass in Lean Startup techniques, addressed questions from founders on some of the finer details of the framework, and shared what he has learned from his entrepreneurial journey in the early 2000s as well as more recently as founder of the Long Term Stock Exchange.Eric and Ben start out by talking about uncertainty as the core of a startup and the stark contrast between planning in an early-stage company versus in a large enterprise. Eric points out that those in the startup world take for granted certain startup best practices that “would get you fired in any big company.” He talks about the need for structure around entrepreneurial exploration, including making one’s hypotheses explicit and rigorously testing them.Eric discusses the difference between customer discovery and customer validation. He tells the story of a founder who interviewed prospective customers and was told that the product was great and that they would use it, but that when he asked those same customers to put their name to a letter recommending their bosses purchase the product, not one would do so.“The ideas that sound big are usually not the things that end up big.”They move on to a discussion of pivots and why Eric says that in virtually all cases, after having pivoted, founders say they wish they had done so sooner. He explains why every six weeks is an ideal cadence for a “pivot or persevere” meeting.MVP (minimum viable product) has become household term that was popularized by Eric. He discusses how founders can get over their fear of shipping something they perceive as incomplete and why he says the ideal MVP has “way fewer features than you think it needs.” He fields questions from Village founders on MVPs and talks about how small companies should think about their MVP when targeting large companies as customers.“Engineers always think that more features will solve any problem.”Eric explains what he means when he says that “entrepreneurship is a process of self-discovery” and why managing yourself and your own emotions as a founder can be equally as important as managing those of your team. He also addresses some of the criticisms of the Lean Startup methodology and common misunderstandings of the framework.“I truly believe that entrepreneurship is a process of self-discovery. I think that two people working on the exact same company, encountering the exact same evidence, and deciding on a pivot, would probably choose two different pivots if they had different values. You discover something about what you really care about.”Along the way, they discuss some of the seminal works in entrepreneurship, like The Four Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank and Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Tim Church leads another edition of the Side Hustle Series where he talks about ways you can create additional streams of income to reach your financial goals faster. This episode features Dr. TJ Allan, a pharmacist and entrepreneur who owns three gyms and is now teaching others how to open their own gym. Mentioned on the Show LendKey YFP 081: New Year Financial Game Plan Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyoaski Tony Robbins John Maxwell The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Business Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller Contact TJ Allan

Originating from Cypress, TX, Chef Nic Yanes kicked off his hospitality career working FOH while in high school. It wasn't until college when the transition to BOH was made. Yanes went out to study Culinary Arts at Western Culinary Institute. Between 2004 and 20011, Yanes bounced between Dallas TX and Portland Oregon fine tuning his craft. In 2012, found himself in Austin, TX taking on the role of Chef at Uchi. Eventually he would earn the title of Creative Director. In 2015 Yanes broke off on his own to open Juniper and has been landing on the cities best of lists ever since. Show notes… Favorite success quote or mantra: "Respect." In this episode with Nic Yanes, we discuss:  If you want to make changes in your life sometimes it takes changing your environment and the people you're surrounding yourself with.  The role confidence plays in leading.  As a line cook, manage your managers. Be proactive. Anticipate their needs.   The importance of systems in your business. Using technology to systematize your business so you can use your time more wisely.  Living the expectations  and standards you set for your staff. Why being condescending, mean, and short with people doesn't pan out in the long-run.  How if you're not happy in a job or just where you are in life in general, make a pivot. Do something about it.  Making all new hires start at the bottom and work there way to the top. They may know how to cook, but do they know your cultures?   Before opening a restaurant in a city you're new to, spend some time working for the best in that city. develop a network, and tie your personal brand to other successful personal brands.  While valuable, staging short-term, is not enough to really absorb and learn from the greats. Give the restaurants you work for at least a year.  Being less focused on the cash that is coming in and more focused on the cash going out. Work with what cashflow you've got. Stay lean. Don't assumed a bunch of cash is going to start flooding in.  How being a restaurateur is just as much about being a business man as it is about being a creative.   Resources mentioned:  437: Menu Engineering with David Scott Peters The Lean Startup: how Todays Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.   561: Philip Speer On Bouncing Back After Losing It All   Today's sponsor: EthicsSuite.com -provide a safe, secure, simple and anonymous communication channel between you and your employees to help you protect your hard-earned reputation and assets. Demonstrate to your team that you are committed to providing a workplace that operates with the highest ethical standards. Staying informed about important issues will help you resolve them internally before they spiral into larger, costly, or public problems. Cashflowtool.com  A simple powerful and predictive cash flow companion for Qickbooks. Simple, because it requires no data entry, is always up to do and works on any device, anywhere. Powerful, because with it's built-in cash flow calendar, activitiy feed and anomaly detector, you instantly know all aspects of your cash flow with no surprises. Predictive, because you'll know your cash flow today and anticipate it tomorrow. Knowledge bombs Which "it factor" habit, trait, or characteristic you believe most contributes to your success? Not wanting to let anyone down. What is your biggest weakness? Not wanting to let anyone down. What's one question you ask or thing you look for during an interview? Ask where they go out to eat. Look for honesty. What's a current challenge? How are you dealing with it? Continually staying creative.  Share one code of conduct or behavior you teach your team. Be timely.  What is one uncommon standard of service you teach your staff? Be nice.  What's one book we must read to become a better person or restaurant owner? GET THIS BOOK FOR FREE AT AUDIBLE.COM  Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business What's the one thing you feel restaurateurs don't know well enough or do often enough? Engage with their staff on a personal level.  What's one piece of technology you've adopted within your four walls restaurant and how has it influence operations? Slack If you got the news that you'd be leaving this world tomorrow and all memories of you, your work, and your restaurants would be lost with your departure with the exception of 3 pieces of wisdom you could leave behind for the good of humanity, what would they be? Be respectful. Pay attention to the pennies Have a beer.  Contact info: @JuniperAustin  juniperaustin.com Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for joining today! Have some feedback you'd like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them. And finally, don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. Huge thanks to Nic Yanes  for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!   Restaurant Unstoppable is a free podcast. One of the ways I'm able to make it free is by earning a commission when sharing certain products with you. I've made it a core value to only share tools, resources, and services my guest mentors have recommend, first. If you're finding value in my podcast, please use my links!

Brandon Bruce co-founded Cirrus Insight, an all-in-one productivity sales platform that connects Gmail and Outlook with Salesforce. Find out how they grew to having over 150,000 paying users across 5,000 companies and gained up to $12.8M in revenue. Visit https://www.leadquizzes.com/podcast for the complete show notes of every podcast episode. Topics Discussed in this Episode: [01:36] How they came up with the idea for Cirrus Insight [04:56] How Brandon knew that his friend was going to be a good business partner [07:28] How they managed the transition period before they launched their business and getting their first customers [10:53] How they got feedback from beta users [14:15] How they got people to start as free users to becoming their first customers [19:21] How they decided to launch their product and move forward with their business [22:40] What the early months looked like for Cirrus Insight in terms of revenue [24:47] How their first hires helped them grow the business [25:53] How they developed the traffic and their email list and put their sales model together [32:35] How their pricing has evolved from the time they first launched [35:52] How they compensate their sales people for their demos [39:09] How they prioritized feedback and what to build on the development side and the operations side [44:48] What Brandon did that had the biggest impact on his growth [46:23] What they look for in the people that they hire   Key Takeaways: There’s an emotionally stabilizing effect of having another person you can share the roller coaster of building a business with. The biggest thing that causes early stage companies to fail is that the founders break up. It is a threat to building a company. It’s helpful to have smart people on deck to help with the million things that have to get done. Community involvement whether online or in person is key to growing a business. The opportunities to hire software developers primarily comes through referrals.   Action Steps: If you’re in the software or app business, find the marketplace online where people are likely to search and/or gather for product offerings like yours. Be active in the Salesforce community and be active in all the boards, trying to answer as many questions are possible. Build a customer success team just as you would build a sales team.   Brandon said: “We’ve always known that there’s a risk in the market that a very large competitor could come in and stomp on everybody. So you’re kind of always aware of that and yet you get very used to living with that risk.” “Dig in earlier to something like this, building something that looks like a snowball and pushing it downhill… Get started early and often.”   More from Brandon Bruce and Cirrus Insight: Cirrus Insight’s Website Brandon’s Email Brandon’s LinkedIn   Resources mentioned in this episode: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses   Sponsor link 14-day Free Trial to LeadQuizzes   Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast! And don’t forget to leave me a rating and a review on iTunes!

Strategy is the highway for vision. The problem is, too many business owners spend a lot of time developing a complex roadmap that a) never gets finished, b) never gets communicated, or c) is too difficult for frontline workers to understand. So, how do you design a simple, focused business development strategy that leads to RFP success—and growth in your business at large? Gina Catalano works with CEOs and leadership teams to improve operations and increase business value. With 20-plus years of experience leading and consulting with businesses, she is an authority on the integration of business development and operations. Gina serves as a volunteer for Startup Tucson's Thryve mentorship program, and she is the author of the Amazon bestseller Tandem Leadership: How Your #2 can Make You #1. Today, Gina joins us to discuss the benefit of a simple, well-explained business strategy, offering advice around narrowing your focus to a single vertical. She describes how to write an RFP through the lens of the client and identify your champion within a particular organization. Gina also covers the Lean Startup concept of customer discovery, explaining how to leverage the people in a company who touch the customers in this process. Listen in for Gina's insight on framing strategy as an exercise in choosing what NOT to do and learn why implementation is more important than trying to craft a perfect strategy. Key Takeaways Gina's reputation as the CEO Swiss Army Knife How Gina helps leadership teams next-level their business Gina's definition of strategy as the ‘highway for vision' The benefit of a simple strategy that is well-explained Gina's advice around focusing on one vertical or client How to write an RFP through the lens of the customer The value in understanding who a prospect is buying from How to identify your champion within an organization How to recognize your customer's ‘dream come true' The Lean Startup concept of customer discovery How to leverage the people that touch your customers How to frame strategy as choosing what NOT to do The mistake in trying to create strategy that serves everyone How to create strategy that aligns with your values Gina's advice on creating a filter for the decision-maker Why implementation is more important than perfect strategy Connect with Gina Gina on LinkedIn Venture Solutions Email gina@venturesolutionsus.com Gina's FREE Book Connect with Lisa Lisa's Website Lisa on Twitter Lisa on Facebook Lisa on LinkedIn Subscribe on iTunes Resources The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman The RFP Success Book by Lisa Rehurek

Avsnitt 300 handlar om en tillbakablick, hur blev det så här? Vi pratar om våra favoritavsnitt genom åren och ger er sex boktips inför sommaren. Tack för att ni lyssnar på oss! Lyssnartips Magnus: Avsnitt 108 med Per Westberg Tomas: Avsnitt 70 med John Lee Dumas och Avsnitt 239 med Magnus Lidén Boktips Hjärnans emotionella liv : om hur unika mönster i hjärnan påverkar dina tankar, känslor och upplevelser - och om hur du kan förändra dem av Richard J Davidson, Sharon Begley Mun till mun - marknadsföring via referenser I Ivan R Misner, Gunnar Selheden   Getting to Closed - A Proven Programme to Accelerate the Sales Cycle and Increase Commissions av Stephan Schiffman The Art of Social Media - Power Tips for Power Users av Guy Kawasaki, Peg Fitzpatrick Nya affärer : värdebaserad försäljning 4.0 av Bengt Gejrot  Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses av Joe Pulizzi Kom på våra frukostseminarier i höst. Info och anmälan här.

JT Badiani is the founder of Focused Improvement Consulting, and his business has been built on the failures that he turned into his success. He started out as a MBA/chemical engineer with years of experience in the design field and great success in operations, but decided that his talents and passions could truly be put to use when he pursued his dream of helping companies achieve success. He has been in the consulting business for over four years, and has learned a few things along the way. You won’t want to miss JT’s take on the power of failure on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   The Road to Consulting JT Badiani works to help companies improve their bottom line through the execution of their strategy, and implementing strategies with the help of Six Sigma. He knows how to critically evaluate a program to make it more efficient and streamlined. Over the years, JT has found ways to bring his clients up to a 15X return on their investment in him as their consultant. But his road to consulting success was not a short one. He experienced tremendous growth in six years working with his sector knowledge in aerospace, engineering, and more, and even worked as the VP of a company in Toronto. He was seeking a senior leadership role with leadership, but things didn’t work out. He spent nearly 12 months looking for a company to buy, but nothing was the right fit. During this time, JT discovered small and medium sized companies that were in need of operational or execution support. Although he’s not a consultant by trade, consulting was starting to feel like the right fit.   The decision to transition into consulting is not always an easy one. JT quickly found out that taking the leap from working for an existing company to working for yourself can be a difficult decision to make. This can be a hard decision to make for several reasons. Many consultants come into the workplace and find that, while they’re great on the theoretical side, they lack skills for implementation. JT came into consulting with the mindset of helping companies execute their strategies better, but found that people often want to take away your great ideas and implement them themselves, which means that you never get to see the fruits of your labors.   JT decided that he wanted to have a different approach to his consulting business, and now he works to be involved as much as he can from start to finish to help his clients be successful.   Overcoming the challenges of starting up a business. Every consultant, and every entrepreneur, knows that starting up a business comes with a host of challenges. A few of these challenges can include learning all about the consulting side of sales, figuring out how to lead a service-based organization, and understanding how to sell to companies by gaining their trust quickly. In my conversation with JT, we discuss two surefire ways that you can begin to overcome the challenges that come with starting up your own consulting business.   First, get yourself known. Networking is the key to your consulting success. As JT ventured out with his business, he reached out to his core network. He shares the ways that he was able to break into the industry, including what it takes to get up in front of people, and being willing to take risks as you are establishing yourself as an expert.   Second, surround yourself with support. Family support can be a huge factor in the success of your consulting business. JT shared what works for him — family support meant talking through the challenges the business was facing, examining options, then making a decision and going with it.   In JT’s case, he and his wife found a rhythm to the regular conversations that was established in the startup phase of his consulting business. His wife came from an entrepreneurial background, he has an MBA, and they brought their skills and knowledge together to create a plan that worked. Surrounding yourself with people that will support your work efforts is an essential piece of the puzzle, and you’ll want to hear some of the tips that JT shares on the types of conversations that he and his wife have to make sure that they are on the same page with the business efforts.   Keeping your mindset strong when it gets hard. Business may be good, and you might be growing quickly, but the reality of most growing consulting businesses is that there are hard days, setbacks, and proposals that you want but don’t win. How do you keep your mindset strong so you can keep growing your business?   Recognize that it’s tough, but keep looking forward. JT shares a powerful story of four high-value proposals that he lost. Over the course of an especially difficult week, he didn’t win one proposal after another. By the time the fourth proposal came back — which he didn’t really even want — JT was feeling pretty discouraged about what he was doing, and why he was doing it. He and I had a conversation not long afterward, and he followed my advice — it is tough, you are going to have losses, but keep looking forward and reflect back on why you didn’t win your proposals.   Connect with clients for feedback. Ask why you didn’t win the proposal, listen to their advice and then apply it. Be insightful, and restructure presentations so people can gain the insights of your value. Leverage your network so that you have the right references, trust is established with potential clients, and they feel more comfortable with what you do and how you do it.   Every entrepreneur encounters this kind of failure — today may be a bad day, but there is always a better day to come. “Rather than calling it a failure, just call it a lesson.” You will become stronger as you face these failures and turn them into lessons learned. Successful people keep taking steps forward, and continue reaping rewards from that lesson learned. That is another key to your consulting success.   Set realistic goals. You can have success and you can plan to have 100%, but there will be weeks and months that you just won’t get to 100%. If you hit 80%, you’re doing great. If you hit 50%, then it’s time to find a way to get to 80%.   Always continue learning. It’s essential that you self-reflect and always look both at what you’re doing right and what you can improve on.   JT calls himself a horrible golfer. He decided that he wanted to improve, so he would play a round of golf, then go home and reflect on what went right and wrong. He read up on ways to improve his game, and his scores dropped significantly. Suddenly he was doing really well.   JT has taken that mentality into his business and career — if things are getting him down, he has found ways to ground himself. Finding a piece of literature or an online video or ebook that can help remind you of the things that are most important and how you can improve. He shares several books that are listed below, and also references some of the articles from the Consulting Success website that have helped him stay focused, including how to write a proposal, and how to talk to your clients. Success will come as you continue to sharpen the craft. Don’t stay stagnant, and don’t get complacent with your work.   Growing Your Business, Even without a Network Having a network in place brings great value to your business, but you can still make connections and land clients even without the help of a network. JT has three solid ideas to help you get started.   Understand the value that you have to offer clients. You need to know exactly what it is that you have to offer your clients, and then you have to deliver it. If you don’t deliver, you will not get more business. The client that you’re serving right now is your number one client, so your focus needs to remain on them. If you’re chasing after more business, you are not helping your client be successful. Stay dedicated to each client as you are working with them, and the value of your work, as well as your value to your client, will both increase.   Second, you have to get yourself out there. There are multiple ways that you can develop your network while your business is growing. If you are willing to attend conferences, participate in small groups, and deliver good content, you will get leads and and you will be successful.   Don’t worry about giving away your content. Many consultants have been advised to develop their content and then keep it secret until a client is paying for it. You should not worry about giving it away. Clients that want to improve their businesses themselves will figure out a way to get it done themselves, and you don’t need to spend anymore time with them. By sharing a good picture of your content, you are building trust with your clients, and this will win you projects.   It’s okay to be selective about your work. Don’t rush to accept every project that comes along. Instead, as business opportunities come, ask yourself if each client is the type of company that you want to be working with. Examine their values and see if they lineup with yours — are they trustworthy? Do they provide the opportunity for you to grow? Will they actually listen to what you have to say because they are seeking advice? Are they looking for help? And most importantly, can you deliver value?   That is the single most important question you need to ask yourself — can you deliver value to this company by taking on their project? If the answer is no, then you need to ask yourself why you are doing this.   Do a litmus test with each opportunity that comes your way — see how your values line up, and then move forward from there. After you’ve had a series of conversations and opportunities to determine if the work is a good fit, you can make your decision and move forward accordingly, and with no regrets about your decision.   JT has found that these tips are key to finding satisfaction in seeing companies be successful.  He has helped his clients realize $30 to $40 million savings through projects, coaching, and events. It’s what drives him toward success, and today he’s enjoying the benefits of finding consulting success. Be sure to listen to the many insights that JT shares on how to turn today’s failures into tomorrow’s success on this episode of Consulting Success Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [:15] Introduction [4:10] Why the decision to transition into consulting isn’t always an easy one. [5:09] Challenges will come when starting up your consulting business, but here’s why that’s okay. [8:35] How can you keep your success-oriented mindset strong when things get tough. [12:50] Two solid lessons you can learn from failure. [15:30] How you can grow your business, even without a network. [19:30] What drives JT toward success? [22:13] How you can connect with JT Badiani.   Mentioned in This Episode: Focused Improvement Consulting Success Blog The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

JT Badiani is the founder of Focused Improvement Consulting, and his business has been built on the failures that he turned into his success. He started out as a MBA/chemical engineer with years of experience in the design field and great success in operations, but decided that his talents and passions could truly be put to use when he pursued his dream of helping companies achieve success. He has been in the consulting business for over four years, and has learned a few things along the way. You won’t want to miss JT’s take on the power of failure on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   The Road to Consulting JT Badiani works to help companies improve their bottom line through the execution of their strategy, and implementing strategies with the help of Six Sigma. He knows how to critically evaluate a program to make it more efficient and streamlined. Over the years, JT has found ways to bring his clients up to a 15X return on their investment in him as their consultant. But his road to consulting success was not a short one. He experienced tremendous growth in six years working with his sector knowledge in aerospace, engineering, and more, and even worked as the VP of a company in Toronto. He was seeking a senior leadership role with leadership, but things didn’t work out. He spent nearly 12 months looking for a company to buy, but nothing was the right fit. During this time, JT discovered small and medium sized companies that were in need of operational or execution support. Although he’s not a consultant by trade, consulting was starting to feel like the right fit.   The decision to transition into consulting is not always an easy one. JT quickly found out that taking the leap from working for an existing company to working for yourself can be a difficult decision to make. This can be a hard decision to make for several reasons. Many consultants come into the workplace and find that, while they’re great on the theoretical side, they lack skills for implementation. JT came into consulting with the mindset of helping companies execute their strategies better, but found that people often want to take away your great ideas and implement them themselves, which means that you never get to see the fruits of your labors.   JT decided that he wanted to have a different approach to his consulting business, and now he works to be involved as much as he can from start to finish to help his clients be successful.   Overcoming the challenges of starting up a business. Every consultant, and every entrepreneur, knows that starting up a business comes with a host of challenges. A few of these challenges can include learning all about the consulting side of sales, figuring out how to lead a service-based organization, and understanding how to sell to companies by gaining their trust quickly. In my conversation with JT, we discuss two surefire ways that you can begin to overcome the challenges that come with starting up your own consulting business.   First, get yourself known. Networking is the key to your consulting success. As JT ventured out with his business, he reached out to his core network. He shares the ways that he was able to break into the industry, including what it takes to get up in front of people, and being willing to take risks as you are establishing yourself as an expert.   Second, surround yourself with support. Family support can be a huge factor in the success of your consulting business. JT shared what works for him — family support meant talking through the challenges the business was facing, examining options, then making a decision and going with it.   In JT’s case, he and his wife found a rhythm to the regular conversations that was established in the startup phase of his consulting business. His wife came from an entrepreneurial background, he has an MBA, and they brought their skills and knowledge together to create a plan that worked. Surrounding yourself with people that will support your work efforts is an essential piece of the puzzle, and you’ll want to hear some of the tips that JT shares on the types of conversations that he and his wife have to make sure that they are on the same page with the business efforts.   Keeping your mindset strong when it gets hard. Business may be good, and you might be growing quickly, but the reality of most growing consulting businesses is that there are hard days, setbacks, and proposals that you want but don’t win. How do you keep your mindset strong so you can keep growing your business?   Recognize that it’s tough, but keep looking forward. JT shares a powerful story of four high-value proposals that he lost. Over the course of an especially difficult week, he didn’t win one proposal after another. By the time the fourth proposal came back — which he didn’t really even want — JT was feeling pretty discouraged about what he was doing, and why he was doing it. He and I had a conversation not long afterward, and he followed my advice — it is tough, you are going to have losses, but keep looking forward and reflect back on why you didn’t win your proposals.   Connect with clients for feedback. Ask why you didn’t win the proposal, listen to their advice and then apply it. Be insightful, and restructure presentations so people can gain the insights of your value. Leverage your network so that you have the right references, trust is established with potential clients, and they feel more comfortable with what you do and how you do it.   Every entrepreneur encounters this kind of failure — today may be a bad day, but there is always a better day to come. “Rather than calling it a failure, just call it a lesson.” You will become stronger as you face these failures and turn them into lessons learned. Successful people keep taking steps forward, and continue reaping rewards from that lesson learned. That is another key to your consulting success.   Set realistic goals. You can have success and you can plan to have 100%, but there will be weeks and months that you just won’t get to 100%. If you hit 80%, you’re doing great. If you hit 50%, then it’s time to find a way to get to 80%.   Always continue learning. It’s essential that you self-reflect and always look both at what you’re doing right and what you can improve on.   JT calls himself a horrible golfer. He decided that he wanted to improve, so he would play a round of golf, then go home and reflect on what went right and wrong. He read up on ways to improve his game, and his scores dropped significantly. Suddenly he was doing really well.   JT has taken that mentality into his business and career — if things are getting him down, he has found ways to ground himself. Finding a piece of literature or an online video or ebook that can help remind you of the things that are most important and how you can improve. He shares several books that are listed below, and also references some of the articles from the Consulting Success website that have helped him stay focused, including how to write a proposal, and how to talk to your clients. Success will come as you continue to sharpen the craft. Don’t stay stagnant, and don’t get complacent with your work.   Growing Your Business, Even without a Network Having a network in place brings great value to your business, but you can still make connections and land clients even without the help of a network. JT has three solid ideas to help you get started.   Understand the value that you have to offer clients. You need to know exactly what it is that you have to offer your clients, and then you have to deliver it. If you don’t deliver, you will not get more business. The client that you’re serving right now is your number one client, so your focus needs to remain on them. If you’re chasing after more business, you are not helping your client be successful. Stay dedicated to each client as you are working with them, and the value of your work, as well as your value to your client, will both increase.   Second, you have to get yourself out there. There are multiple ways that you can develop your network while your business is growing. If you are willing to attend conferences, participate in small groups, and deliver good content, you will get leads and and you will be successful.   Don’t worry about giving away your content. Many consultants have been advised to develop their content and then keep it secret until a client is paying for it. You should not worry about giving it away. Clients that want to improve their businesses themselves will figure out a way to get it done themselves, and you don’t need to spend anymore time with them. By sharing a good picture of your content, you are building trust with your clients, and this will win you projects.   It’s okay to be selective about your work. Don’t rush to accept every project that comes along. Instead, as business opportunities come, ask yourself if each client is the type of company that you want to be working with. Examine their values and see if they lineup with yours — are they trustworthy? Do they provide the opportunity for you to grow? Will they actually listen to what you have to say because they are seeking advice? Are they looking for help? And most importantly, can you deliver value?   That is the single most important question you need to ask yourself — can you deliver value to this company by taking on their project? If the answer is no, then you need to ask yourself why you are doing this.   Do a litmus test with each opportunity that comes your way — see how your values line up, and then move forward from there. After you’ve had a series of conversations and opportunities to determine if the work is a good fit, you can make your decision and move forward accordingly, and with no regrets about your decision.   JT has found that these tips are key to finding satisfaction in seeing companies be successful.  He has helped his clients realize $30 to $40 million savings through projects, coaching, and events. It’s what drives him toward success, and today he’s enjoying the benefits of finding consulting success. Be sure to listen to the many insights that JT shares on how to turn today’s failures into tomorrow’s success on this episode of Consulting Success Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [:15] Introduction [4:10] Why the decision to transition into consulting isn’t always an easy one. [5:09] Challenges will come when starting up your consulting business, but here’s why that’s okay. [8:35] How can you keep your success-oriented mindset strong when things get tough. [12:50] Two solid lessons you can learn from failure. [15:30] How you can grow your business, even without a network. [19:30] What drives JT toward success? [22:13] How you can connect with JT Badiani.   Mentioned in This Episode: Focused Improvement Consulting Success Blog The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

JT Badiani is the founder of Focused Improvement Consulting, and his business has been built on the failures that he turned into his success. He started out as a MBA/chemical engineer with years of experience in the design field and great success in operations, but decided that his talents and passions could truly be put to use when he pursued his dream of helping companies achieve success. He has been in the consulting business for over four years, and has learned a few things along the way. You won’t want to miss JT’s take on the power of failure on this episode of the Consulting Success Podcast.   The Road to Consulting JT Badiani works to help companies improve their bottom line through the execution of their strategy, and implementing strategies with the help of Six Sigma. He knows how to critically evaluate a program to make it more efficient and streamlined. Over the years, JT has found ways to bring his clients up to a 15X return on their investment in him as their consultant. But his road to consulting success was not a short one. He experienced tremendous growth in six years working with his sector knowledge in aerospace, engineering, and more, and even worked as the VP of a company in Toronto. He was seeking a senior leadership role with leadership, but things didn’t work out. He spent nearly 12 months looking for a company to buy, but nothing was the right fit. During this time, JT discovered small and medium sized companies that were in need of operational or execution support. Although he’s not a consultant by trade, consulting was starting to feel like the right fit.   The decision to transition into consulting is not always an easy one. JT quickly found out that taking the leap from working for an existing company to working for yourself can be a difficult decision to make. This can be a hard decision to make for several reasons. Many consultants come into the workplace and find that, while they’re great on the theoretical side, they lack skills for implementation. JT came into consulting with the mindset of helping companies execute their strategies better, but found that people often want to take away your great ideas and implement them themselves, which means that you never get to see the fruits of your labors.   JT decided that he wanted to have a different approach to his consulting business, and now he works to be involved as much as he can from start to finish to help his clients be successful.   Overcoming the challenges of starting up a business. Every consultant, and every entrepreneur, knows that starting up a business comes with a host of challenges. A few of these challenges can include learning all about the consulting side of sales, figuring out how to lead a service-based organization, and understanding how to sell to companies by gaining their trust quickly. In my conversation with JT, we discuss two surefire ways that you can begin to overcome the challenges that come with starting up your own consulting business.   First, get yourself known. Networking is the key to your consulting success. As JT ventured out with his business, he reached out to his core network. He shares the ways that he was able to break into the industry, including what it takes to get up in front of people, and being willing to take risks as you are establishing yourself as an expert.   Second, surround yourself with support. Family support can be a huge factor in the success of your consulting business. JT shared what works for him — family support meant talking through the challenges the business was facing, examining options, then making a decision and going with it.   In JT’s case, he and his wife found a rhythm to the regular conversations that was established in the startup phase of his consulting business. His wife came from an entrepreneurial background, he has an MBA, and they brought their skills and knowledge together to create a plan that worked. Surrounding yourself with people that will support your work efforts is an essential piece of the puzzle, and you’ll want to hear some of the tips that JT shares on the types of conversations that he and his wife have to make sure that they are on the same page with the business efforts.   Keeping your mindset strong when it gets hard. Business may be good, and you might be growing quickly, but the reality of most growing consulting businesses is that there are hard days, setbacks, and proposals that you want but don’t win. How do you keep your mindset strong so you can keep growing your business?   Recognize that it’s tough, but keep looking forward. JT shares a powerful story of four high-value proposals that he lost. Over the course of an especially difficult week, he didn’t win one proposal after another. By the time the fourth proposal came back — which he didn’t really even want — JT was feeling pretty discouraged about what he was doing, and why he was doing it. He and I had a conversation not long afterward, and he followed my advice — it is tough, you are going to have losses, but keep looking forward and reflect back on why you didn’t win your proposals.   Connect with clients for feedback. Ask why you didn’t win the proposal, listen to their advice and then apply it. Be insightful, and restructure presentations so people can gain the insights of your value. Leverage your network so that you have the right references, trust is established with potential clients, and they feel more comfortable with what you do and how you do it.   Every entrepreneur encounters this kind of failure — today may be a bad day, but there is always a better day to come. “Rather than calling it a failure, just call it a lesson.” You will become stronger as you face these failures and turn them into lessons learned. Successful people keep taking steps forward, and continue reaping rewards from that lesson learned. That is another key to your consulting success.   Set realistic goals. You can have success and you can plan to have 100%, but there will be weeks and months that you just won’t get to 100%. If you hit 80%, you’re doing great. If you hit 50%, then it’s time to find a way to get to 80%.   Always continue learning. It’s essential that you self-reflect and always look both at what you’re doing right and what you can improve on.   JT calls himself a horrible golfer. He decided that he wanted to improve, so he would play a round of golf, then go home and reflect on what went right and wrong. He read up on ways to improve his game, and his scores dropped significantly. Suddenly he was doing really well.   JT has taken that mentality into his business and career — if things are getting him down, he has found ways to ground himself. Finding a piece of literature or an online video or ebook that can help remind you of the things that are most important and how you can improve. He shares several books that are listed below, and also references some of the articles from the Consulting Success website that have helped him stay focused, including how to write a proposal, and how to talk to your clients. Success will come as you continue to sharpen the craft. Don’t stay stagnant, and don’t get complacent with your work.   Growing Your Business, Even without a Network Having a network in place brings great value to your business, but you can still make connections and land clients even without the help of a network. JT has three solid ideas to help you get started.   Understand the value that you have to offer clients. You need to know exactly what it is that you have to offer your clients, and then you have to deliver it. If you don’t deliver, you will not get more business. The client that you’re serving right now is your number one client, so your focus needs to remain on them. If you’re chasing after more business, you are not helping your client be successful. Stay dedicated to each client as you are working with them, and the value of your work, as well as your value to your client, will both increase.   Second, you have to get yourself out there. There are multiple ways that you can develop your network while your business is growing. If you are willing to attend conferences, participate in small groups, and deliver good content, you will get leads and and you will be successful.   Don’t worry about giving away your content. Many consultants have been advised to develop their content and then keep it secret until a client is paying for it. You should not worry about giving it away. Clients that want to improve their businesses themselves will figure out a way to get it done themselves, and you don’t need to spend anymore time with them. By sharing a good picture of your content, you are building trust with your clients, and this will win you projects.   It’s okay to be selective about your work. Don’t rush to accept every project that comes along. Instead, as business opportunities come, ask yourself if each client is the type of company that you want to be working with. Examine their values and see if they lineup with yours — are they trustworthy? Do they provide the opportunity for you to grow? Will they actually listen to what you have to say because they are seeking advice? Are they looking for help? And most importantly, can you deliver value?   That is the single most important question you need to ask yourself — can you deliver value to this company by taking on their project? If the answer is no, then you need to ask yourself why you are doing this.   Do a litmus test with each opportunity that comes your way — see how your values line up, and then move forward from there. After you’ve had a series of conversations and opportunities to determine if the work is a good fit, you can make your decision and move forward accordingly, and with no regrets about your decision.   JT has found that these tips are key to finding satisfaction in seeing companies be successful.  He has helped his clients realize $30 to $40 million savings through projects, coaching, and events. It’s what drives him toward success, and today he’s enjoying the benefits of finding consulting success. Be sure to listen to the many insights that JT shares on how to turn today’s failures into tomorrow’s success on this episode of Consulting Success Podcast.   Key Takeaways: [:15] Introduction [4:10] Why the decision to transition into consulting isn’t always an easy one. [5:09] Challenges will come when starting up your consulting business, but here’s why that’s okay. [8:35] How can you keep your success-oriented mindset strong when things get tough. [12:50] Two solid lessons you can learn from failure. [15:30] How you can grow your business, even without a network. [19:30] What drives JT toward success? [22:13] How you can connect with JT Badiani.   Mentioned in This Episode: Focused Improvement Consulting Success Blog The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Consulting Success Community today: consultingsuccess.com

In today's episode of The Art of Passive Income—Round Table edition, Scott is joined by: Nian Wang Aaron Williams Tate Litchfield Mike Zaino Erik Peterson Aaron Visocnik This Week's Topics—that leave the group divided between the good and the heartless: Loan Modifications—Under what circumstances do we modify loans and do multiple modifications ultimately lead to default? When a mailing generates multiple properties scattered across the country from one seller—The guys share what they do in this situation. The slow month of August—Do you just try to keep it stable or should you strive for growth? Listen in now as the mafia geeks have a showdown over good vs mean strategies!  TIPS OF THE WEEK Scott: Check out UseLoom.com—A communication tool that allows you to do screen sharing, recording and can hold/store videos for you. Also mentioned, Trint.com. Aaron A: Read the book The Way of the SEAL: Think Like an Elite Warrior to Lead and Succeed by Mark Divine. This book will help you get your mind right when trying to achieve something in the same way a navy seal would do to achieve things. Nian: Check out Nuclino.com—To organize information for VAs. Erik: Check out HipCamp.com—The Air BnB for campers and maybe an alternative for those properties you can't sell? Mike: Knowledge is learning something new every day, Wisdom is letting go of something every day—Letting go of something every day is relevant to those in this business when it comes to VA's and automation.  Tate: Check out Wonder-Bot.com—A Facebook plugin that helps you store information. Aaron V: Read the book Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses by Joe Pulizzi. This book will tell you how to draw crowd to your buyer's list. Isn't it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

My guest this week is Andy Rachleff, who is the CEO of the automated investing platform Wealthfront. Andy was also a co-founder and long-time partner at Benchmark capital--one of the most interesting and successful venture capital firms in the world. We spend most of our conversation discussing venture capital investing and entrepreneurship. Andy coined the now ubiquitous term “product/market fit,” and has great insight into how investors and entrepreneurs should think about business. In that vein, we discuss both what we refer to as the value hypothesis: building a product or service that customers love, and the growth hypothesis: scaling that product or service to a large market. We finish our conversation by talking about Andy and his teams mission at Wealthfront, and this conversation is perfectly timed, as Wealthfront just released a new feature that allows investors to buy factor portfolios, similar to Smart Beta ETFs. Above all, I’ll remember Andy’s advice to “put the gun in the other person’s hand,” a strategy that we explore in the middle of our talk.   For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/andy For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Books Referenced The Four Steps to the Epiphany The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune Diffusion of Innovations Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers   Show Notes 2:36 – (First question) – The partnership setup and how they came to be 5 equal partners 7:57 – Why benchmark would not take on the chairman role in companies they invested in 9:28 – What made John Doerr the greatest capitalist investor ever 11:59 – Looking at the venture process and what made it an attractive investment for Benchmark, using eBay as an example. 18:06 – If you are willing to help other people, without an expectation of return, it can create other opportunities 20:08 – Andy is asked to explain the idea of Product Market Fit, a term that he coined 22:18 – How does one go about finding a Product Market Fit             23:05 – The Four Steps to the Epiphany             23:19 – The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses 25:55 – What are the components of the Growth hypothesis 26:51 – Why you can learn more professionally from success vs failure 28:13 – What it’s like to shift from venture capitalist to operator/CEO 30:24 – The rate at which technology gets adopted and what will help Wealthfront             30:53 – Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune             31:26 – Diffusion of Innovations             31:38 – Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers 32:38 – What does it look like to innovate on top of current platforms 41:07 – Will platforms like Wealthfront help to democratize access to private markets 44:23 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Andy     Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

Episode 021 of The Project Management Show features Kendall Kunz, an American businessman, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Forms On Fire and has served as its CEO since its foundation in 2011.  In this episode, Kendall shares his passion for early stage software companies and overcoming the project and product management challenges they face by using the principles from The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses and specifically Minimum Viable Product (MVP), developed by Eric Ries. This episode is sponsored by Bravo Reporting Systems

Ever dream of making money while you sleep? That's exactly what John Lagoudakis did for a good portion of his career. In this episode, he guides me through the process that made him one of the top affiliate marketers in the world within two years of starting up. He's been featured in the New York Times bestseller “Get Rich Click! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money on the Internet,” and also published several of his own books about marketing and online business. John worked at McDonald's and a painter's assistant at his father's business as a teenager, and came to realize that there are easier ways to make money. He stumbled onto affiliate marketing, started testing the water, and was psyched when he made $2 in revenue for $1 in online advertising. After that, he started funneling his time and money into the model, dodging sketchy business models along the way. Though he's mostly moved away from affiliate marketing, John now helps businessmen build marketing funnels that make sense. All without paying SEO companies hundreds or thousands of dollars monthly to see limited results. In this episode, you'll hear some of the tactics used by the world's most visited sites to get you to pay attention to what matters. And you'll hear it coming from an awesome Australian accent. If you want more traffic to your website and to start making money while you sleep, this is the episode for you. Click play in the player above to get started. Listen to this episode to hear John Lagoudakis tell me about how to make money in your sleep and more: Why your homepage is probably trying too hard. The only two things every homepage needs to have. How to “print money” on demand. (Legally, of course.) Why you should concentrate on paid traffic before chasing free traffic. Big mistakes most business owners make when it comes to online marketing. Lessons learned from putting too many eggs in one basket. (And losing 90% of revenue overnight.) Why it may be a mistake to put time limits on your highest priorities. Books and resources you can read to help you make money in your sleep: “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses,” by Eric Ries “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It,” by Michael Gerber “The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth,” by M. Scott Peck How to connect with John Lagoudakis: You can get in touch with John Lagoudakis through his website or by listening to his podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Do this next: Part of the reason John leaped into business for himself and started almost literally printing money is that he wanted more freedom. If that's why you went into business but can't seem to have lost more freedom than you gained, we want to help. We offer free 30-minute Freedom Breakthrough Sessions that will help you figure out how to steal back your life from business. Click here to get the freedom you deserve.

For this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we spoke with the two founders of Slide, Thijs Olthof and Kaj Beetstra, about how they created a new smart home product and quickly hit their funding goal. Tune in to learn more about how to develop and launch a new product on Kickstarter! Slide: Make Your Existing Curtains Smart! Key Crowdfunding Takeaways How to build use cases around a new product to help further design and development How to get user feedback when running a project on Kickstarter How to build trust and credibility with your backers during a Kickstarter project Why transparency is key to a successful crowdfunding campaign How to leverage personal networks to quickly fund a project Links Slide on Kickstarter http://goslide.io/ Gary Vaynerchuk’s Blog Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Connect with Slide Slide on Facebook @Innov_In_Motion on Twitter Sponsors Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by The Gadget Flow, a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. The Gadget Flow is the ultimate buyer's guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Click here to learn more and list your product - use coupon code ATOKK16 for 25% off! Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by BackerKit. BackerKit makes software that crowdfunding project creators use to survey backers, organize data, raise additional funds with add-ons and manage orders for fulfillment, saving creators hundreds of hours. To learn more and get started, click here. Transcript

My guest for this episode was a great IT Leader Prabhash Shrestha. Prabhash, Vice President of Information Technology, currently overseas, manages, strategizes business and operation of digital and Health IT at American Gastroenterological Association (AGA). He actively works with AGA's senior management team, board and volunteers, members, and business partners in analyzing the trends and the direction of technology of AGA.. Previously, he was Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Association of Fundraising Professionals for eight years, from 2006 to 2014. He was chosen as DC's Top Association Tech Gurus by Trending 40. He was honored as the Top Ten Association Technology Leaders by Association Trends in December 2015. He was also awarded Top Association & Non-Profit Innovators 2015. Prabhash was chosen as the Top Innovators in the Washington, DC Association and Non-Profit community in January 2015. He was featured on the The A List on 2014 Nov/December issue of Associations Now magazine. He also was featured as one of the Top 5 under 35 in 2007. He has been interviewed on by various publications, radio and news media, and magazines. He speaks frequently at non-profit/association technology conferences and other conferences on various technology, leadership, management and business issues. Prabhash holds a Master of Science in Information Systems. and holds Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan Executive Certificate on Strategy and Innovation. He has been teaching at Georgetown University's Master's Degree program in Technology Management since 2010. He has won several teaching excellence awards at Georgetown University. Major Take-Aways From This Episode: 1. His almost automatic focus on revenue and customer needs, 2. I don't mean the clique customer needs examine but really putting yourself in the customer, patient, experience so that you really, really know it, 3. How to bring quick wins to market, 4. He has an approach we discussed where you evaluate 5 areas a) Audit the market b) Build a MVP minimum viable product fill the gap c) Shrink the time to market d) Grow by examining data (a Core IT leader skill) e) and evolving the product, 5. Books and articles he recommends. Read full transcript here. How to get in touch with Prabhash Shrestha: Linkedin Twitter Book Recommendations: Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Eric Ries MIT Publications CIO.com Harvard Business Review Publications Interview(s):  Interview for Reviewmyams Blog This episode is sponsored by the CIO Scoreboard, a powerful tool that helps you communicate the status of your IT Security program visually in just a few minutes. Credits: * Outro music provided by Ben’s Sound Other Ways To Listen to the Podcast iTunes | Libsyn | Soundcloud | RSS | LinkedIn Leave a Review If you enjoyed this episode, then please consider leaving an iTunes review here Click here for instructions on how to leave an iTunes review if you're doing this for the first time. About Bill Murphy Bill Murphy is a world renowned IT Security Expert dedicated to your success as an IT business leader. Follow Bill on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Eddie Lou is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shiftgig, a mobile, two-sided labor marketplace connecting large venues in the service and hospitality industries with locally available and previously vetted hourly workers. Shiftgig is one of the leaders in the gig economy, acting as a technology bridge connecting millions of workers with millions of shifts.  Shiftgig has raised $35M in venture funding from many local VCs including Chicago Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, and Corazon Capital.  Before founding Shiftgig, Eddie was a general partner with OCA Ventures, where he invested in software, consumer internet, and business services companies.  In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Eddie started Shiftgig after being a venture capitalist for many years Who are the people working in the gig economy What have been their most interesting gigs How they got their first customers How they pivoted away from their social network idea How they dealt with a business model that wasn't working and struggling to raise capital Eddie’s keys to building a two-sided marketplace What he’s learned as a VC that has benefited him as an entrepreneur Why he would like more series B investors in Chicago Why he would like to see more risk taking from executives Why Shiftgig acquired BookedOut What's the future of the gig economy What's next for Shiftgig Why you shouldn't be afraid to talk about your idea What's the best way to reach out and cultivate potential mentors A Few of Eddie's Favorite Books: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

Today’s guest episode of USR features content marketing expert Joe Pulizzi!  Joe is the founder of The Content Marketing Institute, the leading organization in education and training for content marketing which also hosts the largest in person content marketing event in the world.     Joe is the winner of the 2014 Cauldwell Lifetime Achievement Award, and has just released his fourth book: Content Inc.  Recently his third book, Epic Content Marketing, was named one of the 5 must read business books of the year by Fortune Magazine.  If you ever see Joe in person he will almost definitely be wearing ORANGE.  However throughout this episode, you will learn he is so much more than just a man in color.   In Episode 123, you will learn… How delivering content to a specific niche of people can help increase your overall audience The three steps to create a content marketing/editorial mission statement you can feel proud of and actually stick to How to finally create ultimate freedom in your business   Ask yourself: who are you targeting?  Every time you create content, picture them in your mind because you are writing to them.  Then what are you going to deliver and what is the outcome for your audience?  Joe teaches how to put yourself in the position where after you publish content, there are people excitedly waiting to hear from you and buy your stuff.  With these tips he shares, you can ultimately take control over both the content you share and how you leverage your audience through a niche you are passionate about. Mentioned in this episode: -How to Cook That with Ann Reardon (example of content tilt) https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/   -The Orange Effect Foundation: http://www.theorangeeffect.org/   -Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Content-Inc-Entrepreneurs-Successful-Businesses/dp/125958965X   Visit www.content/inc.com for a free chapter of the book!   www.Contentmarketingworld.com     Get insider tips and resources only available to my private email community by texting IGNITE to 44222 or visiting kellyroachcoaching.com and selecting any of the exciting resources or trainings available for immediate download.   Connect with Joe: www.joepulizzi.com www.facebook.com/joe.pulizzi www.twitter.com/joepulizzi   Connect with Kelly: www.kellyroachcoaching.com www.facebook.com/kellyroachinternational www.twitter.com/kellyroachint   A HUGE thank you for listening to Unstoppable Success Radio!   I would be so grateful if you left me a rating and review!     My mission and goal is to serve you, my listeners, so please submit your questions for an upcoming #ask Kelly episode by emailing coaching@kellyroachcoaching.com or @kellyroachint or calling 610 910 3600 to submit your questions!       Here's how I can help you achieve your goals:     -How to build, scale and automate growth in your business:kellyroachcoaching.com/yes     -Take your hobby, side hustle or new business quickly to the 100k mark: kellyroachcoaching.com/100k     -Turbo charge your productivity, break through overwhelm and the impact the profit in your business in 30 day or less kellyroachcoaching.com/higher-profits/     -Inquire about Private consulting and coaching by completing the application at: http://kellyroachcoaching.com/apply-now/     Get insider tips and resources only available to my private email community by texting IGNITE to 44222 or visiting kellyroachcoaching.com and selecting any of the exciting resources or trainings available for immediate download.     Have you gotten your copy of UNSTOPPABLE: 9 Principles for Unlimited Success in Business and in Life at Amazon here NOW!  

Shaily Baranwal is the CEO and Founder of Elevate K-12 and Classblox. Elevate K-12 provides digital instruction and online resources to  millions of at-risk students across the US. Since launching in 2008, Elevate K-12 has provided over 1 million hours of online instruction and has averaged a 35 percent increase in student test scores. Shaily's latest product, Classblox, is for consumers and it offers on-demand, online classes taught by real teachers. Students take hour long virtual, interactive classes from vetted teachers in subjects like algebra, Spanish, and ACT prep.  Shaily and her company’s mission is to help ensure that every student gets one-on-one, online instructional support, irrespective of geography, demography and ethnicity.  In This Episode You Will Learn: How Shaily started Elevate K-12 while still in school What makes Elevate K-12 better than MOOCs How they are able to provide personalized teaching for a reasonable price Why Shaily started her company in Chicago Why she hasn’t moved the company Why she’s a big fan of distributed teams How she was able to bootstrap for so many years Why she decided to finally raise money How she made her first sales What she wished she knew when she got started Why attitude and passion are everything when hiring Why she likes to hire athletes Selected Links From The Episode: 7 Semi-Serious Reasons I Chose Chicago Over San Francisco for the growth of my company by Shaily Baranwal Why I got my first investor after 5+ years of successful bootstrapping by Shaily Baranwal Favorite Books: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight Sponsored By: Propllr: a Chicago public relations firm that helps startups and innovators build credibility and awareness for their companies, people, products and services.

Content Inc. How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses by Joe Pulizzi The NEW Rulebook for Entrepreneurial Success What’s the surest way to startup failure? Follow old, outdated rules. In Content Inc., one of today’s most sought-after content-marketing strategists reveals a new model for entrepreneurial success. Simply put, it’s…

In this episode, I asked Ace questions like: 05:25 Why is buying a business more profitable than building a business from scratch? 08:15 How can someone buy an existing business with no money down? 13:30 Ace describes his revenue sharing model with his clients 14:20 How can you grow a business, then sell it for maximum value? 17:00 What's one of the biggest mistakes you've ever made buying or selling a business? Resources mentioned in this episode: -The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries -Slack -LinkedIn Groups -Alvin's Favorite Books: Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?: How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire Ace Chapman Links: -AceChapman.com -Ace Chapman on Snapchat: Ace.Chapman -Ace Chapman email: ace[at]acechapman[dot]com -Ace Chapman on: Instagram/Twitter - @acechapman -YouTube: search - Ace Chapman Ace Chapman's Bio Rescuing small businesses is all the rage on television. Whether it's Jon Taffer with Bar Rescue, or Tabitha Coffey's Salon Takeover. Despite the fact that none of them do it, these TV shows are fueling interest in a new trend. Move over Real Estate Flippers, Ace Chapman is building a nationwide group of business flippers. Ace bought his first business at 19 with some savings from a summer job and caught the business buying bug. He leveraged $3,000 he saved working the summer before college into buying a business for $70,000. Over the last 16 years he has bought 40 businesses. Everything ranging from a Mortgage Company to a Clothing Retailer. And right now he is seeing an explosion in the market for businesses under $2,000,000. "There are millions of Baby Boomer business owners who will bring their business to market in the next decade so they can retire. During the recession, many baby boomers wanted to sell their company but decided to hold off until better economic times." At the same time many entrepreneurs are realizing the risks associated with starting from scratch are too high and are deciding to buy an existing profitable business instead. Business sales saw a spike in 2013. While we saw a 68% increase in 2013 according to BizBuySell.com, business brokers expect 2014 to be even bigger. And while private equity firms are well positioned to take advantage of this increase in inventory, very few are paying attention to what Ace calls the Micro-Private Equity Market. Ace began working with first time business buyers of business buyers and helping them find, do due diligence, and finance small business acquisitions. "I have had a lot of people who find me and ask to invest in my deals. I'd rather show you what I am doing than take your money and have to split my returns." Since starting his network of business buyers, he has helped members close deals all over the country. From 2 Sylvan Learning Centers in Seattle, to a software company in Pittsburgh and from a fitness gym in Huntsville, to a Catholic retailer in South Dakota, these were all deals done in recent months by the network. Business buyers are attracted to buying a business instead of starting one for obvious reasons. It's easier to get financing to buy an existing business than to start a new one. Bankers and investors are more comfortable in dealing with businesses which already have proven work results. Starting a new business requires investments in a period of 3 to 6 months, and many entrepreneurs never get to the period of earning. When buying an existing business you have an idea of what your salary is going to be on day one. Business buyers do not have to go through hiring and training new employees, developing operation systems, and marketing plans. They start day one improving the business instead of building each department from scratch. Still Ace says buying a business is risky, especially if you do not know what you are doing. "Whenever you are buying a business you are looking at the past, there is no guarantee that those numbers reflect the future", says Chapman. "You should find a business broker or advisor who has your best interest at heart. The more experience you and your advisors have, the easier it is to find the hidden landmines in any business.