Category: Uncategorized

The 5 year plan.

5 years is plenty of time to design the life you wan’t. You don’t need to work 45 years just to retire to then finally get to design your schedule and do what you want to do. Five years from now, if you have the best 5 years of your life from today forward, what […]

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March 31, 2019 2 mins read

Home painting startup guide

Doing this while you have a full time job is the perfect way to start. More on that here. Step 1: Do a quick and dirty market study – start searching and calling competitors. Use trends.google.com to find out which company in your town is the largest (most search volume) and study them. Are they doing digital marketing? Are they putting […]

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March 26, 2019 8 mins read

15 (not so common) principles of entrepreneurial success

1. Add value first Gain trust by providing something of value first without expectation. This gets you very far with customers and personal relationships. Don’t squeeze your customers for every penny, especially early. Too many people are tight lipped with helpful advice. Share it. Gain trust and thus loyalty and profit later. 2. 80 percent of your […]

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March 23, 2019 5 mins read

Its never a double blind test

Wine sommeliers often can’t tell the difference between a $20 bottle and a $2,000 bottle in a double blind test. The food at the $20/person restaurant and the food at the $200/person restaurant. The beer at the top rated brewery or the guy brewing in his basement. In a double blind test – who has […]

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March 19, 2019 2 mins read

Ego is the Enemy

Ego is good early on. The confidence. The drive for status and image. It gets us far. It gives us the courage to disregard the anxiety and fear of failure. The lizard brain that tells us to run for cover when things get scary. We all agree that you don’t need to be a superhuman […]

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March 14, 2019 3 mins read

The Lawn Squad Case Study

Back in 2012, when I was unsure of the success of my storage venture, I casted a few other nets. One of them was a Lawn Care google place and wordpress website with a few pages. As you know I had mowed a few lawns in high school so I got a few of those […]

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March 9, 2019 2 mins read

Think LOCAL and start SMALL

Don’t forget to think LOCAL and don’t be afraid to start VERY SMALL. Even if you plan to start an internet company. Start LOCAL. Start a business where you can interact with your customers face to face. Even Zuck founded facebook only at Harvard. Roll out a city at a time. Sell something local at […]

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February 28, 2019 1 min read

Read this before you bring on a partner

Show notes from podcast episode 28 First of all there are a lot of different types of partnerships. In this article we discuss the co-founder. Someone who you bring on initially and they get ownership no matter what. No vesting schedule. No cliff. No way out if things go wrong. This article is the cautious […]

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February 25, 2019 16 mins read

An interesting reflection on the podcast so far

An interesting thing is happening with the podcast. I’m getting a lot of emails from people who have found holes in markets. But their solution is to help the businesses get more customers. Lead generation, website consulting, SEO work, etc for child care centers, HVAC contractors, doctors and all the other 1985 businesses. They don’t […]

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February 21, 2019 2 mins read

What we can all learn from Chick-fil-A

Simplicity A small menu done really really well. Three types of sandwiches (fried, spicy fried, and grilled). Nuggets. Fries and shakes. Boom. Thats it. They take most of their orders with the walk up servers and 90% of customers don’t even need to look at a menu because after you’ve visited once you know it […]

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February 20, 2019 2 mins read
Top Articles

Businesses I Love

These are all businesses and markets that I love. The competition is weak. The market is growing. The costs and risks are low. The odds are good. You can analyze the market and make accurate decisions on where there is opportunity to thrive. You can win. Start small. Start low skilled and low risk if […]

Idea Generation 101

This is an analytical approach to identifying and exploring new business opportunities. This is designed around service-based businesses but the concepts can be applied to any business. In order to compete you need to have a competitive advantage in one of three areas: speed, price or quality. The goal here is to look for holes […]

Essential Tools

There is a proven playbook to grow companies. What tools to use, agencies to hire, strategies to employ. I’ve launched 9 companies in my life – two of which are fairly large with 40 + employees and hundreds of thousands in monthly revenue. People ask me all the time for vendor recommendations. Who builds my […]

179: How profitable is a self storage facility?

In today’s episode, Nick talks about a self-storage facility that he and his partner bought in July of 2019. He goes over the numbers of buying it, operating it, and income from units being rented out, as well as expenses. His goal is to show you just how profitable a self-storage facility is. This property […]

Businesses I Hate

Prefer a more positive outlook? Check out the businesses I love. I don’t like businesses that have a lot of passionate people involved. Businesses that are fun and are a lot of people’s hobbies. Passionate people think with their hearts instead of analyzing the markets. Passionate people make poor decisions. Passionate people start companies because […]

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