Neville's Financial Blog

Noah & Neville talk about outsourcing:

Questions we answer:

• WHAT to outsource
• HOW to outsource
• Examples of what we’ve outsourced
• How to make sure you tell them exactly what you want
• Where to find outsourcing peeps
• How to test an outsourcer
• Horror stories, good stories
• Indians vs. Romanians vs. Americans vs. Filipinos

Link to the example in the video:
http://www.nevblog.com/outsourcing-lesson-examples/

Appsumo.com

Noah & Neville answer answer some user questions such as:

-Carrying out an idea. Do you just jump right into every idea you have and start building it, or do research first?

-How do I know if a business can be profitable? Noah shows his quick-n-ghetto cost-analysis formula.

-Do I need venture capital or outside funding for my business?

-Building version 1-point-O of your idea before rolling out something fancy.

-How do you advertise a service (based on Noah’s experience at Mint.com)

-How to find the right customers that actually fork up lotsa money

-How long does it take to be profitable?

-AppSumo cost $60 to build….how did you do that?
(watch our Outsourcing video for that)

-Do you need partners to start a biz? How did AppSumo do it?

-A rapid-fire-re-cap of all the questions (at the end)

Noah and I answer some questions people have about Startup bid-naz’s.  Some of the questions:

• “I’m trying to start a company….what are the TOOLS I need?”
• “I work 18 hours a day on my startup, and I still haven’t made money.  Am I doing something wrong?”
• “When should I QUIT a project I’m working on?”
• “Do I need a webpage, a Facebook page AND a Twitter for my business??”
• “What do you think of Startup Weekends (where everyone gets together and builds a business in a weekend)?”
• “Where can you find ideas for businesses?”

“Sooooo….if you don’t wake up and go to a normal job from 9-5pm…..what DO you do all day?”

Soooooo the recent results of some ghetto test I’ve run at AppSumo show that the most requested course people want me to make…..is a:

Course ABOUT Building A Course.

HA!  I don’t know why that’s so hilarious to me.

Anyhow, I’m around half-way done with it…and it’s cool because we’ve been stepping the game up a bit and filming with higher quality cameras.

Normally I just use this Canon S95 camera to film,

but now I’ve started hiring someone who knows what they’re doing, and who has a Canon 7D (which is the same camera they film a lot of movies and TV shows with).  Look at the size difference :-)

It’s pretty neato to see the difference it makes.  The camera is one element of it….but me and Noah used a fancy camera to record THIS Sumo Dojo…and it looks almost the same as the previous ones:

The main difference is the lighting, and having someone around who knows what the hell their doing with the camera (aka NOT me).

So now some of the stuff we’re filming is coming out more like THIS (video screenshot):

So this Course About Building A Course launches on Jan. 26^th and should turn out GREAT looking.

However as much as I’m impressed with fancy cameras and cool lighting….I really don’t give a SHIT about that stuff…..if it doesn’t teach people well.

I’ve seen a lot of videos that are filmed all fancy….but SUCK because the content isn’t strong.

This course will meld both those elements together (plus teach other people how to do it).

One of the interesting things I’ve noticed is that not everyone wants to build a course to SELL IT…..but a lot of people wanna give them away for free.

I think one of the best uses for videos courses for startups is if you have a web app or software you’re trying to sell…giving away a free video course on how to use your service to it’s max is a GREAT way to get people to use your app more!

Here’s some random pics of recent filming stuff:

Every entrepreneur has started a bunch of stupid (or not-so-stupid) businesses.

Some succeed, some fail, some just chug along.  But lessons are learned every single time.  Noah and I discuss some of the businesses we’ve tried (plus we totally butcher a Blind Melon song) :-)

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FIRST COOL THING:
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A guy named Ching originally bought the Behind The Scenes of a Muse course I made about how HouseOfRave works….then he also took the SumoBusinessBlueprint course….and he now had seen how easy some of this stuff was, and got started.

He immediately started writing down his ideas in a Google Doc, and came up with a “list of Muse businesses” to start:
See Ching’s Google Doc here.

I could tell he put some effort into this.  He listed all his ideas, determined if people were willing to pay for the product/service, then scouted out potential drop shippers.

He then built a ghetto site for $0.00 (exactly as we recommend), and showed it to potential drop shippers.  They liked it, so he then made a real store…which is an Australian Ukelele store!

Ching sent me a ukulele, check it out :-)

But more importantly Ching went from “Wantrepreneur” to “I own a business” very quickly.

Who knows if this will make Ching a bazillionaire (likely not on the first try)….but now he knows he CAN start a business, he knows HOW to start a business, and the next time (and next…and next….) he will get better and better.

Great job Ching :-)

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SECOND COOL THING:
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Samuel Pitcher sent this to me during Christmas as “A gift for the Sumo’s”.

I thought this was incredibly nice, and a GREAT way to get our attention!

For completely free, and without telling us, he took this static image and made it into an animation to use as video bumpers.

I thought this was DAMN cool…and I’m jealous I don’t have the skilzzz to do stuff like that!

ORIGINAL IMAGE:

AFTER IT WAS SAMUEL-IZED:

Pretty cool eh?  Definitely NOT a bad way to get someone’s attention!

Great job Samuel!

You need to VALIDATE ideas before building them.

I’ve learned that the hard way.

If you FIRST validate, the real world will tell you if your idea sucks, or is worthy.

Here’s how to do it……here’s an interview with William Griggs of TheStartupSlingShot about how to do this:

(I hate the title of the interview….but it’s good content)!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH…….I literally can’t stop laughing at the video intro to the next course I’m doing:

We’ve already made fun of “wantrepreneurs” who do EVERYTHING about starting a business….except anything useful.  So that’s what this intro was for.  Eventually it will be part  of a longer video, but for now I just have the intro part ready

hahahahah (sorry, I had to laugh again at the level of cheesiness) :-)

This will be a continuation of the SumoBusinessBlueprint that’s helped so many people…….except this will be the Case Study Edition where I go through and show 4 different ways of going from idea to getting the first payday (in order from easiest to hardest).

Should be out soon :-)

Let me know if there’s any particular questions you have (although I already got like 140+ emails about this….so I’m pretty sure case studies and the ACTUAL PROCESS are what people wanna see).