Pluck the Day

From the description of my new podcast, Pluck the Day:

My well-being journey, plucking the day and achieving my values according to the sound idea of the good life.

I have started a trial period for three months, testing PM International's FitLine products called Power Cocktail and Restorate. A bonus product was included with the subscription as a team partner; Activize Oxyplus.

Talking about health, in the latest episode of the podcast, High Five for Hemp, I am mentioning that I have received samples of hemp oil. I will talk more about KokuaVida in the near future.

I think that this new venture, Nélo Life, will "Nurturing Excellence, by Living Optimally."

The Tangram Life Puzzle

Here is an excerpt from my latest photo post on Instagram:

Maybe I can't see the forest for the trees? I have to come to the conclusion that I have to add additional pieces to the Tangram life puzzle. I miss Fizzle’s palapa online community. I have to check out Zen Business. Do you have a favorite digital town hall? I will join a new business network in the near future. It is called Booster Friends. Where do you go for business mixers? 

I am starting my well-being journey on March 20, the Persian New Year, Nowruz. These are my phrases for the year:

🧠🤝🧡 Value Each Other (VEO advisor)

🎧⚡️🎙 Value 4 Value (Podcasting 2.0 certified)

📦💪🏻💰 Purchasing Power w/ a Membership Club (LiveGood affiliate)

I will also come up with my three words for the year in the near future...

Today I am celebrating 1 year as an affiliate (”independent distributor”) with LiveGood. I have a team of about 40 individuals (affiliates and members). My goal is to reach the next rank, gold, during this year. I strive to introduce 100 individuals (affiliate members, regular members, and retails customers) to this new type of e-commerce.

I will continue to purchase products from other direct selling companies, e.g., microsilver products from LR Health & Beauty Systems, and I am open to become a retail customer to other companies.

I have been involved in several network marketing during the years, and I have learned plenty from the MLM (multi-level marketing) industry. The good, the bad, and the ugly… For example my activities in a chocolate company, had some bittersweet memories. I did a search on the net now, and found this piece of document. 

I am taking into account my experiences from a cashback company and a travel company, as I am looking into this new company.

Check out Ben Glinsky’s commentary on ”golden handcuffs” in the business world. (LiveGood Firestarter-Friday Training Zoom, March 8. CEO, Ben Glinsky starts his positive rant, around the 20 min. mark). 

As an ending note, please listen to:

• 18 Years of Podrunner (music mix, 180 BPM - “Post Haste”)
• Tea Party and Media, episode 13 of Tea Party Media pocast

LOL CATS CREATING BUZZ & BIZ

It is amazing how cats could create a such online buzz and big business. I am missing Morris the cat very much, but Robin & Rufus are our family's precious cats nowadays.


Robin & Rufus

Here is an excerpt from Rahul Varshneya's interview with Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger (featuring LOLcats):

Rahul Varshneya: What are your greatest learnings as an entrepreneur, things that you would give as advice to an aspiring entrepreneur? 

Ben Huh: Don’t have a fear of talking about your failures. Don’t hide your mistakes. Because we know that running a startup is really hard, and it’s a lot harder if you lie about it. It’s a lot harder if you can’t be honest about the situation you’re in, and you can’t be honest about asking for help.  

(http://rahulvarshneya.com, December 20, 2012.)

You could read what I learned from my business failures in my post (from 2009), Five Lessons Learned from my Start-up — And why I’d Do it Again, on Open Forum (powered by American Express).

Let's keep the game going! Please add your thoughts in the comment section.


Game For Cats

UPDATE 01/13/2013:

Check out Catmoji! Hat tip to Sarah Lane of The Social Hour.

FEELING ALIVE DURING HALLOWEEN

How did you celebrate Halloween? I had a flaming shot called Blackout (Sambuca, Unicum and three coffee beans) and some strips of beef jerky made with Blair's Sudden Death hot sauce.

Learn about Halloween words with Marina of Hot For Words. 



A year ago I wrote a post on the start of my new business venture. I am happy to say that things are going in the right direction... We will publish the tea site in the near future and you will be able to follow along our journey, e.g., through a business plan competition starting in November.

Related: My post, HALLOWEEN WITH BLACK CATS, PUMPKINS AND DEVILED EGGS.

Related articles

• Quirky Jerky (online.wsj.com)
• A passel of Halloween pumpkins (dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com)

When Starting Your Startup, Don't Count on Anyone to Help You - Except You

Starting a startup can be a completely exhilarating and mind boggling experience at once - especially for first timers.

I remember when we were laying the initial groundwork for Chrometa, our software startup, as far back as 2007 (time sure flies!) - I got hammered with advice from all angles.  Tough thing was, I had no clue who I should listen to, and who I should ignore.

Startups are exciting by nature.  There’s the allure of doing something completely new.  Of getting a business off the ground by simply rubbing a couple of sticks together and hoping for a spark.  And of course, everyone thinks of the vast riches generated by Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other past Silicon Valley startups, and thinks that - just maybe - your venture will “take off” in similarly spectacular fashion.

It’s very fun - and also very easy to lose your head and perspective.  My initial thoughts (for our first year or so) often centered around the grandiose potential for our time tracking product.  We hadn’t yet built a fully-working product, of course, but man, were there ever a lot of potential markets we could tap into!

Playing into this excitement, I found that many people surrounding our company were offering to “help us out” in one way, shape, or form.  Big shot attorneys, who normally wouldn’t have given me the time of day at my old job, were now offering to defer their fees and introduce us to potential investors.  Software resellers we spoke with talked about the tremendous potential they saw for pitching our product to their client base.  Big company executives waxed enthusiastically about the future opportunity to roll out our product across their entire 100,000 person organizations - upon successful completion of an initial test pilot!

Things looked so good, I could barely keep track of the many ways Chrometa was going to take off!  

• “Our big shot attorney - man, he’s connected with all the big VC’s in the Valley!  Fundraising is gonna be a snap!”
• “And when this reseller gets ramped up, they’re gonna sell an insane number of licenses for us!”
• “Plus we’ve got this enterprise deal cooking - we’ll get a case study, their logo on our website, and a big license deal from our second stage roll out!”

There were many, many more “killer opps” in the hopper for us.  It was a tremendously exciting time.

So guess how many actually panned out for us?  

Zip.  Zero.  Nada.  None at all!

But - we’re still here - alive and kicking - in 2010!  We’ve got a growing and paying customer base, one product to market, and another one that we are very excited about on the way.  

And no thanks to ANY of these initial “killer opps” panned out for us...how can that be?

What I FINALLY learned - and not a moment too soon (otherwise I might not be writing to your today) - is that when building a startup, nobody can help you but you.  You are the one who has to get it done.

Your attorney will probably not be able to help you raise capital.  The reality is he sends too many deals to his too few investor contacts every week, so they largely ignore what he pitches them.

Your hot reseller might have another “blue sky” brainstorm meeting with you - and then they’ll go back to doing what they’ve always done to make money.  They’re not going to figure out how to sell a brand new product for the very first time to a new market.  They’ve got easier, more established ways to make a buck.

And your hot enterprise customer may complete your pilot - but let’s get real, they’re not going to roll out your alpha or beta product company-wide.  You’re dreaming.  They just want a cheap or free fix to their current pain point.  Your pilot provided that.  So they’re all set.

These examples may come off as cynical - but I am speaking from experience in all 3 cases.  There are other cases I could cite along this them - but you get the idea.  Since this is just one person’s experience, please remember that there are exceptions to every case I’m listing here.  

But I do think that for your own sanity and planning, you should assume the scenarios I’m listing here would apply to you too.  Because, odds are, these are the numbers that are going to hit when the wheel stops.

And that’s OK - it’s OK that nobody who says they are going to help you, and make you rich, and build your company.  To paraphrase the late, great Harry Browne - they don’t owe you anything. [Editor's note: Brett Owens, You and I could debate the "greatness" of the late Harry Browne. Please note that the link to H.B. org. is not an endorsement of his politics. Please read my post, THE LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT, for my take on the Libertarian Party.]

And in fairness, nobody owes you help - or an introduction - or a fat license deal with their company.  Each individual you encounter will always be looking out for his or her own best interest.  That’s simply human nature.

The good news is, the sooner you can accept this, and become constantly aware of it, the sooner you can free up your valuable time for more productive endeavors that actually move your startup forward.  I know it was a big moment and realization for myself.

So instead of jumping from phone meeting to phone meeting - or worse (from a time management standpoint) - driving from meeting to meeting, talking about grandiose partnerships, deals, and future plans that had little (or no) chance of materializing - I could spend my entire day on the few critical levers that would actually determine the success or failure of our startup.

And for a product company, these critical levers are:

1. Building a product that people find useful
2. Tweaking that product into something that people will pay for
3. Figuring out how to acquire new customers in a cost effective way

Rinse, repeat, and so on.

When I think about all of the in-person meetings and phone calls that I had with people who could “potentially” help us in our early days, I have to laugh.  It was a learning experience, and I didn’t have a clue about what I needed to be focusing in on.  So I chased every shiny windmill in hopes of finding the silver bullet that would set us on the path to greatness!

So if you are a fellow first-time entrepreneur - first of all, congratulations!  Secondly, I’d encourage you to focus on one of the three things I mentioned above, at all times.  Consider anything else to be a distraction.  Your time is your most valuable resource - it’s a bit of a cliche, but it’s the truth - you have to protect it with a vengeance!  

Be skeptical, but of course polite, to people who claim they can help you.  They don’t owe you anything - but in turn, you don’t owe them, either.  You’re all squared up.  So don’t let them hold any promises over you...odds are they can’t deliver on them, anyway.  You’re the one who ultimately has to “make it happen” - so go out there and get it done!