The first year, this slide is too scary. The next year, the same slide is too boring.

I say all that to say — it was interesting to hear Brad Smith share what Zapier is doing to evolve the company in a world of AI. Hearing a new company share their ideas is one thing. Hearing it from a company you’ve known and used for 15 years is another. You need the same slide two years running to see how much the kid changed.

For me, the most useful part of the robots is building the giant markdown brain of connections. But when I show that to most people, they aren’t interested in a life of CLIs and .md files. What Zapier is building — and has built — seems like a bridge to that kind of connection.

Very cool.

PS: New room alert!

Glad he shared it with the Mond(ai)y Coffee crew today. Packed house, and people asked genuinely interesting questions.

A few favorites: - John Avery: we also need something that verifies you ARE a bot — and that you still have permission to run certain tasks. - Ankush Tewari on banking and identity verification. - Berkley Baker pushing on who needs this the most.

Like I mentioned, it’s a hard business model to crack. Ken’s been heads down building valuable tech. Now it’s time to crack the business.

PS: Happy to see Samuel Obukwelu bring his son to the meeting. He’s not the first person to bring a kid. Husbands and wives have pitched their companies together. AI is bringing families together!

Anyways, we had a good ol’ fashion coffee talk today at the Mond(ai)y Coffee. Samuel Obukwelu talked about how impressed he was with Kimi K3. John Avery shared how Fable started to read his mind. Kolin Simon talked about talking with GPT-Live. And so much more. Fun chat.

Starting next week though, we’ve got a couple weeks of folks sharing some things they’re working on. * 7/27 - Ken Griggs is going to share more about Not.Bot * 8/3 - Brad Smith is going to share how Zapier AIs * 8/10 - Ximon Zhu is going to share some thoughts on turning your expertise into your own AI

Come on and join the fun and the conversation. Every Monday at 830a.

R. Hunter Harris shared a little about Pi.dev.

Ankush Tewari shared his goal for Fable this week.

But mostly, the room divided into smaller conversations and discussed whatever it saw fit.

Hi. Ho.

Behind the scenes of building the Midjourney full body scanner 🤯

Thanks to Kolin Simon for sharing this week.

They certainly have. Roy and Sharon were early in the room. Four or five folks talking about things like self-driving cars, philosophy, and even AI.

There are more people in the room and there is less time for discussion on free will. Too bad, but as Bob warns you: “He not busy being born is busy dying.” I suppose that’s doubly true with AI.

I’m thankful for the OGs like Roy, Sharon, Kolin Simon, Jake, and Demitrus Jones showing up and talking about anything and everything.

And that’s how we got Jonathan of Ten Sparrows to present yesterday. On-Prem AI FTW!

We then went on to a pass the aux the session where several folks shared about AI cooking tools, internet radio, and LLM selection tools. Fun interesting ideas all around!

“How hard is it to build a CLI?” I asked.

“It’s not that hard to build,” Sam said, “but it took a while to realize I needed one.”

A perfect encapsulation of the builder’s dilemma in the age of AI.

I know I’m a broken record on this, but being in room with a group of folks building cool things and sharing and helping each other is as powerful as $200 a month Claude subscription.

@

We talked about a lot of stuff this week including getting smart interns and employees to work with you, how to build with less on-going token costs, and nuclear power.

See y’all next week.

1. Olatomiwa Bifarin, Ph.D. shared his vision for the future of reading. (More or less) 2) Ankush Tewari shared about some changes he made to the messaging of his site thanks to Gstack. He learned about Gstack thanks to Kolin Simon’s share during the meeting last week.

The compounding knowledge of learning from people who are building is amazing to see.

Vivek is one of the fastest and thoughtful builders there is. A company focused on QA isn’t going to ship crap. He shared a little about his process today.

Another successful Mond(ai)y coffee.

Demitrus Jones wasn’t planning on sharing, but he bravely did. I can’t wait to see what v2 of his product looks like.

I’ve thought about that every day since he posted that fact on Marginal Revolution under the title “Hey, AI image generators!”

There are public intellectuals doing whatever they can to stop AI from reading their work, and there are those who write posts like this.

Which ones will the future remember?

One of the notes from Alex Lugo’s demo yesterday was FilmPro’s strategy to, for lack of a better phrase, let the AI win when it comes to development. Alex Lugo and Adolfo Rangel are both developers who can build a lot of things themselves. However, they try and focus on the framework of the tool as much as they can and expect the model development continue at speed to help fill in the features. It’s part strategy and part necessity, but I think it’s a different frame from old school development.

As the group started to grow, a single conversation about free will, self-driving cars, and the future of humanity got harder to managed. So, we started to narrow focus. Now, we’re interested to learn from those with dirty hands, building the future.

This week, Alex Lugo shared FilmPro. Not just what FilmPro is, but HOW he (and Adolfo Rangel) built FilmPro. The goal, show people what can be built with small, passionate teams and a lot of AI know how.

If you’re interested in joining, ✋ in the comments and I’ll send you an invite.

Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One by Stewart Brand page 86

I share a desk with Bob Siegel . Sometimes I think of new AI businesses. I share those ideas with him. He hasn’t invested in one yet.

I chuckle at this because it sounds like he gave his buddy a six-pack and a pizza and his buddy gave him this crazy rare record. In actuality, he gave this person thousands of dollars. In return, this person gave him a record.

There are times when I listen to those stories, and the friendliness of the whole transaction frustrates me. “He’s not your friend,” I’ll say. “He’s selling you something!” Then again, it does seem like a nice way to live. Doing business with folks you consider friends, paying a fair price, and walking away still being able to call that person a friend.

Seems like a fine life indeed.

I ran across this screenshot this morning. It’s one of, if not the first, websites OrangeCoat created. On my first day selling, I emailed the President of Clemson and the President of IPTAY, completely destroying their websites. They both responded, and one of them even bought a website!

We built a website selling the dream of the West End Zone. Twenty-one years later, I was hanging out in the shadow of the West End Zone with my son on my shoulders, watching the Savannah Bananas put on a show.

I wish I could tell you I thought back to the work we did to help get the West End Zone built that day. I didn’t. Memories of past clients rarely cross my mind. It’s nice to see the screenshot today and make the connection.

Business is a constant forward march. Celebrate your wins when you can and take some pictures for future you.

I liked that. They were a group of college kids building something from their perspective.

When I first met Daksh Gupta he was building a text message marketing platform for the SMB space.

I didn’t like that. It wasn’t original and he wasn’t passionate about it.

Thankfully, they pivoted to Greptile and are building a rocketship powered by passion.

I say all this to say that’s the excitement of Georgia Tech CREATE-X and the founders they support. When you’ve got the energy and unique perspective to take big swings you should do it. There are plenty of folks trying to improve a process or industry. Those folks have the industry experience and connections to make those small changes work. Good for them.

You don’t know no better and that’s a great gift. Go build big, weird things.

There was famous (to me) story about Greenville lawyer Tommy Wyche never talking about money before starting to work with a client and never tracking hours. After he finished a job, he’d just send the client a bill for what he believed to be the real-value for the job. If the work only took 15-minutes, but he saved the company a million-dollars then expect a big bill in the mail the next day.

I don’t how true this was, but I do know that this future we’re running to. All those who used to trade time for money are working to figure out what their product is or what their tech stack is that they can sell to their customers.

Anybody got some bright ideas what the future holds?

We would be talking about all the topics early-20s adults care about: the future value of money, the relative importance of an MBA education, and, of course, the trade-offs of volunteering versus building a business.

I write this after the Carolina Code Conference just named the volunteer of the year award after Jim. I couldn’t be happier. Over the 25 years of our friendship, Jim has given more of himself than any sane human should. He’s done this without expectation or desire for money, power, or awards named after him.

At 22 years old, Jim would get up early on Saturday, after too many Cashmeres maybe, and plant trees. He did this because he thought the world needed more trees. He spent years organizing and reorganizing a resale store’s inventory because he hates waste. And over the last couple of decades, he’s been the ballast of the Greenville tech community. OpenWorks, HackGVL, and so many communities depend on Jim’s willingness to show up and not give up.

I couldn’t be happier that Barry Jones decided to chase this bright ball, and I’m so proud of Jim for the work he’s done and will continue to do—quietly but consistently making Greenville better.

*Want to get Jim fired up? Ask him about the shrinkflation of a Barley’s calzone.

My favorite line of thought was when Andrea compared art direction to writing good AI prompts.

Oh yeah, one more thing, Jake’s company launched their AI platform for creatives last night as well. Link to download in the comments.

When you work on the non-hard tech side of the startup world it’s amazing how often folks dismiss the work you do as trivial or unimportant. Often times right to your face.

Listening to Tim Sweeney on the Lex Fridman podcast helps to underline something that is obvious. The unimportant task of playing video games gave us companies who cared deeply and worked hard to build the GPUs and optimize the code that is creating our future.

Take seriously whatever you’re working on and make it great. It might just turn out to change the world.

Our activity dropped greatly, but look at this cool Downey woodpecker who came for some food and a photo.

Could be a parable for marketing spend or maybe just a chance to share a bird pic on LinkedIn. You decide.

I think about that all the time. Anyways, Sander Biehn gets the fast response award of the week for me.

Here’s William sharing some of the numbers and how his AppSumo experience turned into a pretty profitable customer discovery session.

They are the Yin and Yang of the business world and worth considering what type of company you want. If you want hypergrowth read the Nvidia Way and understand how it took 30-years of relentless work to get there. This isn’t a couple sprints of a couple teams working long hours. This is a whole organization working 60 plus hours a day every day for 30 years. Understand there are rarely half-measures when it comes to that game.

The other end of the spectrum is 37signals. Do you have the discipline to make the tough decisions to keep your company manageable and profitable for the long haul? Can you not chase the bright balls and stay focused?

Neither is easy and neither is right, but if you want to grasp the extremes give those books a read back-to-back.

That’s one thing that went through my head when reading “The Birth of Loud: Leo Fend, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock ‘N’ Roll.”

Leo Fender was the founder. The company grew and became the genre defining business it did because of a team that included talented and important sales and operations people. At the end of the day, the guitars hit a standard of quality though, in part, because Leo’s last name was on the guitar.

“IBM’s main laboratory, on North Street in Endicott, was a very peculiar place. Between three hundred and four hundred people worked there, but the whole thing was built around seven senior engineers whom Dad called his “inventors”… When Dad had an idea for a product, he’d call in one or two of these old birds and describe what he wanted it to do. Then the inventors would go back and try to ‘put it in metal’ as they used to say.”

The first connection that came to my mind was Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’ who were responsible for almost all the classic movies we know today.

A further stretch down the connection rabbit hole, would be Bezos’s two-pizza rule.

My point being even big, hairy teams often still run forward on the genius of a small group of people.

IBM info from: https://lnkd.in/eTGSh4rj More about Disney’s Nine Old Men: https://lnkd.in/eKhuWG4k Two-pizza rule: https://lnkd.in/eu6tAdsC

What I kept thinking about after my conversation with Oliver was what advice would I give a high school or college aged entrepreneur. Don’t play the same game a 40-year person plays. That’s it. That’s the advice. You are leading the culture, and you should bring your point-of-view and your style of business to the market. You’re not going to win playing the same game as someone with 30 more years of experience, but you are going to win playing your game.

When I first started out, I remember wearing suits on sales calls because my dad wore a suit to work every day. That’s what the adults did. When I started to get comfortable enough with me and my message to wear flip flops and blazer things started to make more sense for everyone.

Find your flip flops friends.

A great mantra for those who don’t like selling.

That’s my vacation brained advice for those spending crazy time on building their company LinkedIn pages.

Does this post now mean I can write-off my vacation?

Full Tweet thread: https://lnkd.in/eMNWjj2B

https://lnkd.in/eYPTQgqG

Or, as Bob would tell his ma, “that he not busy being born is busy dying.”

Or, as Bobby McCormick would tell us, “Don’t worry so much about being done. Few things really great are ever finished.”

I don’t know if it is the most important line in Marc’s manifesto, but it is sure hits on something I think to be important. It’s easy to get frustrated by technology or chuckle at late-stage capitalism. But we all need to continue forward and upward. Stagnation is death and death is bad.

This is her elevator pitch.

And one more thing, the game will be part of the ATDC board game night we’re having on Tuesday September 26th from 8p to 10p.

https://lnkd.in/gdhgdCbY

And, if you’re interested in a link to the actual game here it is: https://lnkd.in/gZr3_8eF Let’s link to things that can be linked to Fast Company.

Courtney Culmer you’re up first. https://lnkd.in/gBGcTrW2

Five minutes later I look back at my computer screen having just watched several short standup clips. I had forgotten to look for the profile that inspired me to open the app in the first place.

This is no way to live or work.

And here we are.

A couple notes on how I used AI to put this thing together.

\1. I thought I would be able to use the Photoshop AI to expand the background of a vertical poster to make the explosion fit a horizontal layout. That looked terrible. I ended up just searching for a horizontal Oppenheimer poster. 2. Photoshop AI did a great job of removing the text. I just selected the section of the image with the text and told the AI to remove the text and it did it perfectly. 3. I ended up using Bing Chat to ask what font is used in the Oppenheimer movie poster and what font Adobe Fonts has that are similar to Gotham. This worked pretty amazingly. I had to use Bing over ChatGPT because Bing uses the internet and ChatGPT doesn’t. There certainly are other ways to find answers to those questions using the traditional internet, but I found that the Bing Chat interface to be easier and quicker than any traditional process.

As you can tell, no graphic designer would be worried about their job from my work, but it was fun to put this together quickly this morning.

“At that time, outside of Google, VCs would have been throwing money at us left and right,” Wetherell says. Inside Google, it could never compete. Outside Google, there would have been no politics, no crushing weight of constant impending doom. If Google had been driven by anything other than sheer scale, Reader might have gotten to Google scale after all. https://lnkd.in/geJpjpDW

Interesting item 1: It’s harder than you expect to find a LinkedIn post that doesn’t have any photos, videos, or is a response to another posts.

After some scrolling, I found this post from Jeff Rosset. bit.ly/jeff-rosset-li-post

I’ll post some of the results in the comments, but I will say my first set of results were not great. They all sounded like a kid who hadn’t read the book and was just repeating the title in different ways in hopes no one notices.

“War and Peace is a book that is focused on the horrors of war and beauty of peace. Five stars.”

How would you write a prompt to make a better result?

Here are some key takeaways from the book: Shift from selling to solving: Rather than viewing the sales process as a battle between buyer and seller, focus on understanding and solving the customer’s problems. By approaching sales as a partnership, you can build trust and create win-win outcomes.

Align goals and outcomes: Instead of solely concentrating on closing the sale, work with the customer to identify shared objectives and desired outcomes. This collaborative approach helps establish a common purpose and fosters long-term relationships.

Ask insightful questions: Effective questioning allows you to understand the customer’s situation, challenges, and needs. By asking open-ended questions and actively listening to the responses, you can gain valuable insights that guide the sales process.

Create value and differentiate: Rather than relying on features and benefits to differentiate your product or service, focus on delivering unique value that directly addresses the customer’s specific pain points. Demonstrate how your solution is different and why it’s the best fit for their needs.

Build trust and credibility: Trust is the foundation of successful sales relationships. Act with integrity, deliver on your promises, and consistently demonstrate expertise and knowledge to earn the customer’s trust and establish yourself as a reliable partner. Collaborate to overcome challenges: When faced with objections or challenges, don’t engage in a defensive or confrontational manner. Instead, collaborate with the customer to understand their concerns and find mutually beneficial solutions.

Prioritize customer success: Shift your focus from simply making a sale to ensuring the customer’s success. By genuinely caring about the customer’s outcomes and actively supporting their goals, you build stronger relationships and increase the likelihood of long-term partnerships.

Leverage social proof and referrals: Use social proof, such as testimonials or case studies, to demonstrate your credibility and success in helping other customers. Additionally, actively seek referrals from satisfied customers, as personal recommendations can be powerful in building trust with new prospects.

Continuously improve and adapt: Sales techniques and strategies evolve, so it’s essential to stay current and adapt to changing market dynamics. Continually seek feedback, evaluate results, and refine your approach to ensure ongoing success.

Overall, “Same Side Selling” emphasizes the importance of collaboration, trust, and delivering value to customers, leading to stronger relationships, increased sales effectiveness, and sustainable business growth.

Pick up the phone and make some sales calls. You can always control that.

Anyways, I’ll be talking sales and marketing a bunch this month including a LinkedIn Live with VP of Sales from Wahsega Joseph Gullo.

Hope to see you there. https://lnkd.in/gZPQXdCw

What I appreciated about Richard was his passion for the fundamentals of marketing. Yes, AI is cool. Yes, that’s what his company does. But if you don’t get the basics of finding out who your audience is and why they care then no amount of AI is going to help.

Join us on Thursday and we’ll talk about finding the right WHO for you.

In our draft of the five first hires after a big round of funding for our imaginary HealthTech company neither Jane (Karwoski) McCracken nor I picked went with sales.

Why is that? I can’t speak for Jane, but I’ll say for me I often see founders trying to get rid of the sales responsibilities way too early. Until you really have a business development engine the founder is going to be best person to sell and hiring someone for the role too early is setting them up for failure.

She said yes right away. A day or so later she got back to me and asked, in the nicest way possible, is this all you got? Basically, she was saying, let’s try and be a little bit more creative and interesting than two people talking.

And so, the idea of drafting startup teams was born.

It’s nice to do stuff with folks who push you to do better.

Anyways, we talk today at Noon PM. See you then.

Good news! Your new imaginary Healthcare IT startup, Springsteen, Inc, just got funded to the tune of $5 million. Until now, it’s been you, an experienced startup CEO, and Bruce, an experienced software developer, bootstrapping the company. This dream team has gotten you to MVP and closed your first four customers.

Now it’s time scale! In the next 18-months you’ve got aggressive goals for adding functionality to the product and closing 10 new customers.

Who do you hire and why? Let’s each draft our best five positions to make Springsteen, Inc get to its glory days.

You talk to someone building something new or vetting software for use on their team and they talk about all the must-have features. The list is always way too long. There really is only one thing that matters, will people use it?

Worry less about features and more about building something people want to use.

Mashed potatoes were one of the first things I cooked and that was all I said to myself when I’d made them.

A couple years ago I realized I got worse at making mashed potatoes. By that time, I’d watched a ton of different “professionals” make mashed potatoes. They all had to have a different take on this simple dish because, if not, why make another recipe?

I think of this a lot on LinkedIn too. We all try to think of different things to type every day. To have different or interesting or overthought advice. We really should just be looking to say things like, “no one ever said there was too butter in the mashed potatoes.”

* Also, no one ever said there was too much beer at the party.

Any ideas?

I found myself saying that a couple of times last week. If you’re trying to start a conversation with someone, my pitch is to have that conversation in the platform the person wants to have the conversation for as long as the person wants to stay in that platform.

If you start in email or LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever. Go back and forth on that platform until they ask to talk. Then, and only then, send the Calendly link.

What an honor.

Bonnie Dilber said that last week on our call and it’s stuck with me. What a wonderful, simple heuristic for management and, honestly, life.

Thanks Bonnie!

Come on out and hear Bonnie Dilber share her wisdom. https://lnkd.in/g3Fn2qRu

Hope y’all can join us today at 3p. https://lnkd.in/gBCh-xBQ

Because this trend is seeming on a upward trajectory, I thought it would be valuable to have some conversations with folks who think deeply about this topic.

We’re doing it LinkedIn Live this month.

Next week professor, blogger, podcaster, and author Tyler Cowen is joining me for a LinkedIn Audio Conversation. Tyler recently co-authored a book on finding talent and is a deep thinker about anything he puts his mind too. We’ll talk about how startups can compete in acquiring talent in a world of big tech paying big salaries.

The week of the 24th I’m talking with Bonnie Dilber. Bonnie works in recruiting at Zapier. She also regularly shares her thoughts on where we are and where we are going in the world HR. I find her writing on LinkedIn to be some of the most insightful and valuable on the platform.

If this topic interests you, please come on by during each of these sessions. We’ll bring some people on stage to answer questions during the second half of the talk.

Tyler’s conversation: https://lnkd.in/gBCh-xBQ

Bonnie’s conversation: https://lnkd.in/g4AVYpe4

🎧 🌻Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® & Kirk L. Barnes podcasting https://lnkd.in/g3m7Y6HJ Allyson Eman podcasting https://lnkd.in/gFh8D-pE Pete Bernardo podcasting https://lnkd.in/g87Qz8vp Jonathan Porter podcasting https://lnkd.in/gWkvth3z

👓 Anya Skomorokhova & Jonathan Porter talk graduating from spreadsheets https://buff.ly/3dqI3KO Patrick Rice talking SEO https://lnkd.in/gDhvwcNS Caroline Dunn talking video marketing https://lnkd.in/gesMVP87

This is Patrick talking keyword research https://lnkd.in/gDhvwcNS #seo #startups #keywordresearch

If you want to know one of the reasons why they’re on the list, check out Casey Graham talk about his LinkedIn strategy.

https://lnkd.in/e8ai-4i

Next week we’re talking SEO at the ATDC. https://lnkd.in/ghPu49_K Come on over (virtually).

Anyways, this week I’ve gotten three emails from Rad saying there was a major manufacturing defect with the tires and I should not ride the bike until this is fixed. They haven’t started manufacturing new tires and say it’s going to take 2 or 3 months to get me the new tires. (It’s going to take longer.) And so my fancy electric bike with a bad bell is on the sideline.

Lesson learned, if a company is willing to skimp on the bell quality then they’re damn sure willing to skimp on tire quality too.

I really enjoyed this part of the most recent EconTalk podcast with author Amor Towles. Amor is talking about why he outlines and plans his novels so much. The short of it, doing all that left brain work in advance frees the right brain to work when the bullets are flying.

Or, as TOM SACHS would say, creativity is the enemy.

☝️ Kiarash Ahmadi is hiring https://lnkd.in/gVSYjUfJ

Steppingblocks is hiring https://lnkd.in/gyMDivaR

Elkanah Carnell Reed and Workopti are in the AWS Marketplace https://lnkd.in/gmfVnnUZ

👓 Anya Skomorokhova and PorterLogic in Hypepotamus https://lnkd.in/gbwNR8uC

🎧 Ryan McAllen podcasting https://lnkd.in/gMQaVJQ5

💜📬 William M. Ballance podcasting https://lnkd.in/gySDkMhA

This is how the conversation would go for me countless times.

“How are you?”

“So, busy I can barely breath.”

Listen to their issues and come back a week or two later with a solution that will save them a day a month in busy work.

“Nah, not worth it.

I was talking to someone who was going through all his old blog posts and adding in the proper tags and cleaning up the SEO and out came that line.

A low-key perk of fatherhood is that dad lines like that flow from you all the time. It’s like I got a firmware update.

Answer: https://lnkd.in/gytqFdfd

And also answers the sub-question of why are Syracuse’s sports played in the Carrier Dome?

Now, in 2022, we’re finally, actually here.

RIP IE.

When I was younger, all I wanted was a crew of creative and talented folks all caring about our work as much as me. Then we hired a couple super-talented people who also had a healthy sense of boundaries.

It was eye-opening. They worked hard and did good work, but they had no desire to stay around for a Friday afternoon (or Tuesday afternoon) beer. They weren’t sending late-night, “isn’t this cool?” emails. The culture they responded to was the culture of self-reliance (Rule #1 was get the job done. We didn’t care when it or where it was done as long as it was done on-time.) They didn’t respond to the “family” side of the culture.

It was so healthy. The older I get the happier I am I was taught that lesson. Doing good, meaningful work is good. Working hard is good. Working with people you like is good. Replacing family with work is bad.

“I usually don’t post…”

People will read it or they won’t. Post what you want.

Top five greatest suggestions of my life. The marginal improvements provided by other lawn mowers weren’t worth the effort.

Often, I think about the electric lawn mower rabbit hole when I hear a new company pitch. You hear of marginal improvements or small additional features. I think, “it’s not worth the effort.”

Every once in a while, I hear a line that makes me jump up and say, “now that’s worth the effort.” That’s always fun.

Within an hour, he did his job including calling a couple of folks to make sure he wasn’t duplicating effort.

This morning, I woke up to a detailed report of what was done and Venmo request in my inbox.

I guess I say this all to say, what an amazing time to be that guy. He runs his entire business on his phone. He said he’s quit printing business cards and instead only asks customers to say nice things on Google and Next Door.

Technology can still be good.

In, let’s say, three years we’d like to take our son to Korea and see that part of his heritage. Neither of us speaks the language. Learning passable Korean is a goal, but not one I trust myself to achieve. This would be life-changing technology.

I hope Google didn’t just make a video about it to get some shares and folks talking and then let the thing die.

The main point, Rome ruled the world and no one worked in an office.

Below is the whole clip and here’s a link to episode. https://lnkd.in/dJ_sV9ki

It’s good.

Someone told him, “you seem desperate.”

His response, “I am desperate.”

Here’s the full clip. I thought it might resonate with those who are trying to do their own thing. It’s okay to seem desperate if you are desperate. It’s better than looking cool and failing.

The next year we’d have invisible drones that shoot 4k. https://lnkd.in/gmCib3K9

This one got me thinking “Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible, rather aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.

I was never that good at basketball.

From then until about yesterday I would argue with a straight face that if I practiced for a year straight I could be a knuckleball pitcher in the majors.

Time marches on and all my sports delusions fade away.

Maybe I’ll start dreaming about owning a minor league baseball team.

The Lyft pink mustache on the cars to be specific. I thought it solved a problem (what car is my Lyft car?) and did a good job showing the personality of the company. Specifically in comparison to the Darth Vader personality of Uber.

I guess I was wrong. Folks really hated those things. I mean really, really hated them.

I see this a lot. A YouTuber shooting on a $5,000 camera will say with a straight face. It’s not even that the advice is false. It’s just not helpful.

When you’re trying to start something removing as many mental roadblocks as possible gets you to doing quicker. I think I’m going to just start saying, “here’s an easy way to start…

Step 1: I should try to sketch a little every day. Step 2: Maybe something from the garden. Step 3: Maybe the same plant every day. Step 4: The same tomato plant in a pot each day and from the same angle and the same time of day. I could then “see” the plant grow over time. Step 5: I should draw the same tomato plant from the same angle every day so I can see it grow and also take notes about the growth each day to learn what is changing and be a better tomato grower. Step 6: Maybe start Instagram account about this? Step 7: What domain names are available?

Just draw the damn tomato!

Welp, that’s going to be at least a week late.

It’s not even that I’m mad about this experience anymore. I’m amazed how consistent of an experience it is. Update your algorithm FedEx. If location=Ellenwood then +5 days to delivery date. Everyone’s experience would be better.

What a time to be alive.

He refused to sit down. Refused to eat. Just refused.

During this refusal session, I started to think back to our worst time of feeding him. He was breastfeeding and the doctor said he needed to gain weight. We took things seriously in only the way first-time parents could take things seriously. We timed every second he ate. We then added that time to a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had a formula we made up that turned seconds of eating into ounces of milk. Every day was a new sheet. Every session a new row. All summed for daily and weekly reports. The document was beautiful and we were miserable.

One day, we said this needs to stop. We put away the stopwatch and closed the spreadsheet. He kept eating and kept growing and we were much happier.

When you’re a small team and have too much on your plate sometimes more data is too much data. Do the best you can to do the right thing and trust it will pay off.

https://lnkd.in/eh9Rv5yN

He wrote our first services contract. When we got a little bigger I thought it best we start using a local law firm with a bunch of fancy lawyers on staff. When I called my dad to “fire” him, I asked if he had any thoughts on what should be in the next services contract. His answer was something like, “they’re going to offer you a 3-page contract or a 12-page contract. Take the 12-page contract. You can always edit parts out you don’t use.”

I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right. We got a mail merged 12-page contract that was, more or less, an ad for the yet to be formed LegalZoom.

What I found interesting was the contract only got useful and better when we started working with companies who actually read the contract and had edits to it.

I think there is a thought that contract negations are always adversarial. That was very rarely the case for me. Most of the times I got edits to our mail merged contract it helped to clarify something for both parties. It was worth the time and helped me as much as it helped the client.

Any basic advice to make a tradeshow successful?

\1. Zuckerberg still has the fight in him. You listen to his contemporaries from a generation before (Gates, Bezos etc) they’re now focused on forming their legacy for future generations. Zuckerberg is still very much focused on running his company and trying to promote and defend it against current day threats.

\2. I’d get more from Zuckerberg talking about surfing for an hour than hearing him defend his company’s bad reputation. That stuff is all too practiced to be interesting.

\3. The story about talking to the Rabbi about Genesis gave a fun twist to what could have been pretty standard to answer to, “what is the meaning of life.” To be said another way, I enjoyed that answer.

“The simple answer is you should show the numbers for the company you want to run. That being said, why are you asking for money if you’re not going big? Running a company with consistent marginal gains is GREAT! If you’re doing that, focus on getting your cash from customers.

Apply Today! https://lnkd.in/efhei4jP

If you’re going all in then go all in.

Like a home printer, it worked great when it worked, but if I didn’t use it for a while, re-connecting and setting up things got wonky.

The last wonky setup sent me searching for a new alternative. Welp, if you live in only MSFT world may I suggest Mouse without Borders. https://lnkd.in/eef7WmX5 Setup was much smoother and has worked great so far.

Anyways, Tyler Cowen’s interview with Stewart Brand is worth your time. https://lnkd.in/eFwPb3Ka

I especially like Stewart talking about letting the Whole Earth Catalog just die. Interesting insight.

This was then followed up by a good question by Tyler. To paraphrase, your life has been focused on building things that have a shelf-life. Why are you now so focused on maintenance and longevity?

All for seven seconds of audio.

If the CEO of Patreon gets noted to death for a side project then what hope does any of us have?

https://lnkd.in/evQxBEZm

This little, affordable printer is a nice step in that direction.

Any sized print you want as long as it’s 4x6. https://lnkd.in/ePE7nv98

Anyways, I just left that comment this morning. Azola Martin got an internship at PayPal. Woot worthy for sure.

Azola is a freshman in college. This got me thinking, Azola never lived on the internet when Woot.com was a daily read. Was Woot a blog? News site? A web page of an animated GIF of a hamster doing a silly dance?

No! It was an eCommerce site that sold one product a day. The writing on the site was so good people would go and share the site just for the writing. Product of the day be damned. What a site. What a concept.

Anyways, they sold to Amazon. It was never the same. Most things aren’t.

If you’re interested, and why would you be, the earliest I can find myself writing about Woot is 16-years ago. https://lnkd.in/eFNADe6d

PS: Here’s a post of me talking about both the Zune and Woot. Two of my favorite topics in one post. https://lnkd.in/ejYrmBM6

My grand idea was to give new Signature companies a money tree and note when they moved into their new office with big, windows. This was the note. ===== Welcome and Congrats. Starting and growing a business is hard. It’s important to celebrate wins when you can. Becoming an ATDC Signature company is certainly one of those wins. Here’s a little gift to commemorate the win.

Now Let’s Grow Something Big. Having windows in your office is a nice perk (among many) of being a Signature company. So, let’s grow some money, or at least a money tree, with this sunlight.

We’re Here To Help Please know, we’re all here to help. Please reach out anytime.

The Basic Rules of Caring for a Money Tree (Metaphors can be drawn by those who choose to draw such things.)

They are hard plants to kill. Give them water when needed. This could be once a week, but you could probably stretch it out to bi-weekly or even monthly if needed. Keep your eyes on the soil and leaves. If the leaves start to turn yellow or drop, make sure you water it that day.

Once a quarter they need some fertilizer to help them grow. A bit of liquid fertilizer with watering once a quarter gives the money tree extra nutrients to grow.

The size of the pot determines the size of the tree. Money trees can grow pretty darn big. If you want it to grow bigger then make sure your pot size can handle that growth.

Smart pruning can lead to healthier trees. An indoor money tree can stand a pruning from time-to-time. If leaves grow too far askew or damaged don’t be afraid to give them a trim. Money tree trimmings can be propagated. This takes skill and time to do so though. Do some research.

Braided trunks grow bigger than a single trunk. The reason people braid money tree trunks is the plant grows bigger and more stable with multiple trunks working together.

Sonos might have to compete on price. Heaven forbid!

https://lnkd.in/eiH9B7zn

That’s my late to the game, still haven’t finished the entire doc take.

Early on, Paul and George are arguing over how to write a song.* Paul wants to play the basic song a dozen times in a row. Once they get the basics down then the strange and interesting will appear.

George wants to go line by line making each perfect before going to the next.

George’s method is where madness lies. Paul is right. I think a lot of creativity is getting all the basics squared away so your brain can wander to the strange.

* The fact that the Beatles are on their last album and still arguing over how to write a song is strange to me. Always evolving methods are good and maddening at the same time.

A founder told me that on a call yesterday. I smiled and continued the conversation. It didn’t seem necessary to dig deep on that statement. It’s a thing we say when we’re starting out. Good for him.

But it did get me thinking, eventually, someone is going to say that and be right. Someone is going to be bigger than Amazon.

I wonder what that company will do.

Maybe your fancy newsletter isn’t the key to your success.

We bought a car from CarMax with the promise of the new car being delivered to our front door four days later. Eight days later, I was bouncing my 20-month-old son on my shoulders in the parking lot of a CarMax store while we were on hour three of buying said car.

I want to be mad a CarMax. I was for a while. Honestly, I knew something like this was going to happen. Every step of my communication with them started out with them trying to be Carvana-y. By the end of the step, we were back to traditional ways. Phone calls and test drives.

Companies like to think they can copy disruption with no problem. But, when years of DNA form around, “come in and give this thing a test drive.” You can’t easily break that polynucleotide chain.

I see it with startups too. They aren’t trying to break the chain, but they’re trying to fake it until they make it. They spend time building what seems to be a smart, robot-driven sales funnel, but the final call-to-action is still a meeting with a salesperson. That stinks as a sales experience too. If you don’t have the tech goods yet to escape some traditional sales process, then don’t fake it. Be honest. It might just work out for you.

My favorite of these for 2021 was for " Medical-Grade Toenail Clippers".

I do love a world where people dedicate their lives to discovering and sharing the marginal differences in everything. Vacuums, coffee (https://lnkd.in/dNNegw2h), high-end audio equipment you can never afford and should never buy (https://lnkd.in/dyUSXRjJ).

It’s all out there. I don’t plan on buying most of it. Or, honestly, care that much about most of the topics. But the passion and competence involved are intoxicating.

PS: The ECOVACS Deebot N8 Pro+ Robot Vacuum and Mop Cleaner, with Self Empty Station, is a damn fine machine.

He’s recently started to get how to put blocks together. Now that he understands how things work, he’s not interested in tearing things down.

Responding with anger to what you don’t understand might be an a priori trait. Hopefully, we can learn him out of it.

Since moving into our new house we’ve gotten postcards or mailers saying: * Our mortgage was “closed”. This was an attempt to sell us insurance of some sort or another. * We missed a delivery. This was an attempt to sell us ADT. * And countless warranties and shields and such other words that are meant to seem both legit and necessary.

I’m always defending sales and marketing, but I can understand when companies like this are the primary experience of consumers why they hate the whole damn industry.

https://lnkd.in/eeXdxZ5N

They’re doing big things at a young age.

Mark was coming to OrangeCoat to talk business. He had successfully sold sheet music on CD-ROMs to choirs for years. He finally thought his market was ready to jump online and so started a relationship with our longest-running customer. He was an inspiration in creativity, productivity, and living the good life.

Mark wrote a book a year. The protagonist was a choir director (he knew his audience) who solved murders in his spare time. He ran a successful choir music subscription site for years. He composed operas and choir music and did data entry when needed.

He did this all in what seemed to be comfort and joy in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina.

I think of Mark often when I talk to folks who have good niche businesses and are looking to go big. What’s the goal? Is raising a ton of money and building a huge business necessary for your goal?

Mark had a happy niche that he knew and served. His customers loved him and he did very well for himself.

Mark passed away two years ago this week. SJMP is still around and they put together this compilation https://lnkd.in/eqiFA7mS of some of his compositions. It sounds lovely.

Melissa was telling me a story this morning. A guy got a permit to close the tunnel for Halloween. He planned to have DJs play in the tunnel and he was going to charge admission.

He pulled those permits once before. That time, graffiti artists in town caught wind of the plan and painted the whole tunnel white. They were not going to let this guy make money off their public art. Graffiti by its nature is ephemeral and so they just pulled a CTRL+ALT+DEL on the bridge. Good for them.

There seems to be a larger business and creativity parable in this story.

By the way, he seems to have canceled the event this year too. He says bad weather is to blame.

https://lnkd.in/e-_U9XZA

Well, not a defense of currently using that term. No one should still be using the term. However, how about the first person who used that in a job description? I think I can defend that now.

I talk to startups who are hiring regularly. I also post most of the job descriptions to the ATDC job board. What I think the job description world could use is better writing and better story telling.

Most description start with a stock paragraph about the company then go to a stock paragraph about the job then bullet points that even the best candidate checks 3/4 of the boxes.

My pitch, share a vision for the company and how this job helps achieve that vision. Startups need doers and dreams not box tickers with ‘x’ years of experience.

As terribly cliché and un-helpful as the term ‘rock star programmer’ became, in the beginning, it helped define the person and define what the company needed from the person.

Everything is story and job descriptions are no different. Share the journey of the company and how this role is going to help in that journey. Be specific and creative in wording and look for those who want to join for those reason.

I was at a virtual meetup yesterday put together by Joey Womack and Goodie Nation. College students check in on what they’re working on and ask for advice. One student had discovered a love for #uxdesign. He even started a company and was doing work in that space.

However, he wants more professional experience and wants an internship. I think he wants to learn best practices and processes from others and not just learn by doing.

My suggestion was to look for an internship at an agency and not a startup. If your goal is to learn more about the process and how others do it then there are agencies that have internship programs and they do more of that. A startup is more likely to throw tasks at you and expect you to just get it done.

I wonder if my advice was good because I would have floundered in that environment at that age. He seems to have an entrepreneurial mindset and he might be more like me. He might think he wants more foundational learning, but actually, he’s going to thrive the most by doing.

I don’t know. Maybe he needs a #uxdesign #mentor. Not a formal internship, but someone who can give regular advice and training to a college student with hustle.

Does anyone who’s read this far have any suggestions?

My old company was called OrangeCoat. I used to wear an orange blazer (coat) to all networking events.

It was a crutch I used to help be memorable and to start a conversation. I’m not suggesting you wear an orange coat, but I am suggesting you find a way to be memorable and to start conversations with something besides, “How are you?” “Busy.” “You?” “Busy.”

So, I would consider coming in pretty strong with your first line when talking to someone. “What do you do?” “I help startups get thousands of dollars in tax credits each year.”

“How are you?” “I’m busy getting all these startups all these tax credits.”

That’s suggestion 1.

Suggestion 2 is probably better. Be interested in what the other person does. Ask them questions about their business. Think of ways you can help that have nothing to do with TaxZen. Make connections where you can. Ask for business cards and say you’re going to follow up about item ‘x’. Listen and push them to give you real answers and provide real advice.

Care about them even if they can’t use TaxZen at all.

Suggestion 3. Dress up like Matthew Lesko

The first of those I call the Wheel of Effort.

Most of the artists I listened to in high school and thought were so damn important haven’t really stuck with me. To be honest, I’m not listening to the RZA’s new stuff either. But he’s still making stuff that interests him and continuing to learn and that’s pretty damn inspiring.

Salesman: “Look Adam, I can sell this car to five people today at this price. It might be best if we just walk away.”

Me: “No, no, no…. ohhhhh.” Knowing nod. Good move used car salesman.

PS: There’s a bunch more helpful stuff in this hour long talk. https://lnkd.in/esxqPjvE

Then, Jane (Karwoski) McCracken gives you the pitch and it all makes sense. Next thing you know, you’re helping to host showcase for the #startups to virtually pitch to VCs.

If you’re a #Georgia startup in the agetech space looking to raise money then apply today: https://lnkd.in/eXdbJZrQ

That’s a heck of a kicker line from Lauren Oyster in her story about starting her flower delivery service. https://lnkd.in/emkgrJB

Seems like a deal to me. https://lnkd.in/e4xwQcb

On that front, next week Dan Staub is sharing some basic, actionable steps to running your first influencer-marketing campaign. Influencer-marketing, it’s not just for VPN networks anymore! https://lnkd.in/e4xwQcb

CC: #Andrew McConnell

Come on out (virtually). #sales #salesprospecting #salesmanagement Happy sales to you.

So here we are, Brian Bar talking about The Art of Prospecting on March 25th at 10am.

RSVP today.

Happy sales to you. https://lnkd.in/eJhfQym #sales #salesprospecting #salestraing

It is not the point of project. Taking the responsibility and initiative to try and sell something to a stranger is the point of the project. I love to see a Girl Scout getting over her shyness to ask for the sale.

It’s that x100 when I see young people selling bottles of water on a hot Atlanta Saturday. 🌻Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I talk about that https://lnkd.in/eNWET5c

It is not the point of project. Taking the responsibility and initiative to try and sell something to a stranger is the point of the project. I love to see a Girl Scout getting over her shyness to ask for the sale.

It’s that x100 when I see young people selling bottles of water on a hot Atlanta Saturday. 🌻Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I talk about that https://lnkd.in/eNWET5c

It is not the point of project. Taking the responsibility and initiative to try and sell something to a stranger is the point of the project. I love to see a Girl Scout getting over her shyness to ask for the sale.

It’s that x100 when I see young people selling bottles of water on a hot Atlanta Saturday. 🌻Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I talk about that https://lnkd.in/eNWET5c

It is not the point of project. Taking the responsibility and initiative to try and sell something to a stranger is the point of the project. I love to see a Girl Scout getting over her shyness to ask for the sale.

It’s that x100 when I see young people selling bottles of water on a hot Atlanta Saturday. 🌻Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I talk about that https://lnkd.in/eNWET5c

It is not the point of project. Taking the responsibility and initiative to try and sell something to a stranger is the point of the project. I love to see a Girl Scout getting over her shyness to ask for the sale.

It’s that x100 when I see young people selling bottles of water on a hot Atlanta Saturday. 🌻Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I talk about that https://lnkd.in/eNWET5c

🚫 🤖 🎄

https://lnkd.in/dwErMpu

I like the question because a) you can’t open YouTube without seeing Monday.com and b) it shows there isn’t one way to do things.

Also, we learned Basecamp doesn’t have a 2021 marketing budget. That’s kinda wild. https://lnkd.in/eYym8gt

This can’t be the best way, but it’s the way that works for me.

I have a Surface tablet and I sketch out a couple scenes on Microsoft Whiteboard that are inspired by the clip I’m wanting to do.

Then, I connect my Surface tablet to my laptop computer using a CamLink and open up OBS.

Then, I play the video one more time and record me scrolling through the whiteboard sketches in time with the sound.

Then I take the whiteboard recording from OBS and drop it on top of the audio of the presentation using Adobe Premiere Pro.

And, we’re done.

Notes and sundries: Yes, there is software that does faux whiteboarding videos. I find those boring. I prefer ugly but personalized to me over “professional” and bland.

I probably could record me writing the entire thing and then speed up the video to match the audio. That’s how I did the video intro. But that would require a lot more time to get it right and I’m a one man band on these things. I can’t spend days or really hours to turn them around. #tooltip #tooltiptuesday

The business-y talk world we all live in with the acronyms and made-up words becomes a wall to better communication with more people.

That’s what Monique Mills, MBA, PMP®, and I talk about in this clip.

#businesscommunication

This one is on the basic question of what’s the difference between a #productmanager and a #projectmanager https://lnkd.in/e4x2vrz

Quick overview YouTube specific stats, I upload 10 pieces of content in January. That drove 900 views to YouTube, 82.5 hours, and 10 new subscribers to the ATDC channel.

The biggest performers were the longer content 1. Kent Keirsey - 300 views, 2. Casey Graham (uploaded in December) - 118 views in Jan, 3. Jason F. - 116 views (another 35 views of the live stream)

What’s interesting about all those numbers is 80 plus percent of that traffic is coming from YouTube algorithms. YouTube suggested videos at the end of other videos etc. Very few referrals from ATDC or personal channels.

On that front, the shorter videos are performing much better on both personal social and ATDC Twitter. For example, the Marty Cagan whiteboard video has close to 2,000 views on the ATDC Twitter and 1,200 on my LinkedIn page. Cagan amplified those posts and they are the biggest numbers by far. However, the shorter videos are still getting a couple of hundred views across channels.

Kristin Slink was talking earlier this week about her struggles with procrastination or her need to start on a project.

Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I were just talking about that on A Fly On The Call.

Here’s the clip. #procrastination #gsd #workflow

That’s becoming all too obvious. That’s why all of Casey Graham’s LinkedIn talk was about the individuals in Gravy and not the company.

And that’s why I asked Jason F. about Basecamp’s evolution from an active company blog to a majority personal Twitter communication strategy.

Here’s Jason’s answer to why they did it.

The TL:DR that’s where the audience is. #marketing #contentmarketing

\1. Edit the audio to clip you want to use 2. Upload to https://sonix.ai/ to get a transcript of the audio. 3. Export the transcript as an SRT file. SRT files are the files used for Closed Captioning or, in this case, open caption. 4. In Photoshop create two images that are transparent PNG’s one with my picture and the talk bubble and one with Monique Mills, MBA, PMP®. 5. Create a Premiere Pro project with the orange color matte and A Fly On The Call clip at the bottom. 6. Import the SRT file. You can then customize where the text is, how big the text is, and what it looks like. (I spent too long trying to have the text in different locations depending on who was speaking. That was DUMB. 7. Import the images of the speaker and place them on the timeline depending on who’s talking.

This did take longer than I expected the first time, but the process moved much quicker the second time.

I’m also teaching myself all this stuff with YouTube videos and guesswork. Any suggestions for an improved process are welcomed.

How do you #market in a world without metrics? Who is the best positioned to market without tracking?

Monique Mills, MBA, PMP® and I discuss in this clip from our #podcast.

His answer, slightly paraphrased, “just look at the three-dimensional roadmap man.”

What would your founding team look like? #startup #teambuilding #productmanagment #threedimensionalroadmap

What happens if the consumer starts to protect themselves better. Blocks tracking in emails and on web traffic. Can you adjust?

Monique Mills, MBA, PMP®and I talk about that and more. https://lnkd.in/efjnBY3

https://lnkd.in/ekgdEta

If you have any questions for Jason let me know. We’re going to talk marketing, bootstrap v VC growth, pivoting from a service company to a product company, remote work and more.

It’s a fun thought experiment on #risk and #productmanagment

We talk #remotework and #communitybuilding and all types of fun things.

On this week’s episode, Monique breaks down the work versus reward of all kinds of businesses you can own.

Looking to start a franchise or own a self-storage facility? Give this week’s episode a listen. https://lnkd.in/ewgt6Tr

John O. Foshee listen long enough and you might even hear a shoutout to MyPorter. #entrepreneur #podcast #franchisee

Good content is good content. #linkedinmarketingtips #marketing #contentmarketing

It allows you to use one keyboard and mouse for multiple computers. For example, I can have my Surface in tablet mode and my laptop open and use the mouse and keyboard from the laptop for both computers. I can even copy and paste across computers.

It’s a pretty amazing piece of tech. It works across platforms, so you can have Windows laptop and an iPad up and running at the same time.

I’d be lying if I said I used it all of the time. Sometimes you just don’t need that many screens. But, for example, when I was putting together that little whiteboard video from yesterday, it was nice to have Synergy running. #techtiptuesday #productivity #productivitysoftware

I liked it so much I contracted with Industrial Light & Magic to make an animation.*

A link to the full presentation is in the comments.

*I did NOT contract with ILM. #productmanagement #startups

I gotta say the three is the hardest part.

Finding three posts a day that I want to write a thoughtful comment on ain’t easy. You’ve got to scroll through a bunch of press release posts to get to it.

So anyways, y’all up your game :)

But we’re back at it now and this week’s episode is probably my favorite title of an episode if nothing else.

I wondered what mine was. What I learned is used to buy a lot more books not on Amazon. There are a ton of books that I had in triplicate all the time ready to give away when it was brought up in conversation. None of those are in my Amazon order history.

If I were to guess, my number one has to be The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The very broad pitch for this book is, it’s more important to worry about impact over probability. If something is likely to happen, but doesn’t change much in your life – NBD. However, if it’s highly unlikely to happen, but disrupts everything. Pay attention.

There’s a lot more to the idea though and that’s why reading the book is, you know, helpful.

Another book that I haven’t thought of in years, but was reminded of when looking through my orders is Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant. The first half is a well-written book that tells the story starting a business and the second half is a kickass cookbook. I gave that book away a bunch according to Amazon.

https://lnkd.in/e7rsXux

It works for me as a tool. Mapping random thoughts and divergent paths in a single place.

It also works for me as breath of old-air in terms of a business model. * You can download the software with a free and SHOCKING one-time only fees for purchasing the software. * No login required. * You host the files where you want.

It’s so 20th century in it’s business model. I hope they succeed.

10-years ago was the great Foursquare / Gowalla war. What a time to be alive.

On whim, I searched to see what was happening with the Gowalla brand.

I’ll be damned, they’re coming back https://go.gowalla.com/

Foursquare v. Gowalla round II coming in 2021.

John’s favorite things of 2020: https://lnkd.in/e_6KfrT

The founder “found” my podcast and forwarded my info to the sales guy!

💜 Will Allred Do emails like this work?

The ATDC is producing some videos sharing some tools, books, movies, etc that made 2020 better.

Here’s my list https://lnkd.in/ega97CR with special shout outs to Vince Anido and Jose Martins.

I haven’t gone all in on the Casey Graham 10/3/1 rule. But, I have been more active here than I’ve been on anything non-OrangeCoat blog related ever.

First the stuff that clearly performed best were the things around the LinkedIn algorithm class. * The two RSVP posts got around 4,000 total views and got 96 RSVPs. All those RSVPs didn’t come from those post, but most did and it clearly helped to have Casey comment on both of those. Great return on effort * The follow up post sharing “Casey Uncut” https://lnkd.in/evsvZ6v got 2,000-ish views and the video currently has 157 views. 55% of those views are probably from LinkedIn. Again, we’re out preforming other videos on the channel so I’ll take it.

As a control post (non-Casey topic post) the post about Kent Keirsey talking Product Management is at a little over 600 views and has driven 25-ish RSVPs. https://lnkd.in/e6_FCJb Good numbers as well.

…. A couple additional thoughts in the comments as I’ve gone way over my character limit. One of the notes in the comments is going to be a little funny. Not ha, ha funny, but you’ll understand if you read it.

Live session with a Q&A at the end. It would take an hour at most and then I’d edit ten minutes, max, into a YouTube video for mass consumption.

Then Casey Graham went off. Dabo-style preaching the power of LinkedIn for an hour and fifteen minutes and the people demanded video evidence quicker than my novice video editing could turn things around.

And so, we’ve got Casey Uncut.

https://lnkd.in/e8ai-4i

Give it a watch and come back here and help me edit this thing. Give a timestamp of particular nugget that works well as a standalone video. We’re going to part this video out like a stolen BMW.

“Let all but the most important fire burn,” he said.

It sounded like poetry and so we made it the title of the presentation.

If you’re in a product focused startup his talk on Monday at Noon might be worth your time.

Link in the comment.

That way, if you hit that number you can say you “sold out” and open up new tickets. It’s a digital event after all.

Then I said to myself, self, “quit playing games with EventBrite.”

Anyways, we’re over 50, but not close to the 1,000 ticket number I did set.

So, you can still RSVP to learn from Casey Graham on using the LinkedIn algorithm to your advantage.

Link in the comments below.

I do know I gave LinkedIn little thought since then and the few thoughts I gave it were thoughts of disdain or snobbery. Not my sandbox.

But things change. I talk to Monique Mills, MBA, PMP®every week (http://aflyonthecall.com/) and she groks the value of LinkedIn. I’ve started to listen to her.

I also figure I’m putting effort into things like A Fly On The Call (http://aflyonthecall.com/) and classes and events for the ATDC and I want folks to show up. I’m not interested in putting in the effort to just rake the sand smooth again without anyone knowing about it.

And so, I figured this next thing is worth sharing on LinkedIn. Maybe he’ll inspire me to share more too.

Casey Graham is sharing the story of how Gravy broke the LinkedIn algorithm. If you and your company could do better with sales or recruiting and don’t have a huge budget then this might make sense for you. https://lnkd.in/ercBgyS

If it does, sign on up.