September 25, 2012: How to be a millionaire
This is awesome but it took me forever to find it under all the other answers.
So I'm pulling it out.
1. Figure out an area that is "hot". For instance, Facebook marketing is inning one. Better tests for personalized diagnostics of age-related diseases is in inning one. Understanding the root causes of depression is in inning one. Combining mobile with social is in inning one. Self-publishing your book and marketing it is in inning one. There are probably 30 more areas I'm neglecting to mention. Maybe 100. Or 1000. Start listing them today.
2. Start a service business in one of those area. For instance, go to every local business in your town and offer to set up the facebook fan page for their business. Then, in store, their customers can "Like" their page. Then all the friends of those customers will see that they Liked that page and will be curious. That's the basics. Then it gets more and more advanced as you get familiar with the Facebook landscape and their tools for targeted marketing. If you can't get any customers for this basic business then something is probably wrong with your pitch, with you personally, or you live in the woods. You can be ten years old and get this business started. Get ten clients or more.
What about age-related diagnostics tests if you are not a scientist? No problem. Write a newsletter about the latest developments in that area. Make a blog about it. Or sell your subscription newsletter for a high price to every big pharmaceutical company. In other words, pick an area in "Step One" above and then brainstorm the various ways you can build a business around that area in "Step two". You don't have to make an airline to set up a travel-related company. There are many ways to come up with ideas that work.
3. Productize your service. Let's say in the Facebook example above. Come up with a way a business can auto-post onto the fanpage timeline their latest offers, polls, etc. Products create more value than services as far as business acquirors are concerned because it follows along the dictum of "make money while you sleep". In the age-related diagnostics newsletter example - find software to scour the FDA database about new submissions that you then collate into your newsletter. And so on. I know one person who is an expert on how to find lists of "rent to own" homes. He quickly made a database, put it online, charged a subscription fee to get access to the database, marketed on Google, and is now making $300,000 a month within two months after launching. He's 27 years old and never went to college. He can do it. So you can also. If he wanted to sell for one million dollars today to a company like Zillow for instance, they'd pay him that in a heartbeat. Since I'm an investor in his company I'm hoping he eventually sells for a lot more than that.
4. Get customers. Knock on every door. Call up every biz dev person. Make a list of 1000 potential customers and start updating all of them about your offerings, your new offerings, your customer development, your testimonials, your outreach and so on.
5. Sell the business. You aren't asking for a lot. The question was: "how do I make a million". If you want to sell your business for one hundred million you have a lot of hard work in front of you. If you want to sell your business for a million, there are plenty of companies who want to break into your space, get your products and customer list, and get YOU (because you know the space intimately by this point) and be happy to give you either a million in cash or a million in stock plus pay you an ongoing salary. A million is not a lot if you have a product, customers, a unique offering, and special knowlege, and if you are selling to a much bigger company.
That's all it takes. Timeline? One year starting from today. Go for it. Make a million and please report back to me when you do so I can write a book about it.
there are a lot of good answers...I think this was a longer Q&A than normal
This was a waaaay longer Q&A than normal.
What other answers did you like?
HOW TO FIND THAT SPECIAL SOMEONE?
Clint Smith @thecrint: how should a single person find someone? Pitfalls to avoid?
Answer:
I'm ashamed to admit this: I've basically never given myself a chance to be alone. I always went from one relationship to the next. Which, of course, led to many unpleasant relationships. I think I was afraid to be alone. But consequently, I feel like I've mastered the art of meeting someone:
Step one: Be everywhere they are. Where are they? If you are a man, the women are in dance classes, cooking classes, art classes, and on online dating services. I met Claudia on J-Date.
Step two: Don't be afraid to ask. Start asking out everyone you think is attractive. It works. Practice today. Don't be afraid of rejection. You see someone on the street say, "Nice dress". If she smiles back, maybe ask her out. Don't be rude. Just be pleasant about it.
Step three: It's quantity first, then quality. Ask out as many people as possible. Go out on as many dates as you possibly can. Do coffee in the afternoon with one, dinner at night with another. Quantity.
Step four: Quality: The only way you will find quality is to cut your losses. How do you cut your losses. This is goal-driven. Make sure your goal is not simply: "to have sex" or "to get a girlfriend". You want someone who likes you. Who doesn't do "The Rules" of trying to "neg" you or make you chase after her or anything that smells like a game. The theme of what you want is someone who likes you, who is easy to be with, where things happen naturally. Cut IMMEDIATELY anyone who doesn't go along with that theme, even if you are amazingly attracted to them.
Then repeat.
Does this seem sexist? Of course some women go to tech meetups or chess clubs. But at the average tech meetup it's about a 9:1 ratio. I don't like gambling in situations where the odds are against me. If your goal is to meet someone, go where the odds are on your side. Or, as Wayne Gretzky says, "I don't skate to where the puck is, I skate to where the puck is going".
$100 TO INVEST
Ben Nesvig @BenNesvig: If you had $100 to invest in self-education every month, where would you allocate the money?
Answer:
You don't really need more than $100 a month to self-educate. Here is what I would do:
- read biographies and books about any topics that interest you. Most books are fairly cheap on Kindle or you can sit in bookstore cafes and read them.
- draw and/or paint. This gets the neurons firing in areas that have been lying dormant for awhile.
- by cheap pads (waiter pads, for instance), and just free form write down ideas, observations, thoughts of things you want to try.
- go to a museum and try to find at least ten things you didn't know before that excite you.
- go to at least one networking event. Or dance class. Or something you never would've thought of trying. Just one. Don't pressure yourself into suddenly doing kickboxing ten times a week.
- study yoga. And not just the physical exercises but the reasons behind each one. The reason a move twists a certain way, breathes a certainway, the history of that move throughout thehistory of yoga, the reasons for doing the physical exercises.
NETWORKING
Ben Delphia @BenDelphia: What's the best way to network at an event where you don't know anyone?
Answer:
Usually before you go to an event, you know who is going to be there. Maybe there is a list of speakers or other attendees somewhere.
Research the bios of everyone you know will be at the event. Maybe become Facebook friends with them.
Then spend time researching their companies. Come up with ten ideas for each person BEFORE the event. You don't have to share those ideas with them at the event. But now for every person there you can easily go up to them and say, "you know,I was just thinking about you" and start reeling off your ideas. If they don't seem interested. No problem. You've made contact. You've touched base. They will remember you the next time. Move onto the next person.
This is the best way to network. It may not have dividends for each person you come into contact with but overall it will have great dividends that will compound into great success for you.
The key is: make sure you are good at coming up with ideas.
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