11–20 of 24 posts
The problem with making a sale is you lose your best prospect.
Build a reputation on Q&A sites, participate with relevant LinkedIn groups, promote your content with Facebook ads (check out jonloomer.com for help with this.) StumbleUpon ads and content amplification networks like taboola & outbrain.
Always be prospecting.
Here are some good sources to get you started.
Amazon Web Service Webinars - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT-nPlVzJI-ccQXlxjSvJmw
Caltech - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClGTZDyz3CSl92TgDqIr0nw
Said Business School - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHIqMEje_NFJ2u24CVaNQvg
Yale - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-EnprmCZ3OXyAoG7vjVNCA
Stanford - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-EnprmCZ3OXyAoG7vjVNCA
And of course: Ycombinator How To Start A Start Up https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxIJaCMEptJjxmmQgGFsnCg
There are so many great sources of education out on the web today. For example: who are the thought leaders of your industry? You can probably find video of talks they have given. What conferences serve your industry? They likely have video of talks given.
My Company: http://www.makemassive.com
Then I realized that my app was finished. There was nothing to improve.
I concluded that there was only one possible thing to do: start something new. I made enough from my first app to support the family, and started working on my second app.
Now I have two apps earning money.
Also, 15h per day is way too much. I work an average of 4h per day, any longer and I lose concentration (unless I'm cranking out some interesting new code, then I work any minute my kids let me)
hard answer: assuming you've taken the vacation, some options, in order:
1. if you're missing payroll, then cut staff & costs - you're bootstrapped and don't have 6+ months of payroll.
2. if you need help with leads, hire a startup marketing consultant (example: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=764310) to generate new growth hack ideas.
3. if you believe in your business model and you're simply "ahead" of the market, then use the time to "clean up" the business, e.g. automate things that are manual/expensive/unscaleable.
3. if you don't entirely believe in your business model, use the time to experiment with pivots e.g. soft-launch radically new things and see what happens.
hope this helps, adam
My advice is DO treat it like a regular job, maybe one with some longer than usual hours, but don't try to keep that pace constantly.
It's also pretty good advice that you will come up with some of your most interesting ideas when you are not doing work things.
The stuff like sales and bugfixes are really interruptions to doing the stuff which builds your business. Ultimately you want to hire people to help you with all of the existing tasks within the business, and the only way you're going to get to that point financially is by expanding.
As far as the HN and Counterstrike, you'll need to find a way to give that up and focus on the tasks at hand. I typically only check HN in the morning and at night, or when I truly have time to kill, like waiting for the dentist. This post spoke to me, so I felt the need to respond. One trick I came up with is to allow myself whatever timewasting activities I wanted during the day, BUT I'd keep a running tally of how many times during the day these interrupted what I was doing. My websurfing sessions rapidly diminished.
Finally, I'd agree with everyone here who recommends physical exercise. I've got a goal to shoot for here, which helps with motivation: to win a 5K, or at least my age group.
I think you've got this backwards. Your scheduled time should be focused on building the business, whether that means new features, improving operations, or marketing. Figure out which of these are the most important, break that down into individual subtasks, and then schedule that out for the next week. The stuff like sales and bugfixes are really interruptions to doing the stuff which builds your business. Ultimate…
Sales and marketing is what will build a business....
I wonder if you feel that you ought to be at your desk for at least the bulk of the traditional working day... Other people are working 8+ hours a day, so I should be too. I struggle with that feeling. I've been bootstrapping my own business for years, and I have a strong inclination to feel guilty if I'm not "at work" while other people with more conventional jobs are at work. It can result in me spending a lot of u…
What I learned as a writer is, focus on output, not time-spent or schedules met.
Set yourself a daily goal, but from there, be flexible in how you achieve it. When I was still writing, I'd try and aim for about 2k words a day, usually done off and on, but if I had an off day I just let it happen and took whatever break I needed to let the creativity come back in its time.
The thing is, the traditional work day is lousy for creative professions (and I count programming among these). It is a construct born of factory work, and you can't produce a quality creative process under factory conditions.
Give yourself a break, and let the mind take the respite it needs to get spinning again. I recommend taking a look out for John Cleese's insights on creativity and the creative process, he has done some lectures and videos on the subject that should be findable on Youtube, and they're very valuable insight into the different pressures of a creative field versus a 'production' one.