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Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Neville

Burj Al Arab Plans Dashed

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I wrote this post about Dubai a long time ago and how I wanted to stay at the Burj Al Arab (Considered the best hotel in the world) for a night.

Every room is at least a 2-storey suite, and the smallest room is roughly 1,800 sq. ft.. I priced it out and found it would be between $2,000 and $2,200 per night (depending on currency fluctuations).

Well I’m officially spending New Year’s 2009-2010 in Dubai this year, so I thought whilst there I would snag a suite at the Burj Al Arab for the night and have a big party with my friends and then everyone could stay over.

I called around, and the problem is I can’t have that many guests (pretty much no guests at all)….especially to stay over. So what’s the point in getting a big room like that without the fun of throwing a big party in it? Basically it’d be me sitting in a big room….no fun.

So I think the limited guests policy they have officially nixed my plans to stay there. A little more poking around and I was told NOT to stay there. The reason I was told it’s rated the best hotel is each room is large, nice and has expensive gold finishes, art work etc….basically crap I don’t care about. The hotel I’ve been told is actually very quiet, boring and a little stuffy….it’d be great to stay at some point, but it’s definitely not a party spot nor guest friendly…deal breaker.

Friends in Dubai recommended I have breakfast or dinner there to get a taste of it, but staying might be a little much.

Still curious to see the rooms, a quick YouTube search showed several guest tours of various suites:

Who needs to travel, we have YouTube!

Adam McFarland

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Kind enough to put me on his list of people he reads, I’d like to post the list of blogs I regularly read:

His is seriously the only blog I regularly read anymore.

I admire and relate to Adam because I think he’s in a very similar industry (ecommerce) and age bracket as me. I view him with a tint of envy and admiration because of two main things:

  1. He seems to have a really solid team: The company Pure Adapt has four members which each bring their own unique talents to the table. I’m not sure if I’d like that arrangement just yet, because owning a company 100% is sometimes better than 25%. However with a solid team I have no doubt these guys can build something HUGE…..and owning 25% of something HUGE isn’t a bad gig.

  2. Programming and Engineering Background: If I had to do it all over again I would’ve rather had an engineering or computer science background in college like Adam (come to think of it I did…but I was at the bottom of all my computer science classes and got kicked out of the program). Adam’s advanced understanding of programming allowed him to build his own custom ecommerce system which I find incredibly impressive….and do all sorts of unique and highly effective promotions like Detailed Image’s auto-ads and auto-site-specials.

Me reading Adam’s site:


(Forgive the old photo and bad Photoshop job)

Ok, enough brown-nosing….go read Adam’s Blog!

Kelleher Speech – 3rd Time Seeing

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I saw Herb Kelleher the founder of Southwest Airlines speak again on the University of Texas campus, this time in front of a huge audience of around 800 people.

If you recall, Herb is the completely out-of-the-ordinary chairman of a very out-of-the-ordinary airline. The last time I saw him I pre-empted taking a funny picture with him with his favorite things: Wild Turkey Whiskey and cigarettes!

Ended up getting this picture with him last time:

He was a great sport about it, and I thought it was a hilarious and completely unique picture! This time for the photo I tried upping the ante and taking a funnier picture, but it was hard to top the last one. I tried dressing like an airline pilot (using a black suit and an old hat) but it didn’t work so well….it basically looked like I was wearing a black suit and old hat. So instead I got this picture with him:

Cigar smoking!

If you look closely at the enlarged picture you can see he kept the cigar tube on so he didn’t have to put his mouth on the cigar and waste it. He smokes like crazy, but not cigars apparently (Last time I saw him he smoked about 7 cigarettes in one sitting)!

He spoke predominately on the extreme importance of a good company culture, and unfortunately didn’t show the absolutely hilarious “Malice In Dallas” video like the last appearance I caught.

Incidentally the Southwest Airlines Archives JUST posted a short YouTube clip of the Malice In Dallas video (I’m actually quite surprised it’s not fully up on YouTube already):


(Thanks to Drew)

It’s crazy how precisely the companys attitude reflects its leader. What he seemed to be most proud of was keeping a fun company culture despite being such a large company (something most of his peers said couldn’t be done).

Vacationing and Owning A Business

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For Christmas I went on vacation to Cancun with my family and friends. There were lots of relaxing and fun activities like this:

….and this:


(Notice the House Of Rave shirt)!

…but there are some definite upsides and downsides to owning a business and taking a vacation. For the most part I prepared for my absence and there was little work to be done, so it wasn’t that bad.

While I was the only one who generated any income during the trip (good), I was also the only one who had to take time out of the day to work (bad). Fortunately I don’t see this as a bad thing because I start going crazy if I don’t stay at least slightly productive several days in a row.

On two different occasions I whipped out my laptop in the lobby of the resort (working in the room isn’t as fun) and started handling business. Each session was maybe 1-2 hours, and pretty much looked like this the whole time:

Getting the work done during vacation actually makes the vacation more enjoyable in my case because I get a feeling of accomplishment out of it. However if you want a week completely void from thoughts about work, owning a business may not always be the best thing.

2009 Goals

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Flashback to January 2007 I decided to try not having any yearly goals. Well that didn’t go well as planned (or…unplanned)?

I like how Earl Nightingale put it:

Think of a ship with the complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take – it has a definite goal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there.

Now let’s take another ship – just like the first – only let’s not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you’ll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach – a derelict. It can’t go anyplace because it has no destination and no guidance.

While 2007 was a good year, it was also a relatively stagnant year. At the end of 2007 I wasn’t much further along as I should or could have been with clear cut goals. It’s a pretty gross feeling.


Bad idea.

Somewhere in the February to April part of 2008 I once again started focusing and making very clear cut goals on yearly/monthly revenue and other things. It worked great. Making month to month comparisons was especially helpful because you can literally SEE yourself slipping or getting lazy in numbers:

Before I made my 2009 list of goals, I made sure to really think about each goal first. I used this criteria:

  • Is this goal something I REALLY want?
  • Am I willing to put in the time and effort to accomplish this, or is it just something I’d “like” to accomplish?
  • Will this actually benefit me?
  • Be specific.

Here are some of my top level biz goals for 2009:

  1. Have first $83,333 revenue month at House Of Rave ($1,000,000/year equiv) by 4th quarter 2009.

  2. Spend around one full month with the House Of Rave drop shipper to re-vamp and improve processes.
  3. Make and upload two HoR product picture/video reviews per week.
  4. Keep a more aggressive track on month to month income, taking a few minutes on the 1st, 10th, 15th and 25th of the month to make sure monthly goals are being met…and if not, ways to meet them by months end.

  5. Start preparing for holiday seasons & mini-seasons 3 months in advance. One month for product additions, two months for tweaking.

  6. Any changes made should be measured. Don’t simply make changes and see they improve things, actually measure what was improved. How did each specific change effect traffic, conversion rate, or revenue (and other metrics)?
  7. …tying in from #6: Keep a close watch on month-to-month trends and numbers. Print out charts and keep in a folder like I keep my daily to-do lists.

  8. Maintain and increase current year-to-year growth rate of House Of Rave: If I compare House Of Rave revenue from X-month 2007 to X-month 2008 there was a minimum of 177% increase and a maximum of 504% increase. I’ll post the numbers at some point. Profit was increased by 307% from 2007 to 2008.


SOME PERSONAL GOALS:

  1. Start buying proper furnishings.
    For some reason I hate owning a lot of big stuff, especially furniture. It has nothing to do with money, but everything to do with portability and freedom. Previously I’ve lived in furnished apartments which provide all the furniture (and it’s nice furniture too). When I started living in a house I absolutely detested the idea of having to BUY a bed. It took the combined force of my mom and my roommate (who owns the house) to make me buy a bed. My mom literally stuffed hundreds of dollars in cash into my palm saying I had to buy a real bed with it…and my roommate said he wouldn’t let me live there if I slept on anything but a proper bed.

    I can sleep on the floor with a thin sheet for all I care, so a bed seemed like a ridiculous notion to me (I know I know….I sound like a homeless person).

    Anyhow, a few months ago I think I officially became an adult when I…….bought new pillows. Under my own will power I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought a king sized pillow and a body pillow. It was a big step. It was the first (non-forced) purchase I’ve ever made that benefited my own physical comfort. This is the first cautious step into slowly becoming somewhat of a grown up.

  2. Spend a few short minutes every morning for some thinking time.
    I used to take yoga classes and after an hour of intense positions you’d just lay there. Those few moments made all that work worth it. Like clockwork this sudden feeling of mental clarity would hit me. My mind would slow down to a halt and this euphoric sensation would take over. It’s hard to describe, but very cool.

    I would try to duplicate this some mornings without the hour of yoga preceeding it, and I found that simply sitting in a comfortable meditation-like position (but not comfortable enough to fall asleep), would yield a similar clarity, but without the brain-shutting-down part. This means I can think about my plans, goals and objectives for the day in a clear state. I also tend to get some great ideas during this time (although about 50% of my ideas still come to me whilst showering).

    Doing this morning exercise every day would feel great and be very beneficial.

So far these are the only goals I have that I know I can stick to. They can always be modified or added to during the year.

Anyhow, have a great 2009!

Xmas and the Spending Account 2

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For the most part you’re going to spend more money during the months of November and December than any other time of the year.

I found this out long time ago in college when every holiday season my Spending Account (explanation of accounts here) would get stretched very thin.

Solution: Spending Account #2

In addition to my other accounts, I created another spending account for myself which would cover only gifts, vacations and general holiday spending. I initially used to just put $20/week (aka $100/month) in this account through automatic transfer. That means during the holidays I had an additional $1,000+ to spend on gifts and going out for the holidays. That extra cash is mighty helpful during these months when spending goes through the roof.

Now I put about 10% of all my income in this account. It pays for vacations and everything without having to worry where I’ll pull that money from.

If I randomly see a great gift at the mall or someone, I can usually buy it without much price consideration thanks to the previous 10 months of savings in the Spending Account #2. Same with hopping on a plane for vacation…the Spending Account #2 takes care of it.

If this season you’re struggling to find where all that extra spending money is going to come from, I’d HIGHLY suggest creating a Spending Account #2 for yourself to make the next holiday season much less monetarily stressful and more enjoyable.

Hi. I’m Neville, I Own A Rave Company

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Here’s a typical introductory conversation with me:

Nev: Hi, I’m Neville.
Person: Nice to meet you, what do you do?
Nev: I own the largest online rave company.
Person: Rave company!? ::eyes bug out::
Nev: Yes, rave company.
Person: So, do you…like…throw rave parties?
Nev: Nope, I’ve never been to a rave in my life.
Person: Then what do you do?
Nev: I sell light up stuff.
Person: So you sell glowsticks?
Nev: That’s part of it. The store mainly sells hard to find lightup novelties.
Person: So are raves still popular?
Nev: Not really sure. Most of my customers aren’t ravers.
Person: So do you keep all the stuff in your garage or a warehouse?
Nev: It’s all drop shipped. I rarely touch any of the products.
Person: That’s so (cool/odd/interesting).
Here’s what I imagine it’d look like if I told this to the Prime Minister of Malaysia when I met him at The WCIT 2006:
Ever since high school I’ve been running some small business or the other, but I’d always considered myself a student first. No longer a student, that response doesn’t work, so I started saying I was a “business owner” or something like that, but that elicits an avalanche of questions about every business I was involved in. Much as I enjoy talking about them, it became a cumbersome question.

So over time I’ve just started saying, “I own a rave company” which is actually pretty fitting for what I do (HouseOfRave.com). This response is interesting enough to keep the conversation going, keeps the questions fun to answer, and allows for an easy segue into another conversation.
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One trick I learned to avoid the whole “what do you do” conversation is say, “I’m unemployed.” The conversation generally stops immediately! Great for people you don’t want to speak with or when you’re in a hurry to leave.

How to make $100 today

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So I’m just chillin when I get this text message from my buddy Tim Sykes:

…instead of just emailing him back, thought I’d make a post about it.

I didn’t speak with him on the phone about this, and have no idea what he’ll be presenting on The Today Show, so I thought I’d make my own criteria based on what I THINK he is requesting.

I’m presuming he’s asking how a person of average ability can make $100 in 24 hours in a legal way without many resources, specialized knowledge or abilities.

Remember, you can see how much money you will make by evaluating the amount of service you give to others. Since $100 is a small sum of money, these are all usually small-scale jobs that only provide a marginally important service.

So here we go:

1.) Selling bottled water
I’ll start with this example simply because I’ve proven this can make money in The Bottled Water Experiment and Part Deux. If you don’t partner with a homeless guy like I did, the profits could easily be $100 on a good day. In one of the undocumented attempts of this experiment Barry The Bum made $60 by himself in one day, and would have made $100 profit if half the money didn’t go to me.

2.) Painting curb addresses
I pseudo-tried painting curbs and found out it wasn’t all that hard. It may take some trial and error testing at first, but in a day a person can easily make much more than $100 in a day. In fact one of the readers of this blog (a college student) makes $80,000/year doing this very thing. At $25/house making $100 in a day should be simple.

3.) Manual labor for a store
I’ve personally seen and spoken to bums on the street who do this from time to time: help out a store in exchange for cash. Often stores with have a very messy back-room area or trash area in the back. If you’re willing to clean this area up, the store manager wouldn’t mind hiring you for a small fee. Usually the bums I’ve seen get these small jobs are employed to break down boxes that are being sent for trash or recycling. Glamorous? No. But asking around at a few local businesses if they can part with $100 in exchange for your services can work. Keep in mind they’re going to want to pay you low as possible, lower than $8/hour.

4.) Selling goods from your state surplus store
When something gets confiscated or lost at a state building or airport, it all ends up at your state Surplus Store. I did an experiment to see if I could sell confiscated stuff from the airport and it worked. Selling these goods over eBay obviously wasn’t a one day affair, but perhaps you could get lucky, find some good stuff and sell it at a pawn shop or flea market.

5.) Pawn or Ebay your stuff
Self explanatory. You got junk, trade it for around market price for cash or PayPal funds. This isn’t really “making” money, so I’m not sure if this will qualify for Tim’s list.

6.) Power washing driveways and houses
I’ve also actually performed this a long time ago (unfortunately it went undocumented). I borrowed a power washer from a friend, rolled it around a neighborhood and asked people if they wanted their driveway power washed. My only cost was $2 worth of gasoline, and you can power wash a driveway for $45, and a house for well over $100.

7.) Mow lawns.
This one’s pretty obvious.

8.) General help wanted post
Post an ad on Craigslist in the “Gigs” section or alike saying something along the lines of, “Hard working, general help for one day. Will do anything (legal) for 8 hours. Price $100.” I’ve seen posts like this on Craigslist, and based on my experiences from finding ANYTHING on Craigslist, it’s highly likely you can find someone who needs some general help for the day.

If you have some special talents, abilities or skilled set of knowledge, you probably stand an even better chance of #8 working. If you know how to setup Quickbooks for a business, or are good with computers etc. you can post those qualifications (and command a higher price).

9.) Experiments on college campuses
Go to the psychology building of many college campuses and scout for flyers boasting “get paid for research.” I used to participate in these experiments if I had some free time. They usually pay between $10 and $25 for an hour or two of your time. This suggestion is more wishful thinking than the others. Yes, it COUULLDD make $100, but it’s unlikely you’ll make more than $30 in a day (if you are even lucky enough to catch an experiment taking place on a certain day).

10.) Bum it….creatively
I’ve always wanted to try this out, and would LOVE to see it done. Make a big ass card board sign that says “NEED $100 FOR (insert purpose here)” and then draw one of those fundraiser thermometers next to it. Stand on corner and basically fly the sign like bums do.

I never give money to bums, but would probably toss a few bucks someone’s way if they had a sign that said “Need $120 more for rent” and showed their progress through the day. Whenever someone gives you money, use a Sharpie to bump up the amount on the sign. After the bottled water experiment I got to know a lot of bums and see who gives what at the street corners, and sincerely think this suggestion could make $100 quicker and with much more ease than any other suggestion! Artist rendering of what it might look like:

Anyhow, there you go Tim; my suggestions for how anyone could make $100 in a day.
-Nev

My 26th Birthday

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Most people I’ve heard turning 26 rue the day because they’ve already “started to feel old.”

There’s a lot of funny things that start happening around this age, such as my favorite radio station in Austin plays, “Old hits from the 80’s and 90’s” which of course makes anyone feel a bit old.

However I find it odd that anyone in their 20’s can be considered “old.” Whenever I walk nothing hurts, I can still take a fall without breaking anything, I can for the most part eat whatever I want without any significant weight gain and I still have my dashingly good looks (subject to verification).

I can’t imagine the number of people in the world who would give ANYTHING they have to be back at my age. As I wrote the aforementioned sentence I instantly remembered some passages in Felix Dennis’ book How to get Rich (Felix Dennis is a very wealthy publishing mogul):

He writes:

Ask me what I will give you if you could wave a magic wand and give me my youth back. The answer would be everything I own and everything I will ever own.

He then goes on to say:

If you are young and reading this then I ask you to remember just this: You are richer than anyone older than you, and far richer than those who are much older. What you choose to do with the time that stretches out before you is entirely a matter for you. But do not say you started the journey poor. If you are young, you are infinitely richer than I could ever be.

Wow….hard to express that in any better way. It’s my opinion that being “old” is a state of mind, or state of life. For example:

  • Edison was 32 when he invented the light bulb and was just getting started.
  • Gandhi was well into his 60’s and 70’s when his most famous works and movements were done.
  • Nikola Tesla was 32 when he got his patent on the induction motor and was just getting started.
  • Felix Dennis didn’t become a millionaire until he was 35 and continued building his businesses well past that.
  • My dad got his pilots license at 58.
  • At my age Henry Ford was still farming and running a sawmill and hadn’t even begun experimenting with gasoline engines or quadracycles.

Also at 26 I seriously doubt I have come even close to experiencing the joys/frustrations of marriage, the birth of a first child or raising a teenager. I once heard my dad tell someone half-jokingly, “When they turn 16, go find a good cardiologist.”

I remember my parents telling me that when I was born, the doctors said I couldn’t breathe correctly, so they hooked me up to an oxygen tube and tied my baby hands together with a rubber band (because I kept removing the tube). My parents said that sight was the most terrifying thing they ever saw. It’s doubtful I’ve ever experienced a fear like that…yet. I think that’s when they grey hairs get their cues for appearance.

…anyhow, up till this point in my life I’ve been concerned mainly about my own life and survival, which I think is FAR easier than worrying about others….and that part of my life has yet to begin.

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As I write this entry, I realize that four years ago to this date, the eve of my 22nd birthday, I was creating this very blog as a means of tracking my financial goals.

The goals I setup then have been preserved, untouched since then:
https://www.nevblog.com/2004/11/my-goals.html

I was still in school back then, and didn’t quite know what I wanted, but those goals were the ones I set that night. The important thing I learned from those goals is that HAVING A GOAL is the most important thing. I did not meet the first “ideal” short term goal I had of making a dependable $7,500/month just one year later, that came a little later, but I did meet the “minimum requirement” goal of being able to pay all my expenses and savings through my own businesses in the allotted time.

The “Medium Term Goals” are of more interest to me, let’s see what we’ve got:

Goal 1.)
Have at least 4 different sources of income, balanced in different industries to survive good and bad markets.
I currently make money from a full time business, this blog, royalty trust dividends and consulting. That’s exactly 4 different sources of income. I used to think making money from a million different small sources was better, not sure if I fully believe that to this day.

Goal 2.)
Accumulate somewhere near $1,000,000 in liquidable assets by age 27. This includes cash savings and stock.
What I meant by “liquidable” back then was “Not including the house or property I live in.” Technically speaking a house is an asset, but I never liked it when people figured the remaining value of their house as part of their net worth. I always thought it was a cheap way of making someone who has $15,000 in the bank look like they were worth $450,000. Anyhow, I think this goal should be pretty attainable. Of course this sharply falling economy over the next few years isn’t going to help, but it does offer (or force) the opportunity to be more creative.

Goal 3.)
Get mentioned in at least 5 of these sources by age 27: CNBC, New York Times, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Register, The Financial Times, Yahoo News, Google News, Bloomberg, BBC, Wired, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics.
This goal was completed years ago, almost promptly after it was written on this blog. I’ve also been in lots of foreign news sources since then too. It sounded like a cool goal back then, but the novelty wears off pretty quickly when you realize how easy it is to get into a newspaper or magazine.

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Well, looks like it’s time to create some new and updated goals for the coming years. These might take a little more time since I’ll properly think them over, rather than just type some stuff out for the sake of having some goals. I’ve officially been alive for 9,498 days, I look forward to accomplishing more in the next 500 days than I have in all the past days combined!

A Word On Business Cards

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I attend tons of events, networking parties and all that jazz, one thing in common is coming back with a pocket full of business cards.

Some are big, some are small, some are normal, some are fancy. By and large, it doesn’t make a single bit of difference what your business card looks like. I have never once decided to contact some someone back based solely on their business card.

In fact, most of the very successful people I meet have exceedingly simple business cards. Name, contact info and maybe a company logo. Nothing ornate because it doesn’t matter.


What my business card looks like (except a different email address, this was an old photo and I was too lazy to take a new one).

The funny thing is, usually the people with brand new companies which aren’t even making money generally have the coolest/most expensive business cards. I interpret that as a very ominous sign.

Not all cool business cards are bad though. If you’re making good money with the company, then sure, go nuts, although it’ll unlikely make any difference. I like some business card designs that tie into their industry, like some of these which would be great for tradeshows….but for most occasions, a standard personal business card would do fine.

If you’re actually of any interest to a person, it doesn’t matter if your contact info is written on a napkin, they’ll get back to you. If you’re relying on a cool business card to get you a call back, then you’ve probably got some work to do on yourself.

Just remember: You are making the impression, not the business card.

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Random:
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  • In 2007 I bought several hundred business cards with a 2007 yearly calendar on the back thinking it would be a good idea. It wasn’t. Now in 2008 I still hand out those business cards and mention, “…and on the back you have a nice 2007 calendar!” which always gets a laugh! However a more timeless card would’ve been preferable.
  • VistaPrint.com has really cheap and easily designable business cards.
  • I keep about 3 business cards in my wallet at all times, it really comes in handy.
  • Sometimes at events I get a person who introduces themselves and nearly immediately hands me a business card *cough* real estate agents *cough* …these generally go immediately into the garbage. Only trade cards if there’s at least a small possibility of you two connecting again.
  • Even if you don’t have a business, a personal business card with your name, email and phone number would be nice to carry.
  • I don’t like glossy business cards, you can’t write on them.
  • It’s helpful when you get home to write interesting information about the person directly on the business card in case you forget. This has helped me several times.
  • Generally when I get home, I checkout the websites listed on the business cards I get.