#this is the price I pay for 1) being good enough at our inventory process AND available enough in my schedule to travel around

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

I am. so tired. :’)

[notebooknebula]

Flip Real Estate Virtually with Paul Lizell & Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority

https://www.jayconner.com/flip-real-estate-virtually-with-paul-lizell-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority/

Jay Conner and his special guest Paul Lizell talk about how to utilize systems and processes that simplify the buying process of real estate.

Paul is the founder of The Virtual Investor, JP Homes, Inc & www.housedealsamerica.com He has been flipping properties since 2001 and is the original virtual wholesaler having purchased all over the U.S. since 2009. He has bought and sold properties in 44 out of 50 states and will continue to look at expanding into new markets.

Paul is a graduate of Drexel University in 1998, holds a degree in Finance and a minor in Economics, he now teaches at www.ReoAuctionAcademy.com. He focused exclusively on online auctions, bank REO’s, buying off the MLS and wholesalers across the country since 2013.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

1:42 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now”- https://www.JayConner.com/Book

3:20 – Today’s guest: Paul Lizell

4:57 – How Paul Lizell gets started on the real estate business.

6:58 – What is wholesaling?

8:01 – What is the advantage of buying a house vs getting it under contract?

10:28 – When you buy a house in today’s market are you primarily selling them to other real estate investors at a profit or are you selling them to the people who are going to live in the property?

11:16 – What kinds of profit are you seeing in today’s market while doing your business virtually?

11:57 – Wholesaling vs. Wholesaling

13:01 – Do you think that Wholetailing is more popular now because of the lack of inventory?

13:58 – When you’re wholesaling a house to an end buyer, what’re your criteria for pricing that home versus a complete rehab?

14:52 – In today’s real estate market as long as it’s clean and smells good that property is okay.

15:34 – How do you find your buyer?

16:07 – How do you find deals given the low inventory in today’s real estate market?

17:35 – How do you get the leads?

19:29 – How to connect with Paul Lizell: https://www.REOauctionAcademy.com & https://www.FlipRealEstateVirtually.com

20:30 – How do you manage your people on the grounds to inspect the property?

24:21 – Do you give additional compensation to your bank-owned real estate agents?

25:23 – How do you find your REO agents?

26:56 – When you become the winner in the online auction how long do you have before you got a close? Do you make a house inspection before you take it down?

28:34 – Paul Lizell’s parting message: In my business model my time is my only marketing cost.

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11279/flip-real-estate-virtually-with-paul-lizell-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority

Flip Real Estate Virtually with Paul Lizell & Jay Conner

Jay Conner

00:02:57

My guest is a good friend. We’re in a mastermind together. Well, he is the founder of The Virtual Investor. That’s right. He is a virtual investor and virtual wholesaler. He’s been flipping properties all the way back since 2001. And he actually is the original virtual wholesaler. And he’s purchased all over the US since 2009 virtually. In addition to that, my guest has bought and sold properties in 44 out of 50 states and continues to look at expanding into new markets. Now, in addition to that, he contributes his success to utilizing systems and processes that simplify the online buying process. He’s focused exclusively on online auctions bank REOs, buying off of the MLS, and wholesalers across the country since 2013. I’m so excited to have my friend and fellow mastermind member, Paul Lizell. Paul, welcome to the podcast.

Paul Lizell

00:04:32

Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it.

Jay Conner

00:04:34

Absolutely. I’m excited to have you on here, Paul. And of course, we’re going to be seeing each other again here pretty soon at one of our upcoming mastermind meetings. And today we want to hear all about what it’s like to be a virtual wholesaler. What in the world does that mean? And what’s that process look like? But before you get started on all that, tell us, how’d you get into real estate?

Paul Lizell

00:04:58

Interesting story. So let’s go back to the 1990s when I was in college. I was working for my uncle who’s a general contractor and he bought a quadplex, a 4-unit building. We fixed it up, renovated it. He turned around and rented it out. He was making pretty good profits on this property, too, and still had a lot of equity in it. So that kind of stoked my interest in real estate. And that point on, after he bought a few more and we renovated them and I was going through college, I decided this is something I got to get into. It’s gotta be my long-term goal. So I did and basically in 2001, I started my first property. Unlike his, it was a fix and flip. I got into that so I could build up some cash. Eventually, I did build up, got some rentals as well, but stuck with the wholesaling, the fix and flip game owner-finance game, and I’d been doing that ever since.

Jay Conner

00:05:46

That’s awesome. So, were you doing fix and flips a while before you started doing wholesaling? Or were you doing wholesaling and fixing flips simultaneously, like right out the gate?

Paul Lizell

00:05:59

Well, I really started in the fix and flip game and then when I had too many flip deals going on, I did a couple of wholesale deals. And I started to realize it was kind of easy doing these wholesale deals. So after the crash of 2008, 2009, when all the marketing was just tanking, and you probably remember that well, I’m sure, I decided, all right, let’s go more to the wholesale game and turn them and burn them, and we did that. And we still did fix and flips, don’t get me wrong. We kept those good deals, did fix and flips on them, kept some good deals, rentals, some owner-financing, but we basically became virtual wholesalers at that point. We started expanding. We started in Pennsylvania where I was originally from. I just moved here to Florida this past month, but originally I’m from about 45 minutes north of Philadelphia. And so I started in that market, expanded out, went to Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana, the Carolinas, which I love and where you’re from. And then I started going down to Florida, Texas, before you know it, I bought and sold in 44 to 50 states.

Jay Conner

00:06:57

First of all, let’s make sure everybody understands what we’re talking about when we say wholesale a deal. There’s more than one way to wholesale a deal. So, what’s your definition of wholesaling? And what’s that look like?

Paul Lizell

00:07:11

So for most people, they think wholesaling is getting a property under contract from a seller and assigning that contract and collecting assignment fee. So for us buying bank-owned properties, and we do a few of those, don’t get me wrong. We do a few of those deals, we get some of those referrals. But, primarily, what we do with auction properties or bank-owned or HUD properties, we have to buy them, take them down and then resell them. So, it’s a wholesale, it’s just we actually have to take down the property. So we do need the funds to be able to purchase it, whether we use transactional funding, private lending, as you’re great at, at raising money, we do as well. We love the raising money game and using private lending for that. But yeah, it’s kind of the same deal as it is with assignment of contract, it’s  just we actually take it down so we show ownership at one point.

Jay Conner

00:07:59

So, what’s the advantage of actually buying the house instead of getting it under contract and then collecting an assignment fee?

Paul Lizell

00:08:09

You know in certain states there’s been a crackdown, I think Tennessee and Illinois have had a crackdown on wholesalers where they’re making them become licensed realtors. So I think this kind of negates that because you’re actually purchasing the property, right? You’re showing you have the vested interest, not just the vested interest or equitable interest, you actually purchased it and took it down. So you have the right to do what you want to afterwards, and nothing can come back. So from a legal standpoint, we’re probably the safest and best. I am licensed in Pennsylvania. I probably will get licensed in Florida. And occasionally we’ll do some of those assignment deals, but for the most part, we just take them down, resell them. And in this market, as you know, wholetailing has been unbelievable, just getting the property in decent enough shape to be mortgageable reselling it, not sitting on it for 6, 7 months while the rehab is getting done, while the showings are going on. It’s much quicker, you’re in and out 30 days at the most, and you’re hopefully selling it in 30 to 45 days in this market right now.

So, it’s been much quicker and better.

Jay Conner

00:09:08

Right. So the reason you actually buy the house and take ownership of it is, that way, regardless of where you’re doing business, you don’t have to worry about there being issues with just collecting an assignment fee. Am I hearing you right on that?

Paul Lizell

00:09:27

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we would prefer to do it without having to have all the cash and buy it, but the banks don’t allow you. So if you buy a property from the bank, you can’t just assign it to another buyer, you must take it down in your name and you can do things with it. We’ve done things in trust. You know trusts are great. But the problem with that is, unless it’s an investor that’s a buyer investor, that trusts in you and understands what you’re doing, that they know what you’re doing, they usually don’t want to buy your trust, or if you put it in an LLC and sell them that LLC, they don’t usually want to buy it. And I totally understand that, they’re going to want to put it in their own name. We’ve run into that in the past with Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae had that anti-flipping where you couldn’t sell it for more than 20% of what you paid for. I think it was 90 days after the deed was recorded, not when you purchased, but when the deed was recorded. So with those properties, it either had to do something off the HUD, or we just had to wait those 90 days and then just sell it to them at that point, which has other risks. But, overall, if you’re making profits, I’m alright with that.

Jay Conner

00:10:26

There you go. So when you’re buying the houses in today’s market, are you primarily selling them to other real estate investors at a profit? Or are you selling them to people that are actually going to move in and own the home themselves and live in it?

Paul Lizell

00:10:44

In this market, we’ve done more to end-buyers. More people are going to live there than in the past. Typically, we sell to other investors for the most part, but in this market, the way it’s been and the kind of properties that we targeted, we’ve kind of pivoted and go on into less of the trainwreck properties, the ones that need everything and more to the ones that just need a little bit enhancing to get it back to become mortgageable and then resell them. So we’ve kind of pivoted a little bit just in this market to try to take advantage of what’s there. Go after the low-lying fruit rather than everything else.

Jay Conner

00:11:14

I got it. I know it’s going to depend on the market. I mean, you’re in all kinds of markets all over the nation, but what kind of profits are you seeing in today’s market doing the business the way you do it?

Paul Lizell

00:11:26

So our wholesale profits are generally around $12,000 per deal, and that’s your standard wholesale. If we’re wholetailing it, we’re around $32,000 and the full-scale fix and flip we’re into anywhere from probably close to your number, the $67,000, but we’ve had plenty of that have been $80,000, $100,000, even $120,000, especially in this market over the past year. So it’s been nice, but those are your full-scale rehabs. And those were the home runs, obviously, they’re not your average.

Jay Conner

00:11:55

Right. And we’ve already said it, but I want to make sure our audience understands it. Tell everybody what wholetailing is versus wholesaling.

Paul Lizell

00:12:05

Yeah, great point. So wholetailing is more or less where you’re getting a property and it just needs some paint, some carpet, it doesn’t need a full kitchen gut. Maybe you just repaint the cabinets. Maybe you put new cabinet poles on them, or maybe put countertops on them. With bathrooms, you’re okay with them but maybe you just put a new toilet in, or a new vanity or even easier sometimes, just a new faucet on a sink. And then you’re reworking your painting and carpeting. Usually, you don’t have to do roof siding, windows, things like that. So wholetailing has really just been super profitable. It’s more so than the fix and flip, believe it or not, for us. When you look at it from a time standpoint, we’re selling those so quickly, as quickly as our full-scale fix and flip, but we’re putting less effort in, and our holding costs are so much lower. It’s been worthwhile for us and less management of contractors because it can be one of the most difficult, taxing things in this business.

Jay Conner

00:13:00

Do you think that wholetailing, or in other words, “not doing a full rehab,” but you just make it okay and nicer? Do you think wholetailing is so much more popular now and working so well because there’s just no inventory?

Paul Lizell

00:13:16

That’s it. You hit the nail on the head with that, Jay. We go back to 2009 when I was doing fix and flips. If I didn’t do a full-scale, redo everything, you didn’t have that many buyers interested in the property unless it was the first-time home buyer. But as the market has gotten hotter and hotter and has lesser and lesser inventory, people are being less picky figuring they’ll do some of the work themselves. So it’s really just kind of taking what the market gives you. We follow it in our business. We follow the “Keep it simple, stupid” theory, and I think that’s the best thing to do in any business. Whatever the market is giving you, take that, right? If you don’t need to do the full-scale rehab, don’t, unless it’s going to warrant you getting an additional $50,000 or $60,000 where it becomes worthwhile, just take what the market gives you.

Jay Conner

00:13:56

Yeah. So how do you determine how to price? Like if you’re wholetailing a house to an end-buyer, what’s your criteria for pricing that home at the stage you got it in versus a complete rehab?

Paul Lizell

00:14:15

So basically what we do now with the wholetailing, we’re discounting it at 10-15% off what the normal end, full-scale rehab would be, which is still giving some equity to the buyer, should they want to do something there. And still it makes them fly off the shelves, I tell you, they don’t last very long when you’re just doing the basics and people see it’s clean and easy. I can change the carpet. I can change the paint color or whatever, I can do this or that. So people aren’t as picky as they used to be because there’s just no inventory. It’s hard to be picky. You take what’s there, basically, more or less.

Jay Conner

00:14:50

So in this market, as long as it’s clean and it smells good, if it’s dated, that’s okay, right?

Paul Lizell

00:15:03

Yes, dated, okay. You go do the ’80s, ’90s style. People can live with that as long as things aren’t broken, right? As long as you don’t have holes in the roof and things like that. Roofing is definitely a big issue, HVAC system for people. We just did one in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and unfortunately it did need a new HVAC system, so we did install that. We’re still gonna do pretty well. His property is still gonna net around $32,000, even though we had to do the roof and the HVAC system and the rest of it was a wholetail.

Jay Conner

00:15:32

Gotcha. So when you’re wholetailing to an end-user, are you finding the buyer by listing it with a real estate agent in the MLS?

Paul Lizell

00:15:42

We are. So, 90% of the time we do that. And occasionally like we did in one in Charleston, Tennessee, which is a very rural area, I had my disposition manager reach out to a bunch of agents in that area to just let them know we have a property and we offered them 2% commission. And the only thing we had to do was put it in a hot water heater in that one. That was literally it.

Jay Conner

00:16:05

That’s amazing. So first of all, to be virtually wholesaling, you have to find these deals and there ain’t no inventory to speak of. So everybody wants to know, well, if there isn’t any inventory, how in the world are you finding the deals?

Paul Lizell

00:16:27

Well, we got a little bit of an advantage over a lot of other people in the market. Most real estate investors out there stick with certain territories, maybe one or two markets out there. Occasionally somebody does three or four, but for us, the whole country is our oyster, really. That’s what we look at. We got inventory anywhere. We have preferred states where we’d like to do business, don’t get me wrong, but if there’s a great deal in another state where we don’t typically do business, we will go there. Just to give you an example, we’ve done 5 deals in New Mexico this year. We hadn’t done a deal in New Mexico in I think the previous 6 years before that, so we just kind of take what the market gives you. If there’s a deal there, we’ll take it. And we also hit those tertiary markets, and the second-tier markets that if you’re looking at a town or a city like Charlotte, go an hour outside, like a town like Kannapolis, Gastonia, and then go another hour outside that loop there. And then you’re in like a third-tier market. We target those markets because people do want to live there, especially now with what’s going on with the pandemic and everything. People are looking to be more and more rural. So it kind of fits right into what we’ve done all these years, which is a big advantage for us.

Jay Conner

00:17:33

Right! So how do you get the leads?

Paul Lizell

00:17:35

So for us, it’s our own time. So we pay no marketing fees, right? We don’t have any marketing costs whatsoever. I had turned off the direct mail marketing in 2013 and I just buy exclusively off of these auctions. For me, it’s really looking at what’s on the auction sites right now. We use VAs. We have several VAs that do this for each different auction site, whether it’s Auction.com, Xome, the Hudson & Marshall, Hubzu, Realty Bid, Auction Network, HUD Home Store, Fannie and Freddie. We have them go through and they do what I call “First-level fig.” They look at it and we give them the criteria of what we look out for – square footage, repair amount – and then they’ll send me a spreadsheet on Excel. Yes, yes, no, no, no. So, let’s say there’s 250 properties on this particular auction that’s coming up.

We might weed that down to about 20 to 25 that we’ll actually bid on. And then as the bidding process goes, if we’re getting out there and we just let those go off and again, we pick the low-lying fruit there. We’re not going to get into a bidding war. Today, for example, there’s a property in Florida that was in Sarasota, which is a red-hot market. It’s a nice market. My maximum allowable offer is 141 because there’s a buyer’s premium on this property. So the most I would spend was 150 because the ARV was 350 tops. This thing ends up getting bid up to 203 with a buyer’s premium. It was over 210 that that person is purchasing a property for, plus it needed everything. This thing needed at least 125 and work. So basically whoever bought this is probably an end-buyer, but they’re going to be upside down when all is said and done. So we fall off that, we have our maximum viable offers that will go up to, and you can’t get emotional with it, right? That’s a nice market. I would have liked to have been in there, but it didn’t fit our criteria. So I let it go.

Jay Conner

00:19:27

Paul, in case we’ve got some listeners that need to leave the show a little early, go ahead and let folks know how they can get in contact with you and continue the conversation.

Paul Lizell

00:19:38

Sure, absolutely. So we have a couple of different websites. www.REOAuctionAcademy.com is one of them. And also FlipRealEstateVirtually.com is another one. Both URLs work. You can contact us, and if you want to learn more about our coaching program, which we teach people how to do exactly what we do. As a matter of fact, we teach a lot of other investors who do direct mail, postcards, and PPC. They want to learn this aspect of the business. They actually hire somebody or have somebody who doesn’t have as much going on and let them handle this whole new arm of the business for them.

Jay Conner

00:20:13

Again, those 2 websites are REOAuctionAcademy.com, and the other one is FlipRealEstateVirtually.com. All right, so you got the leads coming in. You got your VAs researching all the houses that are coming up on all these different auction sites. How in the world do you have boots on the ground, eyes on the ground, in all these different markets, taking a look at these houses to even know what a close estimation of repairs would be that you need to do? Because, obviously, you don’t want to bid on a property until you know what kind of repairs you’re looking at.

Paul Lizell

00:21:02

Absolutely. And this is one of the most important things. So how you develop these kinds of relationships and these relationships end up blossoming and give you more deals throughout the years. I’ll give you an example of it. So in Tucson, Arizona, there was an REO agent who I bought a bunch of properties through over the years from 2010, all the way through now, we still currently do. Basically, he saw I was a serious player in Tucson, Arizona. We wholesaled a bunch of them. And then he was starting to bring me deals and bring me leads and bring me properties. So he was my boots on the ground. And how that started was I just reached out to him initially after I was bidding on some properties, and this is what you need to do if you’re entering any new market, you need to contact the realtor or the REO agent for that property.

If it’s a bank-owned property, get some details. You’re trying to get the BPO, which is the “Broker’s Price Opinion” of the property. And if you can get that, that’ll tell you basically what they think the “as is value” is, the 30-day sale price, the 90-day sale price,  the 120-day sale price. And they’ll show comps on there, and that’s like, that’s gold. That’s gold when you get that. So you utilize them for that. You also try to get additional pictures from them. And then you’re trying to get what kind of repairs are needed because they generally know, again, the utilities usually aren’t on, but they know what repairs were needed. They know if the roof’s leaking, they know if the air conditioner or heater looks really bad and it looks like it needs replacing, the hot water heater. They’ll tell you if the kitchen needs to be replaced. And the best referrals I get for contractors, hands down, is from these agents.

And the big reason is these contractors who work for these agents get referrals and they get a lot of referrals. So they do not want to screw over these agents when they’re giving them, basically, free marketing. So the guys that we’ve used from all the agent referrals have all been good, and I’m going to knock on wood when I say that, the ones that I run into that have been bad are ones that I picked on my own. I’ve also gotten great ones, but the best referrals from people who are there, who have boots on our ground and have local people, you know how to do those repairs. So we relied big time on the agents on these properties. If there is no agent, we use a company called BPO Photo Flow that’ll go out there and take some pictures of the property.

And if we have a lockbox, they can usually get inside, take more pictures. And we kind of tell them what to look for, like take pictures of the exterior, make sure there’s no cracks in the foundation, take a picture of the basement, the systems, make sure the HVACs are right, hot water heater, kitchens and bathrooms are important. You know, anything that they noticed cracks or issues with flooring, whatever, anything off-level. We want to know that kind of thing. If there’s moisture in the basement, just so we know what we’re in for an aid, generally do a pretty good job and they’re fairly inexpensive to utilize.

Jay Conner

00:23:49

And what’s the name of that service? One more time.

Paul Lizell

00:23:54

It’s BPO Photo Flow, like “Broker’s Price Opinion.” BPOPhotoFlow.com. And they do a really good job. They’re not in every market, so sometimes we actually have to reach out to other local agents and send them out there. And then we just pay them basically more or less to go out there and take some pictures for us and then tell them if we buy it, we’re going to list it through you. We do offer that. And if we do buy, we do end up listing it with them or having them help us sell the property if they know some investors.

Jay Conner

00:24:20

So these REO real estate agents, also known as bank-owned real estate agents, have the listing for these properties that are going up for auction. So obviously if you buy it, you don’t have to pay them anything for the purchase because the bank, the REO, is paying their commission. But do you compensate these agents in any additional way other than when you make a purchase, the bank pays them?

Paul Lizell

00:24:46

We do at times, like if we know they’re going to be doing above and beyond, and they’re not going to get the listing, we will definitely pay them. We’ll say, “What do you want for this? Or what free one for that service?” They usually are very, very fair with the prices and we’re glad to do it. We just Venmo them most of the time. I’ve never really run into any issues with that. Most of the time, they’re really happy to just hand the listing for you. I even have thought of them managing my rehabs for me because they know the contractors, they kind of manage, oversee, and take pictures. They’re happy to go do that. They see the progress and they want it listed so that they can get their permission when all is said and done.

Jay Conner

00:25:21

Awesome. And how do you find these REO agents? I suppose one way you could find them is, well, your VAs are looking at auctions coming up. They go research the property and right there, they see who’s got the real estate listing on it. Right?

Paul Lizell

00:25:37

Absolutely. And you get a lot of these agents who will have 5, 10, 15, 20 different properties. And they’ll cover a huge geographical region, which is crazy. I mean, they’re running around all the time. Nobody works harder than an REO agent, that I can tell you. Those guys and gals, they work their butts off and they are good. Their numbers are so spot on. For example, on a property we had in Ohio a few years back, I was talking to the agent, “What do you think the value of this property is, as is?” And she’s like, it had to be somewhere between 17 and 20. Sure enough, we picked it up for like $7,500. We sold that for $17,500. She was just right on the money with it. And that happens time and time and time again, the only time, if you’re in with a newer agent, that’s where you want to be careful.

If it is a newer real estate agent, they’re not going to be as experienced. You’re going to want to try to lean on a secondary agent. Hopefully somebody that’s in one of these towns that has their own brokerage that’s been there for 10, 20 years and really knows the market. Well, those have been our best sources. Far and away, the people that are in small mom & pop shops, they just know the market. They know everybody in town. They usually know who lived in that property, especially if it’s a smaller town, like you live in, Jay, they know people, right? And they’ve been our greatest source all over every market that we’ve ever been in.

Jay Conner

00:26:55

Let’s say that you make a bid and you win the bid at the auction and all these auctions are online, right?

Paul Lizell

00:27:04

Yes. They’re all online.

Jay Conner

00:27:05

So you win the bid. So now you’re the winning bidder. On average, how long do you have before you get close? In addition to that, do you sometimes, or always get a home inspection before you take it down?

Paul Lizell

00:27:22

So, Jay, I’ll answer the first question first. 30 to 45 days usually is what you got, time-wise. Sometimes a little bit longer. If the title is a little cloudy or there’s past issues or where something wasn’t done right at the Sheriff’s sale. That’s the answer to the first question. The second one, we never get a home inspection. We’ll just send a contractor out there. I don’t have too much faith in the home inspection field, business, people. Most of these guys learn out of a book and never swung a hammer a day in their life. So the people I rely on are the contractors. I try to find general contractors that really know everything, as many aspects of it. And yeah, if they miss some stuff, sure, they’re gonna miss some stuff here and there, but they’re going to see the big stuff. And they’ve been a great source for me and are far less expensive because you’re just gonna pay $400 or $500 for these home inspections when I can send a guy out there for a hundred bucks to give me a pretty good inspection, you know.

Jay Conner

00:28:14

And again, as you said, you find these general contractors by referral from the bank-owned real estate agents, right?

Paul Lizell

00:28:21

Yup. And about 95% of the time, they don’t charge you a penny to go out there. They’re hoping to get the work.

Jay Conner

00:28:26

That’s fantastic. Well, this is a fantastic business model you’ve got, Paul. Any parting comments?

Paul Lizell

00:28:35

I love it. It’s a great business model. The one thing I really like about it is that I can turn a business on or off anytime I want, unlike the direct mail marketing or the PPC where you gotta be on those calls right away. On a PPC lead or direct mail, it’s constantly going. If I want to go on vacation, I shut down for 2 weeks or a month. If I want to go overseas, I can do that and just stop operations and start right back up when I get back. So I do love that. That is my favorite aspect of the business. I also don’t have to deal with home sellers 99% of the time. So those are 2 facets. I really like how it’s really simple. It’s not turnkey, but your time is your marketing costs, right? Your time and energy, which is your most valuable asset. Your time is all your costs involved.

[mcu-fan-fics-blog]

The Helping Hand

This is a Repost from my Ao3 I wanted to bring it to Tumblr. I hope you like it Its currently 5 chapters I will be uploading the rest throughout the rest of the week.

Word count: 2400 approx

Summary: Y/N Krast Illegitimate Daughter of Tony Stark. Product of an unwanted teen pregnancy. What would Howard Stark be capable of doing to assure his sons future? What will happen when Tony meets our Beautiful, young, genius, rich philanthropist.

Tw: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Drug use, Drug addiction, Teen Pregnancy. (If there are any I missed please tell me.)

Ch.3

Chapter 4: Age of Ultron pt.1

Ch.5

It has been a couple of days since your last dose. You were starting to feel the withdrawal and were not having it. "Y/N are you even listening to me?" You snap out of your thoughts turning to face Logan. "Of course in listening to Logan this is also important to me." You stand up and walk towards him "Don't you ever question that again."

You notice Logan flinch at your words, you hurt him. You look at the floor "I'm sorry Logan it's just been a couple of days since..." He nods and looks at you reassuringly "I thought you had gotten a handle on it." You sigh as you sit on the couch with him sitting next to you. "I'm an addict Logan we both know there's no controlling that." He holds your hand. 

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have kept giving them to you when Howard adopted you." You hold his cheek and clean the tear rolling down his cheek. "It's not your fault the Oxy it was just… your way to keep seeing me. It's not like I gave you much choice in the matter."

You were given Oxycodone at a young age… It was a mistake you were taking it for a couple of days before the nurse noticed. Hoping to cover her mistake she told no one and gave you extra to help with withdrawal. She probably never thought about it again, after all she was never going to see you again. There were no parents in the picture so no repercussions fell on her. It a shame you couldn't say the same of yourself. 

Logan was a couple of years older when he noticed your "habits" 15,16 maybe. He just wanted to help. Unbeknownst to you both, you just made it worse. You were able to hide or play off your addiction, for anyone looking in from the outside you were a normal kid. In Sokovia let’s just say the practice always had inventory. "Do you need me to get you a contact… I still know some people." Logan says looking forward." You swallow hard. "I… I need one bottle. Logan, I want to stop, but just having it on hand helps." 

"I'll be there every step of the way Y/N" Finally you let out a tear… as soon as one falls you come undone. Quietly crying while Logan holds you. "Logan you are the one person who knows all of me… Thanks for not running for the hills." He laughs "I couldn't even if I wanted to you're my sister, my family." He nudges you "Plus I'm also not the easiest person." you Laugh At Him. Your phone rings and you're quick to answer. "Y/N Krast who is this?"

"It’s Pepper, Y/N. I hope I haven't interrupted you." You mouth to Logan that it's Pepper, you put the call on speaker telling him to be quiet. "It's okay Pepper, you didn't interrupt anything what is it." She sighs and starts talking. "We need your help… Tony needs your help." You begin to worry, taking the phone off speaker and talking to Pepper. 

"What's going on Pepper you're worrying me." She just takes a deep breath and continues. "There's an Iron Suit waiting for you outside." You nod and hang up. Make your way to the office. "Logan If you could please get that for me all be back soon." Logan nods and waves you off. Sure enough, there was an Iron suit outside just kinda standing there waiting for you. 

As soon as you step in you're greeted by Pepper in the coms. "Just enjoy the ride see you soon." The ride was quiet but it just got you more on edge for what was waiting for you. Once you land you are greeted by a waiting Pepper. "Hey what's going on, I'm starting to get worried." Pepper only looks at you and gives you an apologetic look. You were rather pale today the building stress and the withdrawal aren't really sitting well. 

"Pepper I'm okay, but I won't be If someone doesn't tell me what's going on." Soon behind Pepper, you see a woman's shadow walking towards you. "You're being recruited Mrs. Krast to be a part of the Avengers… at least temporarily we'll work out the conditions later, what do you say?" Pepper scenes you confusion and steps in. "This is Director Hill. We need your help just say yes so we can tell you what's going on."

You just nod your head. Not long after Maria calls the team in. "Team meet your new member. I'm sure most of you already know her, as I’m sure she knows you." You stand rather defensive; you know none of them. Other than Tony. Then suddenly Natalie walks up from behind you. "Hey, stranger welcome to the team." You smirk. "What should I call you Natalie, Natalia, Natasha, or just Nat." She laughs and the rest of the team chuckles. "Touché" is all she says. 

You follow the team as they make their way across the tower you realize the tower is destroyed. "And I thought I knew how to throw a party… Clearly not." Once you make it to the meeting room Captain Rogers walks in with Maria Hill. You learn a lot in the hour and a half that has passed. You excuse yourself and make a call. 

"Logan remember what I asked you to do earlier. If I'm going to make it through this I'm going to need them." You're interrupted by a familiar deep female voice. "What do you need to get through this Y/N?" Natasha asked bluntly. "It's not nice to eavesdrop… Okay, just don't judge it’s for the greater good, remember that." Nat gives you a flat look not even bothering to change her defensive stance. "Do you guys have a medical unit? I need something." You say whispering while looking around to make sure no one heard you. 

"Are you hurt, do you have a condition or something." You sigh knowing she's not going to drop it unless you tell her. "I'm going through withdrawal Nat." She laughs. "You expect me to believe you’re some kind of junkie." You stay quiet avoiding her gaze. "And you're not kidding. Y/N since when." She asks. 

"You don't want to know alright. Will you help me? I just need to stop the symptoms long enough to think." The desperation growing in your voice. Nat sighs "What do you need and how much?" You let out a deep breath and give her a thankful look. "Oxycodone… 3. Is that possible if not I need to call Logan?" She just nods and leaves you standing there in the hallway. Not long after she comes back and with something in hand. 

"Since when?" She asks again you can tell she's ordering you not asking you to tell her. You answer reluctantly. "I was ten alright." You extend your hand and take the pills from her, taking one before heading back into the meeting room leaving her in the hallway alone. She walks back in clearly shaken up by your revelation.

A couple of hours later you're in the Quinjet heading to South Africa. You catch nat looking at you from afar. "Stop doing that…" You say to her. "Looking at you?" She says you shake your head. "Stop feeling bad for me. I don't need it. Yes, it's fucked up, but it is what it is." You say getting slightly annoyed at the situation. “You know I can’t let you get off this plane in good conscience?” You scoff. “ With all due respect, you’ve known me for all of three minutes. You can’t make decisions for me Natasha.” She only sighs. 

“I know me, Nat… I’m okay as fucked up as it might sound. I just need it to function at the moment I’m not high or anything. Just let me help you all.” Nat gives you an angry look. “At what cost are you going to help us? How far will you take this ‘to help us.’” You didn’t mean to raise your voice but you did. “Well, I’m sorry to break this to you but if I DONT help there won’t be a price to pay!” That surprised her but she knew you were right. “For the greater good.” she says, and you nod. “For the Greater Good” you repeat more towards yourself than towards her. 

Once the Quinjet landed Tony lent you a suit and taught you some basic commands. “Just be careful Kid.” You can only nod your head. “What are we actually going to do with Ultron.” Tony sighs “For now we talk to him and try to stop him from getting the vibranium.” He’s about to walk out when he gives you one last look. “Don't engage in direct combat.” he says. You can’t help but laugh. “I grew up in the system and learned how to defend myself quite early on. But just in case I do die, bury me in the suit.” Tony tries to hold his laughter but can’t. “You're a funny kid thinking I’ll go to your funeral. Much less bury you in one of my suits.” You chuckle.

Hours later 

It was a complete shit show… It started off great and went in feeling great and hopeful even. You went with Nat and she insisted on staying near you… More like you following behind her like a lost puppy getting in a couple of shots when necessary. It was all going well until suddenly it wasn't. The Hulk was loose and Tony was after him. The Maximoff twins really did a number on us… You knew that they were going to be a hard obstacle but not like this. That crazy bitch quite literally sent you to your worst nightmare. It's not like you haven't seen it before, but this just felt more real. 

You're back on the Quinjet and everyone is on edge, you're heading god knows where… and to top it off you're quite literally shaking. You were so caught up in your thoughts that you didn't realize that Natasha had sat next to you until she put her hand on top of your shaking hands. “Are you okay Y/N?” you shake your head not really knowing how to process what just happened. “Are you okay, how did she do that?” Nat goes on to explain what actually made them what they were. Hydra… 

“I had heard rumors, whispers of Hydra, but I never thought anyone actually took them up on the offer.” Nat sighs “Desperate people do desperate things wouldn't you agree.” Clint interrupts you two announcing that you were landing soon. You're greeted by a very friendly looking woman, pregnant Laura Barton, a very sweet woman. Apparently no one on the team knew about her except nat. After the very awkward meeting we all just kind of went our separate ways. Bruce was off hating himself, Thor just kinda up and quite literally left, and Roger’s and Tony were just fighting outside. “Are you going to tell me or are you gonna make me find out the hard way.”

You simply lay back on the bed. “What do you want to know?” she sits “If it's actually true.” you laugh sourly. “What the fact that i'm a raging addict since the ripe age of ten. Yes, Natasha it's true.” all she can say is, “How?” You sit back up looking at her. “The how isn't important Nat… I was just a kid I didn't fucking know. All I knew was that when I stopped taking it I felt like complete shit.” You walk out the room before she could continue, not wanting to continue the conversation you go outside. 

Not long after you're all in the dinner room listening to Fury tell us about how we are at the end of the line, the last defense against ultron. Dr. Banner and I came to the conclusion that Ultron wanted to evolve to change into something better. Rogers, Nat, and Clint leave to find Dr.cho. While Tony, Bruce, and I hit the nexus. “Tony you will not believe what I just found… your old friend Jarvis.” He stops what he's doing and goes to your work space. “Old friend indeed he's been scrambling the nuclear codes all along.” Not long after Clint arrives with the cradle. 

Bruce is starting to explain how we should dismantle the android when I cut in. “What if we don't do that?” Bruce drops the tablet and looks at you. “What are you insinuating we do Y/N? Do you need a reminder of what this thing could do.” Tony cuts in. “Bruce, think about it we don't need utron for this to work.” Bruce just sighs “We’ve got Jarvis back.” you continue. “So you want me to help you to put Jarvis into this thing?” You laugh “No… no-no don't be silly we'll help you put Jarvis into that thing.”

Tony nudges you a smile forming on his face. “Great minds think alike don't they Y/N?” you can only nod in approval. You're almost done when Captain Rogers walks in. “I'm going to say this once…Shut It down” Tony cuts him off followed by Bruce. “You don't know what you're doing.” Rogers retaliates. “And you do? She's not in your head.” Wanda cuts in after Bruce mentions her. “I know you're angry…” She starts off and you cut her off. “Oh… We've passed that point believe me. This isn't about revenge or some vendetta, this is life or death. And like it or not this is our only way to fix this.”  

Suddenly all of the connections to the cradle are disconnected and an all out fight begins. Captain goes against Tony, Clint against Pietro. You on the other hand aren't interested in fighting if not preventing another green rampage. “Bruce calm down okay…” he stutters before speaking. “Y/N she deserved this what she did to me… what she made you see I heard your scream on the jet.” You grimace at his words. “Bruce let her go, we're not that, we are broken and damaged in a way many wouldn't understand. But we’re not this type of monster alright not you not me, and not the green guy… Let. Her. Go!”

As he begins to let her go, Thor flies in and shocks the cradle… bringing it to life or powering it up, not quite sure but it worked. He woke up...

[knitcrate]

Letter from our CEO

I would like to begin by saying thank you to the many people who have written in via email, through our DMs, or on social media expressing their support, understanding, and compassion as KnitCrate navigates this situation. Whenever we receive one of those messages, we share it internally with the rest of the team, and it helps boost morale and remind us why we enjoy being a part of this community. So again, THANK YOU.

The situation over the past year has been, well…to say it has been messy would be an understatement. The lack of inventory being in stock (particularly in the last 3 months), delayed shipments, and customers understandably being more budget-conscious with the uncertainties of the pandemic have all strongly impacted our sales as a company. We have been doing whatever we can to overcome it. One of the biggest challenges we’ve dealt with as a company during COVID-19 has been our supply chain, both with getting the yarn to our warehouse for kit assembly and for production of the yarn in the first place.

Issue 1: Logistics of receiving the yarn

There are two main problems affecting companies who rely on importing/exporting goods these days.

The first is that, due to COVID, there are less commercial flights. Almost all commercial flights carry the passengers up top and cargo down below. With less commercial flights, there is less opportunity to transport cargo. This causes a backlog of cargo sitting at the airports. For example, we paid our mill in mid-March to try to get what should have been the April yarn now in March (paying it a month ahead of what was planned in our budget), at which point they sent the cargo to the airport in Lima.  The cargo sat there for over a week because of the backlog of other cargo waiting to be put on a plane.  The airline finally delivered 3 pallets to the US on March 30th.  The remaining 9 pallets arrived today on March 31st.  Customs wouldn’t let us pick up the first 3 pallets until the other 9 arrived, because they wanted us to pick up the order in its entirety. We finally got clearance to pick it up earlier today.

The second issue companies are facing are capacity constraints at the ports, whether airports or ocean. All ports worldwide are working with far less employees than they were before the pandemic, which causes massive delays in being able to process shipments. This affects us with our large inbound orders but also with shipments to our international customers, as packages sometimes sit at customs in your countries for what may seem to be an eternity.  

Issue 2: Production of yarn at the mills

Because of the volume of yarn we are now ordering monthly, we have to contract with our mills 12+ months in advance. For example, as of today, all yarn orders through March 2022 are already contracted. Why the long 12-month lead time? The mills need this amount of lead time to plan their own raw materials purchases and production schedules, not just for our orders, but the orders of all their clients. Every month, we pay our mill at the time of shipment, they proceed to ship the yarn to us. Under normal circumstances, it takes a shipment by air only 1-3 business days to arrive, clear customs, and be delivered to our warehouse.  Outside of a worldwide pandemic, this is not usually an issue. The mills have plenty of time to produce yarn and deliver it the first week of each month when we need to assemble your kits and ship to you.

However, the COVID pandemic has complicated things. Both of our main mills in Peru and Italy have had periods of time where they outright closed due to government restrictions on non-essential businesses to help combat the spread of COVID in their respective countries. For example, in April/May of 2020, our Peruvian mill was closed for two months and that left us without yarn to send out in May. Due to the lead times required and the fact that most mills worldwide were (and still are) facing similar issues, looking for alternate yarn was nearly impossible. Thankfully, our team was quick on their feet and we put together a fun dye-it-yourself project using undyed yarn from our Dyer Supplier business.

During this first quarter of 2021, our Italian mill, who was originally supplying yarn from December through February, has been facing stringent lockdowns and closures in response to the recent increase in COVID cases in Italy. This disrupted their ability to produce yarn and has resulted in part of the January yarn and all of the planned February yarn not being delivered. We were horribly disappointed about this, but despite our best efforts as well as the mill’s, the production needs could not be met. Thankfully, our Peruvian mill has been able to come back online with a more regular schedule in the past few months, and we have been working with them to get yarn delivered now that was originally meant for a later month.

While this is a solution to the inventory needed for crate shipment, it presented the company with a new problem. We had to fund the purchase for this yarn outside of our budget and available funding, which has been difficult during a challenging and financially straining year. This is why we have been forced to issue a credit, as opposed to an outright refund, on those purchases. It would be impossible for the company to do both - issue a refund for all those orders at one time while allocating funds to pay for yarn ahead of time.

***

Does this situation absolutely suck? Yes. It absolutely sucks. Am I sorry that this is happening? Of course. Business owners who give a damn about their business, customers, and employees do not set out on a mission to disappoint customers or give a less-than-exceptional experience. It is more heartbreaking to me than I can explain. But we aren’t dealing with normal times. We are doing what we need to do to get the company through this temporary situation to keep delivering yarn each month, keep our team members employed, and continue to be the business so many of you have grown to love.

Unfortunately, this also means streamlining how we offer products to you as well as increasing prices. When we took over KnitCrate in mid-2016, the kits ranged in price between $45 to $65 USD. We lowered those prices significantly to $24.99, including shipping & handling, that same year. We have kept prices there since then, even though shipping costs and wool prices have skyrocketed over the past 4-5 year period.  Keeping our prices that low could not continue indefinitely. We had plans to introduce these price increases later in the year, but this situation has forced us to accelerate those changes. However, even at the new prices, we still feel there is superb value for the yarn you are receiving. Moreover, you still have access to the member discounts in the shop which gives you even more value.

I am hoping that most customers know us well enough to understand that we aren’t trying to pull a fast one or go Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde on you. We would never turn into a completely different company who is out to take advantage of you. However, we recognize that these sudden changes and issues have understandably raised concerns. Among them, there have been concerns raised about the products and website that we would like to clarify:

Our Terms and Conditions have not changed since 2019 and our Privacy Policy hasn’t changed since 2017.

We will continue to include 2 skeins per crate for the traditional membership and 1 for the sock membership. The “1+ skeins” wording previously seen on the website was updated back in 2019 when we tested featuring 1 skein of ultra-luxury base in the months we featured Citrus Squeeze and Titmouse. We subsequently sent a survey to our customers asking how they would like us to approach this in the future. The answer was that the majority preferred two skeins, and so we have featured at least two skeins ever since and will continue to do so.

We had seen some comments regarding extras no longer being included in kits. Please rest assured that extras will continue being a part of your kits.

Member Central discounts, Double Down discounts, etc. will continue. These are some of the key benefits of being a member and will continue to be so.

I have come across some hard-to-read comments about how KnitCrate is going out of business or won’t be around in 2 months. Are we going through a tough situation? Yes. That is no secret. Are we disappearing in 2 months? No. Like I said above, the yarn is contracted out through March 2022 with our Peruvian mill. This mill has already come back online and is working with us to push every month contract up by 30 days. We are working overtime and making the necessary changes to get things back on track and get the shipping schedule normalized again.  

Ultimately, whether KnitCrate, or any company for that matter, stays in business or not is always in the hands of the customers. Companies can die for many reasons, but there are two overarching reasons.  

The company cannot deliver a product the customer wants. The company created a product the customer wants and is willing to pay for, but the company cannot access or deliver it to the customer.

The company cannot get customers. The company developed a product a customer doesn’t care for and isn’t willing to pay for and they go out of business.

As a company, we have predominantly been battling Reason #1 during the pandemic and are actively working on solutions within our team and with our partner mills to address the supply chain issues.  Given that our Peruvian mill was able to finish the April yarn by mid-March and ship to us early, we are looking forward to working with them on the future orders already contracted as we bump up each of those months.  Going forward, we will not be pre-selling yarn on the shop.  Yarn will only be listed for sale once it has been received into our warehouse, quality controlled, and counted. We understand that this may upset some customers who liked the ability to reserve the yarn by pre-buying it, but it is a necessary action.

That leaves us with Reason #2, and this is entirely in your hands as a customer. We offer great products, great value, and fair prices not available in most places.  In fact, I encourage anyone who has been a member with us for a long time to look at the yarn they have purchased through us over their lifetime as a customer, either through the kits or in Member Central, and tally up the savings they have earned. I don’t know many other places that can enable you to save on quality yarn as much as KnitCrate.

When it comes to business, the customer is always in charge. You vote with your dollars whether any company you buy from, including KnitCrate, stays in business or not. This is not new, though. This has always been the case, ever since we took over the company in 2016, and will always be the case. We have had to make some tough decisions during a temporarily very sh!tty situation. We made those decisions in order to stay alive and keep delivering yarn to you at affordable prices long into the future. If you will have us, we will be here working to bring you yarn with great projects at great prices.  

Thank you for your support. We hope you stay well and keep stitchin’!

- Rob and the KnitCrate Team

[aparna-gupta-blog]

Brilliant Startup Ideas for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

Brilliant Startup Ideas for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

Business ideas are born of an entrepreneur’s greatest passion. While thinking of starting your own business, the first thought that may have crossed your mind was probably, “What should I sell?” or what are the chances to get best result ?  

One of the most powerful point of being work in a digital era is that it makes your life easier and comfortable. You must have heard about the theory ‘survival of the fittest and must also have heard a statement: “A smooth sea never makes good sailors”. Both the ‘survival of the fittest’ theory and the statement above fit really well with the world of startups. And the world of startups is a violent one.

Sometimes you simply need an idea that something to inspire you. Keeping the right idea in mind which can help you to find the purpose. And the purpose is where it all starts — the simple question WHY?

What makes an entrepreneur’s idea to be best?

One of the most powerful strength in a start up or any kind of business is to make other’s life, be in a very simplified way. Sometimes, launching own startup business idea involves taking huge amount of risk. But fighting to these risks involves right decision.

What makes an idea to be the best?

Idea seems to be best when it comes the following:

1. Indentifying problems: In our daily life, we can spot a few problems that can be turned into a business plan. Being aware, awake and with keeping your eyes in every possible directions can help you detect the everyday issues that your startup can solve.

2. Focusing on trends: The second thing is to check where the market is going day by day. And what are the trends going through the surroundings.

3. Magnifying networks: Building up the networks is the most crucial thing in any business as much as the networks are more you will be in a good reputation and sources that will help to boost your idea.

As a budding entrepreneur, you should think once about the niche sectors you have examined or experienced before.

6 Awesome Startups Ideas

1. Online tutoring

It is not always easy for all to pay an immense amount of money in online courses provided on the internet. Also it is not necessary that all will assimilate the lectures completely since a large number of population still studies in their suitable languages. Whatever may be the case, what is similar between everyone is the excitement to learn things apart from their academic lessons. Hence, multilingual online courses are easy and in demand .

2. Food delivery

Everyone is fed up with everyday news of shut downs and layoffs from              food-tech startups? Don’t be! Food industry is a vast market and food related startup ideas definitely hold high potential. And if implemented in the right way, it has got an emancipate potentials to change food habits of the citizens.

3. Furniture Makeover

Home décor is becoming the trend day by day. You can easily get some experts from local thrift stores and arrange the followings into a panel so that everyone who is interested can take their ideas and suggestion to décor their home

4. Selling handmade crafts

It is in the nature of human beings that they want to keep things with them that create a sense of beauty. And handmade crafts definitely fit in this category. That’s why handmade crafts are in huge demand .

5. Selling old books

Even if you have very little money, you can gather enough books to fill an E-Store and start an online business for less than a few hundred dollars – including the inventory. Selling old books in a suitable price will easily attract the needy ones in a short span of time.                                                                                         

6. Car wash

Car washes can be incredibly creative businesses but it tends to require huge amount of startup capital and different types of permits to the business started. However, a car wash business with added more creativity is much easier to start and can become profitable fast day by day. However, the process to getting started can be little disheartened.

For more such articles visit :- PR Bulls

[noahbradley]

A few notes on signing fees, artists, and GPs

My price sign at GP Bologna kicked off a bit of online discussion on signing fees for artists at GPs and I wanted to address a few points. And by that I mean, “rant like a madman about it.” I’ve been meaning to talk about this stuff for a while now. It seems like as good a time as any, particularly since my signing fee is going up to $3/card in DC next month. You, as a player or fan, know what a signing fee means from your side of the table, but here’s a little glimpse of what GPs mean for us, the artists.  

We (mostly) pay for our own travel and accommodation.

We almost never have anything paid for us any more. The lucky artists will get their hotels paid for, but never their travels. I’m not getting my hotel paid for in DC, but I will be getting it for GP Richmond. If an artist flies to a GP, they pay for the tickets. There are a few exceptions with the bigger name artists, but I’m sure as hell not famous enough. Trust me, I’ve tried. If we drive and accommodation is cheap, then this might mean we only spend about, say $400 (DC will cost me $500 for accommodation, plus gas to get there). If we fly and the only accommodation options are expensive, it’s not surprising for this to hit $1000. We have to bring quite a lot of product to bring and sell, so flying is a further pain/expense.

There is a huge cost to not painting for 5+ days.

3 days of GP and 2 days of travel and that’s a large chunk of time taken out of our working life. There ain’t no paid vacation in the freelancer life, so for me to attend a GP, I need to earn a week’s income. If I don’t earn at least as much as I could from painting during that time, I should (and will) just stay at home and do my job that I love. My income is always directly tied to the time I put into it. If I’m not working, I’m not making money. This applies on a smaller scale at a GP, too: if I take a break to go to lunch, I’m not making money during that time. It’s part of the reason I almost never take a lunch break at a GP. Yes, if you have an assistant you can have them sell while you’re gone–but it’s not free to have someone else there taking care of things. Nor is it free to provide them with travel and accommodation expenses.

Buying inventory is a pain.

Inventory is expensive. It is not uncommon for us to buy $1k+ worth of prints, playmats, and canvas prints for a show. We have to appropriately estimate and then purchase the inventory we need for every show. Too little inventory of the right pieces, and we lose out on sales (it’s rare that people want to buy any ol’ print–they want to buy that print). Too much inventory, and we have this next problem.

We sit on unsold inventory.

We buy product before we know it will sell. And guess what? Sometimes it never does! Sometimes a piece is incredibly unpopular for whatever reason and nobody wants print/playmats of it. There ain’t no returning that stuff. It’s just a loss for us. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on products that will very likely never sell. And before someone suggests it: sure, I could mark the prices down to something incredibly low in an effort to get rid of them. But if I market myself as the Wal-mart of the artist world, why would people bother paying the higher prices of my other work? I don’t really want people showing up at my table looking for a bargain. I’d rather them be there looking for me and my work because they like it.

Sharpies are not free.

Those little fuckers die fast.

We pay higher taxes.

There’s this great thing known as “self-employment tax” which is a nice way of the government saying “fuck the self-employed.” It’s a tax tacked onto the top of my annual bill that makes sure I pay just a little bit more since I did the insulting thing of not having a full time job at a corporation. It’s super fun.

Health insurance

I can get great health insurance if I pay for it. But no, no one will provide that for me.

We pay credit card processing fees.

It is a 2.5% + $.10 fee on all transactions. So if you buy $100 worth of product, I pay about $2.60 to make that happen. No, it’s not much, but hey, it’s an expense and it does add up.

Sometimes there will be a dud GP for an artist.

The universe conspires against us and decides that at a particular GP we will make less than half of what we usually do. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. It just happens.

Many artists are barely breaking even at events.

These are the artists still smiling when you come to their table, despite being deep in the red for the event. They’ve lost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to be there and are doing their best to put on a good show for the fans.

The one guy you’re not incredibly nice to will be the one who tells everyone on the internet.

Three long days of yelling over speakers in a convention center to have conversations with hundreds of strangers isn’t relaxing for the stereotypically introverted artist. And trust me: that one time you slip up, let go, and go a little quieter than usual? That one time you’re not too talkative or give them short answers? They’re going to make sure everyone hears their tale of woe. They’re going to do what they can to let everyone know “how much of a dick _____ is because when I saw him he _______.” The strain of busting our asses to make fans happy all day only to hop on reddit and see the only comment about our attendance be “I don’t know, he seemed pretty rude to me” really sucks.

Your ideas for how to improve our business at GPs are probably wrong.

You’re welcome to share them, but try to realize that we do this for a living and we’re not particularly dumb. I know it seems like maybe if I signed for free I would sell so many more prints and playmats that I would have more money! But I won’t. I’ve tried. And trust me, I love having more money and happier customers/fans. That sounds great. I’ve tried a lot of things and I’ve talked to tons of other artists at events to find out what they do. I’ve heard the failures and successes and the way I do things is the best way I’ve found to make GPs both a fun and profitable experience. I don’t think I know everything, but I do know a fair bit about this stuff.

Yes, we still love coming to GPs.

Even despite all of these factors and issues, we do our best to overcome them and we do often make a good profit there. We like being there, we like the fans, we like interacting with y’all, and by and large, GPs are a blast. We all want to keep coming to GPs.

Signing fees are good for artists (and good for fans, too)

When I first introduced my signing fee at GPDC several years ago, I knew I had found something great. It removed the awkwardness of the looming tip box–players never knew how much to tip. It also meant that I didn’t have to stare down a stack of 100 cards with the hope of maybe earning a few bucks (yes, plenty of people did that). When you remove the awkward, nebulous nature of the interaction, you leave room for both parties to chill out and have a good conversation. Sure, money is changing hands, but nobody needs to be a dick about it. Since I’ve introduced my signing fee, I’ve enjoyed GPs a lot more. They’re more consistently profitable for me. That makes me happier and less stressed. Here’s how signing fees have been from my experience: Free/tips - Misery and tendinitis $1/card - Good $2/card - Great $3/card - ?

I don’t need to sign every card in existence.

I know signing fees scare away some people. Hell, I know writing this little rant will scare away some people. But I’m not in the market to please everyone and sign every damn card with the name “Noah Bradley” on it. I’d rather love signing the cards for people who really like my work and/or the card it’s on.

  So there we have it. Just a few things to consider the next time you question why artist’s have signing fees. I hope you found this enlightening. I’ll see y’all at GPDC next month. <3

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Amazon.com Made It Easier For Chinese Counterfeiters To Offer You Phony Products.

What began as a straightforward on-line publication representative, Amazon has currently turned into a significant worldwide retail outlet for people to deal almost anything possible. Ecommerce sites can obtain a piece of the revenue if social media has benefitted the business neighborhood. In this sort of advertising, various other internet sites will certainly place your products on their site and also in instance, they get offered, you should pay them a little part of the payment. Firms that market products with an extensive order and shipment workflow, such as an aircraft manufacturer, frequently need access to client data at different factors in the fulfilment process. After your enrollment, you have three choices for submitting details that belongs to your product: Option 1: Make Use Of the Include a Product function on Vendor Central to produce one product at once. Nearly every person gathers "something." If you are knowledgeable concerning a collectible or an art things, then you have the capacity to do the research to discover the products at rates you could market. Prices of products, particularly electronics, autumn within a few months of launch. In an excellent world, if a seller has a 99% rating, uses FBA, as well as defeats the next least expensive cost by 2-3%, then they will be featured in the buy box nearly 100% of the moment. We run an on-line business brokerage that details new companies every week. I have averaged over 350% make money from the sales of books online for over five years currently, which is from the sales of hundreds of publications. Though Amazon.com does not state the precise formula on exactly how one ends up being a featured vendor, one could conveniently join this prominent team after a couple of months by having good sales as well as outstanding client responses Having a winning method for each and every of these internet marketing tools, integrated with various other actions discussed above will certainly take you ahead of your rivals. Some individuals do not like dealing direct with buyers and also possibly facing hard customers and also experiencing high stress levels. However, examine the current market value of the product before clicking on the buy online switch. Amongst the easiest items, which you can create to make cash online, are E-books. Shopify likewise allows us to produce fast and also easy website landing pages which can directly bring in the customers towards our organisation. Consider it. Your shopping cart, industry account, bookkeeping software application, stock management system, as well as your shipping as well as returns software program all, typically, are accessed using an internet site login. Nevertheless, the earnings generated from an e-store has a less components to spend on, in between the procedure of getting an order and delivering it to the clients. Thanks to 45,000 robots who worked hand in hand with the Fulfilment by Amazon.com (FBA) team, these clients got their orders delivered to their front door promptly. It is suggested to register your items in Amazon FBA. While some want an easy purchase, some love to visit an arranged shop with products in a best place. Internet site applications Modern technology is both driven by as well as a vehicle driver of globalization E-Commerce Applications is the buying and selling of product and services over electronic system such as web as well as other computer networks. The layout of the web site is, as a result, important in defining the kind and nature of business in the online areas. Finally, platform as a solution uses a software growth atmosphere that is not limited to a localized location. Ecommerce Shops that constantly enhance the client service method in order to make things simpler for customers as well as develop consumer commitment will be able to discover success in today's affordable marketplace. Sure, they will all bill you to detail your inventory and a commission on each sale, however a lot of are extremely sensible and their fees do not mean that much if you are detailing as well as offering enough books. Sellers are excited regarding this program, and it provides a method for local business to take advantage of Amazon.com's scale reduction in logistics costs. If you do a search on amazon for a bestseller, you will certainly discover that many people are marketing their made use of copies, many times for under $1.00. With numerous copies out there, the market is glutted. Asking for unneeded info not simply discourages the customers but also brings about deserted buying carts. There are plenty of companies with adequate money to import these things straight by the thousands as well as undersell any individual who gets through a supplier or wholesaler. One slight negative aspect of utilizing this approach is that every seller intends to offer these publications.

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The Art of Discount (Part 1): Consumer Discount

Businesses often spend a lot of money to build programs to attract customers, typically using discounts. Because discounts - including all forms of discounts on sales - are one of the most obvious methods of creating value for customers to lead them to a decision to buy a product. However, not the more the discount, the more effective it is. With a consumer discount program , it's important to know where your audience is in their consumer journey. Thinking of a sales support program is not difficult, but how to make it effective is an artistic sky.

Discount and its benefits

Discount programs are generally used for three main goals: (1) Clearing inventory, (2) Attracting new buyers, and (3) Realizing revenue targets during off-season sales.

Why can discounting help businesses achieve these goals? Because it offers the following benefits:

Attract new customers effectively without launching a massive marketing campaign;

Encourage shoppers to make immediate purchasing decisions – especially effective when promotions are limited in time;

Push past period inventory or products nearing expiration date;

The product is highly likely to be promoted by the point of sale at no cost;

Pull inactive/inactive consumers to buy again.

The problem of discounting

Sales discounts have long been used to incentivize purchases and create a competitive advantage over other brand products at the point of sale. While discounting isn't a new tool, it always works – when marketers use it right.

However, an age-old problem with marketers is that they often apply discounts to every audience without considering what stage each audience is at in the buying journey.

Reference : Ladder model to analyze market share loss in the article What is the market? What is Marketing? Market share method to see which stage in the buying journey is the biggest problem causing you to lose market share.

So the solution is that we have to balance the timing - frequency of making discounts and determining the specific audience that your program is aimed at.

Build a discount program for consumers

Discounts should not be applied to everyone. I can't say which type of discount is best for your business. But I can suggest you how to implement those programs effectively.

There are countless ways to vary the discount program for consumers. But it has to be done wisely. At the same time, any discount strategy must be based on business goals and suitable for each buyer.

Plan before you make a discount

Before making product price cuts to achieve revenue goals, you need to make a detailed plan for the program. This is necessary to make sure that subsequent orders are still profitable. Accordingly, the issues you need to pay attention to are:

Know current gross margin, markup, breakeven point;

Calculate the best discount price to ensure profit;

Have an action plan to incentivize new buyers and boost purchase incentives for hesitant customers;

Survey programs and prices of competitors regularly;

Consider other selling options without cutting prices (more on that later);

Determining the time to apply the new sales price;

Monitor weekly, monthly, or yearly reporting metrics as sales decline.

How to set a revenue target when doing a discount program?

When adjusting the selling price of goods/services, it is important to know how this change will affect your gross margin and sales target. A successful sales program – that is, acquiring customers, while keeping profits – needs to be implemented with careful and careful calculation of gross margin, markup and breakeven point.

How to balance the above factors is not easy. Business Victoria, a business portal for the Victorian government (Australia) has released a spreadsheet that makes it easier for businesses to set revenue targets when making sales discounts.

HOLY RECIPE

If the price drops…And gross profit margin (%) is…

0%15%20%25%30%35%40%

5% 50.0%33.3%25%20%16.7%14.3%

6%150%66.7%42.9%31.6%25%20.7%17.6%

8%400%114.3 %66.7%47.1%36.4%29.6%25%

ten% 200%100%66.7%50%40%33.3%

twelfth% 400%150%92.3%66.7%52.2%42.9%

15%  300%150%100%75%60%

For example, with a gross profit margin of 20%, you reduce the price of a product by 10%, then the target sales need to increase by 100% to ensure a profit.

Suggest a discount program for consumers1. Discount for new customers

Sometimes when we need to expand product lines, enter new segments, or simply boost sales, we have to find a way to attract new customers. This work often consumes a lot of resources to "lead" this object to a purchase decision.

Therefore, a discount program to close the target at the Purchase stage needs to be properly implemented. When building a program for new customers, it's important to:

– Define target specific customer segments : We know we need to find new customers, but do not know who the new customers are. What's more harmful than a program targeting the wrong audience? What could be more wasteful and less effective than a program aimed at too broad a group?

– Personalize the program message: Once the target area is located, the next thing is to make sure that the target group realizes this offer is only for them, is their own EXCLUSIVE. This will motivate them to get closer to the buying stage. But it is NOT. You must also:

- Tell them why you discount: If you want customers to accept your deals, give them a reason. As Robert Cialdini writes in his book Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion:

People simply want a reason for what they do. (People simply like to have reasons for what they do)

Remember that you only need to give them a REASON to lower the price, it doesn't even need to be convincing. This tactic works even if you streamline your discount as simply as “Teng teng… you’re new”, “Congrats on being one of our first 10 guests” (although maybe you were the 50th or… 500th buyer).

2. Incentives for loyal customers

If you already have a loyal customer base – which is best if you have or build it now – why not build a program to reward them? For example, give customers a coupon for their next purchase to thank them for supporting your product.

As reported by LoyaltyOne , up to 76% of customers want personalized offers based on their purchase history. Thus, a program to accumulate points to redeem gifts will be extremely effective to retain existing customers.

3. Holiday discounts

On major shopping holidays, such as Black Friday , is when consumers are willing to spend the most. This is when trade marketing programs work because it drives shopper purchase decisions immediately.

4. Discount for pre-orders when launching new products

When launching a new product, most of us want as many buyers as possible. Is it true? Pre-order discounts for limited quantities will quickly speed up a shopper's decision-making process.

However, it is also important to be careful because a pre-launch discount can reduce the value of the product in the mind of the customer. Therefore, do not reduce too much on the first day of product launch. In addition, showing the discount as a percentage or a specific amount must also be considered. For example, 20% discount doesn't sound as attractive as discount 1,OOO,OOOd right? Although the reduction amount of both is the same.

5. Sold in packs/sold in combos

Bundle/combo selling is a great cross-selling technique that encourages shoppers to buy multiple products to get a better price than buying each item individually. This form is especially effective when businesses "catch the trend" at the right time. Remember the trend of making Dalgona coffee that caused a fever in 2020? Large coffee brands such as Trung Nguyen and Nescafe have immediately launched coffee combos sold with milk to serve the needs of users.

6. Discount when buying in bulk

Why not offer a better price when customers buy a lot of your products? If you are an office worker who is addicted to milk tea, you are probably familiar with programs such as "Buy 3 cups, get 1 cup free", "Buy 4 cups, get 2 cups", etc. What are the results? That is, you will "inviting" the whole office to order enough, and the milk tea shop will not only receive orders of greater value, but also be "promoted" for free and recruit more new customers.

Not only helps increase the size and value of the buyer's order, quantity discount is also an effective way to move stock when the seller needs to clear the inventory of a certain item.

7. Discounts for suspended carts

You may have heard about this offer already, but it's such a great retargeting technique for online channels that I just can't pass up. According to Baymard , up to 70% of shopping carts are abandoned because of additional costs in the order. Thus, a discount program for shoppers who are hanging orders will help you regain a large number of orders that seem to have been lost.

This form has a major drawback. That is, if you continuously offer discounts on suspended orders, the next time the shopper will create a shopping cart and then exit, then wait until a promotional offer to buy at a cheap price. Therefore, you should only apply this program once per customer, or limit the duration of the program.

8. Discount when referring acquaintances

You certainly understand the importance of word of mouth marketing. Nothing can be more reliable than a recommendation from an acquaintance. According to ReferralCandy , up to 83% of satisfied customers are willing to recommend to their acquaintances, but in fact… only 29% actually do this.

Therefore, a discount program when introducing new people will encourage your customers to be more "active" in promoting your products to everyone around.

But discounting doesn't always work

Many people often look to discounts as the solution to all business problems, without understanding what the customer's problem is. Therefore, it is not surprising that people massively do promotions but in the end do not see any noticeable effect. Then we put in the report the reasons abc xyz that explains why the program doesn't work.

Discount blindly will kill your business. The more you abuse the discount, the more you lower the value of your product in the customer's mind. Don't compromise with customers. Find out the problem, then give them real solutions.

If discounts don't help boost sales, remember that there are always alternatives, not always a price cut. Here are some suggested programs other than discounts:

Service improvement

If you do not want to reduce the price of the product, the service improvement that comes with the purchase is also an effective way to attract buyers, such as:

Free installation

Free shipping

Free gift wrapping

Enhanced after-sales (warranty, maintenance, ...)

The most typical example is thegioididong.com, an extremely successful mobile device retail chain of MWG. By upgrading customer service to a new level, Mobile World makes buyers feel like they are no different from "God" right from the moment they send the car. As a result, they have risen to become the mobile device retail chain with the largest market share in Vietnam thanks to improved service, even though the selling price is always higher than other places.

However, service improvement needs to be harmonized before, during and after sales to achieve the best effect. Otherwise, this will be a double-edged sword if the brand previously created too much trust for buyers but was weak in after-sales service, possibly even receiving a series of complaints from consumers, affecting to brand reputation and reduce the ability of customers to repurchase the product/refer to acquaintances of customers who have purchased the product.

Packaging development

Have you ever thought that your current product packaging is gradually becoming boring to consumers? Why not think about "changing clothes" for products to look more eye-catching on special occasions?

Example : In the midst of the 2017 Sea Games football fever, Coca-Cola "caught the trend" very well to cheer the home team by wearing player shirts for three product lines of Coca, Sprite, Fanta at Circle K.

Comes with a gift

The word “free” always has a strong appeal, so GWP (free gift with purchase) will be another option to effectively replace discount. The "cheapest" items to give are usually cloth bags, stainless steel straws, glass vases, porcelain cups, etc., but make customers extremely excited.

Even free gifts sometimes not only aim to catch the shopper's attention but also support other marketing purposes.

Example : Trung Nguyen gave a sample of Legend Classic coffee in a bag of G7 3in1 coffee in the US. It can be seen that besides building promotion for the G7 series, they also intentionally sampled for their Legend premium coffee line and helped buyers identify genuine Trung Nguyen products among the parallel sea of ​​goods on the market.

Create an event

If you run a cafe-restaurant business, you definitely want to avoid discount programs. Especially when it's a premium brand. Think of a live music session, contest, social activity, etc. on a certain day of the week or month. Because entertainment is always an essential human need, it not only helps attract people, but also makes them want to linger longer, order a few more dishes or drinks to sip and enjoy.

Donate to charity/organization for the environment

Momo : For every purchase of movie tickets you buy at any CGV, Galaxy Cinema, BHD, Lotte Cinema, Cinestar and MegaGS cinemas and pay with MoMo, you have donated 1,000 VND for the program "Red lucky money". smile for 100 children”.

Ecosia : This search site uses advertising revenue to plant trees, on average every 45 searches will convert to a planted tree.

Instead of discount, these two brands convince customers to use this money to donate to charity or for the environment. Of course, the persuasiveness of this program is quite high and is often warmly received by consumers. Not only avoiding product discounts, but also building an effective CSR program to the community and increasing brand trust.

Conclude

Discounts have always been a story about sensible spending. If you use them properly – in the right place, with the right person (object), at the right time – then you will definitely get positive results. Again: Never offer a discount to everyone! And don't abuse the discount, because we always have other effective replacement programs that don't have to cut the price of the product.

Although brands are always encouraged to make programs for consumers, retailers are often not too excited about these programs of the brand. Why? Because it is a battle for market share between brands, while the point of sale does not receive much benefit from this competition. Suppose the sales point of sale for the category is 100 VND, in which brand A accounts for 40 VND, brand B accounts for 60 VND. When brand A does promotion, their revenue increases to 70 dong, and brand B doesn't do it, so it's only 30 dong. In general, the total revenue of the point of sale is still 100 VND.

Now do you understand why I said retailers aren't usually excited about brand consumer programs? Competition at the point of sale is another story that you need to pay special attention to, which is why I continue with Part 2: Discounts for distributors.

All credit goes to trantuansang.com.

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Best Mac Laptop For Home Use

Apple Laptops Ideal for Programmers Apple MMGF2LL/A MacBook Air 13.3-Inch Laptop. The Apple MMGF2LL/A is one of the best Apple laptops for coding. It comes equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor, which features Turbo Boost technology. When an application requires a boost in processing power, the Intel Core i5 CPU can turbo boost up to 2.7GHz. While it sucks more power than similar laptops, it is definitely one of the best laptops for programming – thanks to the sheer horsepower. Check out our laptop buying guide video below. Best mac laptop for photography.

You’re planning on buying a new Mac laptop. So you head over to your local Apple store, or you peruse the pages of Apple’s website, and you find yourself with money to spend but no idea on which MacBook to buy.

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Don’t worry! That’s why we’re here. In this guide, we’ll go over Apple’s current MacBook lineup, point out their differences and similarities, and provide you with the information you need to pick the right MacBook for you.

Best 2-in-1: Lenovo Yoga 910. Lenovo’s Yoga 910 series is summed up easily as it’s a superb blend of good looks, power and portability. The Yoga series is best known for its watchband hinge that allows you to use the computer in practically any position. More on Home & Garden. Best Mattresses of 2018. View our ratings and reviews and browse our buying guide to find the best desktop computer or laptop. Computer Ratings. MacBook with Battery.

The affordable choice: MacBook Air

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Longtime Mac users may remember when the MacBook Air made its debut years ago as Apple’s entry into the ultra-portable laptop market. But times have changed, and starting in 2015, the MacBook was repositioned as Apple’s affordable laptop. https://bestrenew728.tumblr.com/post/655856116510703616/best-photoshop-software-for-mac-free.

How many models can I choose from? Apple offers two standard configuration MacBook Air models. They are identical except for the amount of storage.

One thing that really sets this product apart from the rest is the unique ridged design. You can even add a “return-if-found” message and have it pop up as a password prompt if the hard drive ever gets lost. The built-in 256 bit AES hardware encryption that comes with the bundled software, allows you to keep your personal information and files private and secure. Best usb 2.0 external hard drive for mac. While there is no way to say if this feature is effective in the real world, it does provide a way for you to get it back if lost.

What are the prices for the MacBook Air? $1,099, and $1,299.

What are the MacBook Air specifications?

Here are the specifications for the $1,099 an $1,299 laptops. These are the most current MacBook Air models.

1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (eighth generation)

8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory

Intel UHD Graphics 617

13.3-inch LED-backlit Retina display with a 2560x1600 resolution

Two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports

Headphone jack

Weighs 2.75 pounds

The $1,099 MacBook Air has a 128GB SSD for file storage. The $1,299 model has a 256GB SSD.

What is it good for? The MacBook Air doesn’t use Intel’s most powerful processors, but it’s strong enough to handle typical tasks, like internet access, writing, spreadsheets, presentations, and other productivity-related jobs. It also has enough processing punch for using Apple Photos to edit and manage your pictures, or to create short YouTube videos in iMovie.

Save some money and buy refurbished: Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store has a few MacBook Air models for sale. While not brand new, these gently-used laptops have been refurbished to Apple’s strict guidelines and are like new.

Learn more about Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store. You can buy brand-new laptops by clicking on the View button in the product.

Macworld’s buying advice: The MacBook Air is a capable laptop for your everyday work—and it won’t take up a lot of room in your bag. If you can, opt for the $1,299 model and its larger SSD capacity.

The lightweight choice: MacBook Air

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OK, we know, we just got done talking about how the MacBook Air was released as Apple's lightweight solution, and how it's been repositioned as the company's affordable laptop. Here's the thing: It’s also Apple’s smallest laptop, able to fit in most backpacks, briefcases, satchels, and bags. And it's a tad lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro while being about the same size.

How big is it? Here are the specifics on the MacBook Air.

Height: 0.16 to 0.61 inch

Width: 11.97 inches

Depth: 8.36 inches

Weight: 2.75 pounds

For comparison, here's the specifications for the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Height: 0.59 inch

Width: 11.97 inches

Depth: 8.36 inches

Weight: 3.02 pounds

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Why pick the MacBook Pro instead: The main reason why you might pick the MacBook Pro instead is processing power. The MacBook Pro has two more processing cores, making it a better fit with pro apps. Its graphics card is also a little faster.

Keep in mind that you could end up spending a lot more than you would if you picked a MacBook Air. Apple has a 13-inch MacBook Pro for $1,299, which is tha same price as one of the standard configurations of the MacBook Air, but Apple also sells three other 13-inch MacBook Pro models for $1,499, $1,799, and $1,999. The 13-inch MacBook Pro models are the same size and weight, but you pay for more processing power and more storage.

Save some money and buy refurbished: Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store has a few MacBook models for sale. While not brand new, these gently-used laptops have been refurbished to Apple’s strict guidelines and are like new.

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Learn more about Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store.

Macworld’s buying advice: If you’re road warrior and size and weight are a priority, the MacBook Air will be a nice travel partner. If you need more processing power, though, consider the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The choice for heavy-duty workloads: MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro is Apple’s top-of-the-line laptop. If you want a laptop that can handle any task you throw at it—and you don’t have a constraining budget—the MacBook Pro is the laptop you want.

How many models can I choose from? Apple offers six standard configuration laptops: four 13-inch models, and two 15-inch versions. Each model is available is Silver or Space Gray.

What are the prices for the MacBook Pro? The 13-inch models go for $1,299, $1,499, $1,799, and $1,999. The 15-inch models are $2,399 and $2,799.

What are the MacBook Pro specifications? Here are the specifics on each model. We’ll start with the 13-inch laptops and then list the 15-inch ones.

There are four 13-inch models:

$1,299 model: 1.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (8th generation) processor, 8GB of memory, 128GB SSD, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 integrated graphics, two Thunderbolt 3 ports

$1,499 model: 1.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (8th generation) processor, 8GB of memory, 256GB SSD, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 integrated graphics, two Thunderbolt 3 ports

$1,799 model: 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (8th generation) processor, 8GB of memory, 256GB SSD, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 integrated graphics, four Thunderbolt 3 ports

$1,999 model: 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (8th generation) processor, 8GB of memory, 512GB SSD, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 integrated graphics, four Thunderbolt 3 ports

Apple has two 15-inch MacBook Pros:

$2,399 model: 2.6GHz 6-core Intel Core i7 (8th generation) processor, 16GB of memory, 256GB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 630 integrated graphics, 4GB Radeon Pro 555X discrete graphics

$2,799 model: 2.3GHz 8-core Intel Core i7 (8th generation) processor, 16GB of memory, 512GB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 630 integrated graphics, 4GB Radeon Pro 560X discrete graphics

Save some money and buy refurbished: Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store has a few 13-inch MacBook Pro models for sale. While not brand new, these gently-used laptops have been refurbished to Apple’s strict guidelines and are like new. Stock ebbs and flows, so it’s possible you may not find refurbished versions of the 2018 laptop, and only find older models.

Learn more about Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store.

What is it good for? If you have a heavy workload, the MacBook Pro has the power to handle it, no sweat. Video production, graphics and animation, serious data crunching—you name it, the MacBook Pro is built for it. The MacBook Pro isn’t as powerful as a desktop computer, but it is strong enough to serve as your only computer.

All this processing prowess comes at a price—the MacBook Pro is Apple’s priciest laptop. And it’s also its heaviest, with the 15-inch models pushing just past 4 pounds. That may not sound like a lot, but imagine yourself on the road, meeting with people, working remotely. The weight wears on you as the day goes on.

Save some money and buy refurbished: Check Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store for stock of the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro. While not brand new, these gently-used laptops have been refurbished to Apple’s strict guidelines and are like new. Plus, you can save some money. The inventory fluctuates a lot, however, and it’s possible that you wil only find older models.

Learn more about Apple’s Refurbished and Clearance online store.

Best Mac Laptop For Home Use

Macworld’s buying advice: Picking a MacBook Pro is a little complicated, not just because of the size differences, but the differences between the features offered within each size category.

If you want power on a budget, consider the $1,799 13-inch MacBook Pro. It’s a good combination of speed and price. The 256GB SSD is the major compromise you’re making here. If you plan to do a lot of creative work that results in large files, the SSD could fill up quickly.

The 15-inch $2,799 MacBook Pro is the laptop with all the bells and whistles. It’s the one for the most demanding users, who will like the hefty discrete graphics card.

• Basic SVG support! Best photo editing tools for mac.

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If you really need to keep the price down, consider the $1,499 13-inch MacBook Pro. The 128GB SSD in the $1,299 version is probably too small and most people will fill it up quickly, which is why you should think about the $1,499 model, which has a 256GB SSD.

Because the new MacBook Pros rely on Thunderbolt 3, you’re going to need to stock up of adapters to connect items like an external display, hard drive, and more. We have a MacBook Pro Thunderbolt 3 adapter guide to help you find the ones you need.

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[coopdigitalnewsletter]

20 May 2021: In plenty of time: slower supply chains. Walmart losing ground.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: A world of slower and more resilient supply chains?]

In plenty of time: the need for slower supply chains

There are shortages of lots of things at the moment: shipping and freight, computer chips (with a knock-on effect on cars and other products now that chips are in everything), oil and petrol (thanks to hackers), rare earth metals (used in chips and batteries). And so on. And the flow of goods is slower (covid and brexit).

For over 50 years the world has been optimised for the speedy, predictable and efficient delivery of cheaper products. But the world is becoming less predictable. So maybe *optimising* is the wrong approach for the future - because just in time may end up looking like just about to break. Maybe supply chains need to run slower and fatter: more slack, more give in the systems, more resilience. More spare parts in the inventory, more stock on the shelves and on the balance sheet: demand for warehouse space surges in the UK. 

Walmart losing ground

Walmart says its grocery business is "rapidly" losing ground to competitors. A leaked memo outlines that it’s getting ever harder to stay on top. It’s not a surprise that discounters have grown faster, and that Amazon is catching up in general retail. But Instacart approaching parity with Walmart in online grocery is notable.

Again, the background is an unpredictable world - the pace of change is higher, driven by technology, capital, the virus and looming in the background climate. 2PM reckons that Walmart needs to invest in winning and retaining customers for Walmart+ (an unlimited free delivery membership programme a bit like Prime). And empower stores and staff “to be able to fulfill these orders, giving customers more options and better service. A lack of investment in its store employees, many of whom don’t receive benefits and rely on erratic scheduling, would sink Walmart’s subscription strategy”. 

Two thoughts: 

Could supporting unionisation offer a valuable difference, one that Amazon couldn’t stomach? 

Should Walmart buy Fedex to build out its logistics infrastructure, before someone online like Shopify does?

Elsewhere: New 'Russian Lidl' supermarket to open in Yorkshire. Mere (the European brand for Svetofor) says it will be the cheapest supermarket in the country.

Rapid grocery delivery

US rapid grocery delivery co Gopuff is buying the UK’s Fancy. Others in the UK: Getir, Gorillas, Dija, Weezy, Zapp. Eventually one or two of these may get enough scale to consolidate.

Southern Co-op extends Snappy Shopper home deliveries to new areas - Co-operative News. The retailer has filled nearly 10,000 orders through the partnership. (Related: Sainsbury's ex-boss invested in Snappy Shopper recently.)

Amazon expands in-garage delivery service - this piece is also a decent summary of the state of in-home/in-garage grocery delivery by others like Walmart.

Buy Now Pay Later says it increases order value 85%

“When retailers remove price as a barrier, everybody wins. That’s why businesses that offer Affirm’s pay-over-time solutions see an 85% increase in average order value and a 20% lift in repeat purchasing on average.” 

That’s from an advert by Affirm, a “buy now pay later” financing company. The general model for financing used to be lending - charge the consumer an interest rate. The new general model of retail financing reverses that. Now a BNPL company like Klarna, AfterPay or Affirm will make a 0% loan to the consumer, and charge a fee to the retailer because, unlike Some Bank’s credit card, BNPL is a payment channel that can increase sales value and volume.

The other key innovation seems to be having enough data that you can pre-approve customers in the shopping basket checkout itself, accepted with a click. The shopper can try the goods at home before the first payment is taken. Not all is rosy with BNPL of course - you can see that it could amplify problem debt.

Related: Klarna uses murals and QR codes to “set the record straight” on some misconceptions about how it works (why not just state them clearly?) 

Community

An article about a house renting mistake that’s also an accidental advert for multi-generational living:

“Thankfully, despite being the only teenager in the 10-apartment complex, Kohout is reportedly thriving in her unique surroundings. “I have become friends with a lot of my neighbors,” said the youngster, who enjoys carousing with them, listening to their stories and eating their delicious “home-cooked” meals.”

Various things

Top 3 UK supermarkets for accessibility: 1. Co-op, 2. Waitrose, 3. Tesco. That first one does look good.

The software company in Argentina where colleagues decide your salary - see also Ricardo Semler’s experiments in radical openness at Semco.

Amazon One’s palm-scanning payments are coming to Whole Foods.

Pret a Manger heads to Tesco in battle for new customers.

Food giants respond to worries over packaging - they’re looking at compostable plastics.

Ikea starts buy-back scheme offering vouchers for old furniture.

“We've booked two summer holidays for the same time” - if the trend of booking multiple holidays and cancelling one continues, you’d guess the tourism industry will review its reservation/cancellation policies.

Inside the job interview process for a ransomware gang.

Co-op Digital news

Inclusive, accessible services: the importance of content design - not just inclusive and accessible, also useful and effective.

What happened at our inclusion and accessibility talks. 

Big salute to Co-op Funeralcare, who helped make sure a challenging month for the newsletter team ended on a positive note. (Previously.)

Thank you for reading

Thank you friends, readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[craigrcannon]

Employee #1: Warby Parker

A conversation with Mara Castro, Warby Parker’s first employee.

Employee #1 is a series of interviews focused on sharing the often untold stories of early employees at tech companies.

Mara Castro was the first employee at Warby Parker. She currently is the Director of Customer Experience.

Discussed: Working at a Nonprofit, Finding the Job Posting, Interviewing with the Founders, Starting Part-Time, Figuring Out Operations, Moving to New York, Going into Retail, Building the Brand, and Learning to Manage People.

Craig: So the easiest way to start is just to explain what you were doing before and go from there.

Mara: Sure. So I graduated from Texas A&M then went back to Brazil and was working with a former Formula One racecar driver, helping him set up his nonprofit. At that point I was pretty dead set on wanting to build a nonprofit that was going to do good for the world. So I started in Brazil but knew that I did want to come back to the US.

I was originally from Brazil but my father worked in oil so we lived around the world – UAE, Libya, Singapore, Venezuela – then I ended up moving back to Philly for business school and from there started working at a nonprofit called the Food Trust. So I got a lot of exposure to how nonprofits work in the US.

I loved the work that I was doing but felt like I wanted to do something more with a little bit more of a business background. I felt like I could add more value to the world instead of spending so much time fundraising and policy writing and that kind of stuff. As I was trying to look for something different, Jeff Raider, one of the co-founders of Warby Parker, put out a job description looking for an operations manager.

At that point the four founders were still in business school. It was November of 2009. Warby Parker was really just an idea. They didn’t have a website or anything but they knew that they wanted help from someone to set up customer service and operations in general.

Craig: Where was the job posting? Was it on Craigslist?

Mara: I think they had posted it in quite a few places but because my ex went to Wharton business school, it had been shared there to all of the students and he shared it with me.

Craig: Gotcha. Okay, so you email him and then you meet up. How does that go?

Mara: It was great. Jeff is one of those guys that’s just incredibly charismatic, super fun, really smart. We talked about everything that I had done before, what I was hoping to do in the future and it was just very, very natural–just casual conversation about what my experience was and then what the idea of Warby Parker was at that time.

Craig: And was the idea the same as it is now?

Mara: Yes, that’s one of the special things about Warby Parker is that from day one, they really spent a ton of time thinking through what the pillars were for the brand. They really wanted this company to be a lifestyle brand that was going to be here for the next hundred years. They wanted it to really revolutionize eyewear industry and they wanted to prove that for-profits could do good in the world. Those three main pillars are still the ones that really reign the company to this day.

Craig: Did he convince you with that in the beginning?

Mara: The pitch was really just that they’re four really smart friends with this great idea to sell glasses online, so many other companies were selling products online that never had before –you shouldn’t have to pay the price of an iPhone for glasses.

I started wearing glasses when I was maybe 12 years old and so I knew how expensive glasses were and how limited the options were. It just seemed to make a lot of sense plus, with my background of wanting to work somewhere that was going to do good in the world, it was just awesome to see how it wasn’t a marketing ploy. It was part of the brand and who they really wanted to be from day one.

Neil [Blumenthal], one of our co-founders (and current co-CEOs) was one of the first employees at Vision Spring before he went to business school and he had really set up the whole program and how that nonprofit worked. And we were just going to partner with them so that we could do work in a way that they knew how to do it best and we were just going to help them and achieve that in the best way. It just really felt very authentic, very natural so at that point, I was just like, “Okay, you guys need to hire me.”

Craig: [Laughter] Okay, so what happens next?

Mara: We were still just talking about it because they didn’t even have the glasses yet. They didn’t have a website. It was really just an idea at that point but they knew that they wanted help soon thereafter. And so we continued talking. And I think they received the glasses maybe at the end of December or January of 2009. They started doing some trunk shows with their friends and I came to a couple of them, got to see the glasses, got to meet the other co-founders, and actually did an interview call with Dave Gilboa who is currently my boss. They decided to launch in the beginning of February and I started February 1, 2010.

Craig: Did you move to NY at that point?

Mara: No. So they were still in school in Philly and school was going to go through June. So on February 1st, we were launching but not necessarily the website. It was more of launching the fulfillment process. So we were still doing trunk shows with their friends and I was helping process orders with our tech consultant, set up the whole process through NetSuite which is an ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] that we were using at the time, and really just help set up the foundation. Then we fully launched on February 15th with the website and features in GQ and Vogue

For the first two weeks in February I was part-time, 15 hours a week, just helping with anything that came up. The launch of the website kind of kicked us into crazy mode. And that’s when my role turned into a hundred hours a week and basically that’s what it’s been since then.

From that point, it was just like, “Okay, this is really going to work. Let’s figure out how to make this work in the best way. I think it was April when we decided we were going to move to New York and started prepping for that move.

Craig: And so were you handling fulfillment in the beginning?

Mara: I was helping with a little bit of everything, right. At first it was just me but then we quickly hired four other people and also I helped train all of the founders’ families everyone we knew could help, because it got really crazy really fast. I was in charge of setting up all of the training materials, managing all of the folks, setting up the culture, working with inventory, supply chain and then helped with all of the talent on HR, setting up all of the assistants as well and office management. It was a startup, right? You do what’s needed.

Craig: Right, exactly. The job description doesn’t exactly match the job. So had you guys raised money at that point?

Mara: No. So it was all from the four founders’ savings at that point.

Craig: Ok. How many styles did you launch with?

Mara: That’s a good question. It was twenty-seven plus our monocle. At that time, a few very big, bold styles which were in at the moment and then a few toned-down frames. And then, of course, the monocle.

Craig: [Laughter] I didn’t even know that was a thing. Do people actually buy it?

Mara: We do get a lot of orders for groomsmen. But, I mean, it’s not our bestseller. [Laughter]

Craig: [Laughter] I figured. Ok, so you moved to New York and then what? Had you lived in New York before?

Mara: I had not, no. I feel like everybody has a dream of living in New York so it was very exciting to move here. So we moved to New York. We worked out of Neil’s wife’s back office. She had a jewelry line that she ran out of the garment district. So it was this tiny inventory room which became one of our first showrooms. Our first showroom was actually Neil’s apartment. [Laughter]

So we moved to her back office and then from there, we moved in August to our first real office in Union Square. At that point I think we had maybe 10 employees or so on our team.

Craig: At that time were you able to get a sense if it would last or if it was just this crazy startup thing that might implode?

Mara: No, we were definitely filling a need in the market for sure. Just from customer conversations I could tell it was a thing. We always wanted to make sure that every employee (and our founders) were interacting with customers. We had phone and email initially and we responded to each and every person individually even when we got the crazy spike in March. We were all working from 7:00 to 4:00 a.m. really responding to every customer. People would reply to the 4:00 a.m. emails being like, “I get it. You’re a startup. That’s totally fine. Take your time, but would love your glasses. This is amazing. This is such a great idea. Don’t know why nobody has tried this before.”

So it definitely felt like we were filling a need in the market and that we just had to figure out the kinks of growing pains to make sure that we had enough inventory for everyone.

Craig: I imagine the actual manufacturing process is pretty time intensive–learning how it all works and figuring it all out, especially in the beginning.

Mara: Yeah, definitely. So Neil did have some experience in manufacturing glasses through Vision Spring, the nonprofit where he had worked. He knew some of it.

The way our manufacturing process works is we get the materials from either Italy or Japan. We manufacture the glasses in China and then we ship them to the US. Now we have six labs across the US. They then cut each lens specifically to each customer and then ship those glasses, the completed glasses, to the customer directly from our labs.

It is a pretty complicated process and, honestly, none of us had worked in retail before, including the four founders. Setting up the technology that was necessary to track all of that inventory, to manage our customer orders in the best way, wasn’t easy. Do you know about the Home Try-On?

Craig: Yeah, but you should explain it anyway.

Mara: Cool. So the Home Try-On program, the way it works is you select five pairs and we ship them to you to try on and then you return them and can purchase your favorite on the site. So the first lab that we ever partnered with was in New York and they used to do not only do fulfillment of the glasses but our Home Try-On program as well. The way that it would work is that they would send out the Home Try-On glasses from their lab and then everything would get returned to Neil’s apartment in Philly.

Initially, it was just me going through everything and double-checking, making sure everything was good, cleaning everything and then putting it all in boxes and just carrying it over to a UPS to send it over to our lab so that they could start the whole process again.

Craig: [Laughter] That’s insane.

Mara: [Laughter] Yeah, it was pretty insane.

Craig: Were there other bottlenecks? How established were the labs and the manufacturers that you were working with?

Mara: The way that labs usually work is that they partner with an optician at a company like LensCrafters and they fulfill the glasses but then send it to that storefront who then dispenses the glasses in person to a customer. Our process was completely new to them. They had never gone through the fulfillment process of quality checking everything and making sure it was the way we wanted it to before sending it to the customer directly. We were definitely establishing that through our company and teaching all of our labs how to do this.

Craig: Were you ever involved in those conversations? Convincing the lab, “Hey, now you do this, too.”

Mara: So the lucky thing about that is there was one person at the first lab that we partnered with that really believed in our idea. It took some convincing with him but then he was really the one that was able to get all of his lab on board. Of course, it took us a lot of work to establish all of the partnerships to set up all the processes in a way we wanted.

Craig: Cool. So back to the story, you moved to New York and things are ramping up. What happens after the summer? How does it go?

Mara: I mean, so we went through the period of just crazy explosive growth in February, March, April. Then we were moving to New York and, of course, in any startup in the beginning you have step function growth, right. With us, we didn’t do any marketing in that first full year. We really grew most through word of mouth, We were really just focused on “How can we learn as much as we can from the experiences that we are providing to our customers? What can we be doing differently?” And that’s what we were really focusing on: so building all of the technology, how to build out and manage all of our inventory, how to make sure that we were running the company in the best way. We were hiring a few more people at that point. We hired our first tech employee.

Craig: Wait, what?

Mara: Yeah, so we were only working with a consultant until the end of 2010.

Craig: [Laughter] So the whole first year was on some consultant guy’s website? That’s amazing.

Mara: Yeah, so it was on NetSuite. Our contact there made it all work. But at that point we were still answering all of our phone calls through Google Voice to our cell phones. Everybody was in one inbox in Gmail.

Craig: [Laughter]

Mara: It was pretty insane. You know the labels that you use in Gmail? We would use labels with our names. Just put a label and say, “Okay. Royce, Brian, Lee, Colleen, Mara.” And you would just assign the top 10, middle 10, things like that. And we would just make it work.

Craig: And so now are you becoming more of a manager?

Mara: In March of 2010, I was already a manager but still very much a doer because I was managing the operations team but still doing office management and talent and inventory and all of that kind of stuff as well. I think it wasn’t until much later on that I was fully able to hire for all of those different roles. It was very much just managing all of our folks within the operations team to make sure that we were just fulfilling orders and managing our customer’s experiences as best as possible.

Craig: You’ve been there for six years at this point. How’s your role changed?

Mara: A lot. I mean, it’s been an awesome journey, lots of learnings along the way. I think what’s been most exciting about Warby Parker is that we continue to grow at this crazy pace and we’re just always going through growing pains and trying to figure out what’s the next big step and how do you deal with that next big step. Going from startup mode and being very reactive to everything that gets thrown your way because you don’t really know when to expect that next big push, that next big craze. It’s been awesome to be able to have more processes in place, better systems that we can count on. We’re not just on one inbox anymore and we have a real phone system with lots of hard data which is awesome.

Craig: Okay, and how many people are you now?

Mara: So companywide, we’re over 900 people and that includes our employees from our 40 retail stores that we now have.

We started thinking we were only going to sell online but then through lots of different experiments with the showrooms we found that our customers did really like getting access to all of the glasses and getting that assistance in person and that we could also learn a lot from those interactions in person with those customers. So we started experimenting with a few stores. We launched our first store in 2013 and then have been expanding since then.

Craig: So what did you learn from customers trying on in a store vs the Home Try-On data?

Mara: First, observing them and what glasses they’re gravitating towards, how they shop. So usually, people in the past have gone through face shape but a lot of people don’t even know what their face shape is. It is a little hard for people to understand that. So do you organize by bolder and more classics? By different color styles? So we were able to see how customers interacted with those glasses and how we were setting them up in person allowed us to further understand how to couple those glasses together and how to talk about them, how to create better stories around those types of glasses.

Craig: Do you have thoughts on what your personal future ambitions are?

Mara: To be honest, I never thought I would stick around at a company for more than two years, right? Everybody jumps around every two years, nowadays especially. So it’s been six and a half years and I continue loving it as much as I did in day one. It’s just a combination of continued learning and growing and the amazing culture. That just keeps me coming back for more and I know that we do have a lot of really exciting plans for the future (we’re opening our own lab in upstate New York soon) plus this continued expansion into retail. We opened our first store in Canada this year.

There’s just so much more that we can do. Our brand awareness in New York, in California, is pretty high but throughout the rest of the country and potentially rest of the world, there’s a huge opportunity there. It really feels like we’re still just getting started. And there are so many more opportunities for the company and so many more opportunities for me to continue to learn and develop myself and continue to add value to the growing organization. So that keeps me around.

Craig: What does that mean? How do you want to continue to develop yourself?

Mara: I mean… I have about a 150 people on my team. I’ve never managed a 150 people before. Actually, Warby Parker was the first experience that I had managing anyone. So continuing to grow my team and scale my team, making sure that we’re investing in our employees in the best way while we continue to learn how to scale the organization in the best way, and the way that I do that is making sure that I’m a better leader every day.

I just continue to expose myself to other companies that have gone through this growth before, have done what we have done before, continue to read a lot of books, just developing myself in any way possible.

Craig: Most people in the world have not managed 150 people. And, I mean, you’re easy to have a conversation with but I imagine there are other things that aren’t your strong suit, right? So what did you have to learn along the way?

Mara: Everything.

Craig: [Laughter] Okay. How about–what was counterintuitive for you?

Mara: I don’t know. Let’s see. That’s a really good question. So I am very much a planner and I like to be very organized in everything that I do. I think in the beginning it was a lot more stressful to not be able to have everything planned out. You just have to roll with the punches and you just have to figure things out as they get thrown at you. And so eventually you then get used to that culture and then you have to break out of that and go into process mode and make sure that you have really great processes in place so everybody in the organization is empowered to take action in a way that’s consistent throughout the entire organization.

A lot of what I learned is around lean, Six Sigma thinking and how to implement it into daily practices. You have to realize that everything isn’t going to be exactly the way you want it and how you would do it. But if you are able to have enough processes in place and enough structure in place with enough guiding posts like strategic objectives and milestone metrics and core values, then you empower everyone to take action, to make decisions and learn on their own. Then you can then help them learn through the great decisions or bad ones and, of course, correct from there.

That’s been more of the learning challenge. As you grow into a leader and, of course, as the team continues to grow, making sure that those ideas seep through to all of the layers of the organization.

Craig: Yeah, each person on a hundred-person team is not as effective or easy to evaluate as each person on a ten person team, right? So you’re not 10X more productive and managing that process does make a lot of sense. As your ambitions scale, do you feel that you have founder-type ambitions in you at some point?

Mara: Potentially? I mean, I’ve learned so much here and I feel like if I did want to, that I would be able to start a company myself. Nothing planned for the moment but potentially, one day.

Craig: Anyway, so the founders were all dudes, right?

Mara: Yep.

Craig: So you were obviously the first female hire. What’s that dynamic like?

Mara: I don’t know. I think it’s just hard to really put myself in those shoes just because in every experience I have had even before Warby, I haven’t had that much of an issue with being the only woman in the workplace and having to just work that much harder to speak up or to assert myself or something like that. Once we moved to New York, the two other guys became board members and stepped out of day to day operations and it was really only the two co-CEOs that stayed on board. And so maybe that’s why it didn’t feel very daunting.

Craig: Interesting. Ok, let’s move on then. What books are you reading right now? Are you a business book person?

Mara: Yes, most recently I’ve been reading a couple of HBRs business books which are compilations of great articles – HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself and HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing People – and my personal favorite which I’m having my entire team read right now is How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Craig: Cool. So we usually ask people about lessons learned. Maybe you could break that up into first employee learnings and general learnings?

Mara: Sure. So learnings from early days, first. I think that the most successful people that I’ve seen in startup settings are people that have no ego. They just know that shit needs to get done. You really just need to put your head down and figure things out and just make it work. So hauling boxes to UPS or cleaning glasses or when we got a batch of bad glasses, going through them and realizing that they were all bad and counting them up and then sending them back. So you just need to make the time and you just need to do it and you need to figure out how to do it in the best way. But working at a startup is really hard and it’s more than a hundred hours a week. It’s all consuming and you just have to be ready for it.

I think that those are sort of just my general learnings from startup life. It’s not for everyone. And I guess in terms of growing into the position that I am today and moving forward, I think part of the learnings that I’ve taken away from the last six and a half years in terms of hiring for your team, is that you need to focus more on the behaviors that you’re hiring for.

We really believe in hiring passionate, curious, proactive people rather than people that have the specific skills or experience that maybe you’re hoping to get because in the end, if the person doesn’t fit into at least those three behaviors at Warby Parker, they’re just not going to be successful. And we are a company that moves quickly and we want to be able to depend on everyone to be a problem solver and to think in a proactive manner. You can always teach the other things. I can always give somebody exposure to going to a conference or sitting down with somebody from a different company that has done these specific roles before. But you really do need to hire for behaviors and if you make a mistake, it’s better to call it quits sooner rather than later.

Craig: And what about hiring people that aren’t like you?

Mara: It’s also a very much of a learning process and you have to learn how to manage to everyone’s personality. You have to understand what you’re hiring that person for and then how to manage them in the best way to use those skills that you really hired them for and then supplement what they don’t have.

Craig: Last question. Would you consider yourself a good manipulator of people?

Mara: That is a really bad way of putting it.

Craig: [Laughter]

Mara: You mean like influencing people?

Craig: No. I mean, you can call it whatever you want but I think “manipulation” is unfairly cast in a negative light and is different. I think it’s actually one of the strongest skill sets someone can have. I think “influence” might work toward a similar output but the input is different . Anyway, I look around and there are certain people that are obviously good at it and certain people that aren’t great and certain people where you’re like, “I don’t know if you’re really good or terrible.”

Mara: So, honestly, I’ve learned how to be better in the last six years. I know initially the whole political games in an organization killed me. It really killed me to think you had to speak in a way or you had to manipulate people to get your job done. But through the advice of a colleague I read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie and learned that it’s not necessarily about manipulating people to get your job done, but how to influence others in a way that everyone wins in the end.

It’s hard, but a lot of practice has helped me get better. I think I can still get better, but I’ve definitely made a lot of strides in the last few years. I feel like it’s something that people just have to continue working on…

Craig: Well, I mean, perhaps this is obvious but these things, these interviews, are like therapy sessions for me as I’m figuring shit out.

Mara: [Laughter]

Craig: [Laughter] But really, that challenge of figuring out how steer a group of people that you may not completely vibe with is fascinating to me. Anyway, this has been super fun. Thanks so much for your time.

Mara: This was a lot of fun.

Craig: Totally. Thanks Mara!

[sarajonesc]

How To Start A Drop Shipping Business In Canada (Quick Start Guide)

A humongous number of Canadians spend their money online when it comes to buying products such as clothes. The amount being churned out by the eCommerce industry of this country annually is not even funny. Drop Shipping is a game-changer in this field. You manage to make good money from the comfort of your home, never having to take stock of the products that are being purchased off of your site. It is this ability to power through the intricacies of business, that allows you to focus on innovative methods to increase your profits. Success stories of people who Drop Ship are a-plenty. You will come across many such individuals, if you have not already, who have managed to make significant profits. These are people who make sure that their profits are turned into investments that can be shown off with pride. You do not have to follow the same path, make the same investments, or even purchase the same things. To turn a profit with Drop Shipping, all you have to do is get a good grasp of its principles. Do not worry, I have talked to and worked with enough people who Drop Ship to help you through the process of setting up shop. My interactions have also helped me learn the success mantras that have been handy for most of these individuals, along with the risks present in the game. Keep reading to get a detailed overview of this venture.

What is Drop Shipping?

A method of fulfilling retail needs, Dropshipping is a process where the online store does not have actual control over the products it sells. The store instead purchases the product from a manufacturer and has it directly shipped to the consumer. This allows for the seller to not handle the actual transaction at all and entirely focus on the profit mechanism involved in this process. It stands out from the standard model of retailing by not stocking or owning an inventory of the product. The seller, then, is responsible for the reach of the product. They have to look for manufacturers and decide what the share will be in terms of purchasing. The inventory visible on the site also does not need to be limited to a single manufacturer. The seller can always diversify in terms of the products they want to put out in the market. You can easily take the amount given to you, place the order to the manufacturer, and keep the difference in the selling price that you put vis-a-vis the actual selling price. You get to decide what your share will be considering that you will be undertaking the project of growing the reach of the product.  

What to Sell? 

This is one of the places in your Dropshipping business that will require your complete attention. Creating a store and filling it up with random products will do you no good. You will have to carefully curate what is new and trending while keeping in mind what is it that customers might be looking for at different times. All businesses are based on proper groundwork and research. If you are going to invest your time in this venture, you must have a fair idea about the market as well as your customers. These are two of the biggest tools in any good businessman’s arsenal. 

Considering that a lot of your traffic will be directed through social media sites, you must spend a considerable time on Facebook and Instagram. This is to get a sense of what others might be selling, what kind of trend is currently settling in, and what kind of products catch the consumers’ eye. It would be beneficial if you also keep an eye out for quality. If that is something that interests you, definitely try one of the products before putting them on sale.

Is Dropshipping an expensive venture?

If you were to go out, rent a space, create an inventory, and then wait for customers to turn up to your physical shop, then it would be an expensive venture. If you were to hire a web developer to create a website, pay your server and hosting charges, and then wait for traffic to come your way, yes it would be an expensive venture. For Dropshipping, neither of the two scenarios listed above are important. Instead, you are far away from exhausting yourself physically or mentally when it comes to setting up shop. The internet is a real blessing when it comes to things such as this. You can easily sign yourself on one of the various sites that allow you to rent a space online, and curate your collection to sell. The price is not extravagant, and you can easily pay it off with the profits you make each month. Most such sites offer interesting add ons to attract consumers. Some of them allow consumers to create their cart and check them out at their convenience. Products that have been picked once, will not disappear! They even offer coupon code boxes that allow consumers to access the deals you set for them. One of my personal favorites is Shopify. With its nominal rates as well as a user-friendly interface, it is perfect for the seller and the consumer. You can use Shopify features to make sure that your shop stands out from the crowd and easily attracts customers.

Is Drop Shipping Risky?

As I have mentioned above, Dropshipping eliminates a lot of risks that are anyways part and parcel of any business venture.

Your investment remains minimal because you do not have to purchase any bulk quantity of stock from the manufacturer.

You do not have to wait for profits to appear if and when your initial stock has been ordered.

In this model, you can quickly gauge if your selection of products is turning in a profit. If it isn’t, at the same speed you can change the selection on your online store.

It is a dynamic process that allows your business to flourish.

Considering that this is an online venture, the biggest roadblock will only be refunding customers their money. For this, you can always plan your earnings accordingly.

Is Drop Shipping Profitable?

Honestly speaking, yes you will be able to make profits. The margin of that profit will be solely dependent on how you carry out your business transactions. You must keep track of the costs you will have to incur while conducting this business. Once you are in the game, it is important to calculate things like how much money you will be spending on acquiring the product from the manufacturer and how much will you be spending on other forms of advertisements. These are the actual costs of business, and upon this, the condition of your business be decided. Acquiring products and selling them is where you will be making your profits. You will have to strike a deal with your supplier, and provide their products at a cost, where it meets his needs and leaves money in your wallet. You will advertise manually when you begin in this trade. If you want to expand you must spend a small portion of your profit on buying ad spaces and the likes. Remember that you will have taxes to pay and make sure that you factor it in while investing your profits. You must have a plan in place before you start actively polishing the contours of this venture.

Nobody becomes a millionaire overnight, it is the process of smart investment and quick capital gains that lead people to move up the ladder of success.

How Do We Start Drop Shipping in Canada?

Now that we are familiar with what Dropshipping is, let us move towards how to start this business while sitting in the comfort of our homes.

1. Plan and Create a Structure

The first order of business is to decide between a sole trader and a company the moment your profit crosses a few hundred dollars. To set up as a company would mean that you pay a formation fee and create a business account in the bank of your choice. On the other hand, if you set up as a sole trader, you will bear the brunt of the entire process on your seld. Take help from an accountant for either declaration so that you do not miss out on anything of importance while registering yourself. This will save you a lot of time and money in the future. You might have heard that a good foundation is what decides the strength of the institution. 

2. Manage Accounting

This will decide you and your companies’ future in the long run. Make sure that you keep a track of the amount that is coming in, and the amount that you are spending. This includes keeping a log of your purchases and sales. It also takes into account the amount you have spent on advertisements as well. For this, I would suggest that you create an account on applications that provide dedicated service to things such as this. Wave and MyOB are two such applications that digitize your spending and income by putting them on charts and bar graphs. Connect your banking accounts and cards to keep a complete check on the incoming and outgoing money in your company. If you start doing this religiously, filing tax returns will no longer be a headache. You will be able to save a lot as well as direct your spending accordingly when it comes to conducting your business.

3. Create your Own Store

My advice on this is to go with Shopify. It does not have any minimum commitment and you can use their free trial to get a feel of how this venture could look like. Shopify has a huge array of templates that you can put to good use to make your store more interactive and fancy. Apart from the few pre-loaded themes, you can opt to buy one made by one of many designers in here. With its free training and community forum services, it is already a step ahead of everyone else because it infuses the activity with trust and network building. You can start your store in a couple of hours. Choose an URL and buy a domain name via Shopify, your shop is ready to go.

4. Start Basic

Trust me on this, do not move to specialize in the first instance itself. Test out the market by seeing what is in demand. For this, I would advise you to start a store that caters to the general needs of the public rather than being its niche. This is only because consumers and markets are both volatile. They change their needs and tastes very quickly. Obviously, there is a need for advertisements to shift their notion, but that is for a later stage. Once you start selling, you can keep track of what is garnering the most amount of traffic and when. If it something that you can narrow down, then definitely move to create your niche.

5. Sell Your Products

For this part, we have to make sure that you simultaneously focus on two things. Firstly, scout, research, and look. You can never spend just adequate time on social media when you are in this business. Constantly surf Facebook and Instagram to see what is trending along with what is needed. Keep an eye out on places such as aliexpress.com and Sell The Trends to see the best products available. Use a platform such as Intellygence on your computer to keep a track of these things. Only when you do things like this, will you be able to successfully get good products for your business.

Secondly, smartly advertise. Use Google ads, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube to market your shop. Make sure that you have a keen eye out for social media marketing. Do not fall for ad spaces on ancient sites. Remember, your products and your shops are only as good as the number of people they are visible to.

Want To Learn How To Do Dropshipping Properly?

Now, a lot of people after reading a little about dropshipping or watching a couple of youtube videos start dropshipping. While some people might get lucky most people will fail. There are a couple reasons for this. Firstly, since this is a low barrier of entry business many people are already doing it.

Meaning it’s already much harder to begin with if you’re a beginner.

Another reason why most people fail is that they just don’t do anything properly. Of course if your new and if you follow some youtube videos showing you simply creating a store then advertising it, you’re going to fail.

There are also people who do all these and then they give up. Then they make videos on youtube saying dropshipping is difficult and it doesn’t work.

Worst of all would be where you go out there and end up losing a lot of money because you’re new to paid ads and you decided it was a good idea to run facebook ads because they showed in a youtube tutorial.

This is EXACTLY why I recommend you get a proper course to learn dropshipping.

Now there are a lot of crappy dropshipping courses on the market made by gurus in their Lamborghini’s claiming you will become an overnight millionaire if you buy their overpriced course with thin content just because they managed to get some sales on their Shopify store.

I have personally taken a lot of these courses and trust me it sucks. What I suggest is buying a solid course which isn’t overpriced or overhyped.

By far the best course on the market today for dropshipping would have to be eCom Elites by Franklin Hatchett.

Why?

Well, first off this is an actually affordable course for one. Second, some modules in this course have more CONTENT than some of the many popular dropshipping courses which ask you to pay thousands of dollars just to buy it then they might try to upsell you.

Lastly, this is a course by Franklin Hatchett, he has been doing drop shipping even before it was famous and trending on youtube. He’s been doing dropshipping for over 8 years. He isn’t your typical Lamborghini guru who had like one or two stores successful and then decided to make a course on it.

Try it out for yourself here (There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee so, you can try without losing money! By the way, I will be writing a review eCom Elites very soon!)

The post How To Start A Drop Shipping Business In Canada (Quick Start Guide) appeared first on Maple Loonie.

Via https://mapleloonie.ca/how-to-start-a-drop-shipping-business-in-canada/

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[davewakeman]

Talking Tickets: 27 March 2020--Take Care Of Yourself! Twitch! TV Money! Marketing and More!

Hey There! 

Thanks for being here again this week.

If you’ve been finding value in the newsletter and the things I’ve been sharing, could you do me a favor and share this newsletter with someone that would get value from it?

I’d appreciate it!

Like I mentioned last week if you have some cool thing that you are working on to boost the industry right now…let me know and I will share it. LiveNation is doing a cool concept called ‘Sound of Silence‘ to support the Australian music industry and they have some really great t-shirts! The money raised will go to support artist crews and workers in the Australian live entertainment sector.

Last week, I co-hosted a virtual Happy Hour with Ken Troupe and I think we may have put the wrong link in the email here. But we had a few people, some laughs, and some fun. So we are going to try it again this afternoon at 5PM EST.

Want to connect with folks throughout this crisis and economically troubled time, I’ve put together a Slack channel for folks in the entertainment business to have a place to chat and connect.

To the tickets!

————————————————————————————————————

1. The recovery and return of games is being driven by…TV:

I’ve been telling y’all for years that you have to be careful if you put too many eggs in one basket. And, the coronavirus pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons about planning, risk, and business.

The great thing is that we are starting to see folks start talking about getting back to work, playing games, putting on shows, and all of these things.

But as we move out of the collapse of the economy and the pandemic eventually turns to a point where we can get back to business, we have to start thinking about our business models.

What are they? Why are we doing what we do? What do we want our businesses to be?

I put in a piece last week talking about everything being different, but what does that mean?

I’ve run across a lot of articles this week highlighting the impact that TV is having, driving decision making on returning to the field, making arrangements, and other decisions.

The TV money is awesome. It has provided tremendous opportunities.

But as we move into a new normal, we also have to ask if the TV money has also led to stagnant business models, lack of innovation, and a loss of control of the decision-making process.

As a noted contrarian, these ideas aren’t mutually exclusive.

Look, when Premier League teams are potentially going bankrupt without TV money, that’s the definition of too heavily weighted in one direction to me.

What will happen to the tickets? Fans in stadiums?

Also, will we see a trend of cord-cutting and subscription cancellations that leads to customers leaving and never returning? And, what about the ‘make goods’ that the networks and leagues will have to provide?

Several folks I spoke with over the last week or two have mentioned that the attendance numbers haven’t ever really recovered since 2008. Then you see stories like this one claiming that a Champions League match could have been ground zero for Europe’s coronavirus outbreak and it gives you pause.

Are these people wrong? Am I wrong? Because I’ve been highlighting this for years, empty seats is more than just a price issue or a new normal…it is an existential crisis.

I’m still working through my own process of what comes next for me, but I can tell you three things to think about:

1. What is the value you want to deliver? 2. Who is your buyer? 3. How are you going to reach them?

2. The pandemic and economic meltdown bring out the best and the worst:

Last week I shared the story of Amy Kline and how she organized singing in her neighborhood. This week I saw Joe’s post about how creativity is more important than ever.

That’s the great thing about art, it brings out the best in us in troubled times.

Goldstar has put together a nice program to help arts organizations weather the storm.

While Mark Cuban has been out at the front about making sure that sports teams take care of their hourly workers during the coronavirus shutdown.

On the other hand, in Boston, I’ve seen a lot of stories about how the Bruins and Delaware North have been placing folks on leave for “temporary business stabilization measures.” And, to use the kid’s term, Josh Harris and David Blitzer were “dragged” over their decision to cut most of their staff’s pay by 20% and then quickly turned around on that decision.

At the NHL offices in NYC, we are seeing salaries cut 25% to try and avoid layoffs.

3. We are still holding for any sign of light for events to begin again in many parts of the world:

Football clubs in Europe are still working on finishing their season by June 30th so that the regular club year can begin on July 1st.

Whether or not that is reasonable is still unknown, the British FA is being very aggressive in their pursuit of finding a way to save the season and make certain that clubs at all levels survive after the pandemic and the economic collapse that is going along with it.

MLB is likely to be hurt the most in the short term just because they are missing their Opening Day launching pad and combining that with a high likelihood that the NHL and NBA may end up playing their playoffs in competition with the launch of baseball during the summer months, god willing.

For me, the question isn’t just when will events come back, but what kinds of events will people come back for?

I’m thinking that this is likely to look a little like the airline industry after 9/11 and there is an interesting study that says that things won’t be distributed the same way when events come back.

What do y’all think?

From where I sit, we are going to have to think through how teams, leagues, and companies manage risk and planning going forward. I think that was always the case, but this crisis is highlighting how close to the edge many organizations are.

If you are totally jonesing for sports, I can point you to Belarus and Twitch!

4. In the States, I think we are going to see a huge change in the way that tickets are sold going forward: 

I mean, at this point, I don’t think we should be too surprised by the number of layoffs and troubles that the world of live events is facing. This pandemic hit at the heart of everything many of us do all day, every day.

But I think what is going to be interesting to see coming out on the other side is what comes next in tickets.

For a long time, I’ve partnered with Booking Protect as they’ve worked to deliver the best refund protection in the world of tickets and events.

Their commitment to maintaining a high level of service throughout the pandemic highlights something that really should have already been a primary consideration for folks, how do we give the ticket buyer more flexibility in their purchase terms and how do we meet customers in a way that reflects the reality of their jobs, their schedules, their health, and lives that don’t always conform to the events we’ve planned for months in advance.

In Australia in November, Maureen Andersen gave the closing keynote at the Ticketing Professionals Conference of Australia and she talked about elevating the level of service in the industry and an example that stuck in my mind was the idea of “all sales are final” or “no refunds, no exchanges.”

In the context of Maureen’s speech, these concepts just aren’t good enough for the modern customer of November…I think we can all agree that the reality of our customers has changed a lot in the 4 months since I heard her talk about this in Australia.

More, I think her point was that we have to end this idea that our default should be to figure out how to say, “yes” as much as we possibly can to every one of our guests.

I don’t have to tell any of y’all where I fall down on that idea.

You combine these ideas with the story of the secondary market platforms faltering under the strain of the coronavirus induced shutdowns and, in the States, you see that the model of sales is going to have to change going forward.

And, the state of what to do with all of the tickets that are postponed or canceled currently is another sticking point that is likely to drive this thinking for some folks. This particular part of the challenge confronts folks around the world.

Let me give you a couple of reasons why:

First, for far too long at this point, much of the risk for many teams, productions, and events have been born by the secondary market.

You’ve seen this in the rise of consolidation, ticket arbitrage, the fan broker model and a lot of other moves that consumers and professionals have had to make to attempt to either afford their tickets or to drive value into the ticketing ecosystem.

Effectively, what we’ve seen happen is that in the drive to maximize revenue at every touchpoint we’ve put so much pressure on brokers, consolidators, and fans, that the risk has returned to the teams and content producers because STHs can’t afford their tickets, the secondary market might not see a return on a partnership, and corporate partners may not see the value or need in having so much inventory at such high prices.

Now, you are likely to see a scenario where the secondary market either reconsiders their risk tolerance or the secondary market doesn’t have the financial ability to assume as much risk. Combined with consumers feeling the pinch from the pandemic and the accompanying financial crisis, and the movement for a lot of corporate customers to reevaluate their ticket packages and ticket investments…and what do you have, potentially, a tremendous amount of trouble!

BTW, we could see many brokers and platforms go out of business or change the way they operate their businesses.

What will that mean for ticket sales?

Second, the model of Glengarry Glenn Ross type selling that still dominates most American sports teams is likely going to need to be revisited.

Patrick Ryan sums it up when he mentions losing “half your net worth and having some 25-year-old kid calling up” threatening to take away your tickets at the height of a panic as really bad for your brand. And, Aaron Holland talks about being more agile in the way that you create value for your ticket buyers.

How will you adapt to these realistic factors in your ticket sales process?

Finally, my favorite topic of marketing needs to regain its spot as a strategic priority.

I’m sure I’ve written and said more than anyone on the need for marketing to lead the way in ensuring that we are maximizing our attendance and revenue in sports, theatre, arts, and entertainment.

This is going to be more important than ever. And, spoiler, the old ways of marketing aren’t going to necessarily cut it any longer.

We will need to focus on response, revenue generation, and demand creation over brand building. In a way, I believe that the TV partners and other partners do a really great job of building the brand of teams, venues, events, and performers, but they do a poor job of selling and maximizing revenue because that’s not what they are designed for.

The simplest way to kickstart something like this is to rethink the outcomes you are trying to produce instead of getting stuck in the mindless tail-chasing of doing things because everyone else is doing them.

So…if you need to sell tickets, how are these channels going to help? What does success look like? Where can I find an example of someone achieving this outcome either in tickets or outside of it?

FYI, this piece about marketing being everyone’s job could have been written by me!

5. I hope this pandemic and economic slowdown resolves itself quickly, but I want y’all to be safe: 

I’ve had friends from all around the world send me well wishes and notes of concern because I live in DC. And, I don’t want to get political but I do want to tell you no matter where you are in the world, listen to the professionals, be careful about what you information you intake, and take care of yourself as we work through this.

My lady has taken over my office right now, but I have kept a bust of FDR (I think bust is the right term) next to my desk since I started working out of my office about 5 years ago because FDR was kind of Georgia’s first president. And, I know for many people we are dealing with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of stress. I’m not the president so I can’t go on the TV and calm the world’s nerves, but I can share FDR’s first inaugural address where he said the famous line: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” 

It is a tough time. As I’ve mentioned everywhere in the last few weeks, we are in this together. If you need me, let me know. You can email, text, call, WhatsApp, or whatever your preferred method of connection is. I’m here for you. And, after having gone through the 2008 financial crisis, I recognize that one of the most important things we can do for anyone is just be a friend, a shoulder, or someone to bounce ideas off of.

Importantly for me, thank you for paying attention…writing this week’s newsletter was really therapeutic and in a way felt like a meditation on business and life. So thanks again for being here! 

—————————————————————————————————————-

What am I up to this week?

I’m hosting 3 webinars this week on topics that I hope you or your team or colleagues might find useful during the current pandemic but also heading out of it…

On Tuesday, March 31st at 11 AM EDT, I’m going to take some of those concepts and ideas I talked about in section 4 and create a webinar to help you come up with some new ideas to sell more tickets in the future. I’m going to cover value for the premium buyer, messaging, incentives, value, and more. I hope to see you there.

On Wednesday, April 1st at 3 PM EDT, I’m putting together one that is all about value and how you can create value for your clients and prospects in crisis times. We will cover whether you should be selling, how to offer insights, and how you can become a resource to your market.

On Thursday, April 2 at 12 PM EDT, I’ve put together a webinar with Frederic Aouad from Stay22 on leading a sales team during the pandemic. We will discuss how doing the right thing is the most important thing you can do right now, helping your sales team see the light at the end of the tunnel, changing performance metrics, and delivering value.

You can also listen to the previous webinars: The Language of the Sale and What Matters In Tickets Now! as well! Check out The Business of Fun archives and I will get back to posting podcasts this week with an interesting conversation with Queue-It North American CEO, Phil Hansen. 

Please follow and like us:

Talking Tickets: 27 March 2020–Take Care Of Yourself! Twitch! TV Money! Marketing and More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

[t-baba]

How Four Programmers Got Their First Python Jobs

No one really knows how to do a job before they do it. Most people land a coveted position through a strange alchemy of related experience, networking, and hard work. The real experience is the job itself. That’s when you get the opportunity to apply what you know to real-world problems and see it pay off.

The following four programmers earned their first Python jobs in different ways. Some had prior Python experience, some didn’t. Some knew what they were getting into, others found out later. Understanding how they landed their first Python job might help you land yours. Here’s how they did it.

Nathan Grieve

First Python job: Data Scientist

How Nathan Got the Job

While completing my Physics degree, I applied for a data science job with a small tech startup that primarily used Python (and SQL). The thing is, I didn’t have experience with Python at the time. When the interview came around, I answered the programming questions by using pseudocode to demonstrate I understood the concepts.

Pseudocode uses coding logic without using coding syntax. So by using the same logic that Python does, I could show an understanding of the concepts without being specific to any language.

For example, any computer scientist can understand the simple pseudocode below, but they may not understand the Python function unless they've worked with it before.

Python

loop_index = 0 while loop_index < 5: print(loop_index) loop_index += 1

Pseudocode

Set loop index to 0 Loop while loop index is less than 5 print loop index Increase loop index by 1

Pseudocode is more readable to humans, too. It’s not actually much different from code, it just avoids using language-specific syntax. And using it it worked! They gave me the job. But of course, before I arrived I had to actually learn the language.

Nathan's Advice

My advice for those wanting to enter the field is to tackle real-world problems as soon as you can. At Project Hatch, a company I cofounded that analyzes startups and provides them with analytics to grow their businesses, we do hire people who are self taught, but there's a huge skill gap between those who only do Codecademy-style courses and those who actually apply their knowledge. I would say keep working through Codewars challenges until you’re at a point where you don’t have to repeatedly look up what arguments you should be using and what order they should be used in.

If you’re looking for real-world problems to solve, go on Kaggle, which has a huge number of data sets to play with, and practice pulling useful information out of them. For example, if you’re looking at a data set for food recipes, align the data set with local food prices to find all of the recipes that create meals for under $5. When you’re ready for a real challenge, try Kaggle competitions. You'll find problems to solve and companies willing to pay. These challenges will be incredibly difficult to begin with, but you'll learn a lot discussing solutions with other computer scientists on the forum.

Bill Price

First Python job: Cyber Security Architect

How Bill Got the Job

I had supported Python developers for a number of years as a NASA network administrator and security engineer, so I was aware of the power and flexibility of the language before a new opportunity presented itself.

In 2017, I was approached by a major financial institution to join a team charged with developing a new assessment program to identify monitoring gaps in a particular business process and its supporting applications. I believe they came to me because of my:

network and security experience

lack of experience in the financial sector, as they wanted a fresh set of technical eyes on their problem

ability to tease out what actual requirements are

ability to approach a new project with an open mind and no preconceived notions.

Funnily enough, and unbeknownst to me, this turned out to be my first Python job.

Our team was expected to triage the gaps, identify possible mitigations, and report our findings to leadership. We began by mapping applications to each business process, but quickly realized that the size of the different data sets we needed to review (application and hardware inventories, Qualys vulnerability scans, daily BladeLogic reports, Splunk logs, etc.) were too large for import into Excel spreadsheets. Furthermore, we didn't have access to traditional UNIX text processing resources or administrative access to our workstation, where we might have installed any new data management tools. And we didn’t have the budget to purchase new tools.

We did, however, have access to Python, a full set of Python libraries, and the ability to install Python using existing enterprise support software.

I didn’t know Python going in. I had to learn on the job, and good thing I did. Python was critical in our being able to parse hardware inventories based on applications used by the business process, isolate vulnerabilities associated with the appropriate hardware, and identify unauthorized services running on any device that supported one (or more) applications.

Bill’s Advice

My advice to aspiring Python developers is threefold.

First, familiarize yourself with the different libraries available in Python that might assist you in a potential job. Our team used mechanize, cookielib, urlib, urlib2, and csv extensively. If you're looking at a machine-learning project, pay attention to libraries like TensorFlow, Numpy, and Keras.

Next, be on the lookout for processes that need to be automated, or where existing automation can be improved. There's likely an opportunity for applying Python.

Lastly, have a good Python reference book to supplement all of the online resources that are available. I recommend T.J. O'Connor's Violent Python.

The post How Four Programmers Got Their First Python Jobs appeared first on SitePoint.

by Joshua Kraus via SitePoint https://ift.tt/35S2Sos

[grimmhelm]

TSW.L Breakdown/Slight Rantyness -ye be warned :)

First of all I am NOT in the beta, though I hope to get in just to see if any of this is better than it currently sounds.

So I have played TSW on and off since launch -I was in the beta, this is a game that I want to see flourish and be the best it can be.

Recently however they have announced the ‘Relaunch’ of The Secret World, which there calling TSW Legends.

-Cool more eyes on the game, more people to play with, that’s exactly what the community wants and needs to keep the game alive and updated for years to come and frankly still is.

However….

Nothing lasts forever as they say and with the coming of “Legends” a lot of stuff is shifting and changing, unfortunately from a lot of interviews I have scrounged and posts that people under the NDA shouldn't really be talking about but are in places (Reddit, TSW fansite forums under new account names, etc), it seems that this is not going to go well.

That said: THIS IS EARLY BETA. - also a bit of this is maybe a little out of date.

A ton of this can and will change before the launch of Legends, I just hope its for the better, ontop of that some of this is taken from forums and I can’t be 100% sure that some of the users aren't just string the pot and are not actually playing the game.

-we know 120 keys have already been sent out.

Because a lot of this is in the air i will mark it with stars.

Red: Confirmed though subject to change.

Blue: Confirmed -but there in the process of changing as i write this.

Yellow: Unconfirmed/Forum posted

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

My primary gripes:

1) Clothing: Does this set make my butt look big?

One of the things that made TSW interesting was being able to wear what you wanted, cloths had no bearing on your stats at all -pick a hat, a different shirt and a jacket, those jeans look good and some high heels! Good to go!

Not so much anymore, apparently it’s all set as ‘costumes’ now -sets that you have no customisation over at all…

This is the most likely to change, but if it does not there will be a flood of people leaving just because of that, many of us like our own unique looks that we have built over time from earning clothing through hard work or with money we have managed to scrounge up through our misadventures.

If it remains this way there will be a lot of people who simply wont play the game anymore, a ton of games took TSW lead on this system. -This also may already be outdated.

I have been informed that the Dressing room isn’t even in the Beta yet, So all this was bunk on forums.

2) The Ability wheel: Gone, it’s just gone.

In it’s place is pretty much an excel spreadsheet with abilities linked to weapons, they unlock as you gain enough points -oh what’s that want to change to a different weapon line. POOF, sorry your points you didn’t spend are gone, even if you jump back -guess you gotta grind them back out.

The ability wheel was another great feature but had a lot of the more childish members of the community up in arms because “it was too complicated” -it really was not, you pick a weapon you wanted to raise, you follow a set chain of abilities each a little more expensive but more powerful than the last, complete a certain set you unlock a ‘deck’ and its costume.

No more of that. (For now).

EDIT: This is apparently just a placeholder for what they actually have in store -the points vanishing is a bug that not everyone is experiencing.

3) Levels: Numbers!!!.

Before in TSW your level was an abstract concept, you had to judge for yourself when you was strong enough to take on an area and the creatures within.

Get your ass kicked -come back after doing some other stuff, did OK? Keep going, Kick ass yourself -maybe time to check that other corner of the map, in a fight with a tough foe who might be just a little stronger than you but you JUST manage to scrape by-nothing beats it.

As it was it was based on your ability choice and the gear level you had, the better stuff you had the better chance you had of pushing past an area.

Not so much now, There giving us a good old fashioned Levelling bar and a number next to our name.

Fuck. That.

I completely understand why, it’s easier for new players to come in and know how tough a bad-guy is compared to you, but the guess work added to The Secret World’s ambiance, despite your god-like powers your still a brittle human compared to the horrors that slip out of the darkness and into your waking nightmare, judging if you can actually handle something or not was part of the charm.

Nope, gone now, its level 23 your 18 better run.

4) Combat: DODGE!.

This maybe the only good thing I have heard? Maybe? That said I like the combat as it was.

Right click: Primary weapon attack, Left click: Secondary weapon attack, Dodge is now an action key instead of a direction double tap or a direction space bar, potions and mount are on an (currently) unmovable hotbar.

The abilities are all 1 to 8 as normal in MMO’s. Not the 6 button round up we have normally. I know those of us who played TSW before are going to get killed ALOT because of these changes, were not going to doge because our habit and instinct tells us to double tap, were going to forget to click to attack after we fire off abilities.

However this may turn out to be decent if it’s improving the feel of battle, though I will miss the combat they originally had.

5) Loot: Minor change. Maybe.

Apparently the items will no longer scatter the ground when you slay your foe, instead everyone in the party will get there own individual loot added directly to the inventory.

Don’t want to pick stuff up? Tough. Your friend got the weapon you was after and you got something you don’t even use? Tough, chances are there bound on pickup.

It used to be that items got left on the ground if you didn’t grab them, if you ran away a certain distance or didn't touch the items for 2 minuets, another play could pick them up -this was incredibly useful for helping lower geared friends in areas, letting them get a few extra resources to make weapons/gear/potions, but all that is apparently just a dream of the past now.

HOWEVER. This is only partially confirmed from a few interviews, it is unknown if items won’t drop as normal outside of parties.

6) Crafting: Gone is the template of old.

Apparently this is the largest change for us old TSW players, the crafting system has been scrapped.

It used to be you dragged certain materials such as metal or water or fire into a pattern on the crafting window -build a shotgun make a L longways with certain materials, a potion? Draw a bottle with the items.

Now it’s just a list like in WoW, or any other MMO these days.

Have the materials? Good, select how many wait a few seconds, off you go.

I know some players had trouble with remembering the combinations for items, but just give us an item window with the patterns on, don’t carve out the whole thing with a damn crowbar.

7) Story: The wheels on the bus go round and -OHGODITATETHEDRIVER.

The Main story for the factions remains almost untouched with the exception of some corrections in the lore and mechanical touch ups.

However.

Some of the side missions will be altered, some completely others just a tad.

Apparently some of the investigation missions -a unique mission type to TSW will be altered to combat ones since some players considered them a hassle or ‘too hard’ -these guys I want to lock in a TSW parking lot -if you play you know that’s a special kind of hell to be savoured!

Honestly if they remove the investigation missions, it will be a massive loss to the game and it’s unique play-style, having to figure out puzzles -logic based, history based, item based, etc. Was an amazing experience and sometimes required research and time to crack.

If even a few are gone it will make a lot of people turn there back on the game since they live for those missions.

Turns out this will mostly be tweaking, repairing some of the broken aspects and small click-boxes for some of the missions, a lot of this is fixes and moving onto improving.

8) Lifetime Subscriptions: Hahahahaha...haha...ha...*sobs*

Those of us who purchased the very extravagantly priced ‘Lifetime subscription’ and becoming Grandmasters in the game will apparently be getting the shaft.

Whilst we retain our Grandmaster status we will no longer receive monthly points to spend on the in-game store.

We will occasionally get subscription awards though not at the level we have been getting them the last year or so but mostly our lifetime subscription means that we just get the base future DLC for free.

Want the extra stuff? The clothing? Potions? Gotta pay cold hard cash.

Fortunately we keep our exp/currency/drop boosts, were gonna need them.

This I am ok with, they need to make money somehow now that there going this route with the game, but it’s still a difficult pill to swallow.

Oh and I made a point of saying DLC, not Expansion. If an expansion to TSW actually releases then you gotta pay for that too.

This is apparently undecided at this point.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a lot more but I've already spent 2 hours putting this together, I would have included links but most of the forums are deleting whatever comes up when they see it.

However here is the main interview going around right now:

http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/31/the-daily-grind-are-you-excited-about-secret-world-legends-2/

http://massivelyop.com/2017/04/01/exclusive-interview-romain-amiel-on-secret-world-legends-story-monetization-membership-tokyo-and-more/

You can check out the regular places and try to catch the forum posts that aren't removed a few minuets after there posted, but that’s a hard thing to do -and as stated before, we can’t be sure the people posting are actually playing or stirring the pot of those who are getting wound up.

All that said here are people you CAN trust with TSW stuff:

@biomechanicaltomato​

@matovilka​

@councilofvenice​

@thehiveislive​

@existentialdents​

@fuckyeahtsw​

@tswshutterbees​

@pgirl1986​

(sorry if I missed anyone, this has been a ton of work XD )

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Mike Leon of Bike Tow Leash, a brand that makes bike accessories for dogsSome stats:Product: bike accessories for dogsRevenue/mo: $20,000Started: April 2003Location: Orlando, FLFounders: 2Employees: 1Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?I am Mike Leon, mechanical engineer, an avid bike rider, service dog trainer and inventor of the 1-Running-Dog Bike Tow LeashⓇ for safe bike, trike, scooter, and wheelchair dog-rides.I am the owner of LEON Engineering, Inc. We design, build and sell the 1-Running-Dog Bike Tow Leash® to dog owners, walkers, trainers, military and law enforcement, search and rescue and those with special needs. Having sold less than 200 BTLs prior, My on-the-side hobby turned into a true business in 2009 with the launch of our first website. We went from shipping hundreds/year to thousands/year. Now, our business allows me to work comfortably from home, making 6 figures, while caring for my wife and enriching the lives of tens of thousands of dogs and their humans.imageWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I am a mechanical engineer graduate from Georgia Tech. My wife Betsy, GA Tech EE graduate, and I met her first day at school. We married after graduation. We have two daughters Jessica and Sam. After GA Tech I developed airline products up until when the 9-11 terrorist attacks occurred.After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Betsy and the girls, then 5 and 8, met Cindy at Publix getting groceries. She had a black Lab puppy in a light blue cape with her. From that encounter, my family and I volunteered raising service dog puppies for individuals with disabilities as a way of giving back to our community and country. In honor of those lost, we named our first puppy Tribute.Raising service dog puppies is a wonderful volunteer opportunity, which ultimately provides companion animals to individuals who suffer from seizures, or who have mobility, vision or hearing impairments.As trainers, we raise, train and socialize puppies until they are ready for graduate school. For socialization, we take the puppies, in a service cape, to work, stores, restaurants, schools, theme parks, etc.to expose them to a variety of situations. This prevents unpleasant surprises after they have been assigned to a client who is depending on them to do their job without being distracted.At about 6 months of age our first dog Tribute, now a tall long-legged black Labrador, had more energy than I did when we went out walking or running. With all her puppy energy, we needed to make sure Tribute exercised strenuously before we went out to eat. Since bad behavior is often a result of a lack of exercise and dogs in training are supposed to lie down and sleep under the table, not stand and upset dinner I was looking for an answer.As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. As a result of Tribute's need for speed, and my more limited energy levels, I got the idea to combine the fun of biking (for me) with the fun of running (for Tribute).Given my understanding of both physics and dog behavior, and concern for both my safety and the dog's safety, I knew better than to attempt riding Tribute with a regular leash. (Much later I did attempt riding with a regular leash, made it less than a mile, and still have the scars!)imageAs a product development engineer, I was accustomed to doing my homework when attempting something new. First, I checked on-line to determine whether there was a product available which made it safe to ride a bicycle with a dog.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.So when the raising organizations would not permit dog-biking with the products of the time, I compiled a list of shortcomings those current dog-biking attachments had: These included; bike tipping, pinching, poking or cutting dog or rider, running over your dog, no instant, direct or automatic communication between bike and dog. Ultimately, it had to be safe for both dog and rider.I envisioned my initial idea with safety in mind and built a prototype in my garage. This was not my first prototype as I had been designing and building items for many years prior. Anyway the first prototype I carved up from old parts in my garage functioned safely but had much room for improvement. It was important to keep early prototypes from prying eyes so we mainly biked in the dark.Early on it became apparent I wasn’t just making a leash for Tribute. I gave some to my sister Angie for their dogs to use with her kids, dog trainers, and neighbors. All came back with glowing reviews. I used a non-disclosure agreement for protection during this period. In the agreement, the prototype BTLs were to be returned at 6 months for a production model. I must say there was reluctance on the return part! All wound up with production units in the end.We applied for a utility patent, for protection, then approached manufacturers to make production parts. It is important to analyze the cost of each process involved to control cost while maximizing quality. Something as simple as a 45-degree chamfer versus a radiused corner can eliminate the need for costly special tooling. We started ordering part quantities for 500 leashes. Now the typical order is for 20 times that amount to find the sweet spot between part cost and the issues large inventories bring.Describe the process of launching the business.We launched LEON Engineering, Inc. by going to the bank and opening a business checking account. We opened with $20K left over from my post 9-11 severance package earned from 17 years designing and marketing airline products. We finished paying off the house with those funds. Fortunately, Betsy was still working. Her income provided us some financial flexibility. We needed additional capital for business development and patents. I stumbled into product forensics from my dad’s side involvement in a few cases. He suggested that I give product forensics as an expert witness a try. I’m uniquely qualified for this type of work as a mechanical engineer with a Professional Engineer’s license, extensive product development, field failure analysis, and repair experience. As an expert witness, I investigate, solve and testify in litigation cases involving injuries or losses. This type of work pays well but is very demanding mentally and physically. Not for everybody, and are not usually solved as quickly as in 60 minute TV shows. Some are good stories though if you have time for a couple of beers I could share a few. Anyway, those earnings were from cases ranging from chairs, ladders, fire, and flooding to cranes, were not earmarked for our living expenses. Thankfully we had help from Leon Enterprises, my Dad’s Patent Agent firm to keep patent expenses to a minimum. So, forensic earnings covered our early startup costs. These included applying for patents on the Bike Tow Leash and other products, prototype parts, tooling, marketing and paying our accountant. So many months of long hours, sleepless nights and careful spending paid off. We, Betsy and I, own LEON Engineering, Inc. and all the patents out right!Patents are expensive but necessary. You can have a great idea, concept, etc. but if someone learns of it and builds it before you patent it, you will have done it all for nothing or have a huge legal battle you likely cannot afford. There has to be enough money in a lawsuit to interest good attorneys in your case. The threshold is about $2 million of provable losses.Here are my intellectual property tips to save you tens of thousands of dollars in start-up costs alone:First, do your own patent search at www.uspto.gov to quickly see if your idea is truly new.Try to use a patent agent who has background knowledge in the field or areas concerning your invention over a patent attorney if you can find one. This will save you the higher hourly costs and the “educational cost” of bringing a non-versed attorney up to speed in your field.If you determine you have a novel idea, a provisional patent is a great way to protect your patent rights for a more affordable price. I prefer this over non-disclosure agreements as there can be claims that the company you are trying to strike a deal with could claim they had already come up with your idea before you arrived. Provisional patents have a downside however, they only last a year. You have to file before it expires. You have to show your idea fast to see if it has a market but do it safely!I continued to refine the BTL riding with my girls to school with subsequent dogs we raised. It was while being rapidly propelled down the beach after seagulls by Molly our third dog a Golden Retriever, that the name went from Bike Leash to Bike Tow Leash.Early prototypes had more parts and assembly required. When I showed it to pet product companies, manufacturers and buyers, they felt the customers wouldn’t understand it and the manufacturing costs were too high as well.We launched our website selling the Bike Tow Leash in 2009 with fewer parts and no customer required assembly. That is when I started paying myself instead of just the accountant and attorney. We are currently just 8 months in with our new Shopify website after having the first custom-built website for 10 years.imageOriginal Site (2009) vs. Current Site (2019)Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?Attracting customers we have been fortunate in many areas. Attending trade shows provided an early benefit with complimentary ad placement in Pet Business Magazine. From that ad, our first reseller found us and started selling our Bike Tow Leash on their website. That seemed to legitimize us as there was a steady stream of reselling followers afterward.My daughter Sam helped by setting up our Bike Tow Leash Facebook page which we try to post regularly. Facebook has turned out to provide more than half of all social media traffic to our website with Instagram a distant second. Our customer demographic appears most comfortable using Facebook. Join Facebook groups that may involve your product's use. We participate in urban mushing and won our two dog category in the Iron Paws Stage Race last year all on Facebook. Our Bike Tow Leash was a great advantage.Amazon is absolutely necessary. Particularly for their reviews. It is where most internet buyers search first for items. Beware of having too many resellers on these sites. It will make it hard to protect your pricing. Definitely take control of your brand by selling as well. Monitor your customer ratings, comment, and reply to questions. Your product’s Amazon rating is crucial to your success. We are currently Amazon Choice 4.5 stars!We are currently trying an ad approach on Facebook with a third party service. The jury is still out on this additional spending. Half of your marketing dollars are wasted. The key is to eliminate that half and move on. So keep track of the numbers as best you can.Companies come out of the woodwork claiming large followings, readership, views, etc. Remember, at this point in history everyone is inundated with ads, can choose to fast forward, flip hundreds of channels, etc. So, it is actually seen is not the same as the following numbers or homes piped into.Another option is professional and celebrity endorsements. Celebrity endorsements are usually very expensive. I’ve been approached by such and opted out of those 5 figure deals with stars like Cesar Millan. Good things happen when you least expect them sometimes.I remember reading a pet magazine article about Brandon McMillan, his CBS Lucky Dog show and commenting to Betsy, “I need to meet Brandon”. A couple of months later after the first night of the Global Pet Expo, Betsy, Ray her service dog, and I gave up on the after-show gathering in the main lobby. There were hordes of people, surrounding too few foods and beverage tables to comfortably maneuver her wheelchair and keep Ray from being trampled. It was fate. We decided to leave but since the show floor was closed we took a different path toward the van and wound up in Brandon’s Press gathering. All of a sudden, people were waiting for us with our choice of food and drink. Then up walks Brandon. He looks down at Betsy’s chair with Ray attached with his Bike Tow Leash and says “ I’ve used one of those on my Show”! It hadn’t aired yet so I captured it on our DVR. Wow, what I was hoping to convince him to do had already happened!We’ve had several dog behaviorists, trainers and bloggers provide reviews and videos. These are great to link in social media posts to help grow your audience through shares. More importantly, as with our happy customers, they recommend the BTL directly to others.Customer service and satisfaction can never take a back seat in your efforts toward promoting your brand. Always participate if you can in their grand openings etc.Videos are more important than ever and YouTube leads the way! Here is the best overall usage video on our Bike Tow Leash channel;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6oU2SuZYkQThe best way to show off a dynamic product is with usage videos. Some people are much more willing to watch videos with compelling thumbnails than reviews. Everyone is different.If you are selling to active lifestyle people, don’t force them into activities where they can’t multitask for instance. In our case, we are looking for customers who want to ride a bike, trike, mobility scooter or chair while walking their dog. That is two tasks at once unless they are running errands as well.imageHow are you doing today and what does the future look like?Americans are currently spending over $70 Billion/yr on their pets. This spending amount increases every year! So today we are profitable and growing. We have a new website with less purchase friction, more product offerings and information for attaching to bikes, etc. making transactions larger and quicker.We’ve added new attaching options including our new branded collar designed to optimize dog-biking and dog-walking, Quick Mount for attaching either side and rapid height adjustment flexibility. Chain-Stay Clamp for attaching either side of newer aluminum and carbon fiber bikes additionally wheelchairs.The annual APPA, (American Pet Products Association) pet owners survey indicates each year that the average dog owner has 1.43 dogs. So, we just added our newly patented Dog Coupler for safely attaching a second dog on a single Bike Tow Leash. So now, we can also add “No Dog Left Behind” to our promises.We are continually tweaking the website adding more tooling fixtures etc. to gain higher efficiencies for cost control and rewarding employee innovation towards those goals. We are looking toward expanding international distribution in particular Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.Special needs are currently a small portion of our sales but I see it as another large market. I truly love to help others enjoy their dog's company. It makes my day to hear how we have made a difference. My favorite such story always gives me goosebumps to tell; An 86 year old lady was moved to assisted living the year before and had to give up her beloved dog because she couldn’t walk her. Well, she got a Bike Tow Leash for her mobility scooter and got her dog back after a year! I wish I could have been there for that reunion. Well, no goosebumps this time, tears.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Your brain is a muscle that fatigues as you interact during the day. So make your most important decisions and do your more cranial work first thing in the morning. If that doesn’t work, late nights like mine. Learn from your mistakes. Better yet, learn from the mistakes of others.My most costly mistake to date was agreeing to a TV commercial like “As Seen on TV”. It took up a tremendous amount of time getting the commercial shot and edited properly.The company was to answer the phone lines while the commercial only aired 150 times. After most of almost a year, and $17,000 spent they only sold 36 BTLs. Lesson learned; our customer demographic is active enough to hit, fast forward, on their remote. That is if they sit till to watch any commercial TV at all!What platform/tools do you use for your business?We recently launched a new site using Shopify. Shopify has greatly helped us with managing and shipping all of our orders.Since launching, our time spent on shipping products has been greatly reduced. Shopify allows us to easily compare shipping prices and create labels in just one click.We use Shopify apps to allow customers to leave reviews, store locator so customers know where they can find and try out our products as well as a quick announcement bar for promotions.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I enjoy podcasts from people in our same pet products and services area. Particularly ones covering lessons learned in advertising social media and managing today’s workforce.I enjoyed Leslie Johnson’s book “Bike With Your Dog” How to Stay Safe and Have Fun. I particularly like our prominence in chapter 3 and having our Bike Tow Leash displayed on both the front and back covers!Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Keep your overhead low as you start out to prevent outpacing your sales. I still work from home which allows me to deduct a portion of my home off my taxes and care for my ailing wife. It also saves me a lot of time commuting and money on caregivers. Having caregivers for her around 24-7 is what we are happy to avoid.Take advantage of tax credits such as manufactured in the USA, solar power and charitable causes. It is also beneficial to show customers you care about them, our planet and their animals in our case. Donate as you can afford toward their causes. In our case to animal adoptions.I’ve learned, for us, the power of donation is greater than expensive ads and commercials. We give Bike Tow Leashes, even some on bikes, to adoption facilities. I like marketing this way as it is a win-win for everyone involved. Especially the dogs!We are currently shipping out donations for Get Your Licks on Route 66 adoption tour. They have helped place over 13,000 animals in the last 10 years! The Tour starts in Los Angeles and has 13 stops along the way. This is our 5th year to be a spinning wheel sponsor.We are trying something new this year by contacting the shelters ahead to ask if they would use a donated Bike Tow Leash to walk more dogs further. In return, they send back a donation letter and agree to hand out our brochures with each adoption. The bonus we hope for is for their volunteers to demonstrate the Bike Tow Leash during the adoption events. So far, we have 4 of the 13 stops agreeing to our plan! I can’t wait to see how the tour turns out next month.Provide exceptional personal service to ensure each customer becomes an advocate is by far the best way to grow.There is no better marketing tool than satisfied customers. With our Bike Tow Leash attached, our customers are often asked about it. We call it instant celebrity status as people want to stop them on the street. We send 4 brochures with each order just for that purpose.I try to ask each customer how they first learned of the Bike Tow Leash and “Googled it” is usually first, trainer, neighbor, YouTube and family member, on Lucky Dog TV Show then magazine ad in about that order. Mind you I talk to less than 1% of our customers so that may be a bit skewed toward people needing or looking for extra assistance.Don’t commit to huge volumes of inventory early as you may need the capital elsewhere and/or need to make changes to the product. Watch inventory volumes and lead times carefully. A single part will prevent shipping products. Too many of a part can become expensive scrap.Take help when offered.Especially in areas outside your core capabilities like accounting and legal. Find ways to offload or delegate the tasks that keep you from working on your growth goals. Don’t offload tasks that require your core knowledge until you have that knowledge base in place. Find ways to assist your customers in their purchasing process to know they are ordering the correct item and completing the transaction with as little “purchase friction” as possible.Believe in your product, if you don’t, no one else will.Commit yourself to your success and it will rub off on your employees and customers. Have your “elevator speech” ready and carry a brochure or business card with you as you never know when you will find your next partner, celebrity or huge customer.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?I am always looking for more help as the to-do list is longer than our days. We have a somewhat seasonal product that benefits from part-time student interns particularly in the summer. I find the students see the latest social media trends to market and operate on websites etc. without the hesitation I tend to have. The downside is continually training and looking for the next superstar; We need; Marketing, engineering, manufacturing, web design, business and finance interns, etc.. Full and part-time paid positions are available.Where can we go to learn more?WebsiteFacebookInstagramTwitterYoutubeIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM