Neville's Financial Blog

A new year, and time for new goals.  I’m not 100% what my goals for the whole YEAR will be, but I can show you my current January 2011 goals which sit on my desk:

Something I’ve found VERY interesting is the amount of time it takes to form a habit is NOT one month.

This means all my goals or experiments which I try for one month generally don’t stick.  During my six-pack experiment I realized one month was great, but I should keep eating well for at least 3 or 4 months.  When it was officially over, I have since kept up that eating habit as a LIFESTYLE instead of a temporary diet.  Even through holiday seasons such as Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year I still ate extraordinarily well (seriously, call Adam at MyBodyTutor if you’re serious about implementing this change).  This was because of the sheer length of time I implemented the “experiment”.

So my first goal this month is great HouseOfRave.com customer service with a focus on further reducing it (I reduced it by over 50% last month..DURING THE FREAKIN HOLIDAY SHOPPING RUSH)!

…even on my December 2010 goals this customer service goal was a major component.  I’ve seen the great results from it, so I want this to become a habit and focus, and therefore I plan to have this goal around for about 3 months.

The next two I can’t openly discuss on this blog.  Well…I CAN…but I don’t want to, even though it’s really interesting :-)

Previously when I would “try and eat well” it would always be destroyed over the holidays.

So this year I decided to think about this in advance and solve it…and it worked beautifully!

There was a Zoroastrian Congress in Houston over the holidays where all my friends and family would be.  It took place at a hotel, which ensured I’d be eating out all the time and have plenty of chances and excuses to eat like crap.

It’s easy to think, “It’s the holiday, I’ll just indulge a little”….but I KNOW the end result is being sluggish, feeling fatter and finding it hard to wake up etc…

So for the weeks prior to the holiday I began tracking my meals like I did during the 6-pack experiment.  I didn’t necessarily give up ANYTHING…I simply ate good, not bad.

I made an old piece of cardboard into a “tracking chart” starting two weeks before Christmas.  Everyday I was to write down everything I ate on a little sheet of paper (which I carry in my pocket), then post it on the board at night:

In around two weeks the chart was full:

I actually filled up BOTH sides of the cardboard, for 20 full days of tracking:

It’s amazing how just being conscious of how much you’ve eaten for the day keeps you on track.

Here were some of my eating habits during my hotel stay:

• I’d keep fruit in my room, or eat it wherever I could (I stole a bunch from the gym at the hotel).
• I’d get the vegetarian meals at hotel-catered events because they would generally have more veggies..not just a big piece of meat and little else.
• Tea or water instead of sodas.
• I still drank alcohol, but would account for it and compensate by eating fewer calories earlier.
• Worked out on a normal schedule.
• I wouldn’t “skip” dessert…but rather I’d “pass up foods that don’t add nutrition”.

Since I was eating so well, the tightly packed schedule during the holidays was much easier.  I could wake up easier, recover from drinking much quicker, and just in general feel good instead of weighed down….all by simply writing down what I ate!

I currently now have FIVE different methods of getting around:

1.) Walking

2.) Riding my bike

3.) Riding my scooter

4.) Driving my car

…and now the newest addition to my fleet of transportation…

5.) Snagging a Car2Go!

But wait…I get to drive around this sexy beast, but I didn’t BUY it.

Car2Go’s are an experimental transportation system that are available in 3 places:

• Ulm, Germany
• Hamburg, Germany
• -and-
• Austin, TX. USA (yet another benefit of living here)!

Basically it’s 400 Smart Cars scattered randomly through the city.  If I see one, I can freely hop in, drive away, then leave it wherever I want!  EVERYTHING is included in the price….gas, insurance, parking etc.  All you need is a little member ship credit card thingy to access all the cars.

It’s like using a car only when you need it….but without having to return it to a rental place.  The cars are tiny, and you can park them pretty much anywhere, even nose-first style. I’m nearly as big as the whole car!

I can easily wrap my arms around the width of the Smart car:

This is how I parked one night…no parallel parking needed!

Big pimpin’ in one of the Car2Go’s laying around on the street before a quick spin:

Now it’s cool to just stumble around and find one of these, but if you need help, there’s a free Car2Go iPhone app that locates every available Car2Go around you.  It will even tell you fuel levels, how clean it is or if it has any damage.  There’s roughly 400 of them humming around the city:

The test drive was fun, and I know several friends who’ve essentially stopped using their cars because they use these so often.  What a useful concept!

I’ve been no stranger to people not liking me online (normal person + ability to anonymously comment = jackass), but generally in person I ain’t so bad (or so I think…)

I randomly remembered this hilarious exchange I had over Facebook with a newly met acquaintance in 2007 (not sure why I never posted it on my blog back then).

Her scathing words made me laugh so hard I printed it out and posted it on my wall at the time.  I also forward to some friends and it “went viral” within our friend circle!

Just so I don’t forget about my #1 fan in the future, I’m memorializing it here:

I won’t use her actual name in the text of this post (being nice so her name doesn’t come up in search results), so we’ll call her ManPoop (that’s what her name sounds like spelled backwards).

After a fun dinner meetup we were all at, some friends told me “ManPoop REALLY hates you…what did you do?”  I had no idea, and the only interaction we had was at the same table as 10 other people.  I quickly found her boring and hard to talk to, so we hardly even spoke one-on-one.  I dismissed any thought of ManPoop until I was later told she so thoroughly hated my guts.

Since this was a family friend of a friend…I decided a quick little message would clear the air (otherwise I wouldn’t have cared at all).  I wasn’t prepared for such a well thought out message.  This verbal diatribe reminds me of those online commentors that bad-mouth everything someone does…when all they have to do is stop reading.

I still laugh every time I see this :-)

…keep snapping pictures of him while he’s working at my apartment!

I think right now he’s uploading new stuff to his little product he just released on Mixergy.

So a few days ago I “accidentally” stole someone’s bike here in Austin…

The first & last time I blatantly stole something was in 2002 when I was buying a bag of Whopper’s candy at the University of Texas convenience store before a class, and the line was gargantuan.

Running extremely short on time, I sneakily walked out with the 85 cent bag.  I felt terrible.  After the class finished, I went back to the convenience store, checked out and paid for another bag of Whoppers, then put the bag of candy back in it’s original place in the store.

Net harm to the store = ZERO.

Weight it had on my conscience = IMMENSE.

An $0.85 bag of Whoppers nearly crushed me, so I was horrified I had actually stolen a bike.

…and it was a NICE bike which someone obviously put a lot of work into.  It was a “woody” looking bike with a custom paint job, hand-made wood-lined rims, reinforced and upgraded parts, and a gigantic lock chain that just screamed, “THIS BIKE IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO ME…PLEASE DON’T STEAL IT.”

It was Friday evening and me and friends were at a fun tech meetup, seeing old friends and making new ones, then we all left to have a pre-party at my place (which is conveniently located Downtown).

We were all drinking and went out to a big club known for cool people and fun dancing.

Sometime around 2am (when all the bars/clubs here close), I was under the impression the club was giving away a bike.  There happened to be a nice bicycle in one of the rooms of the club that looked like it was being “presented”…and someone told me it was a promotional bike they were giving away (I have no idea why I thought or believed this…I’m presuming alcohol played “a small” factor).

On a lark, I decided it’d be funny if I got the “promotional bike” outside the club and started riding around on it….well, I accomplished that goal!

Then I saw my friends walking home and got distracted, so I went with them (still riding the bike).  We walked three blocks back to my place where my roommate asked, “Ummm…where’d you get this bike??”

I explained it was a promotional bike giveaway, and I “accidentally” rode it home (I never meant to ride it more than a block away).  I somehow didn’t feel that guilty since it was going to be given away anyway.

I put the bike in my closet for the time being (we were about to have a small after party), and finally saw it under proper lighting:

My roommate exclaimed, “This is SOMEONE’S bike….it looks used and even has a lock on it.”

I couldn’t really argue these obvious statements, and quickly realized I was some douchebag who just stole a bike!

…a petty little thief I was.

I woke up extra-early the next morning and searched for the owner through Twitter (maybe someone Tweeted “my bike got stolen from Barbarella” or something along those lines)  and through the bike model number etc.   I then posted this in the Lost & Found section of Craigslist to find the owner:

No responses, so around 3pm I rode my own bike past the club where my stupidity occurred (for fear of being spotted on the stolen bike), and found some guys inside working on the club.

I asked, “Did someone here get a bike stolen last night?”

Them: “YES!  One of our guys got his bike jacked…like a wooden-looking bike.”  <– (said sort of angrily)

Me: “Well….I HAVE IT!”

Them: (suspiciously) “What do you mean you have it?”

Me: “Last night I was walking back to my place, and some guy walking by me said, “Here man, have a bike…I jacked it from Barbarella” and then ran off!”

Them: “That’s crazy….must’ve been some crack head or something.”

Me: “It might have been” <– masking the guilt in my voice.

Me: “Well, give me 5 minutes and I’ll ride it over!”

Them: “Oh man, thank you soooo much!  That’s a really good thing you did, he’ll be so happy to see it.”

I left sort of laughing how I stole the bike in the first place, yet am the hero for giving it back!

Here’s me right before I rode it back:

I rolled up with the bike, and was welcomed like a savior.  They even gave me a personal day-time tour of the club, showed me how they made their new 1920′s-style room, invited me to an event that night (free of charge for their hero of course) and apparently they had a closet full of…soups…(??)…they were trying to get rid of and offered me all of it.

They even started pouring me some scotch to toast the return of the bike (I declined simply because I didn’t want to be drunk at 3pm)!

So I walked out of the club glad THEY DIDN’T BEAT ME UP for stealing a bike….. and with two cans of soup :-)

I’d really like to think I learned something from this incident, but I was actually REWARDED for stealing then returning something.

So the moral of this story is: Steal a bike and get free drinks and soup!

A new month, so new goals…

Got my January 2011 goals completed.  I’m liking having only a very small amount of goals for the month.

I think anything more than three (maybe four) is too much for my little brain to handle.

Here’s the February 2011 Goals:

GOAL: Complete HoR Product:

One of the most-asked questions I get (over email and in person) is how a drop-shipping business like HouseOfRave works.  People are always perplexed that I can own a rave company, yet never have been to a rave.

For a very select few people, I can take the time to personally show them how everything works.  We’ll sometimes speak for HOURS about how customer service is done, how I update the site, how traffic comes to the site, how promotions work, where I get the products, how I started it etc etc etc….and “going to a rave” NEVER comes up.

So for this goal I’m going to digitally give a behind-the-scenes full tour of HoR, how it was created and exactly how it runs.

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GOAL: Every week 2 HoR improvements documented:

A big improvement in customer service over the holidays helped make running House Of Rave relatively simple.  However I wasn’t focused on other improvements during that time.  This month I want to ensure that other improvements start being made again….even if they’re tiny.

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GOAL: 5 days a week wake up at 7am:

I’m a lazy bum who works from a home office, plus it usually doesn’t matter ONE BIT when I do my work (for example, do anyone care if I wrote this blog post at 10am or 10pm?)..

…naturally my sleep cycles get a little wonky.  However the last month or two I’ve actually been doing something completely uncharacteristic of myself…waking up at 7am.

I swear to you….this simple lifehack has accounted for more of my productivity over the last two months than ANYTHING else…BY FAR.

For example, as I’m typing these words it’s 7:45am.  I woke up precisely at 7am, hopped out of bed and sat my butt down and started working.  I NEVER “start working” immediately…however at 7am there’s really no brain function of mine fully up yet, so I don’t get distracted.  I simply look at the very first thing on my to-do list…AND DO IT!  Then I finish it, and to avoid just plain falling back asleep, I do the next one.   Before I know it, it’s noon and I’ve done 5 hours of solid work….which is often nearly my entire to-do list.

I am allowed to fall back asleep whenever I want to.  If I sleep at 2am and wake up at 7am, I only got 5 hours of sleep. I’ll generally work till noon or so, take an hour nap, then wake up and do whatever (more work, gym, errands etc).  This seems to be my optimal amount of sleep.  From doing this for about 2 months now (although not consistently everyday, I am almost totally convinced 8 hours of sleep is too much for me (presuming I take one nap).  It makes me MORE groggy to sleep a lot (isn’t it weird how that works) ??

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If I don’t….

A nice negative consequence always ensures my goals will be completed.  If I don’t get my February 2011 Goals completed by Feb 28th (damn leap year…) 2011, then I will NOT attend the massive SXSW conference which I’m pretty excited for.

Every week I said I’d document at least two updates to HouseOfRave.

Here’s two of them (damn these stupid goals….keeping me all accountable and stuff)…..

1.) Updated this High Output Light Base for wedding planners.  I actually use this thing during parties for “mood” lighting by simply placing it in the corner of the room.  You can actually see an example of that on the page.  I snapped some pics, made a quick video and wrote some fun copy for the page.

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2.) More prominent email address capture placed on the top-right of the page.  For some reason I’ve always had the email capture hidden under the left-column navigation.  I’m already seeing a higher number of signups per day.  I’ve kept the old one there, because I use that valuable top-right corner during promotions and holiday seasons.

I own a business called House Of Rave.com.

It’s a drop shipping business, which means I don’t physically handle the products myself.

PRO’S:

• If I stay on top of things, I only have to do a minimum of an hour or less of work per day (except maybe busy seasons).
• The business makes money when I sleep.
• I’ve slowly built a “moat” around the business which makes it (just a little) harder for newer competitors to compete with me.
• I can say “I own a rave company“
• It’s helped me pay for college, supported me even after college.
• By itself, it pays me enough money to live a pretty cool life, travel whenever I want and still save money.
• This business allows me to abide by the rules I heard from Joe Sugarman, “Anything you can do to eliminate people or paper, do.”
• It provides me a FANTASTIC “testing grounds” for trying out marketing techniques.  Like when I read something great in a book, I can easily implement it to HoR with ease since it’s 100% my business.
• It’s always on top of cash flow, meaning I never have much debt (other than about $10,000 – $15,000 revolving debt on an American Express card).
• Because of the above, I get crazy amounts of airline points (in fact I just checked I have half a million airline miles I’ve never used until TODAY when I booked a flight to Vancouver….fo FREE).

CON’S:

• I must do at least SOME work everyday.
• If I get hit by a bus, the business will cease to exist.
• It’s unlikely it will ever get HUUUUGGEEE (without a change in the way things are currently run).

House Of Rave is what Tim Ferriss refers to as a “Muse”…a small business that you can run from anywhere which pays for your lifestyle.

However I’m no fool (well, at least not completely).

I am a middle man.  And as technology improves, manufacturers get more sophisticated, and consumers get more educated….I will be phased out with my current model.

I don’t foresee this happening anytime soon, and I do have time, but it will eventually happen.  Fortunately I’ve found ways to overcome that for now, but looking at a 5 or 10 year forecast, it will move in that direction.  If someone else took over, they could make the business BIG and sustainable in the long run, but it’s never really been a passion of mine.  It was one of many side-projects that made enough money not to pull the plug.

I’m really grateful I’ve had House Of Rave all these years.  I’ve started a lot of small businesses here and there, but HoR has been around the longest (first live order was placed in 2001).

But there’s a yearning to branch out even further.

I’m getting hungry.

Well, it’s that time of the year again where I foolishly share all my confidential analytics about one of my Ecommerce businesses HouseOfRave.com!

All numbers are for the full year of 2010 (That’s Jan. 1st till Dec. 31st 2010 for all your dummies out there).

Let’s get started with a general overview:

For the most part it looks like I have moderately predictable traffic.

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Something noteworthy here is sometime in late July 2010 I installed the Asynchronous Google Analytics which can keep track of all ecommerce activity on the site.  Naturally this pushed down my average conversion rate (since stats weren’t collecting for half the year).

It also accounts only the revenue generated after that period.  I think the numbers are pretty close to accurate (I haven’t verified to the cent, but I know they’re not way out of whack either).

SO I technically don’t have all the correct information on this graph until after July 2010.

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Looks like Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser, FireFox really close, and Chrome gaining lots of traction (I pretty much exclusively use the Google Chrome browser because it is…well…awesome).

What was surprising is that pretty much 98+ percent of visitors have a high speed connection.  Dialup is only 1.34%!!!

Hahahah….I remember those funny Dial-Up screeches :-)

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Here’s revenue screenshot from my back end Shopsite panel:

Some of the tracking info such as hits & pages is linked with the Plesk Stats, so they get deleted after 12 months or so (hence the zero’s for Jan – Apr).

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For what it’s worth, here are the Plesk statistics for HoR (almost all of 2010 is shown, I only get last 12 months of reports):

The Unique visits show on average about 80% more visitors than the Google Analytics show.  I attest this to people looking at (or linking) images (from Google Image Search or similar + blogs etc) and leaving.  So technically these ARE “unique visits” but they don’t TRULY count since the person doesn’t stick around long enough to browse the site (or ever even get to the site).

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Well, that’s a nice little recap in numbers of 2010.

Time to close out 2010 and bring in 2011 (damn, this post is like 2 months late)!