Deal Breakdowns

Silent partner in a roofing business?

I live in Seattle. My girlfriend’s brother has a lot of expertise in the roofing industry and wants to start a business with me. Heres the catch – he doesn’t have citizenship so he would need me to form the business, get insurance, run the administrative side of things, and set it all up. I […]

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April 4, 2019 6 mins read

Small business content marketing (episode 37)

Show notes from podcast episode 37. What is content marketing? The practice of creating articles and videos designed to be helpful and of genuine interest to your target customer without explicitly promoting your services or products. This is a case in point example of my favorite business principle of all time – adding value first. You […]

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April 2, 2019 10 mins read

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

The dangers of relying on a third party platform to drive revenue (episode 39)

It’s dangerous to depend on someone else’s platform to market and sell to your customers. We’ll start with a few stories. Facebook first. In his awesome talk on content marketing, Joe Pulizzi told a fascinating story about Starbucks and their Facebook following. They spent 10 years spending big money each year, I’m guessing 10s of millions […]

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March 29, 2019 9 mins read

How to keep going when business isn’t fun anymore (episode 36)

Show notes from podcast episode 36. I recently read The Dip by Seth Godin. A short book (about 75 pages) that took me just a few hours to read. I took some notes and did some thinking and writing. Let’s talk about how it relates to entrepreneurship. Everything in life has a dip. At first […]

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March 28, 2019 10 mins read

Focus on value – not money (episode 38)

Show notes from podcast episode 38. I talk a lot about doing the important but not urgent work it takes to be successful as a business owner. I believe it takes a certain mindset to know what the hardest work is or even exists and needs attention. That’s the type of work that separates the […]

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March 27, 2019 11 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
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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