The Black Swan

Seriously, this is a ridiculously important book. Most people are terrible at the concept of evaluating probability/risk of rare events. Even people who think they are being good at it.

The E-myth revisited, by Michael Gerber. I'm sure this will be recommended many times, and for good reason.

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Not sure if it's a cultural thing between the US and the UK or just society evolving now we have social media and stuff but I recently reread How to win friends and influence people and though it was massively overrated. Same goes for The 7 habbits of highly effective people.

Anyway, heres my list of books and why:-

Bounce

Excellent book in my opinion. Based on variations of the 10,000-hour rule with plenty of examples. Also touches on how the unknown habits and circumstance of someone can lead to outstanding abilities.

Zero To One

The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward within the future with startups.

The 33 Strategies of War

Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.

The E-Myth Revisited

Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.

ReWork

Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.

Black Box Thinking

Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.


Millionaire Fastlane

I feel this is an excellent book for reality checks and getting people into a better mindset of what to expect and the amount of work required. It also explains a few common misconceptions of the get rich slow style methods where you may end up rich but you will be 60 years old or more.

I update this post with all of the books I have read with a rating but here are my top picks.

Thank you, I appreciate your kind complement.

I would argue that the US is pushing to avoid a conflict with Iran. At least right now. IMO there won't be a war with Iran until oil price is dropped again, if ever. Iran has repeatedly violated a slew of sanctions and we know for a fact that they have been sending war materials and fighters into Afghanistan, into Iraq when it was hot, into Syria, and into Egypt most recently. The US plays it's part, saying that Iran is violating sanctions, etc. etc. and other members of the security council play their part and say hold off wait and see. But nothing happens. Nothing has happened for over 10 years of known nuclear violations. There are shadow operations like the virus, and other little artful moves meant to slow the program but no all out war. This way the UN looks deadlocked.

http://www.securitylawbrief.com/main/2013/07/un-divided-on-iran-sanctions-violations.html

I don't think this is necessarily a conspiracy, but a mutually understood set of roles nations are playing with Iran. Nobody really wants a war with Iran, but Iran is a bit of a loose cannon. The Saudis and other region nations are on board with further sanctions of Iran. Why?

Saudi Arabia is the lynch pin for all global energy politics. They produce insane amounts of oil, and have been doing so for decades. The House of Saud (royal family) controls everything in the country from oil production and profit to the military. The people are subjects, and have little real power outside of the violent, dangerous, destabilizing kind. The population of the country is a largesse state. The royal family gives everything to the people, more or less. For decades the House of Saud has been spending money hand over fist on luxuries and industrial development, but little on the actual population. About 10 years ago they switched to absolutely POURING money into building things for the people. They recognized that they had a population of wealthy, healthy people, many starting families, and nobody had a place to live, roads to get there, or any of that. It was a road to destabilization and civil unrest, and the royal family almost realized too late what was happening. They did figure it out though, so they maximized the profit margin on oil exports. You can't just pump more oil, it has detrimental effects on the oil field and long-term total production, so they are maximize the profit on what they produce and are now spending money hand over fist to upgrade the country for the people.

http://gulfnews.com/business/economy/saudi-arabia-to-spend-800m-on-land-for-riyadh-metro-1.1216763

http://persiangulffund.com/saudi-arabia-distributes-130-billion/

Happy people means the royals retain power, but the oil keeps flowing. The oil keeps flowing, WW III is averted. WW III is arguably hinged on the happiness of the people of Saudi Arabia, if you pick energy as the key to prosperity and peace globally, which I do.

So what does Iran have to do with it? Iran has been under sanction, barred from oil exports for many years now. The thing is, once you tap an oil field, you can't shut off production. The way these particular oil fields work, if you shut off the tap it might not start back up again, and if they do they will start up ad a fraction of the rate. So ever since the embargo started, Iran has been pumping. They have been pumping and storing oil. They have enough oil that they could pour it all into the market, flooding it and inflating supply to the point that oil prices drop to the level where Saudi Arabia can no longer spend the money needed to keep the people satiated. They have so much oil stored in old tankers that they have actually created a shortfall on used oil and natural gas tankers globally. Iran has them all tied up for resource storage.

http://gcaptain.com/sanctions-creating-stockpile-dozen/

http://gulfnews.com/business/oil-gas/iran-seeks-opec-consensus-on-oil-stockpile-release-by-us-1.1064765

http://marinelink.com/news/article/will-there-be-an-oil-tanker-shortage/319765.aspx

So Iran had (maybe still has?) a gun to Saudi Arabia's (and de facto the world's) head. It's the only reason they haven't been at least bombed. That and Iran seems to be playing a blustering and bluffing game. They are working hard on centrifuges and the like but it takes so much more to build a bomb than materials. What's going on in the country internally is hard to say, that's why they are the wild card. My gut feeling is that the powers in Iran know that the Iranian people don't want war. They can't look weak to the radical factions though, so they play their game. Honestly, that's just a guess.

So, the Iran situation seems to be a farce, or at least an act that can be put off for later until Saudi Arabia is stabilized for long-term production and the oil price can be brought down.

Thank you for asking though, I didn't really tie the Saudi Arabia situation in that I mentioned earlier. Iran features heavily in that script. JMO, it explains Iraq too. Saddam Hussein was a wild card that had done dumb things out of desperation before, and I think everyone truly was surprised when they didn't find massive stockpiles of radioactive material or chemical weapons. Especially given that the US sold so many chemical weapons to Iraq. With him gone Iraq is largely stable again, at least as far as oil goes. The law of unforseen and unintended consequences reigns supreme. Given how massive and complex the machine is, I don't know that peace can be maintained indefinitely. Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The spice must flow!

As to Israel, they don't want war either. They just want Iran off their necks, and their neighbors to be calm. They are the family nobody likes in the neighborhood, even though all those other families have their own feuds between them, and within them.

EDIT: There's always the wildcard of fracking too. This not only alleviates some of the pressure to maintain peace in the Middle East (Egypt will always be a feature though because of the canal, European-Asian trade hinges on it) but it also eliminates a lot of the competition between China and the US. I think that China, the US, and Russia would all like to see Russian production increase too. If only we can master fusion before we kill each other, that would be the day. Then we can fight (or walk the line trying not to fight) about something else.

EDIT2: Outdated info stricken.

Okay.

I work in Corporate Sales. I am telling you at the end of the day people want to do business with people they like.

Everything you are doing should be to the benefit of the potential buyers. People often get confused with "Features" compared to benefits and this is why alot of the time a product fails. For example, think of buying a new washer/dryer. Let's say it has "Smart-Noise" Technology that reduces the amount of noise the machine makes when it is turned on. You wouldn't advertise it like this, no one cares about that. But how you would get the point across is to relate on their level. So the way you can spin it would be that someone can do late night laundry without waking up their kids. You could even center a commercial around this.

In your regard you can mention how they can be assured knowing their food is from a quality market and that it's healthier compared to the corporate, flash freezed alternatives. Knowing their sending their kids off with lunch that came from a quality source. Not only that but buying your food will save them time (benefit) than at home preparing it themselves.

Also mention to your potential buyers to not hesitate to reach out to you for questions. If they are concerned about what you use when growing, your safety practices etc. you are always within reach and happy to give them more info. This puts the client at ease knowing your genuinely there to help.

Here are some good books you should read.

The little red book on selling - This basically goes into the relationship management side of things and networking portion. Alot of good tips in here and well worth a read.

Also this is another amazing book despite the very sleazy sounding title.


How to win friends and influence people - This goes into how you should carry yourself and will certainly help with your people skills. It talks about subtle cues etc. that can be used when speaking to people and is hands down one of the best books to read on this subject.

At the end of the day you need to be genuine with people and as long as it comes off like that and people understand this they will have no problem doing business with you.

Impossible to name one. Books only had significance for me when they addressed a particular lifecycle that the business was in.

• Zero to One, when I needed the extra push to quit my job and focus on my new business full time.
  
  
• Walt Disney’s biography, when I was in the grind, feeling sorry for myself.
  
  
• Crossing the Chasm, when we needed to operationalize the business to scale.
  
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things, when I needed to fire our first VP.
  
  
• Only the Paranoid Survive, when I needed to learn how to disrupt myself.
  
  EDIT: Lots of requests for more books as they relate to 'business lifecycle'. Also, linked all of these on Amazon. Here ya go:
  
  
• Blue Ocean Strategy, when we realized positioning ourselves as a competitor to others was the wrong approach
  
  
• Your Strategy Needs a Strategy, when planning things out years in advance kept us committed to the wrong plan for too long.
  
  
• Accounting for Non-Accountants, when I was just getting started and needed to learn how to read a financial statement :)
  
  
• The Art of Acting, when I needed to give a convincing presentation for the first time.
  
  
• Co-Active Coaching, when I needed to learn how to actively listen to employees (this lead to me becoming an executive coach).
  
  
• Understanding Michael Porter, a master class on business strategy.

I gift this book to my interns:

Unwritten Laws of Engineering: Revised and Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0791801624/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.NCODbW2P4A2D

If you've never read the book, go read the book. Absolutely fantastic.

http://www.amazon.com/Dilbert-Principle-Cubicles-Eye-Management-Afflictions/dp/0887308589

I rather like Unwritten Rules of Engineering. Quite short at 70 pages. While written in 1944 and for Engineers largely before CS was a profession the dynamics that happen in workplaces have not changed all that much. The negatives are fairly minor, it tends to advocate a more formal set of interactions which seem less common in some parts of the industry and that the booklet is written using he/him for the Engineer.

Some highlights

communication skills

• Simple unambiguous sentences are best
  
• know the audience you are communicating to. You would explain more in a communication with marketing vs a communication with your peers.
  
  interactions with your boss
  
  
• inform your boss of all important information or changes
  
• tasks that your boss assigns you are the most important task
  
• when you have a opportunity to choose the team you are working with evaluate the leadership. You want someone who will stimulate your growth.
  
  interpersonal interactions
  
  
• if you commit to doing something, do it
  
• if you don't know how to do it, seek help of people who do. Take notes so you don't need to ask again.
  
• if you know you are going to miss a deadline let your manager know before the deadline. work with your manager to communicate to the other parties that are expecting your work when they should expect the finished product
  
• if you represent your company to a client be mindful of what you say and what you promise

Not a book, but great resource to vet out a business plan: Lean Canvas

Books:

1. Lean Startup
   
2. Zero to One
   
3. E-Myth Revisited
   
   
   
   Lean Startup for sure, as it relates to small, lifestyle or scalable business. Zero to One is a phenomenal book by one of the Paypal Founders, but is geared a bit to tech startups. E-Myth if you are starting more of a small business, as opposed to tech startup.
   
   "You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”
   ― Ben Horowitz
   
   Excited for you venturing into your own business! Kick ass!

Join us over on /r/Entrepreneur and /r/smallbusiness I own a small product design company, I'm solo with part time helpers right now.

Your question is like a whole book. I would recommend The founder's dilemmas http://www.amazon.com/The-Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304

and E-myth revisted, Founders Dilemmas doesn't tell you what's right but outlines the choices for why founders choose to structure a new company and the pro's and cons.

For an idea like yours I would look to finding a manufacturing partner company that will build on contract, then look to crowdfuning or smoke screening to build up enough pre-orders to become self sufficient. I would always test an idea before I think it's a blast. As with everything in life it's usually driven by marketing and positioning rather than tangible quantitative performance or features.

Best of luck, feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I'm roughly looking for a partner too but my sales don't justify it yet.

There is no one book. What you are looking for is perspectives.

My suggestion, first up: Start with The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

It is a great book for people who are currently employed, and are struggling to understand why business owners think the way they think. Also, it introduces some basic lean thinking concepts (Theory of Constraints) that are very useful regardless of whether you are trying to be an entrepreneur or not. If you plan to hire people, this should be required reading for all of them. Remember, the book was written in the last century, some culture shock is expected.

Next: I would highly recommend reading The Lean Startup. It's a bit dated now, and newer refinements are available, but every other book kind of builds upon this book.

Now you should be able to relate to whether your business idea is sound or not. Next you want to understand, how other people became successful, for this, you need to read Nir Eyal's Hooked. The book is an eye opener for how various online businesses keep making us coming back for more.

Now you are close to building your product, but maybe you need to understand if you are onto something worth selling or not? The Lean Startup will tell you to do a Smokescreen MVP or a Concierge MVP. An even better approach is defined in Sprint. This approach allows you to test business assumptions in a highly structured manner.

After all of this, hopefully, you will someday reach a stage, where you will need to go and pitch your idea to investors. Get Backed teaches you to put together a presentation for investors, and how to handle the presentation.

At the end of all of this, you might be feeling very optimistic about life and stuff, but to keep yourself grounded, read up on Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things. It is one of the most humbling books you could ever read, and once in a lifetime kind of a book that is as profound as the Chicken Soup books.

In The E-myth Revisited, Michael Gerber paraphrased a quote from Gen. George Patton. It has stuck with me for many years after having read the book.

>The comfort zone makes cowards of us all.

​

> I think the primary problem is that the business is "me" and I'm having a difficult time transitioning from a "freelancer" to a "business" in a way that still keeps me flush with reliable income.

Read The E-Myth Revisited.

The first chapter or so will resonate with you deeply as the whole book is about turning your business into an actual business that can function without you so you can get your life back.

I run a small IT shop with about 25 repeat customers. All but 4 are business clients, I do very little residential (with the exception of the home PCs of some of my business owner clients). My business has two parts: managed services and break fix. Managed services are contracted, and basically I guarantee "x" level of uptime for the client per month. For that, I bill about 50 bucks per PC per month, and anywhere between $250 and $300 per month per server. Break/fix services - I offer onsite or remote support, I emphasize remote where possible (much cheaper for all involved and less overhead for me). Break/fix is billed hourly and/or could be a project rate.

1. I do use contracts, one is a "relationship" agreement that spells out exactly what I am not liable for, and the other is a "service agreement" that guarantees "x" number of hours of service per month for a flat fee. The managed services contracts are specific to the client, and are generally pretty complex.
   
   
2. An LLC takes some, not all, of the liability off of your personal assets and puts them under the purview of the company. It's important, but not as important as liability insurance in two types- general liability, which covers your business for "accidental" type damage, and professional liability, which covers your business should you or an employee completely screw up a client's data or systems. PL insurance is sometimes called "errors and omissions" insurance and I consider it to be critically important (and a very good selling point for your business).
   
   
3. I am on retainer for a few businesses, as I mention above, and it doesn't give them carte-blanche to call for free advice. The contract spells out some conditions - you get free phone support (as opposed to a 15 minute limit for uncontracted calls) for contracts over 20 hours per month, but if you are excessive or the calls are the result of your own incompetence ("I deleted my system32 directory") I reserve the right to bill you anyway. And so on. But in essence a customer is buying x number of hours per month of service, use it or lose it.
   
   
4. If I am diagnosing one PC, I take a run at diagnosing or fixing the problem. At about the 15 minute mark, I start making noises about how this machine needs further diagnosis and I'd need to bill to continue (but honestly, I'm good at this, and I can tell in the first few minutes what kind of problem is happening and I pretty much know the way it's going to go in that 15 minutes anyway). If the problem is obvious - spyware, etc - I immediately quote a range of hours/rates and ask if I should continue. And if it looks like its going to take more than 1-2 hours to clear a virus/spyware, I'm just going to tell them "I'm going to pave it and start over" - meaning back up their data, reinstall the OS and patch it back up, reinstall the software and restore the data. Generally that's a 4 hour gig but if a PC is that tangled up, rebuilding is the smart answer anyway.
   Servers and business clients - generally if I come in your door (whether remotely or physically) I'm on the clock, and therefore diagnosis and repair are included in the service call. Its expected that you'll spend time researching a problem to arrive at a fix. That's called due diligence and good customers aren't afraid to pay for it. Just don't be blatantly googling and saying things like "No shit!" and "uh oh, really?"
   
   
5. Taxes and legal: Hire it done. A good office manager is worth whatever they want you to pay them. Get a CPA as a client, have them help you set up a "to-do" list for taxes and payments you have to make, and get them to sign off on your books once a quarter or so to keep you in line. If you're going to have a few employees, contract with a payroll service to handle them. Keep a little money put aside somewhere for legal calls to an attorney and pick up a couple of them as clients so you can trade for work if you need to.
   
6. My business has fluctuated and I've had employees. It's a pain in the ass, far easier to contract with fellow IT types and split the bill, so right now I've got some techs that I call on a freelance basis and they bill me if I use them.
   
   Three big things to keep in mind:
   
   

• Do not, I repeat, do not, lose sight of your financial condition. Its easy to let someone else handle this and every time I've seen someone do that, huge catastrophes happen.
  
  
• Put 25% of your weekly income aside in a CD or other not-easily-accessible instrument. This is your estimated tax payment. Don't do this, and you'll end up pwned on April 15.
  
  
• Read this book.
  
  And finally: Don't be afraid to fire a customer.
  

Former virtual assistant here wanting to put in my two cents from the internal side.

>Think of a task you need to do for your business, but you don’t have the time, or the knowledge on how to properly execute it.

Yes and no. You should have a general idea of how the task should be done.

For example, if you have no idea how to write a blog post, you should make an attempt to learn the basics of how to write a blog post before hiring someone to do it for you.

That way, you know the type of voice you're going for, what type of content your business puts out (authority/expert type? gathering info and presenting it? opinion piece?), the format, and relay that information to your contractor.

You can't delegate it if you don't know what you're looking for. You also won't know if the end product will be effective.

You don't need to know how to do it exactly or even how to execute it, but you should know the basics of what you're asking for.

> I have seen many freelancers in the Philippines charging up to US$50 per hour to manage an Instagram account. That’s a lot of money for such a task. Try to figure out what is the hourly rate in the country where you are hiring... This will help you to estimate the budget you can allocate on a task.

I don't get out of bed for less than $45/hour as a virtual assistant and a lot of people will balk at that price.

Here's what my former clients got at $45/hour:

• Text me. I'll respond within 15 minutes during my office hours.
  
• Keeping up with industry trends, obsessively go through your analytics, refine your strategies, and reinvest what you're paying me into courses/books/knowledge to expand how I can help you (for example, instead of just scheduling your posts, I may pick up graphic design, photography, copywriting, ads, etc. to expand my skill sets).
  
• Minimal management. You don't even need to ask me to update you monthly on your social media progress. I'll have a small powerpoint presentation with analytics, charts, and screenshots, detailing where you are, where you're projected to go, and how it aligns with your marketing goals. I'll also explain it in plain English instead of industry jargon. This will be pre-recorded so you can watch it at your leisure.
  
• Note - this isn't specific to me. I speak for a lot of USA based VA's I've known who charge a similar rate.
  
  Or, you can pay someone in India $10/hour to schedule your Instagram account, but good luck getting that VA to go above and beyond at that rate.
  
  
  >Use a "hidden word"
  
  On my end, when applications have these "hidden word" things, it screams inefficiency to me. You are REALLY going to base my ability to perform my tasks on whether I can I spy with my little eye a single word in your wall of text?
  
  Here's a more accurate way to do it:
  
  
• List the task and ask the VA for their process.
  
• Tell the VA a problem that you've faced (and solved) in your business and ask them to solve the problem in their cover letter.
  
  Here's an example: I recently hired a project manager/assistant to keep me on task with my clients. My clients text/email/call/etc. and I needed someone to organize and schedule my tasks out through Asana (a project management type of app) in an organized fashion because it's so tedious to do it myself.
  
  I asked the following two questions:
  
  

1. When would you use "Boards" in Asana and when would you use "Lists" in Asana? (Their response shows me their ability to think on their own, without needing me to hold their hand through how to do everything. People who are intimidated by the need for self-thinking will not answer this question and just not bother applying).
   
2. I need you to export my Toggl timesheet in PDF format so I know how much time I'm spending on each client. You log in, try to export the PDF file, but every time you try to open it, it says the file is corrupted. What do you do? (At this point, MOST entry-level virtual assistants give up and just say "hey the file is corrupted, what do I do?" which I do NOT want. I want someone who has the ability to GOOGLE and problem solve).
   
   That being said, this advice will not work for everyone.
   
   Your ability to teach, delegate, or pay, will impact your relationship with your virtual assistant. If you have money but no time, go high-end and hire an expert VA at $35/hour or higher.
   
   If you have time but no money, hire an entry-level/foreign assistant and take the time to train them.
   
   I'm currently transitioning out of being a VA to start a digital marketing agency. I am now hiring my own team of virtual assistants to help me. Here's what I've learned from the hiring end:
   
   

• Be prepared to train if you're not prepared to pay. Read The E-Myth (not an affiliate link).
  A lot of businesses fail in hiring because they want to hire someone to solve a problem they can't solve themselves. $10/hour virtual assistants are ENTRY LEVEL and will need a lot of hand-holding and training. You can absolutely go this route if your budget is low or you have a lot of time to train (or have processes at the ready) but in my experience, few business owners have been organized or patient enough to train someone entry-level.
  Within 6 months, they usually fire the entry-level assistant in favor of a more high-end one.
  The other thing is... if you got a "good one" who can handle their own at the lower rate, get ready to have people try to snatch your assistant for $12/hour or $15/hour or be forced to match a competitor's rate.
  
• Hire for culture over ability.
  However, what isn't replaceable and what is difficult to teach is culture and work ethic.
  I personally work with entry-level VA's due to lack of budget (I have more time than money) - but I hire VA's whose visions and lifestyles align with mine.
  For example, I am starting a digital marketing agency. I DO NOT want to hire entry-level virtual assistants who are digital marketer wannabes because they'll just work for me for a few months, gut me for all my knowledge, and take what they learned from me to compete with me.
  Fuck that.
  Instead, I hire people who have a full-time job, or children, or family obligations, and are seeking "side income" NOT full-time hours. They are happy with entry-level $15-$25/hour pay and they have no intentions to eventually compete. I've noticed they're usually easier to work with because they're not constantly looking for more/higher-paying clients and they aren't burnt out from the industry.
  Ultimately, I am working with a niche group of people (spiritualists, cannabis entrepreneurs, sexual empowerment coaches, zero waste/environmental coaches, etc.) so the people I hire MUST have a current interest in those subjects. I can freakin pay for a $29 Instagram course in Udemy or give them my Skillshare login to teach them Instagram but I can't teach them to care about our clients.
  
  (Note: I'm not saying hire people who are absolute newbies with no experience. You can hire a mom who has a huge Instagram following to manage your Instagram account for $15/hour and then send her to take a Udemy course to refine her marketing skills in Instagram. You can hire a college student who wants to be a scientist but codes websites on the side, to help you manage your clients' Wordpress websites).
  
  I know this was super long-winded... Just wanted to give a perspective from a former virtual assistant who now works with virtual assistants.

The key being successful in the cake business actually has little to do with the ability to make cakes. The problem is that bakers often times make terrible business people. Making a cake here and there is great, but does your mom have the ability to manage inventory, follow-up with customers, keep costs down, keep good financial records, market her product well, etc.?

There is a great book you and her should both read, it's called the E-Myth. After reading it then decide whether you should move forward with a cake business.

black swan talks about this. it's a sliding scale. if you are born you are x% likely to make it to be 1. if you make it to 1 you are x% likely to make it to 5. and so on.

good read

My recommended reading list includes One Up on Wall Street, Fail-Safe Investing, The Black Swan, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, and Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds. The first book talks about picking individual stocks based on what you already know, the second about structuring a portfolio for growth while still playing defense, the third about common fallacies and hubris, the fourth about basic economics, and the fifth about irrational behavior.

If your money is sitting in a US bank account, then you're making a 100% bet on the future of the US dollar. At a minimum, diversify your currency holdings by buying sovereign and high-grade corporate debt in countries with strong currencies.

Rule # 1 - DO NOT HAVE A PARTNER.

TLDR - We failed due to a lack of trust between partners that grew over time and I was going through a divorce and emotionally checked out of the business. (I was in charge of all production...ie. when I checked out, shit fell apart)

Here's what we did to scale from $120K the first year to $1.2 mil in 18 months (10x growth).

We hosted all client sites through 2 reseller accounts with Hostgator and Godaddy. Hosting revenue pays the light bill and cable bills. Plus, your contractors only need to know how to do everything in 2 Cpanels. It's more efficient and profitable.

Outsource: ALL design. Wireframes in-house.

Outsource: Hosting setup, domain pointing, CMS/Wordpress installation, theme installation

Outsource: Email marketing. You define strategy and design etc. but the build and automation is all outsourced.

Outsource: Bookkeeping. Automate everything using IFTTT and Freshbooks. Automate as much as you can.

Outsource: All Local SEO - We used LocalOxygen.com to scale production 10x.

Outsource: All social posting. Give the workers access to your posting software and let them post that shit. You do the strategy, they do the execution.

Outsource: Adwords management. Find a certified overseas crew to access your MCC and again, talk to them about how you want the accounts managed.

Outsource:Remarketing/retargeting - Overseas Adroll team or GDN team. You'll have no problem finding teams that know more than yourself overseas at reasonable rates.

Hire a part time VA (Virtual Assistant) for $3.00/hour and have her handle your email, send out client intake forms, invoice reminders, all reporting that isn't automated. After 3 months, this person can basically serve as your remote office manager for $4.00/hour from Peru,Greece or the Philippines.

When/if hiring overseas workers, look for countries with a favorable exchange rate and a bad economy + strong English presence. They must be available during US business hours and have a microphone and camera for face time chats throughout the week. https://Upwork.com and https://www.onlinejobs.ph (we actually bought mics and cameras for those who did not have them.)

We handled SEO in-house and had a small overseas team to help with link building.

90% of my time as founder was spent on project management and helping sales people understand this stuff so they could sell it better. You can find competent workers all over the world for under $10/hour. We used Odesk/Upwork and took the time to build a solid base of loyal contractors. We trained our contractors to do the work the way we wanted it done. I was paying several people in Pakistan full-time @ $38/week or $.96/hr) to do link building. Profile creation etc. etc. I simply made a video explaining what I wanted them to execute on and how to do it and they went off and did it.

We had writers in Isreal (with Masters Degrees) paying the $15/hour to write great content.

If I got back into the game again, as an owner, I would literally outsource 99% of the work. Some to overseas and probably the SEO to a US based company. The rest of my time would be selling. I'll never work IN an SEO company again knowing what I know now...so much easier to train people on systems and let them execute. This way I get to stay working ON the business, not in it.

Remember taxes take 39% roughly.

Number 1 lesson - Find a great sales person who is wide but not deep in their understanding and who is also great at establishing rapport , then you go along with them on the sales call. You're the credibillity. Rapport + Credibility = Trust = Signed Contract

Lesson 2 Create documented processes and train others on how to execute.

Lesson 3 As quickly as possible put yourself in a spot where you are able to work ON the business and not IN it. If you do not do this then the business is owning you.

Lesson 4 Read the E-Myth - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Lesson 5 - Bask in 80%-85% margins and pay yourself well. Also bonus your contractors often and healthily ($20-$50 bonus every two weeks) and they'll never leave.

Hope this helps...

>ignore it altogether

this is up for debate. there's a theory/business thinking called "disruptive business/disruptive technology," and one of its main tenets is that a company should go the lengths to "ignore" what its customer base is saying... but the tenet is followed up with a statement that says that a company should do all in its power to seek out new innovations the customer is not expecting or doesn't know of.

customers don't know everything, and sometimes it's not a bad idea to ignore them while you cook up some fancy new features (iPhone's visual voicemail for example).

what RIM did was the opposite of this. It's apparent that while they were caught up in their own success, their hubris led to them thinking they did not have to worry about the iPhone and its encroachment of the business sector.

They failed to notice that the walls between one's 'corporate career' and 'personal life' have been coming down over the years. Devices that make one's personal life easy to manage have now found themselves in the 'corporate career' zone, all thanks to a well developed UI and lots of research into HCI.

you can read more about this stuff in this book, it's pretty good stuff:

How about this?

Strictly speaking I'm not surprised. Not because I'm an Apple Fanboy (I am - but for "right" reasons ;-) ).

But really just because if you look at the financials of each company over the last 10 years and look at how the product lines and marketing are handled, it's pretty obvious (since ~2000 to me anyway) Microsoft was going to and probably has now, hit a brick wall on revenue growth and innovation to drive more.

Where was Microsoft going to grow when Windows adoption has been stagnant and the compounding rate of adoption drying up compared to 1990s norms. Think about all those corporate users still using Win2K and WinXP; this is a very, very bad juju because corporate IT are one of the big 3 customer bases for Microsoft. And then there's Office. Between these two, there really are no other reliable cash cows in their stable of products. None.

XBox is a promising product line expansion but is it big enough to float Microsoft? I don't think so. Maybe highly profitable as an independent spin-out but where does that leave Microsoft itself? And the market size for games vs. the market size for tablets. Things that make you say "hmmm".

The laughable (when idiots spout it) and simple fact is that high market share doesn't assure revenue growth - in fact above, say 60-80% share, it seriously works against you if your products are in late adoption.

The classic Wintel PC is in late adoption as is the broader class of "computing devices" which includes all computers and tablets. Windows and Office are in late adoption as software products. And these are cash cows? What's really going to replace them? And they will have to be replaced. More Windows? More Office? LOL ROFL! Just like more Burroughs mainframes? That's all that's needed!

Tablets themselves are early adoption as a subclass. The point is, that you don't want high market share in late adoption in a rapidly changing technology. The Innovator's Dilemma describes why this is bad - it create inertia against innovation and it limits your revenue growth opportunities. It's the "why" of where Burroughs or Connor are today. Microsoft has all the classic symptoms.

Simply stated: Microsoft should have not been so aggressive in growth in the past - they wouldn't have this problem now. A simply lack of self-discipline and self-control in as much in opposition as Apple reeks with self-discipline and self-control.

Thus Microsoft's problem is akin to how Apple doesn't have the same problem now even though both companies are about the same age (give or take a year). Although you can think of this as karma for being assholes during the 1990s - it's really just that there's a real physical organization/economic mechanism behind it. Or... karma is real and physical!

Corporate IT is one of Microsoft's three major customers. Another is ISVs (most of whom were the VB6 weenies alienated in ~2000). Sure many people adopted .NET/VB7/C# etc. but Microsoft also lost a large and enthusiastic (blindly so in most cases) part of their mojo. Kind like Apple kicking out the trendy hipsters and expecting all to go well.

The third leg are Wintel HW vendors who have their own disconnects with the end-user markets. All insist on keeping customers at "arm's length".

And, no, end users are not in the top-three of Microsoft's customer base. Microsoft will say otherwise but it's BS lies or self-delusional lies they tell themselves: the supply chains tell the real story. And that is and always has been a serious problem for them despite their successes.

Further the market architecture of the Wintel system is fatally flawed for late adoption innovation - Microsoft's primary customers are 1-2 supply chain links up from actual end-users of their products.

Similarly Intel itself and most of the Wintel HW vendors are 2-3 supply chain links up from the actual end-users as well. This disconnect is part of why the A4 and A5 exist!

Then compare this with Apple which has 0 supply chain links from the customer, end users, for both HW and SW and it's pretty damn obvious who is going to "own late adoption" for computing appliances.

Late adoption requires "appliance-ification" of your product which can not be done at a distance like these supply chain gaps create. No, it's not a matter of "good top-down management" - it's that "bottom-up emergent activity" can't survive or thrive with supply chain gaps. Not when you have to design things by committee across corporate legal entity barriers.

This is why you need to do both HW and SW together - a goodly part of why Apple has its success. And this is why it's a fatal market flaw for Wintel. Which Android has chosen to replicate also. Brilliant! Duh!

As an entrepreneur I've always seen this kind of "it's not my job; I do SW (HW) not HW (SW)" behavior as a wonderful, heaven-sent opportunity to skewer larger competitors. It's an Aikido thing: use their weaknesses as your strengths so they their attempt to muscle you ends up damaging themselves more. It works surprisingly well. It seems to be working for Apple too.

The funny/sad part is all the Geeks who try to defend Wintel/Linux or Android who manage to irrelevantly talk right pass the iPad-buying public with specs and tech-weenie justification that mean absolutely nothing most paying customers. It's like trying to impress the prom queen with your slide rule skillz. It doesn't even register as rational or relevant. Nobody who matters (has money and want to spend it) cares.

You see a lot of these Geeks never lived through the actual leading edge period of PCs nor have most seen an entire technology cycle to even know what early or late adoption look like or how they are different in terms of selling or buying processes. In an early adoption environment, geeks have some power to (de)leverage sales.

I think that's what most of these folks are trying to tap into with spec-talk and nerd-talk about the L33t Pwr2 of Android or OSS or Wintel. The problem is the higher order technology adoption of computer devices is not in early adoption - only the subtechnology of tablets is so in terms of majority buyers, it's a late adoption buying process, not early adoption.

In that world, geeks are nearly powerless to influence most buying decisions because you are so tiny in number and the buyer market made up of non-Geeks so enormous in number. It's a Bayesian statistic prior population thing.

It's the early adoption phase when Geek outnumber or have parity with early adopter buyer markets that Geeks can play the role of "diffusion process gatekeeper". Not in late adoption though. It's a different game at that point. And Apple knows that game far better than all of the Wintel, OSS and Android crowd combined. Funny-Sad.

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
   
2. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
   
3. A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn
   
4. Dune by Frank Herbert
   
5. The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty by Peter Singer

Here are some resources that have been incredibly helpful for me. :)

Books:

• Driven to Distraction by Dr. John Ratey -- I haven't read this one in a while, but I love Dr. Ratey. He is a great writer on issues of science, biology, and mental health.
  
  
• Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by Dr. John Ratey -- Sections on how beneficial exercise is in managing ADHD, depression, and anxiety.
  
  
• Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Dr. Russell Barkley -- Best book for adults with ADHD I've read. Backs everything up with science. Makes a very solid case for self-care and medication.
  
  
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World -- Hyperfocus == Deep Work. Use this philosophy to make the case to a boss or team about reducing interruption at work.
  
  
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0
  
  
• StrengthsFinder -- ADHD makes us painfully aware of our weaknesses. Learn what your strengths and positive personality traits are and how to build off them.
  
  Videos:
  
  
• 30 Essential Ideas You Should Know About ADHD by Dr. Russell Barkley -- Awesome series about the nature of ADHD. MUST WATCH
  
  Podcasts:
  
  
• The Value Of 'Deep Work' In An Age Of Distraction by Hidden Brain -- A podcast version of the Deep Work book if you're like me and have trouble getting through 200 pages.
  
  
• Embrace the Chaos: Why Disorder May Be Good For Us -- We may beat ourselves up over our struggles with structure, but here's a solid case on how less structure makes us more adaptable.

Not an affiliate link btw

E-myth Revisited

OK, so here is my advice.

First, some background on me so you know where I'm coming from with this. I started my own business almost 5 years ago. It's a tech company, but I think I've learned enough that there are applicable lessons, not only from my work but from the other entrepreneurs this has put me in contact with. Currently my company is self sustaining, has 5 full time employees, and Fortune 100 customers (we make B2B software).

First thing - you have to be really careful starting a business around your passion. This can be an easy way to come to hate your hobby. Remember that it is a business first. While I haven't reread it in years, you might want to read a book called The E Myth which talks about starting a small business.

Second, if you're serious about this, I hope this post wasn't some sort of customer validation experiment. Of course people here are going to be interested. However, most likely no one here is an actual potential customer. I've read some of your other answers here where you've mentioned that games sell "like hot cakes" and there is no real competition and it's a large market. If you do this without any real customer validation you're going to have a rough time at best and be out of business quickly with a ton of debt at worst. Who are your customers? How are they going to know about this place? How do you know what they are willing to pay to participate? How do you know THEY want a place like this? How do you know they are actually willing to pay you money to come to this place? A good book to help understand the various ways you can gain traction is Traction which discusses 19 different traction channels and how people have put them to use to grow their business.

Can you deal with competition? Even if there isn't another business like this in the area, how do you know someone isn't working to start one? If your business is a success will someone start a competitor? Are you ready for that? What if a month before you open a competitor beats you to it? If you have a solid business and plans to grow in place you'll be fine.

I don't know if you plant to raise money or not, but regardless of that fact, think of how you would pitch this to someone who could invest but doesn't give a crap about boardgames or pubs. Would someone who is looking at this from a purely objective money making standpoint be interested? Have you generated enough traction, attention, and interest to make this an appealing business prospect? If not, what can you do to change that? If you can't figure that out now, do you really want to wait until you're deep into this business to try and figure it out?

Set up some metrics. Probably the best way to do it for your business is to measure revenue per visit. How much profit do you expect to make per person per visit? If you are charging $4 per person and then you expect some % of them to buy additional things (food, games, drinks) - your avg per person should be over $4, obviously. How many visitors and at what average profit per visitor do you need to stay afloat? You can increase your overall profit 2 ways - increase the number of visitors or increase the average profit per visitor. You'll have some limits - you an only fit so many people in the building, for example. This will help you determine if this business can be profitable and give you an idea of where you need to be so you know early on if you're tracking well or not. Measure everything that you can.

Basically, just be careful. You're mixing your hobby with your work, but you have to remember it's a business first and foremost. Treat it like a business and be honest with yourself and you'll be fine.

Also, fried foods with games sounds like a good way to end up with a library of greasy games.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3tMADbCN4D5Y0

The book focuses more on regular local small businesses and explains that if an owner is working IN the business (doing the work) instead of ON the business (improving the business) then the owner just owns a job and not a business. In order to truly have a business and a quality of life as an owner, all the day to day responsibilities need to be handled by employees so that the owner can focus on growing and improving the business. This isn’t realistic for some owners, which is why they only own a job and may never have a quality of life that makes owning a business “worth it”.

Read like your life depends on it. All topics. Grow yourself.

Also, a couple that I found useful around the concept of building a business (rather than being self employed):

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_BpNSDbXK4T0Q7
  
• Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less (Revised 3rd Edition, 2019) https://www.amazon.com/dp/160832253X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_rqNSDbJ1JR2BT
  
  Reading like a fiend will also help you in your job. You’ll become more effective in leading teams, leading yourself, influencing change across organizations. Your worth will climb whether you stay with the same company or move around or work for yourself.

Sorry for being in this situation.

For others concerned about starting a company with others, I'd highly recommend that you all read the book The Founder's Dilemmas beforehand. It's really important stuff.

I think, well, are you getting interviews?

Your post, you just seem really down on yourself. Once you get one person to trust in you, to trust in your ability, that's what it takes to establish your career. It'll work for you once you trust in yourself and project confidence. I think one of the things, I got my start with a really small company (10 employees) and the post was on craigslist in a different state and I had no internship since I was a transfer student. I had to be adaptable. I remember after that position, I wasn't even in school and went to a different university's job fair and got an interview with the army corps as a result. If you think your cover letter isn't working, that's a fantastic way to meet recruiters face-to-face. It was kinda just trying anything and having perseverance.

Read that unwritten laws of engineering. I think it's a good thing to read about starting out. Don't think a job is below you. I'm out in the field right now struggling with transportation contractors. But it's been fantastic experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lucas_Jr.

further reading: on basically all 4 bullets https://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Markets-Incerto/dp/0812975219/ref=pd_sim_14_2/133-0444399-0427912?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0812975219&pd_rd_r=20G8KZ7HRQTB9EV8KRMF&pd_rd_w=QI4pT&pd_rd_wg=y8262&psc=1&refRID=20G8KZ7HRQTB9EV8KRMF

further further reading on the last bullet, and the actual explanation of "black swan" that is starting to show up in crypto but totally incorrectly used https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X


you could also dig into efficient market hypothesis.

also, if you're into technical analysis/charts, this could shake your views a little but it's good to be challenged

Black swan.

I've got a book for you my friend: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X

You'll like it

Sure there are.

• The Dao of Capital by Mark Spitznagel
  
  
• Austrian School for Investors by Rahim Taghizadegan
  
  Although Taleb is not strictly an Austrian economist, his book The Black Swan contains a lot of Austrian insights on probability, uncertainty, risk, public choice insights (regarding govt, the Fed, and financial markets in general). He quotes Hayek and other Austrians approvingly throughout.
  
  Also of interest would be Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Not an Austrian by any means, but his value-investment approach is consistent with Austrian theories on the firm and his comments about uncertainty and forecasting could have nearly been written by Mises himself.

Yes, you are being unfair unless you are paying them market wages for developing in addition to the 5%.

I'll assume though, that currently you have $0 in revenue and you are paying $0 in salaries.

In that case, giving 5% in exchange for their labor is robbery. Even if they agree to it, once they realize their tragic mistake, you'll lose them and find yourself with half-written software.

I recommend you review:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304

and

http://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Funding-Company-Without/dp/0615700624

The former addresses a lot of the concerns I mentioned while the latter proposes an alternative approach based on contribution over time.

Against The God: the remarkable story of Risk- Outlines the history of probability theory and risk assessment through the centuries

https://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/0471295639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475105434&sr=1-1&keywords=against+the+gods

When Genius Failed - A narrative of the spectacular fall of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund which had on its board both Myron Scholes AND Robert Merton (you will recall them from MFE)
https://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475105453&sr=1-1&keywords=when+genius+failed

Black Swan/ Antifragility- A former quant discusses the nature of risk in these controversial and philosophical books. Some parts of this book are actually called out and shamed in McDonald's Derivative Markets, one or the both of them are worth reading

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475105478&sr=1-1&keywords=black+swan



Godel, Escher, Bach- Very dense look into recursive patterns in mathematics and the arts. While not actuarial, it's obviously very mathematical, a must read.

https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475105497&sr=1-1&keywords=geb

Endurance- This was recommended to me by a pure mathematics professor. Again, not actuarial, but more about the nature of perseverance though problem solving(sound familiar). It's about Shakleton's famous voyage to the south pole.

https://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/0465062881/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475105520&sr=1-1&keywords=endurance+shackleton%27s+incredible+voyage

• The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• The Interpretation of Financial Statements - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports - Howard Schilit
  
  
• Applied Value Investing - Joseph Calandro
  
  
• Analysis for Financial Management - Robert Higgins
  
  
• Margin of Safety - Seth Klarman
  
  
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings - Philip Fisher
  
  
• One Up On Wall Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• Beating The Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• The Essays of Warren Buffett - Warren Buffett
  
  
• Snowball: Warren Buffett and The Business of Life - Alice Schroeder
  
  
• Buffett Beyond Value - Prem Jain
  
  
• Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• You Can Be A Stock Market Genius - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Little Book That Beats The Market - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - Edwin Leferve
  
  
• Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• Poor Charlie's Almanack - Charlie Munger
  
  
• Rediscovered Benjamin Graham - Janet Lowe
  
  
• The Theory of Investment Value - John Burr Williams
  
  
• Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger - Peter Bevelin
  
  
• Security Analysis and Business Valuation on Wall Street - Jeffrey Hooke
  
  
• Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment - James Montier
  
  
• Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• The Dark Side of Valuation - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports - Thomas Ittelson
  
  
• Buyout - Rick Rickertsen
  
  
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini
  
  
• Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics - Gary Belsky
  
  
• The Warren Buffett Way - Robert Hagstrom
  
  
• The Most Important Thing - Howard Marks
  
  
• Competition Demystified - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• Accounting For Value - Stephen Penman
  
  
• Distressed Debt Analysis - Stephen Moyer
  
  
• Bankruptcy Investing - Ben Branch
  
  
• The Vulture Investors - Hilary Rosenberg
  
  
• Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring - Stuart Gilson
  
  
• Distress Investing - Martin J Whitman
  
  
• The Aggressive Conservative Investor - Martin J Whitman

Tabarrok presents evidence at some length in his book.

It sounds like you want to do this as a hobby instead of a business. If you are wanting to do this to play more games then you will end up playing less games if you run a good business and if you try to run it as a hobby it's not going to be able to support you and will end up being more of a "clubhouse" than a professionally run game store. My largest piece of advice is to read https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 If you do read that and still want to open a store feel free to reach out to me and I'll be happy to answer any specific questions you have.

You don't need to set up as a limited company, but it will look more professional, and it will increase your accounting costs.

Being is sole trader is very simple from an accounting/tax point of view, being limited means you need to properly record everything, and you need to pay yourself a wage each month. There's other considerations which an accountant will talk you through. You'll also need him/her to submit your accountants each year for a cost of circa £400

There are tax and other benefits to being a limited company, but it really depends on your turnover/situation. If you're not selling goods, investing a lot or employing people then the tax benefits are negligible imo.

If you decide to be a sole trader, by law you have to write YOUR NAME Trading As YOUR COMPANY NAME somewhere on your invoices.

A decent accountant will walk you through the up and downsides and it's up to you really. You might ask yourself will your target audience be prefer to (or maybe only allowed to) buy from a registered company, or are they OK with a sole trader.

This is me speaking as a sole trader for the last 4 year, if any accountants respond they might see this differently.



Beyond that, you can make yourself look more professional by using a virtual office in a proper address. These start from about £30 pm for just the address and go up in cost if you add more services like mail forwarding, meeting space or even a telephone receptionist. Most of these business centre type places have upgrade paths so if things go well you could upgrade to a shared space or even a dedicated one.

If you're operating near a bigish city try to get a virtual office with an address with a central postcode, this will help you show up in Google Map results better.

You can also get VOIP numbers that travel with you wherever you're working so you can move office addreses if needed. I use a Skype Landline number which only costs £20 odd a year and means I can keep my number wherever I'm based, have an area code for the area I want to do business, it rings through on my PC, and (if the Gods are smiling) rings through on phone app as well.

If you don't have someone to turn to for logos/business cards drop me a PM and I can recommend a very good/value graphic designer. I can point you in the direction of more featured VOIP. And -whilst you probably don't need this- I make small business websites. Feel free to ignore this pargraph because I'm not trying to push anything on you, you'll soon discover that when you run a small business -initially at least- there's a lot more people interested in selling to you than buying from you.

I'd strongly consider looking into local business network meetings. Some are paid for and some are free.What they deliver varies wildly. If you want more in this just ask.

I'd also consider having a read of this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465382377&sr=8-1&keywords=the+e+myth

And have a glance over here. There's not much of a UK business community on Reddit.

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/


Good luck, anything else just ask.

Read this book:

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JMjdBbQQQEE10

The sooner you go from the employee to the business owner the sooner you'll start building a company and huge wealth.

I've always found E-Myth and How To Make Your Business Run Without You to be good resources for documenting processes. If there was software to walk you through the process it would be even better.

Your comments on the insiders not wanting to cut an existing source of revenue is the entire subject of a book by Clayton Christensen called the Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen chronicles the hard drive industry and shows how firms continuously refined their products in incremental ways and did everything right according to management and shareholders, only to be crushed by new disruptive technologies.

That's one item that I got from my worthless (50k) MBA.

I've been through a number of startups and a number of different founders over the years and some were excellent while others, not so much. I've learned through experience that finding a suitable founding partner is far more complex than it first appears.

This is the book I wish I could have read before my first venture. I highly recommend reading it!

The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup

Probably the best thing you can do is start networking a lot because you'll never find a partner if you're not meeting people. Of course most of this can be done online, at least initially.

> The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
(Wiki)

From the decent book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X

It sounds like either the process is too complex or they don't understand what they are buying. Maybe the website isn't as attractive or 'cheapens' the art. PM me the site if you want a informed critique. Price being too low can also make people lose interest since it doesn't hold psychological value.

Hire an agent or salesman. You know the art, let them make the sale.

Or, streamline the process and don't bother them with any myopic details.

A Picasso hanging in a museum or found in someones attic will hold two different prices to someone who is uneducated in the inherent worth if art. Presentation is 90 percent. No one cares what paint you might use, they care about how it makes them feel. Emotion makes sales. And also one last part to this, most people don't know what art actually is... so you have to fight ignorance constantly. People with 9-5 jobs don't understand that running your own business makes you have an expensive product, as you are just one person.

I use to run a business. Find as many avenues to sell something, get the results, test again, narrow selection and repeat. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.

Buy this book, and his other books are great if you care to venture. They are strait and to the point, and also very short.

I found that I was excited and interested in technology until it got to the point of maintaining and then I'd want to move on. So I went through web design, to network admin, to system engineer, to consultant, to senior systems engineer, to IT Manager.

While my case is a little off the beaten path (I don't have a college degree, and floundered a bit back and forth through my career), I've learned a number of things - often the hard way - that eventually got me an offer of IT Manager. I'm happy with the job and love the company, but management can be an exceptionally different beast than sysadmin/engineer/etc. Even though I still handle most highly technical tasks, my job is becoming more planning, paperwork, policies, delegation and organization, interaction between departments and other managers, budgeting, research, and goals/KPI review.

If you're planning your career, you may first want to consider what type of IT Management you want to pursue. You can be a technical manager, with a focus on something like a CTO position - where you are still immersed in keeping up with technology and market factors to drive technical solutions to corporate problems. CTOs often make more money than CIOs, but may even report to them.

Traditional IT Management/Director positions move toward the CIO function - which is utilizing information technology to drive business success. A CIO is typically more management-focused, and is highly responsible for the growth and success of a company instead of just the quality and success of the technology behind it. This is where you find Digital Masters, that drive success throughout an organization (e.g., identify the opportunity to migrate the sales team to CRM, and drive orders through a separate channel, implement tracking systems to identify bottlenecks in production and push company-wide directives that increase throughput and revenue directly).

My background came from the highly technical (I was dedicated and interested, especially early on in my career, testing things in a home lab, researching stuff we weren't even using so I could see how things like Samba worked with AD). As my jobs progressed, I landed a Senior Systems Engineer contract with a local company. After working through a few successful projects, they were changing their structure and offered me an IT Manager position.

It still took about 6 months after becoming an IT Manager before I was officially part of the executive management team. It takes time for people to trust you, and on the IT side, a lot of times other managers don't have a large grasp of what you bring to the team.

So here's a few summarized things that I can provide from my perspective. I'll break them into two things I have learned:

Becoming an IT Manager:

• Communication. This is so vital I would suggest a business communication class over ANY technical or management training. IT is complicated to us, much less others, and in management, your peers will not have time to comprehend and understand your discussion of the powershell scripts to migrate the database and implement transaction log shipping so you can have a report server. Focus on the result, the reason, and the requirements. If there's more information needed, you will be asked.
  
  
• Become a Generalist - either direction you take into management will move you further away from specialization. Yes, it's great I had my MCITP Enterprise Messaging Administrator. I work for a company that doesn't use Exchange or Outlook 360. Certifications are a good idea, and you'll need them to validate your abilities to employers and yourself as you work through the technical side of IT and toward management. But as you raise in rank, you will need to have a larger view of the landscape to understand the direction of technology. You cannot be unaware of things like DevOps and Agile nowadays, as you couldn't be unaware of the Cloud six or seven years ago. If you're going to lead a company's technical direction, you need to be very well versed in the current state of technology.
  
  
• HOMELAB - I can't tell you how many people in IT I talk with that don't have a home lab. When I was getting started I had a chance to talk to a lot of consultants and successful people and everytime I asked them the first thing they looked for in a (whatever) technical position was "Are they interested in this stuff? Do they live and breath technology? Do they have a home lab?". It's easy now with Digital Ocean,or a cheap dedicated server from WholesaleInternet to setup your own lab at home or not. It will help you a lot.
  
  
• Honesty and Dedication - This field is seen by outsiders as either "magical", a "hassle", or "confusing and misunderstood". This is a fight against you from the start. It's vital to be honest ("I was working on this new server, but ran into a problem I'm trying to fix, it may be another day or two.", "I made a mistake with the DNS and it may have caused some problems for you guys connecting to the AS/400. We're aware of this and working to fix it, we will keep you posted."). And dedicated means basically, get the stuff done you can do, within the time you have or told someone. If you can't, you need to tell someone immediately. For management, it's important to gain a strong understanding of how long things take (even if this technology hasn't been created or used before), and it's a skill that takes real experience to master. Start immediately!
  
  I mention these things not because stuff like Project Management training, IT certifications, and specific experience in certain things are not important. However, everyone gets caught up with this training things and do not realize that you will not move into management (easily, at least), without soft skills. Communication, honesty, dedication, broad understanding of the technologies. These are the type of people that other managers are interested in working with.
  
  Without trying to turn this into a huge post, I'll also add some things I believe have helped me (or I'm working on) since I've moved into true IT Management:
  
  
• Read The Goal
  
  
• Read The Phoenix Project
  
  
• Read It's Not Luck - Also by Eliyahu M. Goldratt of The Goal, this book focuses more on market-level insights and understanding.
  
  
• Now, map out your company's process - how does inventory flow through your company, what is the throughput, what is the work in process, what are the line of business requirements, where are the bottlenecks, how are these things affecting operating expenses? This sounds complicated and overbearing, but you can do this even if you're helpdesk. The better you understand how the business operates, the easier it will be for you to understand the needs of the business and focus technology to support the areas that will drive the bottom line. Regardless of who you are, where you are, if you crack this, and have the soft skills necessary, you will become a successful manager.
  
  
• I'd also suggest learning time management before you undertake project management. Something like Eat That Frog's "Do First Things First, Second Things Never" mantra works really well for IT. Learn how to prioritize your own schedule and tasks before you attempt to prioritize others.
  
  
• Learn to delegate. This is something I struggled with for awhile (mostly self-taught, only child, apparently I trust myself to do things properly and others, not as much) - this has to change as a manager, and will likely be the early bottleneck to your success in management. I finally realized that - for me, your results will be different - if I focus on my weaknesses (I know I enjoy rolling out new solutions rather than monitoring and maintaining current systems), then I realize these areas are apt for my to delegate. If I can delegate monitoring and maintenance to a systems administrator, I just freed up my time to be used on understanding our business better and finding new solutions to larger problems. Don't delegate for delegating sake, if you don't have something for someone to work on, give them direction on how to better their career, or involve them in things you're working on, have them work with different departments to shadow some of what they deal with day-to-day, or sit in on a sales call. This way you're developing relationships and getting your department out there.
  
  There's a lot more, and others on this subreddit are going to be much better at providing some direction - technical stuff like DevOps is where I'm spending my time now, and any IT Manager should be focused on that first and foremost if you have a Dev staff. Budgeting isn't easy, but whether you're responsible for it or not, it's always a good time to start doing as much of this as possible simply for the real-life exercise. No one is going to be upset that you spend your unproductive time trying to figure out what the IT budget would be for your company if you were in charge, versus watching cat videos on Facebook.
  
  Remember that Information Technology is a SERVICE department to other business lines. As vital as this is to us, we are seen as something like "The guys that keep the phones working." When things go well, people will think we don't do anything. Only when things break, does IT become top of mind for employees or customers. You can get kudos for great successes, but an IT Manager's greatest success will be when things run smooth and no one is impeded by IT or its servers, networks, phones, or computers.

No problem, glad you enjoyed it.

If you are interested in game design, read The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schnell. At least skim it. It's great and gets deep into the emotion and psychology of game design.

For business stuff, I got a lot of input from the classic E-Myth Revisited. I won't say it didn't get boring, but the actual point of it (systematize EVERYTHING) is a really important concept to learn. That changed the way I do things and now we have systems for everything in the company.

Read Crossing the Chasm when you start getting traction. It's a very important book that answered a lot of questions for me.

Right now I'm reading Behind the Cloud by Benioff, and man, this book is also great. I had no clue they used a lot of fairly controversial tactics to get press and traction. It's a good read.

Online courses are really hit or miss. Most college courses on "business" don't really teach how to start or run a small business. They either teach big business... how to work in a large corporation... or how to create a startup. Both of those are markedly different from starting and running a small business (even an online one).

There are some great books about starting and running a small business, though. Here are a few of my favorites:

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs

This is an excellent book on business finances for the non-accounting types. I took accounting classes in college but never really got what all the financial reports really meant to my business' health. This will teach you what's important in the reports, what you should look out for, and how to read them. This is critically important for a small business owner to understand, even if you plan to hire a bookkeeper and accountant.

The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

Awesome book about building systems in your business to really grow it to the point where it's not just a job for the owner. It's easy to read and probably one of the top 5 business books of all time.

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey

This is a good book and covers several different aspects of entrepreneurship from hiring and managing employees to marketing, setting the vision, etc. It's hokey at times, but is a good read.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey

Not necessarily a "small business" book, but easily my top #1 book recommendation of all time. It's hugely applicable to any professional, or anyone really. I re-read this book every couple of years and still get more out of it after almost 20 years.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

THE productivity book. Even if you only absorb and implement 25% of the strategies in this book it will make a huge difference in your level of productivity. It's really the game-changing productivity system. This is one of the biggest problems with small business owners - too much to do and no organization. Great read.

The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

• Get books on starting a business. There are plenty of them and you don't have to read them back to back. Get them as a reference and reference them often. The Small Business Start-Up Kit and Start Your Own Business, Fifth Edition are good ones.
  
• Accountants and lawyers will be very helpful to getting you guys get setup. Seek them out and bring them on board early.
  
• Form a corporation. Either an LLC or S-Corp. If someone sues your business for a million dollars and wins, they can only take what the business owns, not what you own personally (your car, your house, etc.).
  
• Create a business bank account and business credit cards. This will be critical for bookkeeping purposes and for keeping track of expenses.
  
• Are you forming a partnership with your friends? How will you work out the percentage each person owns? Will it be based off how much capital each person contributes? Be VERY careful with partnerships.. treat it as if you are marrying someone. Because that's what it is. Your business partner can drastically affect your life positively or they can destroy your life. Even if you like each other now, money can change things. Be future minded and write up an operating agreement to protect all of yourselves. What if 10 years down the line you want to quit? Or a business partner wants to move to another state and wants to quit? Who gets what? Don't leave this to chance or goodwill or you will regret it.
  
• Learn accounting software. Your accountant will likely have a say in this but it is ultimately your decision. Most accountants are familiar with Quickbooks or Quickbooks Online. There are alternatives like Xero. This will help you track your expenses and be critical to filing taxes.
  
• Get CRM software to keep track and manage your clients. ShootQ is one of the best in the wedding realm, although it can take time to learn and get it set up.
  
• Get project management software (Basecamp or Apollo). This will help everyone in the business stay up to date on to do task lists and deadlines. Apollo has time tracking software which is helpful in knowing how many hours you spend on a project. Historical data will be useful in knowing how much to charge for future projects.
  
• Be wary of taking out any loans. It's often better to bootstrap yourself off the ground.
  
• If you don't take a loan, you all may need to work side jobs to pay the bills until you are ready to go full time. Don't expect to have enough cashflow to pay full time salaries for a few years. This is just being realistic.
  
• Weddings have a low barrier to entry. Do your first or two for free to build up a portfolio. Then charge very little. If you're not charging a lot, don't create a million hour long edits for them. Charge little and promise little so you're not stuck with them. Same principle applies to commercial and corporate. Seek out the type of work that you want to do, approach businesses and offer to do it for very cheap or for free. Do a killer job so that it looks like they paid you a million bucks. This will open doors.
  
• It is very easy to get bogged down with wedding edits. Consider yourself warned. Sifting through hours of footage and piecing edits together is a lot of work. Do not underestimate it.
  
• Only market the work you want to attract. Don't post all your work on your blog.
  
• Contracts are important to look professional, and more importantly, to protect yourself. A lawyer will be helpful here. Many books on filmmaking also have sample contracts.
  
• You are essentially a start up business. Be prepared for long work weeks, very little pay, and high stress. Not everyone is cut out for being a business owner. Don't think it will be like a 9-5 job.. you don't go home and tune the business out.. it will be very much a part of your life. I'm not saying that it should take OVER your life since you should do everything you can to maintain some sort of work-life balance. If any of you are married, you will need supportive spouses who are willing to make sacrifices.
  
• Read The E-Myth. It reads like a story but will teach you very important business concepts and how to think like a businessman. This is very important as you start to grow.
  
  This just scratches the surface. It's not rocket science, but it's a lot.. it will take time. CONSTANTLY evaluate and look for things that can be improved.
  
  Source: Started a few businesses, the current one being a filmmaking one.

I've read most of Kiyosaki's books and listened to the audio versions of him and after initially being swoon by him and the enthusiasm he drummed up in me by appealing to emotion, I later came to the conclusion he is a hack. He and Tony Robins has a similar style.

Gary Vaynerchuck is a decent alternative, though he does the same thing as Robert, but at least gives you something to work with.

E-myth was one of my favorite books to read about entrepreneurship mainly because it helps you realize what you're going to get into by working on your own thing. I can't recommend E-Myth Remastery though because it's very much a rehash of the original.

Grass is always greener... where there's shit all over the ground...

If beer making is a cathartic hobby to your well-paying day job, think long and hard as your hobby you enjoyed is now mandatory work that you must upkeep on a schedule, and you might need to have a significant bankroll when time get tough. Also, take a reasonable estimate of cost and double them, same with time to complete.

I also suggest reading the "E-Myth Revisited" which talks about how having the technical knowledge is not the same as having the business acumen to run a business. With "technical passion" being a notable driver for you, read this book as it makes distinctions between working on your business and working in your business. If you are leading the company, you wont shouldnt be making the beer...


Your location, your knowledge base, financial backing, prior experience in dealing with the management of resources (people, product inventory, logistics) will all play a huge part in your ability to pull it off. A SOLID marketing plan is critical as there are lots of new breweries popping up EVERYWHERE, and distinguishing yourself during your infancy is getting harder and harder to do. Not all will succeed.... cash flow is PARAMOUNT.

Anyway, good luck in your endeavors. I still wonder if this was the right choice for me.. hours are long and compensation low (but I have substantial equity!) but people like the product so I have that going for me.

Here's my recommendations for property management books I enjoyed that were factual and not a bunch of get-rich-quick BS:

https://www.amazon.com/Landlording-Handymanual-Scrupulous-Landladies-Themselves/dp/0932956378/

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Landlords-Legal-Marcia-Stewart/dp/1413322832/

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Landlords-Guide-Managing-Property/dp/1413322158/

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Landlords-Tax-Deduction-Guide/dp/1413322395/

https://www.amazon.com/Leases-Rental-Agreements-Marcia-Stewart/dp/1413321801/

Scrum doesn't have failed stories, anything that doesn't get accepted by the PO is not counted against velocity, especially if it's been abandoned entirely. I've used TFS for scrum, but based on your type of work, the fact that you are running 1-week sprints (rarely recommended) and that you are tracking velocity/capacity per person rather than your team (also very rarely recommended) I would make the switch to Kanban, specifically operational Kanban detailed in David Anderson's Kanban bluebook:

​

https://www.amazon.com/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary-Technology-Business/dp/0984521402/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3R9PO4NATTFZT

​

You will then change what you are tracking to concentrate on flow control (with cycle times per class of service, etc.) rather than worrying about velocity.

Semi-related to the engineering mindset, this is a really excellent pamphlet/book thing originally from the 60s that contains a lot of timeless advice about being a good engineer:

"The Unwritten Laws of Engineering" by W.J. King

There's a bunch of different versions of it, but here is Amazon and a complete PDF

As much as the title bothers me, (they're literally written laws!!) when I feel frustrated by homework, professors, managers, or other sources of friction in engineering, I like to pick this up and remind myself of my place in the system.

• The Unwritten Laws of Engineering by James G. Skakoon covering topics on "What the Beginner Needs to Learn at Once" in relation to work, supervisor, and colleagues as well as factors relating to engineering managers. A good quick read, dated but highly relevant.
  
  
• Universal Principles of Design by Lidwell, Holden, and Butler. Easy to digest, one principle per page. Some you know, some you never think about, some you didn't. Covers all sorts of different disciplines, but the principles can be applied to nearly every one.

Find your meditative spaces. I do the dishes, I drive, I ride a bike, I take showers, I wander around in nature, I sit and watch the world pass me by. Sometimes I think about what I'm doing, or about some unimportant or asinine thing, or nothing at all. Sometimes I'm productive and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm self-actualizing and sometimes I'm not. That's okay. Pressuring yourself to produce is an excellent way to be unproductive.

These spaces are the only times when I formulate truly inventive ideas. They're places where I can let my mind wander and review what it knows and to bridge and connect and construct, and they're places where I feel no stress. I don't want my life to be chaotic and completely uncertain, but I also don't want the structure of my days to consist of anything more than meditative spaces and free time.

More people need to learn to walk slowly.

Answer: No.

"Tipping Point" is defined as 13-15% market penetration, as described in this video by Simon Sinek Start with Why

From the book Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

Plug in electric cars are a tiny 0.1% of the one billion cars on the world's roads by the end of 2015. So we have a LONG way to go to reach the tipping point, don't you think?

> don't have the financial need to innovate

The Innovator's Dilemma book covered this. They do need to innovate and they know that. The problem is that any innovation will look like a rounding error compared to current financials and so on those terms it is hard to make any progress.

I'm reading a book called the Innovator's Dilemma that explains how a company (and Sears is a perfect example) can do all the right things, and still lose its position as the dominant player in the market.

It's a very insightful read -- I recommend it. Very interesting if you're ever thinking of starting your own business.

http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business-Essentials/dp/0060521996

Kudos to you for wanting to expand your horizons, and specifically looking at areas that companies and business owners often care about. It's good to read up on them, but to be honest they probably won't sink in unless you're dealing with those topics on a weekly or monthly basis. That said, if you need a resource, check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Day-MBA-4th-Step---Step/dp/0062199579

Instead of trying to read it cover to cover, go have coffee with your boss or someone in finance. Try to see what the higher uppers care about this year. They may say profit, but is it revenue or cost? Or maybe it's market share? If your company is publicly traded, take a look at the income statements and then look up stuff you don't understand in the book or online. Pay attention to free cash flow, if a company is on the decline, the free cash flow can indicate how dire the situation is.

Ultimately what's most beneficial is to develop a good financial intuition: knowing what the company cares about, and knowing the implications to your department or your job.

IMO, multifamilies are all about the numbers, if they don't work, don't force it, move on to another opportunity, there are tons out there. I recommend these books:

http://www.amazon.com/Turned-into-Million-Estate-Spare/dp/0671253689
http://www.amazon.com/Estate-Investor-Flow-Financial-Measures/dp/0071603271

The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat By Oliver Sacks is an amazing book about odd neurological disorders and what they do to people. It is a fascinating, well-written book that was very easy to read.

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain By Oliver Sacks is another very interesting book about how music affects the brain.

The Definitive Book of Body Language is another good book that'll make you a bit more observant of people.

The Art of War is always a classic, good, and informative read.

Those have been my favorite. I have a friend who suggest The Tipping Point is a really good book, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Hope that helped.

Edit: Me grammar wrongs

I am not sure about any Canadian Forces specific books. But some standard military officer books that in my mind are good to read about leadership and wisdom would be:

• The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester
  
• Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
  
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  
• Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
  
• [The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell]
  (http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342986110&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Tipping+Point+by+Malcolm+Gladwell)

Your question is very important. Especially for early stage or even first-time founders, who don't have the right support network yet. There are many more resources like Facebook groups, and youtube channels that you can leverage to learn more about entrepreneurship, specific skills, and industries. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific. I'd be more than happy to give you additional pointers.

 

Here is a list of resources that I found very helpful on my journey:

 

Forums
 

Reddit: I was impressed with the quality and depth that you can get by asking meaningful and targeted questions in the right channels such as r/entrepreneur and r/startups.

 

Podcasts
 

All of the podcasts provide a great learning experience through case studies, founder interviews, and startup pitches. Believe me when I say that whatever challenge you're having someone more experience can very likely help you.

 

1. Jason Calacanis: this week in startups
    
   
   
2. Tim Ferriss: The Tim Ferriss Show
    
   
   
3. James Altucher: The James Altucher Show
   
    
   
   Newsletter
    
   
   Launch Ticker News: One of the best newsletters out there that captures the latest tech and business news sent to your inbox several times per day.
   
    
   
   Blogs
    
   
   
4. Andrew Chen
    
   
   
5. Entrepreneurship Unplugged
   
    
   
   Books
    
   
   
6. Roger Fisher: Getting to Yes
    
   
   
7. Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
    
   
   
8. Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational
   
   
9. Eric Ries: [The Lean Startup] (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522354359&sr=8-2&keywords=the+lean+startup)
   
   
10. Noam Wasserman: The Founder's Dilemmas

amazon - $15

some of it

Unwritten Laws of Engineering definitely helps you understand, and transition into, your professional role.

*edit: I guess it has engineering in the title, but there's no math! I swear.

It's a metaphor, an old one, more recently redefined in Nassim Taleb's book.

Other areas of work have this too. In engineering, it is not unheard of to have no assignments between projects. Engineers use that time to play with their own ideas or take a vacation. (Play usually. Most engineers I know have about 3 months of vacation just sitting on the books and their management is yelling at them about it.)

Under the "theory of constraints" in a Production / Manufacturing environment, there is an idea to plan to have a percentage of your workforce remain idle during a certain period in order to have the excess capacity needed to meet unexpectedly large orders. In other words, if you've planned your workforce to work at maximum capacity, what do you do if your customer places a huge order?

Have you ever read the book The Goal or it's more modern retelling The Phoenix Project? They're both essentially books about process management wrapped in a "novel". The former was written in the ~80s and is about a guy who is a plant manager at Widgetco (or something) a manufacturing company, the latter is about a guy who is Operations Manager at Gagetcorp (or whatever). Both are put in a position where they simultaneously take on way more responsibility and realize that their company has been doing things very poorly which has put them in a bad position.

I would highly recommend both because they're quick and amazing reads...but one takeaway I'll offer as advice here:

Make sure to make it very clear that PROCESS is very important to building a stable platform. Having means to check your work, adapt quickly, extend where needed, etc...stress that this is critical to build something that scales beyond a certain point (the point you're at now). Then explain that the previous person in your position didn't do a bad job, they just weren't thinking in terms of the scale that this project was going to grow to (make it clear this is common, but a serious problem). The real problem isn't that the old stuff is bad, it's that it was built in a way that couldn't be extended (and also...it's bad). The point you need to get across is that the only way to do the things he wants from where he is is to start over and build something made to grow. You can only supe up a civic so much before you're better off just buying a better car and starting from there. (I'm not good at folksy metaphors)

FWIW, I've never been a dev, I started as operations engineer turned support engineer turned sales engineer turned "Technical Account Manager" (I'm a people person!); but I do have a lot of experience telling important people what can't be done. Bottom line with technology is unless you're just bad at your job there are hard requirements to doing things well. All you can do is explain those requirements must be met, or the expectation has to be that the job won't be done well and hope your boss listens. If he does, good you made a change in the world for the better. If he doesn't disagree, commit, document[1], and move on. If you're good enough to make these kinds of suggestions, you're good enough to find another job when this gets unbearable.

[1] - document (for your on use) not just that you disagreed, but exactly how you would have implemented it. When I interview people, I often like to hear times they wanted to do something one way and didn't get to. Being able to speak well about that is a positive trait to me. (Not to give unsolicited interviewing advice)

This too

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081297381X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495498142&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=black+swan

It should really be: here's what happens when you focus too much _in_ your business, not _on_ your business.

The E-Myth is required reading to combat this.

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

I agree with the other comments; this is a relationship issue. No amount of resources will help her if she refuses to use them. I suggest buying her a copy of the E-myth book because it sounds like she just wants to work for herself, instead of actually running a business.

My advice to you would be to isolate your finances from hers if you can do it without destroying your marriage. If her business goes down / gets sued, your (both of yours) money can go down with it even if she's under an LLC. Best of luck with this! Let me know how it turns out.

Presumably this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

(From googling)

> The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

What /u/edmontonpi said.

​

I'd highly recommend you read The E-Myth Revisited.

​

I frequently tell people that I am a part-time investigator and a full time entrepreneur. I spend a majority of my time on bookkeeping, marketing, and correspondingly little investigation work. Most people want to do the work of being an investigator, and not doing the work of running and building a business, and owning your own firm is definitely the latter.

Amazon reviews

Did you also know he believes in 'The Secret' ? Read the last chapter of this book.

Kanban is just a way to visualize your work, and by doing so to limit your work in progress (WIP). I've worked on Agile teams that used Kanban boards to track all their deliverables and to make the work visible so that there was absolute clarity on what was in the backlog, what was in progress, and what was done.

Tools like Trello are good, and a lot of project management/issue tracking systems aimed at Agile organization have a way to do Kanban. Jira, for example, has a way to use it. To me, however, Kanban works best with an actual physical board that you move cards or sticky notes across. It's easy to close and ignore a browser tab or an application window, it's a bit harder to do that when you've got a whiteboard mounted to the wall with brightly colored sticky notes on it.

This is a good book that explains the theory and methodology behind Kanban: Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business

Eu ja respondi o seguinte, e fui sincero:

"Eu sou focado em obtenção de resultado - pra entregar o resultado, se eu tiver que atropelar o sistema, eu o faço."
Ou em outras palavras:

"Se eu acredito que eu estou certo, eu tomo o risco, executo e lido com as consequências."
...

Esse é um perfil adequado pra area comercial por exemplo - e péssimo pra uma área que deve seguir à risca o protocolo como produção ou controle de qualidade..
..
a maioria das qualidades está ligada com alguma espécie de contra-partida com cara de defeito dependendo do ponto de vista.
Ex: essa característica minha de foco em entrega de resultado geralmente é associada com independência, ou questionar as regras/ desobedecer / insubordinação.
Ou uma pessoa muito forte de relacionamentos (boa em cultivar relacionamento), conciliadora, teamplayer, tende a ceder muito, não ser tão agressiva, ter dificuldades em dizer não, e não ser tão focada em resultado - perfil ideal pra gerente de conta estratégica em relação de longo prazo.
...
a recomendação é ser sincero - tem lugar pra todo quanto é tipo de perfil.
...
e eu recomendo fazer um teste pra identificar teus pontos fortes e consequentemente entender melhor quais são seus pontos fracos.
Tem um teste/livro chamado strenght finder 2.0
...
edit: legal ir preparado pra essa pergunta - ela mede muito o grau de maturidade do entrevistado também.

> Hi--I am considering law school and want to focus my studies on LLCs, Corporations, wealth and liability protection, etc...

You are an undergrad? If you want to be a lawyer, study an actual applied topic, now, while you can - and that means not government or english. Economics, computer science, any natural science, most social sciences, history, anthropology. Law is a tool set that without historical context, knowledge of the world at large, horse sense and business savvy is almost completely useless. So unless you are learning actual things, law school isn't going to teach them to you. If you are already out of college, it is not too late. You just have to teach yourself.

I'm exceedingly lucky to have the job I have. And I would not recommend entering this law job market. And one of the primary reasons I actually got this position is before even entering law school I had pretty deep knowledge about the types of business I cared about - I had a background in software and a very high level of financial sophistication for an early twenty something.

If you really want to go to law school, I have to say, it is not a very good investment unless you get in to a t14, get offered a near complete scholarship, have a very unique angle into an industry that you have a pre-existing matching skill set for and the passion to match, or a combination of all of the above. If you are lacking all three of the above, your money and time is far, far, far better spent doing other things.

And if you really want to learn about:

> Corporations, wealth and liability protection, etc...

You won't learn a damn lick of it in law school. You will learn the casebook method. And you will learn all about regulations, formalities, and a whole bunch of shit. But if you are interested in business strategy, which is what it sounds like you are, you can start learning about that now. Start by reading non-fiction business books. And I don't mean bullshit strategy, management or advice books. Use those for kindling. I mean read books about actual businesses, written by serious investigative journalists and businessmen. Here's a short list to get you started:

• Business Adventures. Bill Gates' favorite business book. 'Nuff said.
  
  
• Liar's Poker, The Big Short and Flash Boys, by Michael Lewis. You will get a real crash course in wall street.
  
  
• When Genius Failed. The story of Long Term Capital Management, the first catastrophic failure of a major hedge fund, that nearly imperiled the world economy.
  
  
• Conspiracy of Fools / The Smartest Guys in the Room. About Enron. Insane. Completely fucking insane. Learn what they did. Learn why it was wrong. Don't do it.
  
  
• Black Swan. About the most recent crash. If between Taleb and Lewis you have any faith left in the wisdom of wall street, I have a bridge to sell you.
  
  Just get started, and keep reading. Read about real world businesses - don't read guidebooks about how to do X. See what is in the world and go read it. Are there publicly traded companies that you find interesting? Log on to Edgar and read their public filings. They tell you every goddamn detail of how the business is run, the strategy, the risks they face and how they choose to mitigate them.
  
  Once you get started on this stuff, you will be drawn in and be able to keep up your own research paths. Follow the people on twitter that you find interesting - a lot of VCs are very vocal. Many publish reading lists. Look them up.
  
  But for the love of god, don't think law school will teach you any of this. Corporate law, securities law and corporate finance will teach you the technicalities of all sorts of bullshit you will likely never apply, and, if you do, you will be as good at it as you would be at basketball after having spent three years studying the rules without ever having touched a ball.
  
  Good luck, dotcomrade.

I've read a lot of business books in the past year. These include:

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Think and Grow Rich

How to Win Friends & Influence People

Secrets of Closing the Sale

How to Master the Art of Selling

The E-Myth Revisited

The Compound Effect

The Slight Edge

The $100 Startup

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

I have 4HWW waiting to be read, in addition to about 15 other books that are sitting there, waiting to be read.

The $100 Startup is very inspiring, especially for people who have no chance at securing a "normal" job (I dropped out of college). The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is also very informative. But out of this list, by far, my two favorite books are The Compound Effect and The Slight Edge. #1 going to The Slight Edge. Read this book. Maybe it won't apply to everyone as much as it did to me, but it totally changed my attitude towards life.

Without knowing more about your current financial situation (current net income and net worth, goal net worth and net passive income), it is hard to comment on what may be the strongest investing strategies for you.

If I assume you have basically nothing (no assets and no debt), then for you to be financially free in 10 years (lets say 2M net worth, 75K passive net income/yr) will almost certainly require you to either have a VERY high income and savings rate from now until your goal age or to build something of significant value you can sell to fund your freedom. I suppose you could speculate a bunch in the market and wind up winning big, but the prevailing opinion is that you might as well go to Vegas and put it all on black if that is your overarching strategy.

My opinion, is that if you want to achieve financial freedom by 30 (and are starting from nothing today), than you are best off building a business and spending your time increasing its value. This is not a path for the faint of heart, and a lot of people who try quickly find out they are not up, but if you want to get out of the rat race in such a short time span it may be a good option. Maybe check out this book. I have found it useful, and it does a decent job explaining why systems development is key to the success of most businesses.

Real estate may also be a good avenue for you to look into as well. If you do go that route, understand that the majority of your profit on a real estate investment will be based on buying heavily undervalued assets. Finding motivated sellers is essential (people moving right away, kids squabbling over their dead parents house etc.) and you need to be extremely conservative when analyzing potential buys. Also, property management is very demanding and more complex that it may appear so be prepared for that.

Good luck!

> Your job now owns you.

In the short term, yes. But it doesn't have to be that way for the long term. And by short term I mean a couple of years, not 10 or 20.

Compare it to a professional athlete, who trains like hell even in the offseason. They only have a short window of opportunity to excel, so the sacrifice is worth it if it pays off (granted, it doesn't always).

There are tons of books and web sites about how not to fall into the self-employee trap. One that comes to mind is The E-Myth though it's probably a little out of date.

There are jobs, and there is work. I get fulfillment from my work, but it took me a while to figure out what exactly fulfills me. I know that I need to work the rest of my life. Retiring and hitting the golf course every day would make me suicidal.

The retro is the key, IMO. I recommend reading “Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great” by Esther Derby & Diana Larsen. Lots of good stuff there! https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649/ref=nodl_

I nominated Strengths Finder 2.0 because I was reminded of it while reading this sub's last book, Mastery - specifically, the second "Strategy for Attaining Mastery": "Play to your strengths", in which Greene tells Albert Einstein's and Temple Grandin's stories, emphasizing how each of them leveraged their strengths to great effect.

EDIT: Upon further research into Strengths Finder 2.0, it looks like those of us who typically check books out from the library may be somewhat out of luck in this case, as to take full advantage of the book's content you should take a self-assessment that's only available if you buy a new copy of the book or purchase it online for $15. The work-around is to read the book's descriptions of the 34 types and assess your own strengths, then follow the book's advice - or try this knockoff test.

I also voted for The Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth because it interests me and seems useful. I didn't vote for the other books because they seem less immediately applicable to my situation, though I'm basing these judgments on the descriptions above and Amazon reviews.

No matter what gets picked, I look forward to reading and discussing it with you all!

Investing in real estate really requires that you know a little about a lot of things. These are the books I used when starting up:

General Overview:

• The Wall Street Journal. Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook
  
• The Millionaire Real Estate Investor
  
  Multi-Family Introduction:
  
  
• Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes, and Quads
  
  Flipping Introduction:
  
  
• FLIP: How to Find, Fix, and Sell Houses for Profit
  
  Real Estate Formula Primer:
  
  
• What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow
  
  Landlord Tax Basics:
  
  
• Every Landlords Tax Deduction Guide
  
  
  That is a good intro for books...BiggerPockets is always good too. However, most investors will tell you that there is only so much you can read about real estate. Read some books, get a feel and then go for it. It's the only way you can really learn.

Buy her a copy of The Founder's Dilemmas. It is a very well-written study from Harvard Business Review about how and why all the things happening at your girlfriend's company lead to disaster.

As an engineer, it blows my mind that so many engineers are so terrible at business.

The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb

Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch

A note on the second choice. I know it's not standard non-fiction fare, but I'm a huge Lynch fan and I really enjoy this book. It's short and I think reading it would benefit anyone. He was an Eagle Scout for Christ's sake!

For candles I really like the overview on Incredible Charts.

Investopedia is a great resource for pretty much anything related to trading. Many people also recommend BabyPips for learning the basics.

I don't have any books recs from personal experience, though I see Random Walk Down Wall Street and The Black Swan recommended around here often.

Trying stuff out on a chart yourself is often the best teacher. Check out cryptowat.ch for basic tools and tradingview.com for more advanced stuff.

Good luck!

>Also just to be fair, look at where this hero-based FPS style got Quake into, there is a reason why Blizzard made the most successful game in the genre, while others suffer from lack of development and direction.

Overwatch and Quake are NOT in the same genre. AT ALL. Overwatch is just as much an arena shooter as, say, Counter-Strike or Call of Duty are; which is to say not at all. You're making the same mistake everyone else is making in starting with incredibly superficial aspects of each game, namely that they have classes, and creating "genres" based on that rather than the actually significant gameplay differences between them (And they must be based on gameplay, since none of these games have any significant story elements in their actual runtime).

Overwatch is so far removed from traditional objective shooters, namely in how efficient use of abilities plays a much larger role in success than raw shooting skill than in virtually any other first person objective game that comes to mind. A large number of the classes don't even require any "FPS" skills, and instead have analogues in asymmetric strategy games and the like.

Quake Champions may be small, yes, but it IS attracting more people than just the quake crowd. On a technical level, it's an excellent blend between an archetypal arena shooter, the sort of game design Quake invented, while reducing complexity and convolution to make it much more approachable for those with more modern shooter habits. Lawbreakers, too, hardly suffers from any "lack of direction" in the design department. It's packed to the brim with great ideas and unique takes on the "high-skill FPS" concept, and had my jaw hitting the floor with respect for its elegant gameplay several times when I started playing it.

Success has far more to do with randomness and luck than most people in this thread seem willing to admit. Quake, Overwatch, and Lawbreakers AREN'T significantly better or worse than each other. No hypothetical backfit narrative properly explains why one would have hypothetically failed or succeeded without luck. We just live in a works where the big take the whole pie and the small get nothing; in a world of bandwagoning and herd mentality caused by popularity coming from whatever just happens to gain traction early on in its lifetime.

I bought in relatively early to all of these games because I'm a shooter fan and a nut for unique game design ideas. I will admit that I like Quake the most, Lawberakers second, and Ovwerwatch third, so I do have a little voice in the back of my head that gets irritated whenever others disagree with that assessment, but we all need to learn to come away form making simple judgements between them and other games in the same boat. All of them break the mould in different and unique ways, all of them have good ideas, and all of them could have been popular, in a world where luck happened to favor someone else.

The volatility in the marketplace has been fairly predicted in the previous months. Interest rates rose from the Fed, temporary trading restrictions overseas in China had been lifted, oil prices are plunging, etc. In general, sticking with an index like the S&P is a sound investment for longterm growth and sustainability.

I work in finance, and one of the very best books on investment is hands down A Random Walk Down Wall Street. I highly recommend it. I also recommend The Black Swan and The Misbehavior of Markets.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X

I really liked the ideas presented in the beginning of the book (improbable events have big effects on our lives, but we have a hard time recognizing that) but got totally lost in a set of made-up examples that weren't clearly presented as fictional.

If you want to get a good insight into similar ideas, I'd recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Check out The Black Swan if you're looking for books in that same vein.

Everything starts w/ making a good product

Marketing

• Find a niche, go to where they go and target them with thoughtful cool posts like /u/koleraa and /u/ccrama said. Be real, responsive, and follow up
  
• This works better for apps than games b/c you can engage ppl in problem solving your app, but I'm sure there are gamer communities
  
• For a game you might need more of a "stunt", read Growth Hacker Marketing for ideas here
  
  Don't have a "leaky bucket"
  In normal words: make sure ppl who install your game have a good experience right away and come back. Set up analytics so you can track this. If you are failing, work on the game and don't market yet. You should watch all of these free Y Combinator online startup classes, but #6 is most relevant here.
  Design the game to be viral
  This is where you've got it easier than normal apps, games can be designed to share and engage other users. I recommend reading Hooked for ideas on how to build a habit forming app that ppl will want to share. NOTE: annoying tricks don't work and no one wants that.
  
  Crossing the Chasm is less relevant to a game but an insightful classic on the old "how do I develop a market for a technology product".
  
  All of these strategy require focused and consistent effort to have a chance. I'm in the same boat you are so hopefully we can make something happen :)
  
  BTW I'd be happy to share my notes on all these books if ppl are interested.

Honestly start-up 101: if you ARE NOT marketing to a niche, you are doing it 100% wrong! Read Crossing the Chasm for more info. Still relevant and true.

True about sales - no product ever sold itself and "build it and they will come" has never been a reality.

Selling a brand - well up to a point. Selling a brand without a product is worse than selling a product without brand. The best case: sell both!

My most recent reads in no particular order:

Project Management: A Managerial Approach http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470226218

Project Management http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0136065619

Crossing the Chasm http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060517123

Product Design and Development http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0073101427

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071401946

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743269519

Portfolio Management For New Products http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738205141

Operations Management http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0324179391

Third Generation R & D http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875842526

Being the Boss http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/142216389X

Drive http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594484805

Authentic Leadership http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787975281

Good Boss, Bad Boss http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446556084

Outliers http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930

Seven Lessons for Leading in Crisis http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470531878

The Upside of the Downturn http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002XULXOM

Negotiation Techniques http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EP2DZ6

What Every BODY is Saying http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061438294

Ackoff's Best http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471316342

Tough Conversations With Your Boss http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HKM7UE

Start with having an efund big enough to cover 3-6 months expenses for yourself. For the first rental property, you need the DP, the closing costs & any costs to ready it if it's not rented, and then also a property efund of enough to ride out an eviction and/or major repair, whichever is more expensive. My eviction estimate is 3 months expenses + 10k in turn over costs, but that amount would vary so much based on your locality (how long an eviction takes) and the property type (multiple units would reduce risk). Also factor in more money if it is an area where rentals only start at a specific time of year. Vacancy should also be factored into return estimates- 10% is conservative. Ignoring vacancy is a big mistake for new investors and it has a big impact on the calculations.

Check out my favorite RE book: http://www.amazon.com/Every-Estate-Investor-Financial-Measures/dp/0071603271/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450024749&sr=8-1&keywords=what+every+real+estate

If the rent vs. value is really as high as your projecting, this will be a good place to buy. But just slow down to reduce your risk. Also consider diversifying- being all RE and no stocks is a bad idea. I have 3 properties and the equity is the majority of my net worth. I will probably reduce to 2 or 1 at some point in order to diversify and reduce risk. Foolish young decisions :)

That's a good list, BUT they should be secondary reading, sure you can get insights from them that can relate to any type of investing but you want to be RE specific right? Here is a list I would look into.

Private Real Estate Investment: Data Analysis and Decision Making

Real Estate Finance & Investments

Multifamily Housing Development Handbook

Real Estate Market Analysis: Methods and Case Studies, Second Edition

The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings

How to Pay Little or No Taxes on Your Real Estate Investments: What Smart Investors Need to Know

Investing in Real Estate

Real Estate Investing, Cash Flows, and Due Diligence: Making Better Investment Decisions (Volume 2)

What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow... And 36 Other Key Financial Measures

That's a lot, also info in those books may over lap so pick which ones you would want to answer your specific questions. Hope this helps.

Get the Sam B. Griffith translation.

A.) His footnotes are well worth it. He studied Chinese and gives alternate translations for many words.

B.) He's a military man translating a military text. You will find zero airy-fairy new age bullshit.

C.) Griffith's is a translation from the Chinese as opposed to the French (Giles 1911). This YouTube upload is based on the Giles translation. Giles translated the book from Chinese to French back in 1911. And then a lot of other people translated the French into English. And now we have the twice removed Giles translation. To say that the Giles is ridiculous and outdated is redundant.

D.) Griffith's is the best translation I've read yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Sun-Tzu/dp/0195014766

http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci211z/1.1/Sun%20Tzu.pdf

The PDF does not have the introduction and associated pages. Those are worth a read.

Buy the book.

[EDIT]

Also pick up a copy of Robert Greene's "48 Laws of Power."

That book should be required reading.

I’d like to recommend “Unwritten laws of engineering”. Great little book detailing workplace dynamics, accountability, and how to be an integral part of an engineering department. Here’s the amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624?crid=1MCO22MGNU72H&keywords=unwritten+laws+of+engineering&qid=1536126994&sprefix=unwritten+&sr=8-1&ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)

Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel

Engineerguy's Youtube Channel

Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel

mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel

Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel

Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel

NYCNC's Youtube Channel

Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel

History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds

Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury

A History of Machine Tools by Bradley

Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum

A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume

Tools and Machines by Barnard

The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley

Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort

Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard

A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw

Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa

Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray

Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones

A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982

Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes

History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko

Rust: The Longest War by Waldman

The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer

Optical Shop Testing by Malacara

Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger

Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos

Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King

Advanced Machine Work by Smith

Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich

Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam

The Martian: A Novel by Weir

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby

Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute

Cosmos by Sagan

Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.

Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall

Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc

The Intel Trinity by Malone

Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson

A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding

Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy

Precision Engineering by Evans

Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong

Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick

Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith

Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman

Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou

American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.

Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop

Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.

How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin

Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick

CNC Programming Handbook by Smid

Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.

Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch

Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor

Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe

Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold

Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi

Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith

I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting

I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.

American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley

Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik

Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling

Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt

[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()

English and American Tool Builders by Roe

Machine Design by Norton

Control Systems by Nise

That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)

If you're having trouble with 300 you might want to reconsider your major. While you can certainly avoid taking quantitative courses (325 and 326 are mostly theoretical with light math, and have massive curves anyway) - in order to make your econ degree stand out you should take as many quantitative courses as possible. Like Econometrics I and II, which are probably the hardest Econ courses available.

That said, I'm about to graduate with an Econ degree and my advice is to read this book, realize that most economists are a fraud, and then switch majors.

I wrote this a while ago, but I really want to highlight part IV, "Make the game less random and swingy for yourself and your friends."

IMO this is THE principle that ought to be taught, without which nothing else matters. I could write a book (or, well, a blog, apparently) on how its application can take a lot of different forms, but the core principle of reducing risk is at the center of it all.

• whenever you make a choice in game, you're making some sort of "bet" --- I bet I can stand here without dying, etc.
  
• You make bets based on the situation.
  
• that situation includes your allies, and your allies' bets include you. This can lead to (bad) chain reactions where you lose a bet, leading your allies to lose their bets, and the whole thing comes crashing down.
  
• randomness is not your friend if you're trying to be good at the game. It makes it harder to learn (you win when you make mistakes, and lose when you do well), and it prevents you from being rewarded when you do finally git gud.
  
  This isn't just a "c_a_l_m" thing---Day9 has written about this, nor is it just a "gaming" thing---Overwatch, with its many variables, snowballing, and fast-paced, impactful action (compared to, say, soccer), is a complex and unstable system, like a stock market or an ecosystem. Anyone acquainted with that space knows that the cardinal mantra is risk reduction, even if that ends up meaning things that conventional wisdom thinks are risky.
  
  Seriously, I would rank this is as the most important thing you could teach Overwatch players. If OW had loading-screen tips, at the top of my list would be a simple "Overwatch can be chaotic! Try and make it less so for your team." It doesn't make the case for why, and it doesn't explain how, but simply knowing that it is important would go so, so far.

Where did I say ALL NPPs are bad? I showed why nuclear power is not safe in Japan. The combination of company/government bungling with an earthquake prone area is another potential disaster.


Basically, science_diction oversimplified the issue. Nuclear energy in Japan is NOT the safest energy technology. This isn't just,"Oh people are scared because of some bad press."


Everyone talks about how this was a once-in-a lifetime, unprecedented event. I recommend reading Black Swan concerning risk and probability. The thing is, no one even conceived that 3-11 could happen.


But it did happen. And that's what we worry about. We can't predict when something similar might happen again. This is not fear. It's a reassessment of risk. We thought our nuclear power plants were safe. We were wrong. We might be wrong again.


I live a 30 minute drive from the Hamaoka power plant in Shizuoka. It is ranked the most dangerous and was not shut down until AFTER 3/11. There's talk about starting it back up because "we need energy" for the hot summer. If they do I'm gone. 3 of my coworkers are leaving Shizuoka because of this, and I know over a dozen families in Tokyo that also left.


I hate to pull this card, I really do, but I gotta ask, would you, or anyone reading this, live next to a nuclear power plant in an area with 5 earthquakes a day? Would you raise your kids there?


And can I have a source please for the information that "Fukushima Daichi" was set to retire in March 2011? I mean, the earthquake occurred on 3/11, but it was still up and running.

The Black Swan is a great book about the business, risk analysis, economics, and sociology of rare "black swan" events like a financial crisis.

> The city has been tremendously resilient and that has a lot to do with how it was built. The question may be what unpredictable change is coming that the county can't predict and is it built in a resilient way that will let it be able to survive that sort of change?

You might enjoy the book The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.

A random walk, the intelligent investor, and black swan are all good ones.

Are you looking for trading, internal business, etc? more detailed would be helpful.

Fooled by Randomness

The Black Swan

Predictably Irrational

The Black Swan

I've seen it plugged here and on the blog, but people assume it's just for Wall Street types or the military (I think all the branches recommend it). Small business owners, backpackers, bartenders, even stay at home moms, they all gain something from it. I've started gifting copies to friends and family, and especially my bosses.

I am currently Reading Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and Taleb talks at length about bell curves and the Power Law. It seems that while bell curves do occur, we have a tenancy to assume that they always occur, when in fact, the power law is at work.

I highly recommend reading... it is very interesting. Here is a brief article on Taleb's "Black Swans."

Is this the book you're talking about? http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081297381X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1373220229&sr=1-1&pi=SL75

Is it The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber?

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

These are the books I recommend to start with:

All direct amazon links, no referral links.

• E-myth
  
• Richest man in babylon
  
• Rich Dad, poor Dad
  
• Cashflow Quadrant

Depends what your end goal. If its your primary source of income and want to make a nice living 100k. Also, is the bank loan in your name or the corporations name? If you are the one personally liable its probably a bad idea. You still have a ton you need to learn about business and the gaming industry based on your comments. If you want to learn more I would recommend starting here http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416079505&sr=8-1&keywords=e+myth

The E-Myth, $12

I would highly recommend that you read this.

Target 40 hours with the rest dedicated to exercise, non-work writing, non-work reading, and non-work socializing.

I've tried the other way, and this way helps me be more productive.

Keep in mind that how physically healthy and attractive that you look as outsized impacts on how people react to you in sales and business development situations. People who put in 'hero' 80 hour weeks months on end usually suffer badly in the health department. Few businesses can really be run by just one person. That's why you hire other people.

Good books on this:

• E-Myth Revisted -- on how overwork causes most small businesses to fail
  
  
• The Now Habit -- book by a psychologist about how to schedule off-time to decrease procrastination

Sorry about the loss.....

I recommend two books.

1. A Grief Observed by CS Lewis https://www.amazon.com/Grief-Observed-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652381
   
   
2. The E-Myth Revisited https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/

Check out The E-Myth revisited:
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uqS0CbAT7R6NE

He literally uses a Bakery as an example.

Also applicable to startups.

If you haven't yet I'd implore you to read The E-Myth Revisited, which is a book that deals precisely with the situation of taking your passion and turning it into a business, and what most people do wrong in attempting to do so.

Only one title of overlap, nice.
Out of your list, where would you start? Have you read any other in our original list?



Built to Sell, John Warrillow

The Automatic Customer, John Warrillow

How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors, Lawrence Steinmetz

Start With Why, Simon Sinek

Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek

The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber

Selling the Invisible, Harry Beckwith

What Clients Love, Harry Beckwith

Question Based Selling, Tom Freese

I'm going to check out the other book listed below (Built to Sell), but I highly recommend reading the E-Myth. You can check out the website below:
http://emyth.com/

And/or the book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

They really emphasize building a system that you teach your employees to mimic what you would do and then finding the right employees so that the product never changes.

What an interesting question.

I don't think I've ever read before of a business idea to start a brick and mortar business where you will cut and run if you are not making money within 3 to 6 months. And then start another, and then another. Most leases are for 6 months or a year.

The start up costs for day trading are a computer or your cell phone, a few hundred dollars, and you fill out an online form with a broker. I don't think day trading is a good example to use when looking at a brick and mortar business.

I spent almost a full year doing market research before I started my small business. It was time well spent.

The E Myth Revisited is a book that was very helpful to me. There are many web sites that have reviewed this book over the years so you can find great summaries of the book if you don't want to buy it.

Best of luck.

If you want to start your own business, read this book: http://smile.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427331465&sr=8-1

It's all about people like you and me. Technicians (people who do things, bake pies, make widgets, repair sofas) who want to break out of working for someone else and start their own business. The problem is that most Technicians don't know anything about running a business. It was a real eye opener for me. Karl Palachuk says it's the one book he'd get every business owner to read if he could and I agree.

You might need a few more years under your belt before starting your own MSP, though. Right now the work seems easy because it's all technical work and it's handed to you. You sit at your desk and the tickets show up. When you run your own business, you have to find that work, sign clients up, chase down payments, everything. It's all on you. You'll likely need to transition out of the technical role altogether at some point.

Unfortunately, this is a journey you have to take yourself. We can't help you outside of giving you whatever resources we've found in our own megre quests for a career that makes us happy. Although I must say, it feels like you are approaching this from a difficult angle: "what can I study to get a career" should change to "what career do I want, and how can I get there?". Speaking as someone who is pushing 40, if you don't know what career you want, and if you don't really give a shit as long as it puts food on the table for you and your family, learn a trade. Plumbing. Electrician. Nearly anything that you can get a certificate for and then find a job. Pull 40 hour weeks and get paid well. There will be stumbling blocks as you go forward, but as an ex-marine small-business owner once said to me: "a hoop is just something you jump through." Get a loan if you need to. Check out your local trade schools, and see what financial aid they have. If you have the time, read The E-Myth Revisited by Gerber. It will help you if you are thinking about opening a business.

There is a management principle based on this. There's even a book about it.

First things first, I'm impressed that you're already thinking about retirement at your age. A lot of people think about it too late and have to work that much harder to save for it. I've always maxed 401k's and saved since I was in my early 20's and can't believe how far ahead of the curve I am now at 40.

I live in Austin and have two properties. I've owned one in Austin for about 5 years that is a long term rental (1 year leases) and one in Port Aransas for a year, that is a short term lease (weekend, week, month, etc...).

I manage the one in Austin myself and use a property manager for the one in Port A.

• It will be more expensive than you expect (sometimes depending on your tenant). Have you ever owned a house before? Between down payment and closing costs, $50k may not be enough to get into the rental market and have comfortable security in the property. I have a similar plan to yours in that when I retire (hopefully early) I hope to have 7+ properties each generating monthly income and to also be selling them off for equity every 5 years or so. The way I started was by buying my first house at 30 and living in it for 5 years, then buying a second house at 35, moving into the new one, and turning the original into a rental. That way I was able to keep my rate lower (owner occupied homes get better lending rates than investment property) and I knew the house quite well by the time I put a tenant in it. If you currently own and live in a house, you could consider turning THAT into your rental and buying a new house for yourself ($50k may stretch farther that way).
  
  
• The rent for my LTR was about $300 over my monthly mortgage and expenses on the property. I barely broke even for the first 3 years because of expenses that came up. While the AC worked, it ran non-stop (barely keeping the house in the mid to high 70s) and would break down during the summer. I wound up replacing it to keep the tenants happy. That combined with other random expenses, and all my income was going straight back into the property.
  
  
• Which brings me to: If your handy, you'll save a ton of money. I've had to replace faucets, lights & outlets, a new front door, toilet flaps, and other general wear and tear on my Austin house. It's literally saved me thousands. I've also had to call in professional tradesmen when something was out of my comfort zone or I was too busy. As someone else suggested, find a good plumber, electrician, and general handyman that are reliable and trustworthy.
  
  
• Personally, a Property Manager isn't worth it with one LTR property. My Port A house, which is run by a property manager, gets nickle and dimed every time they have to send someone over for silly things like changing a light bulb (around $25-$35). If we decided to get another Austin property, I may consider a management company.
  
  
• I used a Realtor to help find my first long term tenants in Austin. They charge around half a month's rent. My current tenants were found by myself through Craigslist for free. There's advantage and disadvantages to both. If you find them yourself, there's lots leases available online to use. There are also credit and background check companies that will charge around $25-$35. I charge it back to the tenants as an application fee.
  
  
• Keep your real estate investment property money separate from your personal money. Putting a security deposit check in your personal bank account is a no-no. A separate account will also help you keep track of expenses on your properties.
  
  Looking at the short novel I just wrote, I could go on and on about it, but I'll stop here for now and directly answer your previous questions to the best of my ability.
  
  > What are some basics that every rental owner needs to know?
  Everything above. :D
  
  > Is it a good idea for me to get into owning rental properties?
  That's up to you. I love it.
  
  > Is there any major issue with purchasing a home and working to pay it off before investing in more homes in order to significantly decrease risk?
  Major issue? No, but you will own fewer properties this way, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
  
  > If there is, what is the alternative? I assume it's inefficient and would take too long to do it the super safe way, but how would I reasonably go about getting loans to purchase several properties at once with very little in terms of assets?
  You may not be able to purchase multiple at once. Talk to a lender to find out what your income to debt ratio is. Until you can prove a property will generate income to pay for itself, many lenders will only give you a loan if you can cover the cost of the mortgage without renting it. If a property has existing renters or has been rented for a period of time, it can be calculated into your income to debt ratio. But if you've never owned a rental and the property has never been a rental, some lenders won't count it in their income assessment.
  
  > Is this feasible even while using a rental management property?
  For a LTR, I don't think one is necessary. For a STR, they're invaluable.
  
  > What are risks/upsides that I'm not thinking about?
  Especially in the beginning, be less concerned about the monthly income and see the value in the appreciation. It's harder to see because it's not a tangible number, like a bank account, but it's where the "real" money/value is.
  
  > Is the 1% rule a set in stone rule? When is it ok to go below this? Is the one main goal to be cash flow positive after assuming some vacancy and repairs?
  Not a fan. I think it's too low and doesn't take into account enough wiggle room for random expenses. Someone else mentioned 2%, but I think 1.5 would be my minimum.
  
  I bought this book and use it regularly whenever I have a question about landlording. It's a good book for answer questions when they arise.
  amazon.com/Landlording-Handymanual-Scrupulous-Landladies-Themselves/dp/0932956378/

I'm going through this book now...highly recommended:

https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649

Also, try using some liberating structures which you can learn about here: http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/

Hello! Have you read Esther Derby's "Agile retrospectives"?

https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649

It provides a good explanation of all the retrospective stages, as well as activities to do for each stage (in your case, the "gather data" stage). Or you could try some activities like those described in funretrospectives.com

Having said that, sometimes it is just better to talk than write. I do many of my retros on a cafeteria outside where we all sit in a table (12 people). The format is simple, no writing, we just talk one after the other (or just begin a conversation) to collect our memories and problems form the previous sprint. It is amazing how powerful that is.

I think you all need to read this then go buy the book and read it too.

The internet is enabling the cognitive surplus to be placed on the same exponential curve that the digital circuit has been screaming down for the past five decades.

We are most certainly living during a key period of human history. I'd always argued that the digital circuit was the most important invention of all humankind because:

a) it was the first invention to be non-specific. You program it to do whatever you want

b) because it's non-specific one use is that it can be used to make better versions of itself - thereby placing it on the famous exponential curve

c) because it's non-specific it can also be used to supplement every other scientific endeavor - placing all scientific endeavors on the same exponential curve it exists on.

The creation of the internet and "web 2.0" is allowing for the harnessing of the cognitive surplus and so now...

d) the billion or so humans connected together can use their cognitive surplus to feed into the collective

Sure, maybe 90% of it will be crap, but 10% of a very, very large number is still a lot of productivity being harnessed.

I got this book at work.. There's a code for an online questionnaire that produces 5 strengths that are unique to you.


I thought that it would be like some lame free internet quiz but the 5 strengths and descriptions it spit out were incredibly spot on. It might not say "Be a doctor!" or "Be an archeologist!" but knowing what your strengths are will help you assess careers and how they would fit with your unique strengths. You'll be happier when you chose a career that you can excel in :)

I think there are many "flavors" of introverts... I found it very helpful to understand where are my strengths and what kind of activities doesn't really fit me. I got it from the StrengthsFinder book (http://amzn.to/2jPC57Z) and afterwards intentionally directed my career choices towards my strongest capabilities.

So far so good :-)
Good luck!

If you have a chance, read a book called The Black Swan.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X

It's a bit technical in some parts, but it discusses how highly improbably events can have massive changes. How people meet their spouses/significant others is a good example. One of the things that encourages these black swan events is just getting out there and meeting people. You never know when you might meet the person you end up with. It might be at a convention, work, or a chance meeting at a library where you notice someone reading a great book ;) Plus, lots more options nowadays on-line ;)

Not sure if it fits into your conception of what you're looking for, but consulting is your own business.

Get 1-2 clients while at your current job and then dive in headfirst.

As long as you stay vigilant about treating it like a company and not a job (read the E-Myth). You don't want to wake up 5 years later and realized you've owned a job. Look to hire. Look to scale. Look to outsource. Look at your margins.

I started that way and now there's 30 people here.

Read E-Myth Revisited and Built to Sell.

Get help from someone who's done it before. Some sources:
http://e-myth.com
http://www.thesellabilityscore.com/

Hey man, I'm just trying to save another poor schmuck from entering specialty retail. It's a horrible business.

Read The E-Myth and you'll understand why someone who knows about guns doesn't make a good gun retailer.

Before you do that though, read the E-myth.

Aye. I've financed over 6 million dollar deals at banks with 1.5 locations in towns with population under 20k.

go to the first bank and see what they need, put all that info into a package, put that in gdrive/dropbox etc. and print it out a dozen times.

we've literally done 5 million dollar deals with handmade spreadsheets and sketched drawings.

but every fucking lender needs all these damn documents. and glad handing.

Good luck, and I'd recommend getting the business in your name or your SO's. also, I'd recommenced putting in writing what each other's responsibilities are. Read/listen to http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

make sure everyone knows that you are the first and the best (politely)

"the original jonwondering adjustable bench!"

imitation is flattery, even if it does cut into your profits. just be better than the copy-cat. Be careful to build a business, not a job ( one of my failings). I highly recommend The E Myth, I read it too late to save my first business, next will be better.

1. 80/20 rule. 80% of your time will be taken up by 20% of your customers, as your company grows sometimes you need to cut them loose so they don't weigh you down and strangle your business.
   
   
2. you're not a charity, make sure your customers understand upfront what will/won't be charged for
   
   
3. I suggest reading (or listening to) 'the e-myth revisited' by Michael Gerber ( https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 )if you haven't already. Learn the difference between working-on and working-in your business.

> sforming from break-fix to monthly contracts. How do you price the monthly contracts, what do clients get? 2) I'd like to scale employee-wise. Meaning, I'd like to have a number of techs working along-side me. How do they get paid, as a salary?

I'm currently reading it, almost finished, like 30 pages only left but when I started reading it, I quickly bought also the The E-Myth (revisited edition) from Micheal Gerber. You should definitively read it too. I'm a tech on the break/fix model since the last 9 years and in the next months I will switch to a MSP model. Other quick recommandation if you need help/inspiration to create your service agreement, buy also the Service Agreements for SMB Consultants, from the same author of Managed Service in a month. Definitively worth the money and time to read it.

Great! I would recommend starting with The EMyth Revisited and Fanatical Prospecting. Both books are great to give you some good tools to start out with and put you in the right mindset to succeed. I like Managed Services in a Month as well, but realistically if you've worked in the industry at established MSPs, there's not a lot groundbreaking there. It's a good re-affirmation, though.

I like the following book. It reenforces the difference between being in business to work vs being in business to reach your goals. It also lays out steps to take to migrate towards being able to delegate effectively mainly by thinking of everything you do as a checklist.

I'm ESTJ though so the checklist ideas feed my appetite for order.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_QCCwyb4EX21TM

No. And it's often the reason for business failure.

Read a bit of The E-Myth Revisited on Amazon

TL:DR; Experts in their fields often prefer to focus on the technical aspects of their skill set (i.e. The Technician), at the expense of their equally important roles as The Manager, and The Entrepreneur.

The E-Myth Revisited - Should be required reading for anyone starting a business.

I would read a handful of books first - I'd highly recommend reading The E-Myth Revisited
and Business Model Generation

As for courses, I wouldn't just stick to one resource to learn these things, but take advantage of free trials like lynda.com, they have super good courses on SEO and Marketing.

There are also thousands of great YouTube videos, articles and blogs which you can follow too. Stanford Business School have many lectures online also.

Trust me, you don't want to rely on one resource for this stuff, build your knowledge from many different places.

Good luck.

• Spend less time on your business plan and financial planning and execute your idea (not to saying you shouldn't spend anytime on it...you should but bottom line is: Keep moving forward). By doing so, you will generate the revenue you are seeking without being in debt. It's easier to sell an idea by showing it rather than telling someone and showing them a spreadsheet with your fictional guesses. I initially wasted 4-5 months on creating the "perfect" business plan.
  
  
• Don’t be married to any particular software platform/language, as they can all change. If you don’t have a technical background, find a CTO/co-founder that knows one language well, and has the same passion for the idea, and build it in that language. I spent a year convinced that not knowing Ruby on Rails was the sole reason I couldn't execute my idea.
  
  
• Definitely keep costs down to a bare minimum but don't be afraid to spend money when you have to. There are a lot of incredible open-source platforms out there for practically everything you could imagine but there are also awesome premium services that help you become more efficient and perform better.
  
  
• Push yourself to rent a desk at a co-working space. Staying at home, going to the library and having meetings at various Starbucks just doesn't push you enough to want to succeed.
  
  
• I'm probably the most frugal person in the world and will walk 20 blocks to save ATM fees but I now pay $90/month to Harvest for invoicing/time tracking because it works and I get paid faster and has saved me headaches come tax time.
  
  
• Find a niche market that you are passionate about and target it. You business can evolve to a bigger market but focus on what you know.
  
  
• Creating my LLC was a powerful step forward. Obviously seek legal counsel and talk to your accountant before taking the plunge. Once I had my LLC, I could then create a merchant service account to obtain payments online via Authorize.net rather than utilizing PayPal.
  
  If you have the time, I would enroll here:
  http://fasttrac.org/entrepreneurs/programs/FastTrac%20NewVenture.aspx
  
  If you live in NYC:
  
  
• http://www.nycedc.com/service/programs-entrepreneurs
  
  
• http://zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu/centers/field
  
  Helpful books/resources:
  
  
• Rework (Awesome)
  
  
• Four Hour Work Week (With the understanding the author had $40,000/month coming in)
  
  
• Definitive Drucker (Broader business topics but great concepts)
  
  
• Why Small Businesses Fail (simple but effective)
  
  
• Why Contractors Fail (simple but effective)
  
  
• NOLO (legal resource)
  
  
• http://www.codecademy.com/ (learn to code)
  
  This quote helped me:
  “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.” -Jim Jarmusch
  
  Services:
  
  
• Harvest
  
  
• ZenDesk
  
  
• MailChimp
  
  
• BaseCamp
  
  
• StudioPress

These situations do exist, but they can't be bought into. At least not for $120k. They require time, education, luck, patience, and practice.

I built something like that, but it took years of work combined with esoteric knowledge of a specific niche and a unique skill set. And even still, I do not trust it to be around for 10 more years because anything online is inherently volatile.

>Currently we have a business that has a storefront, has employees, cant take too much time off, and work 50hrs+ a week.

Have you read the E-Myth ?
What is holding you back from implementing standard operating procedures and improving the business you have?

The E-Myth Revisited
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Hoow. Well, I'm in the middle of re-reading The E-Myth, since it's a good refresher and I find myself having to scale up one of my businesses.

I'm looking at (re)reading Deep Survival next week because I'm going on retreat. I have saved it for a close reading and copious notes because I think there's something similar in the people who survive dangerous situations and the people who survive and thrive in starting small businesses.

I'm in the middle of The Social Animal, by David Brooks, which I adore. I think I'm going to keep it. (That's saying something, since I read voraciously, but I have only one shelf of books I felt was worth revisiting.) The way he's tackled the book is very interesting and it's incredibly deftly done.

I have Republic of Thieves out from the library, the newest in the Gentleman Bastards series. I don't know when I'm going to get to it. When I start a fiction book I tend to read it straight through, and nothing else gets done, so I'm loathe to start one.

I also have TapDancing to Work the new Warren Buffet autobiography, The Compass of Pleasure (which has been on my wishlist so long I've forgotten what I wanted it for) and Medieval Mercenaries a book about the history of mercenaries. I've always been very interested in mercenaries. I don't know why.

Today a friend recommended The Small Business Life Cycle which I already own, so it will be moving up on the list. I really admire the author, a US Army veteran and philosopher.

One book that i found useful, early in my startup life was this: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280. It helped me differentiate "business" from what i love doing(coding).

May I suggest the book "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It"
It seems to cover this topic really well. Recommended reading to any mom and pop business.

Wow, your story is so similar to mine. Sorry these posts are so long, but I wished I had someone to tell me all this stuff along the way..

I started a residential painting company. But I had no clue what I wanted to do when I started back to school at 25.

The key is that I started moving in a whole new direction. I had lots of job opportunities prior to college that I sabatoged for myself because I didn't want to wait to go to the next level. I would always excel, but I hated working for other people - busting my ass so some jerk can take his kids to Disney World while I trudge through another day.

Finally at my last job before going back to college, I struggled to work 40hrs a week because they just didn't have work all the time. That was it for me. I knew if I was going to get to a place in life where I could make the money I wanted and live the life I wanted I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT AS AN EMPLOYEE. Due both to my past and in general that's just the way it goes when working directly for someone else.

I had no clue but I knew I wanted to be a boss, create jobs, be the man. And I knew to get to that I would have to work harder and smarter than the average Joe's in school and business.

I ended up going to a really good business school and through that experience I learned about the painting industry.

I'm not saying you have to start a business, but you have to start a journey. It took me 6 years to get my bachelor of science accounting degree. I met my wife and had a child along the way. I struggled with strained relationships, financial hardship, car troubles and even classes sometimes (which I dropped and took in the evening or summer when they're easier). But, I didn't waiver in my zeal to be the new me. A college man, father, businessman, job creator, client pleaser.

Just start SOMETHING. Choose a general direction and MOVE. You don't know for sure, but go in a direction that's forgiving. For me I reasoned an accounting degree will work regardless of what I choose to do in business. Once you gain new experiences you will realize your talents. Or find some you never knew you had. I thought I would never be a salesman, but through a close friend I met in college I learned that other than the owners of a business salesmen make the most money. And to create my own business I had to become a salesman. And I'm really good at it thanks to my past experiences.

Oh, And my buddy from college- he makes bank too and was just like us-that's why we got along so well. Because we had a deeper drive than the rest. We had to succeed to get where we wanted. And so will you.

Regardless of what you choose to do, you should read "E myth" as soon as possible!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887307280?pc_redir=1404788599&robot_redir=1

You won't need to really do anything as far as getting your business in order, but it will give you a perspective on business that gives you an advantage over most regular people in society. The perspective the book gives is one of three things I paid thousands of dollars to learn in a top business school. The second thing I learned is to have a goal and move toward it; along the way make meaningful connections / network, and finally I learned about the opportunity in the industry I now work. You get most of this wisdom for free. You simply must do it. It's that simple; do it.

Let me know if you have any other questions, any time.

There are many powerful resources available at no cost for small businesses including counseling and mentoring with experienced business owners.

One of the largest organizations that offers assistance is here

www.score.org/mentors

If hiring someone is not an option you could work with a mentor to understand the basics and then discuss bringing in someone to coach you. Operating a business day to day isn't rocket science once you have some basic systems in place. It's the building and trusting those systems that takes time to learn.

A POWERful book you could read would be the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It's short and to the point. Most importantly it shows you what NOT to do. Then you can follow up with reading the E-Myth Mastery to learn what it takes to operate a successful business. These two books have guided me on building 6 different businesses and help me coach several organizations with great results.

When I was 22 I was handed these books by a teacher of a class I was attending because I wouldn't stop asking business questions. He told me that if I read and applied those two books I'd be ahead of most 6 year MBA students. E-Myth Revisited is a powerful story about a lady named Sarah who owns a pie shop. She opened it because everyone told her she was good at making pies. So she opened a pie shop. She hates pies now and wishes she never had to make a pie again. Not because she hates pies, but she had no idea how to run a pie business, only how to make pies. Through the book Michael helps her understand her anger and frustration, not with pies, but with the business of pies and how to turn her pie business from a pie job into a business that runs without her. 10 years later I still use Sarah in my day to day life as I build new businesses and coach others.

Hope this you find something in this that strikes a note and helps you along your way.

this book : E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

Also, read his Dilbert Principle book. Read the last chapter. It's all about the The Secret theory. It was the first place I heard of it.

He's a cook.

I'm registered at biggerpockets.com but honestly haven't looked into it much. I just sort of winged it by doing my own market research. However, I only have 3 doors (about $300/month/door cash flow), so I'm not sure you'd want to do it my way.

Good books I recommend:

• What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow... And 36 Other Key Financial Measures - I have the slightly older version.
  
• Landlording: A Handymanual for Scrupulous Landlords and Landladies Who Do It Themselves
  
• Some version of tax/legal advice. I like the one from NOLO, but you should make it local to where your property is.

If you go the Agile approach, I'd recommend you start with retrospectives. This is a great tool to identify problems and needs of the team and start addressing them in following iterations. Even if you don't go full Scrum or whatever, I'd insist you try retrospectives. If you want some good reading try this: http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649

The Phoenix Project is probably the best book out there - I also recommend: https://smile.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520447802&sr=1-3&keywords=Agile+Retrospectives

Because retros are hard to do right and awful when done wrong.

To gather insight, help teams find their own places they want to improve, and generate self-realized learning... try Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great.

Consensus driving change or driving work is all about figuring out what is the next best thing to try and improve.

If you aren't already, try capturing the outputs of your retros and have the team commit to one thing you want to make better or make great. Make this an actual backlog item and track it as you would work coming in. It should be owned by everyone, and it should be a driving force to try some actions to improve it. If you can get 1 thing agreed to by the team to improve, and then a proposed action to try as a team; you will rapidly find your pain points and make them better.

Read these books to get to grips with the latest techniques and ways of working. As an employer I'd be extremely impressed if you'd read these books. They will give you a big head start when trying to move into the professional work environment. Most of them will apply to any programming language but they mainly use Java as the example language but it's very similar to C#. It's books like these that are the difference between a beginner and an expert, but don't forget when you start coding 9-5 with good developers you will very quickly pick things up. We were all in your position at one point, if you get these read it'll all be worth it in the end!

Coding

C# in depth - I've not read this one since I do Java but I've just had a quick glance. This should be pretty useful and it's a respected publisher. I think you should start with this one.

Clean Code - Great book which explains how to write clean concise code, this 1,000,000x. It doesn't matter what language you are using it should apply where ever you write code.

Cleaner Coder - Another Robert Martin book, this one is easy to read and quite short, it's all about conducting yourself in a professional manner when you are coding. Estimating time, working with co-workers, etc.. Another good read.

Growing Object-Oriented Software - This book is about writing code using test driven development. It explains the ideas and methodologies and then has a large example of a project that you build with TDD. I just read this recently and it is really good.

Head first design patterns - This book goes through essential design patterns when coding with an object orientated language. Another essential read. Very easy to read, lots of diagrams so no excuses to not read it!

Work Methodologys

Kanban

Succeeding with Agile


p.s

Start building stuff, get an account on linked in and state the languages you are working with. This will help as well because having something to show an employer is priceless.

I don't think I'd start with a certification class. I'd start with two books:

• Agile Project Development with Scrum
  
• Kanban
  
  I'd also look at some other online resources (like this agile roadmap to get a sense of what you actually want to implement and change.
  
  From there, that will guide you to what classes, or as /u/mlucero14 pointed out, if you'd prefer to bring in a coach or trainer.
  
  Given that it looks like you all are in Costa Rica, you might want to talk to the team from Pernix Solutions. I've worked with them before, and they understand the agile and craftsmanship side of things.
  
  Hope that helps!

We used Kanban to sort out publishing production. It was not “agile” really it was “lean”.

Map your process and tasks flow through the process.

Read David Anderson’s book

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0984521402/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_IaJ-Bb394Y1FH

Some additional information can help a lot in recommendations. I'd like to know the following:

What is your team size?

Is your team co-located (all in one place)?

Can you describe the type and flow of your work?

Do you have open channels of communication with your customer, and if not, do you have people who can stand in and more or less speak for the customer?

Do you think the leadership would be on board for a drastic change?

It is unlikely that the visibility and continuous improvement of an agile framework will not bring about significant improvements within your company. Also, if you are the type that thrives on facilitating a team and helping them grow to excellence, then this will be a great career change. Personally, I love my job and enjoy every day. With the above simple questions answered, it would be a lot easier to spark a conversation.

Jeff Southerland's book (already mentioned) is a great intro for Scrum, and not a boring read. I also like David Anderson's Kanban, if you have a more steady continuous workflow like a compliance or support team, this can fit better. Also, a good read. The Scrum Guide is rather short and is the definitive guide for the Scrum framework. Exactly how you execute under that framework is largely up to the team, but everything is based on the idea of iterative continuous improvement. Once you get this idea down in practice, you'll be hooked.

If you're interested in Scrum (it's not an acronym) then an easy way to get started is to take training as a CSM (Certified Scrum Master). It's a 2-day course with a fairly easy multiple-choice exam.

If you're already a Product Manager, you could also look at the CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) which will help you understand the differences in the way requirements are treated.

Scrum isn't the be-all and end-all of Agile methods, so do keep your mind open after the training! But it will help you to get your foot in the door.

After that, try looking for local Agile or Scrum groups; most big cities have them. Look out for Agile conferences too; even if you can't make it, a lot of them post the talks online.

If you do end up as a PM and you're struggling to understand something, don't be afraid to hire an Agile Coach for a few days. They'll help to mentor you, explain how Agile works, and fine-tune your processes.

The most important thing to remember about Agile methods is that they're there to help handle uncertainty. For anything you do that's new, and you've never done before, it's useful to make discoveries early rather than later and to get feedback quickly on those discoveries. In Waterfall we made sure we we're getting it right. In Agile, we assume we can't know everything up front and will inevitably get some of it wrong.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention Kanban, which is related to Agile and originally derived from the Lean techniques used at Toyota, and Cynefin (my blog, the Wikipedia page is also good). Mike Cohn's books are a pretty good first stop for basic Scrum, but Kanban and Cynefin will help you to see beyond that.

Finally, if you get stuck, http://pm.stackexchange.com is your friend. You can also shout out on Twitter; there's always people willing to help and pass you links and ideas.

(Oh, and don't worry too much about the formality. I work as a Lean / Kanban and Agile consultant, have no formal qualifications in it, and am internationally recognized. Doing it and having the metrics and stories to show that you've done it is more important than a qualification.)

I really enjoyed "Kanban" by David J Anderson. https://www.amazon.com/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary-Technology-Business/dp/0984521402

It's sort of already been written: The Personal MBA

http://www.amazon.com/The-Personal-MBA-Master-Business/dp/1591843529/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405102798&sr=8-2&keywords=the+personal+mba

Teaches you EVERY aspect of running a business from start to finish, A-Z.

Advice, eh? Textbooks - stand on the shoulders of giants and all that.

The Personal MBA is good from what I hear.

See the LW discussion.

You may want to read Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. While it doesn't specifically detail how to organise people, it does explain the theory behind group formation, how new technologies make group formation easier, and the things that are required to get a group to coalesce, exist for a long time, and work towards a common goal.

I've been reading "Here Comes Everybody" and it had a very interesting analysis why the current sex abuse scandals aren't going away while the previous ones in past decades vanished like pebbles thrown into a still pond.

A few years ago, they made everyone at work read a copy of "Strengths Finder," and then go to a training class. The gist is that you need to find a job that you're good at, that the company needs someone to do, and that won't drive you crazy. And no one else is going to find it FOR you.
https://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X/

I thought the whole thing was blindingly obvious, and couldn't understand why people liked it so much. It got so confusing that I asked a stranger next to me in the training "Isn't this obvious? Why do people have to be told to balance those three things?" He got huffy and said "Well, I don't know about YOU, but I do what my boss TELLS me to do," like he was laying down a winning hand. Don't be that guy!

I met a lot of people in college who were studying something they liked, without asking if anyone was hiring for that job. And I know people who took jobs they didn't like, and ended up burning out and quitting.

So just start making lists. What are you good at? What do you like to do? And search the job listings - what's hiring? Pick something that ticks all three boxes.

Depending on what your goals for the teambuilding exercises are, personality inventories can be useful.

In my previous job we had about 12 librarians. We used Strengthsfinder and I think our team got some useful information out of it.

1. Strengthsfinder totally feels like some horoscope junk.
   
2. It actually has some good tips for "how to work with someone who works differently than you"
   
   If you're just looking to improve/strengthen the camaraderie, then I'd recommend doing a field trip together. We spent a morning visiting a museum, had a nice lunch (luckily covered by our staff development budget), and had a great time.

The Trusted Advisor is probably the best that I've read as far as general consulting is concerned. But, to be honest, any popular consulting book that you find is going to be 98% junk (fortunately, they're typically quick, if insipid and boring reads).

If you haven't read any strategy books, I'd start with Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy. There's such a love for Porter that even mentioning him in some circles earns you respect.

I might also recommend Crossing the Chasm, too. It's a book about innovation and market adoption which might not seem important if you're not doing startup strategy. However, whenever you're engaged in any effort to do anything (You're either providing a new product, new service, or making people change) you'll have to consider adoption down the road. This will help you segment your targeted audience and understand how and why they're responding the way they do.

• The Lean Startup - Reis
  
• Good to Great - Jim Collins
  
• Crossing the Chasm - Moore
  
  People react differently to books, but Crossing the Chasm was one of the best books I've ever encountered on business strategy.
  
  

I think Sia and others decentralized-storage players are at the stage where whoever reach Critical-mass first with network-effect is going to win or take-majority-of-the-market-share. And people like bookchin can make that happen much faster at this critical stage of the Sia project (many people call it "crossing the chasm").

https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Marketing-High-Tech-Mainstream/dp/0060517123

I'm a big believer in learning from peers and from experimentation, rather than book learning - though I think this is something that's very subjective, so I certainly don't mean to dismiss "book learning" as a bad thing. What your clients consider successful, however, definitely isn't something you can learn from books, you need to learn it from them. Speak to your colleagues, make it clear that you want to improve your understanding of that side of the business, and slowly build up by looking at their reports and asking questions.

Books I've found interesting include Crossing the Chasm and The New Rules of Marketing and PR

I've only been to two conferences, after which I decided not to go to any more - at least marketing ones. I'll go to a conference to network (meaning tech. events rather than marketing events), but not to learn anything. Again, your mileage may vary.

This topic is well covered in the book "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen

http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business-Essentials/dp/0060521996

Chapter One...
http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/christensen.htm

As far as trying to figure out what different parts of an MBA program do, you might be interested in The Ten Day MBA, by Steven Silbiger. It breaks down the skills that you learn in classes on, say, marketing each day and provides a pretty good overview of how those skills are applied. If you're looking for help making a decision on your concentration, this might be helpful for you.

There's a lot of free digital opportunities available to you, you just have to know how to leverage them. First off, you need a responsive website and a free Google Analytics account. If you don't know how to get that, it's easy enough to look up and learn yourself. Google has lots of learning videos on how to use Analytics. https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/

Things that are nice to have: event tracking on buttons or call to actions, a dedicated phone number to track conversions on (you can set this up through Google for free). A CMS that allows you to easily make changes to your website based on the information you see in Analytics.

What else? Monthly email campaigns, Mail Chimp is free and has templates. Get people to sign up for your newsletter on your website by offering an incentive like "20% off when you sign up" and include a phrase they have to mention in their welcome email.

Do extensive profiling on your target demographic. Where do they live, how much do they make, what are they interested in, do they have generally have kids, do they own a house, do they have pets, do they shop at whole foods or at a cheap store, are they value shoppers or are they brand whores, what other services are they likely to use?

Save that info.

Optimize the assets you have to be better found online. Use the H1 title tag for page titles and H2 for section headers. Simple yes, widely done by SMBs? NO. Make sure you have meta tags filled out for every page that are relevant.

Write one blog a week on a topic related to what you do. Write on Medium, submit articles to y-combinator, do thought leadership exercises and posts on forums (don't be sales-y, try and help people, it goes a long way).

Offer a free download in an email (of a PDF, something to get someone to click).

Use whatever website traffic you get to analyze the behavior flow and click events on your website. Keep track of your conversion rates on buttons. If some are low performing, make changes to your website.

Offer "free training" or whatever else is included in what you do.

PPC: If you really know your demographic, PPC can be very powerful, even on a limited budget. Make sure you are using the right keyword groupings, if something isn't working well right away, kill it. I see ads on instagram for software and it has a dog in the picture as the main focus. I use instagram for dog stuff. Clever. Very clever. Be that clever.

Facebook ads are great because its SO easy to see if something is working well. I have never had a mediocre ad. It's either wildly successful or it instantly sucks and I take it down. Use the canvas ads, they are VERY interactive and you can tell a story.

Keep producing content. Make a buzzfeed list of something somewhat related to your industry that people can relate to. Share that on all your social media accounts. I got LOTS of followers that way. Lists are great. Lists with the current year in the title as a blog post are even better.

I have been a Marketing Director for years, and recently started my own business. I have a $400 monthly budget (for my own business) and am currently using that successfully to build brand awareness, gain traction and get referrals. Let me know if you have any questions.

I also recommend reading this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5G89YEVQ59YTNM41FSTK

Read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Every-Estate-Investor-Financial-Measures/dp/0071603271

A corollary to this would be the Founder's Dilemmas

While it's not related to real estate, check out Founders' Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman. It's not a page turner, but it definitely addresses a ton of the issues that come up in starting a new business that a founder faces. Noam looked at data from 10,000 startups and compared that to outcomes so it's not just stories (although it has that). One of my favorite take aways is that companies where the founders equally split equity failed at a higher rate than those with unequal splits. I won't spoil the explanation of why, but it's definitely worth a read!

Very interesting as I'll probably be in a similar situation in terms of dealing with equity splits very soon. A few questions, how many other founders are there? How unique is your skill set and could they easily find someone else who can build a similar product? Coming from the marketing/business side, the reality is, products don't sell themselves and the success of a company depends more on it's ability to get customers than how great the product actually is. So the question is who is going to be the biggest contributor to growing the business and if that's you - you should be getting more of the equity. If it's the other founders, then they have more leverage. A good read is The Founder's Dilemmas, might want to check it out... http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421213581&sr=8-1&keywords=founder+dilemma

You should both sign a PIIA. This ensures that all of the IP you're creating belongs to the Company. I was a solo founder to start and signed one myself, even though the idea was mine. This will protect your Company in the long run. http://www.knowingstartups.com/protecting-a-tech-companys-technology-and-other-employment-terms-proprietary-information-and-invention-assignment-agreement/

I had a similar situation and had the difficult conversation. Get your incorporation docs and then have a discussion about how much equity makes sense based on what you each bring to the table:

• the idea
  
• money invested
  
• time invested
  
• forward commitment
  
  You can read about how to have this conversation in a structured way in Founder's Dilemmas
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304
  
  Get incorporated asap so you can set up your restricted stock agreements and then you'll each start vesting your equity. Recommend the standard 4 year vesting schedule with a 1 year cliff. Communicate each of your expectations regarding roles and responsibilities.
  
  Have your cofounder (and you) sign an offer letter or contractor agreement with your terms of work. Set written OKRs and if they're not meeting them, you can fire them.
  
  My first "cofounder" worked w me part time and I had the structured convo and she agreed to 5% for her was fair based on my rationale. She didn't make it a year but as soon as we raised money I paid her back pay as a contractor.
  
  The second woman who started working with me asked for 10% and also started as a contractor. She didn't join me as a FTE until after I'd raised money. I took 70%.
  
  So to her it was fair bc it was my idea, I had taken on all of the risk, put in my life savings, and raised money etc. but our agreement was she would work 30 hours per week and then once she signed, I started the "clock" on her vesting from her first date as a contractor.
  
  I didn't ask her to step up as a cofounder until after we had worked together for 9 months.
  
  FWIW this all happened in 2015. I am still the CEO and we are now worth $40MM. She's still my cofounder but her role will continue to change in the company as the needs of the company change (she knows this and is on board).
  
  So, while these conversations felt super hard at the time, I'm grateful I had them and that we all agreed what was fair and why from a business side. It's good practice for more difficult conversations you'll have w your cofounder in the future, like if you need to hire over them. Everything you both do must be in the best interest of the company.
  
  I hope you enjoy the book, it really helped me.
  
  Be careful about your equity bc it becomes the most valuable thing you have. Open conversations help to squash resentment. You never know, maybe your cofounder doesn't expect 50% or perhaps they only want to work part time... or start later after you raise. There's no one "right" way to do it.

As a senior engineer living in Silicon Valley, I get pitched to all the time by people with "an amazing idea" that nobody has thought of that will change the world. Any engineer worth their weight has heard the same thing left and right.

The fundamental problem is that these "idea guys" think a good idea is all that is needed and the only thing getting in their way of a multibillion dollar valuation is some engineer that won't build this one little thing for them.

The problem is this: successful startup are not just about the idea but also the execution. You've probably heard this all the time how idea is worthless, execution is everything. But what I'm talking about is executing on the business and customer development side. Executing on technology is easy, building a successful business is more than just building the app, it's also about building the business side of the company.

If you follow any of the Lean Startup methodologies, the last step of building a startup is building the product. You don't start building anything until you have paying customers. Prior to that, it's all about Minimally Viable Product to prove a concept. A MVP does not need to be an app; there have been very successful startups that started out with paper mocks as MVP and manual processes as MVP. Even Uber's MVP is a fraction of what it ended up being.

So, I won't laugh you out of the room; I am extremely patient with every pitch that I hear. However, if you want me to take you seriously, bring something to the table. Find me 10 customers that have paid or are willing to buy this product that you are going to release. If you cannot find 10 paying customers* to validate your idea, it tells me a number of things:

1. You don't have what it takes to do customer and product development
   
2. You aren't serious about your idea and are just hoping someone does the work and you can gain
   
3. You can't sell
   
4. Your idea sucks
   
   So, my advice if you want to be taken seriously, bring something to the table:
   
   

• money (seed money to pay for the work)
  
• network (large number of people in the target market that can be leveraged to succeed)
  
• product development - the skill of knowing how to validate an idea, customer development, feature prioritization, vision
  
• leadership / experience: proven experience in building and leading a cross functional team tech, sales, product, etc
  
• sales: ability to sell anything to anyone
  
  Honestly, as an engineer, the two groups that are hard to find are good product managers and UX designers. As an engineer, I'm looking for someone to complement my skills. I am looking for someone that can hustle, do customer interviews and market analysis of the target market. Tech is easy, finding the product market fit is hard.
  
  Anyway, I recommend two books if you are serious about building your concept:
  
  
• Lean Startup - the goal of a startup is to identify customers
  
• Founders Dilemma - deep dive into decisions that you should think about in building a startup
  
  
• 10 is arbitrary number, use whatever metric you want. Find me xx users that have this problem that you're trying to solve.

This book is what I get every one of our engineering interns - https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624

Have you read this yet? If not, it's time: https://smile.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624?sa-no-redirect=1

Unwritten Laws of Engineering: Revised and Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0791801624/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_iEXYub12PRS8Y

A must have in my opinion

Este es muy bueno. Unwritten laws of engineering

I'm currently reading The Black Swan and couldn't agree with you more.

I see expected rates of return (ROR) being thrown out with decimal-level precision, derived from historical simulation/monte carlo outputs/talking-head pontification/"best" guesses... Without a doubt, someone, at some point, for some given period of time, will have chosen the right number. The majority, however, will not have. Now, some will have under-predicted ROR, leaving themselves happily positioned with more money (or less time to FI) than expected. With a defined goal ($x/yr. starting at year z), the flip-side (over-predicting ROR), leads to the need to either save more, work longer, or take more risk (all probably increasing levels of stomach acidity). In other words, for planning purposes, ROR is a sensitive parameter (i.e., the outcome really changes depending on what number is used). This sensitivity leads to prediction error. The impacts of prediction error, especially with the occurrence of "rare" events, means that one's goals might not be fully realized on one end; on the other end, one's goals might be entirely foregone. This is why I try to plan for a minimum FI goal (using securities that are not especially exposed to prediction error) and leave the rest open to the opportunistic returns of the market.

In part, I combine the thoughts of Michael Zwecher's ("[you] get only one whack at the cat"); Zvi Bodie's ("worry free investing" through a floor and upside approach); and Nassim Taleb's (musings on improbable events shaping history, not the "Great Intellectual Fraud" known as the bell curve and associated percentiles).

Specifically, the approach can be described through the economic theory of Life-Cycle Saving and Investing. More generally, using an amalgam of the above's thoughts, I "barbell" between ultra-safe investments as the "floor" (to provide base income) and the rest in investments that could have great upside (stocks).

In other words, I don't focus on a needed ROR, but a robust approach to meeting my minimum spending needs by a certain year while simultaneously positioning myself to reap returns if they manifest. Though, if I were squeezed to name a ROR used in my projections, I would say 2% real.

TL;DR: In part, because of susceptibility to prediction error, I try to ignore ROR when planning and instead focus on saving enough to provide for a minimum level of expenditures.

//EDIT: Added TL;DR & first paragraph.

The Black Swan

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301874685&sr=8-3

Not Black Swan

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Natalie-Portman/dp/B0041KKYEM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301874685&sr=8-1

I do believe my own advice, but it's not exactly the most upbeat advice.

Too often, people preach faith. This just does not resonate with me. Not at all. But for me, I found that my skepticism serves the same purpose as others' faith. So I preach skepticism.

Preaching faith means trying to convince someone that everything will be fine in the end. I don't believe that, and nobody's really going to convince me. When I'm depressed, I'm quite certain that everything is and will continue to be miserable. I'll bet you are, too.

Preaching skepticism means trying to un-convince someone that everything will be terrible. This is more realistic. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong -- only that you might be, because you are, like everyone other human, basically a dumbass. Your certainty is suspect, and you need to be skeptical of yourself. You don't really know the future. I don't either. But shit happens -- and occasionally good shit happens, too. You can't predict it.

Maybe everything in your entire life, everything you've observed and read about human history, supports your worldview and the model of reality you have in your head. Maybe you think that means you're right, and your model gives you predictive powers. This is almost certainly bullshit, though, for two reasons:

1. Confirmation bias. Everybody suffers from it. Show two people with opposite views on an issue a news article about it, and both of them will come away more convinced that they're right -- they will interpret the same facts in completely opposite ways, so they support their pre-existing views. They also have greater memory for facts that "click" with their pre-existing beliefs and views than those that conflict.
   
   
2. The Black Swan effect. Looking back on history, everything always seems to make sense. We can fit it all into a neat narrative and think "well of course! It couldn't have possibly happened any other way!" But the fact is, that's just 20/20 hindsight. Humans are much better at rationalizing and much worse at reasoning than we like to admit. Look back on the major cultural and political events of just the past 20 years: did you see any of them coming more than a year in advance? Did you predict the rise of terrorism? Seems like nobody did, and yet in hindsight it's so obvious.
   
   I highly recommend reading the book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He expands on this thesis relentlessly and convincingly.
   
   People are stupid. You're a person. Therefore, you are stupid. Consider this, and question yourself. Of course, I'm phrasing this a little aggressively here; I really don't want it to sound like I'm beating up on anyone and saying "you're only depressed because you're an idiot!" Not at all. I respect your experience, I respect your views, and most of all I respect your feelings. I just mean that humans are flawed creatures and we should treat ourselves as such, and never be too confident in our own judgments.
   
   TL;DR: Applied toward the negative, skepticism is like faith, and doubt is like hope. I preach skepticism and doubt, because they resonate with me in ways that faith and hope have never come close to.

I was a math major in college in the 70s, and in the math honor society. In my senior year we invited people in once a month or so to give talks about careers in mathematics. (Note: this being well before the mini- and micro-computer revolutions, jobs in math were not as obvious as they are now.)

Anyway, we had an actuary come in for one talk, and it kind of piqued my interest to the point that I notice articles and such about actuarial careers when I happen across them.

One thing I read quite a while back was that actuaries have one of the highest job satisfaction ratings among all professions. I don't know if this is still true, but it allegedly was in the 90s.

From what I can tell, there are a number of different ways you can go once you've actually reached a certain level with your exams. So that's probably worth checking out, too. In particular, I remember reading once that a team of actuaries helped some newly-democratic nation design it's entire economic and financial system. Again, this was a few decades ago, but maybe worth checking out (e.g., non-obvious jobs actuaries do).

But finally, you might want to read two books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

Fooled by Randomness

The Black Swan

Although he's an insufferable bore as a writer, he does have some pretty interesting and compelling arguments about our flawed probability models. Essentially he says that we're like the drunk guy who's looking under the lamp post for his lost keys because that's where the light is, rather than down the block in the dark where he actually lost them. Translated: we use normal distributions to predict rare events because we understand normal distributions, but they don't actually apply to large scale human behavioral events, and we always end up getting surprised by the latest financial disaster.

Anyway, good luck.

Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell

Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age - Duncan Watts

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means - Albert-Laszlo Barabasi

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks - Mark Buchanan

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles - Robin Baker

Motley Crue: The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band - Neil Strauss

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell

The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster - Jon Krakauer

The Climb - Anatoli Boukreev

Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner - Dean Karnazes

If we're recommending books in nonfiction, I will recommend The Black Swan by NN Taleb. It changed the way I think about thinking entirely, and probably colors most of how accepting I am of strange ideas.

I just walked into a Fidelity office and asked them for help opening an account. Now I can access it online to look at stocks available for sale, set up stock screeners, and find their SEC filings (oftentimes I go ahead and just check the EDGAR database..

There is some minimum you have to have to start out with but I've forgotten what it is (I think $1k). I started with only $3k.

People here are going to recommend you not retail invest. Considering your statement "I'm mostly interested in companies that pay dividends like ge or intel since I want stability and low maintenance." I'm going to recommend you do some more reading and research before you start investing. If you really, truly want 'low maintenance' then you don't want to pick stocks. It involves reading long and dry financial reports and SEC filings, doing some easy but boring math, and following up every now and then with yearly and quarterly reports and shareholder voting. Technically once you get into the practice it only takes like a handful of hours a month if you're a sit-and-hold investor (which you should be), but it's a lot more work than most people are willing to do, and retail investors typically earn less than indices.

For basics of investing, check out Investopedia. Go through their tutorials; they also link to speculation games where you can purchase some stock and see how you do for a few months to a year. I'm also a huge fan of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Another book that comes highly recommended everywhere I look but I haven't read yet (high on my to-do list) is The Black Swan. I would say if you've gone through all the work of reading these books and STILL want to stock pick, then you're good to go.

As a relatively arbitrary decision, I decided to put 10% of my income into my personal investment account (this would be after employer matched 401k and taking out another 10% for savings). My philosophy behind this being that if I lose every single cent from my personal account, I've only lost 10% of my earnings (though more than 10% of my wealth). This way I get to have some fun and still be cautious. Not saying you should follow this as a rule, just saying that before you invest in a financial asset that can possibly lose all of its value, you should know how much you are willing to lose.

Edit: I just wanted to mention, I enjoy reading the financial reports and such, actually, because it gives me a new perspective on the world around me and the sorts of things running under the products I take for granted that I otherwise wouldn't think about. For me retail investing gives me access to a realm of information most other people are not aware of, or interested in. It's made me look at products, services, and businesses differently and now I have a lot more connected view of just where this bottle of shampoo came from, where the aluminum in a Coca Cola can was delivered, and so forth. This is an intangible benefit that can't be calculated into my ROI. If you're really interested in learning where Alcoa owns aluminum mines and the states of the roads leading up to those mines, become a retail investor. Or you can just read SEC filings. Few people, ever, mention this aspect of retail investment as a benefit.

Iti recomand "The Goal", de Eliyahu M. Goldratt.

E o carte scrisa ca o nuvela, dar care defapt te invata despre management si in special despre "The Theory of Constraints". E foarte tare.

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• The Truth About Email Marketing SOLD!
  
• The Little Red Book About Selling SOLD!
  
• Secrets of Social Media Marketing SOLD!
  
• Rebel’s Guide To Email Marketing SOLD!
  
• Preparing A Successful Business Plan SOLD!
  
• Business Model Generation SOLD!
  
• Transcending CSS SOLD!
  
• Designing with Web Standards SOLD!
  
• Designing with Web Standards - 2nd Edition SOLD!
  
• Social Media is Bullshit SOLD!
  
• Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business SOLD!
  
• Defensive Design for The Web SOLD!
  
• MTIV SOLD!

Know your audience.

​

Also : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Red-Book-Selling-Principles/dp/1885167601

Pro tip. If you find yourself talking about "getting people on board", you are taking the wrong approach; you are thinking about how to make your life better rather than how to make the overall organization better.

I can tell you what you are going to get out of your approach:

1. You will get resistance from the people proposing features because you are asking them to do extra work to make your life easier. Whether you get agreement or not is going to depend on the politics of the situation.
   
2. You will see a wide variance in the quality of the descriptions that you get, because a) the customers don't really know what they want and b) they aren't very skilled at expressing what they want.
   
3. You will get proposals with details that contradict the expressed direction that you want to take the product, details that are don't make sense, and details that violate known laws of physics.
   
4. The details you get will age poorly; they will refer to other feature that got cut or that got changed significantly during design.
   
5. Some of these features will get cut.
   
6. Even if you get perfect details, they will be insufficient for the dev team to go off and do the implementation, and you'll need to talk with the requester anyway.
   
   I see two big violation of agile principles in what you are proposing:
   
   

• We want to minimize the amount of work in progress that we have. All of those details are work in progress, and much of that work will be thrown away.
  
• We value individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
  
  A relevant definition here: "A user story is a promise to have a conversation". When you pull that request as something you are going to work on soon/right now, that's a perfect time to have a conversation between the development team and the user who requested the feature. In an hour you can discover the majority of the details that you need to do the implementation, and it's efficient both for your time and for the user's time.
  
  > Lastly, I'm really curious as to how people are valuating the value and cost of a task. How do we, as a development team, map out the technical cost of a feature and how should we ask the business to map out the value of getting a requested feature?
  
  This question comes up often, and here's how I like to think about it...
  
  For a given set of feature requests, there is an ordering that maximizes the benefit and minimizes the cost. You can probably come pretty close to determining that ordering for the top 25 items if you take the 15 people involved and lock them in a conference room for a week, so that is obviously the optimal approach, right?
  
  Having once spent 3 weeks of my life costing in a room costing and ordering a multi-year backlog, I can assure you the answer is "no".
  
  The problem is that an important question is missed, and that question is, "what is the opportunity cost of having long discussions about the exact ordering?"
  
  Given that such discussions typically involve senior stakeholders and they all have much better things to do with their time, the opportunity cost is high.
  
  What you should do is ask the requesters to bucket the requests into low/medium/high value, and you should do a really quick sizing estimate of small/medium/large/extra large for implementation effort. Then you just do a simple sort, and the list will be fine in most cases, and all you have to do is discuss where it isn't, move a few things down, and you're done.
  
  
  I agree strongly that you need an agile coach; not only to help you with these things but to help have some of the conversations you need to be having across the organization. I also highly recommend a couple of books to you:
  
  Ron Jeffries has a nice book called, "the Nature of Software Development", which is a great short introduction about agile development. It's short enough that you can hand it around to people.
  
  "The Phoenix Project" is a book about apply a lean technique called "The theory of constraints" to software. It's a novel and a pretty quick read, and the reason I recommend it is that it takes a "whole organization" perspective rather than focusing in on the dev team. It is essentially an adaption/rewrite of a lean classic called "The Goal".
  
  
  
  

• The Goal - Eliyahu Goldratt - you'll probably read this in an operations class, but it's one I refer to often in my day to day.
  
• Moneyball - Michael Lewis - taking advantage of market inefficiencies to compete with a much smaller budget, I found it to be a business book as a baseball one.
  
• Decisive - Chip and Dan Heath - not necessarily business specific, but having an approach to decision making applies to business decisions as well.
  

I agree with much of your assessment, they were arguments that I not long ago was arguing, but I now think much of it is misinformed. ( I do not have time for the emotional energy to argue against all of your assertions, you win by attrition)

Why is there so much unemployment (for the record I am in Australia that has an comparatively low unemployment rate to the US and Europe), you are right that automation has eliminated many jobs, although there is a massive shortage of skilled labour in the US and to many people getting the wrong skills at university. 25% of male high schoolers do not graduate in the US. Those that go on to college enter into the wrong major from a economic perspective, there are more people graduating in the visual arts and performing arts then there are in the STEM fields. And there are far to many people completing a Liberal Arts degree. There are also not enough people entering the trade fields, plumbers, electricians etc... The rate of apprenticeships is extremely low when compared with Germany. Which has a high rate of automation and low unemployment(compare with other highly developed state). It is easy to think that in the next 20 years everything will be automated, but the practicableness and cost of having a robotic unit come into a persons house and fix something is not anywhere close.

I would explore you to not dismiss "demands of making money" as something that is irrelevant. I am an economist and engineer (mostly software) and there are reasons why the profit motive is important, why there is an entire field dedicated to the studies of economic exchange, organization and human collaboration. I love open source, and I love the maker movement and the grinders. But to say that these groups will handle everything innovation and scientific breakthrough is wishful thinking.

In the end you are advocating a socialist system of confiscating and redistribution. Which is inherently immoral and will lead to stagnation.

I understand how tempting it is to think that this is all round the corner but there is a lull in technological innovation that need to be accounted for before we can say that this is all coming in the next decade

Some of the statistics and evidence I have gotten from here

Check out his book, Launching The Innovation Renaissance.

Sure. It was widely accepted before the crash that the housing market would collapse some.

But can you predict the chain reaction caused by the bursting, and that this burst balloon will fly around the crowded room, gouging out eyes and causing disoriented people to stumble around, inadvertently crashing through windows and dragging their friends with them as they fall?

Read some of Taleb's work, even if you think he's a blowhard it should make you a bit more humble.

Here is the desktop version of your link

I love reading biographies, I find them more inspiring and enjoyable to read than self-help books. Currently I'm reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. I highly recommend this book to anyone, prior to this book I only knew what they taught us in History class, this explores so many more aspect of his life, some of which we can all relate to (like his constant drive to improve himself).

[Meditations by Marcus Aurelius] (http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X) is another great book I just finished. Written by a former Roman emperor who ruled during the time of frequent war, disease, and natural disasters, it's about how he dealt with it all as a leader by following the stoic philosophy. Amazing book and helped changed my outlook on the world.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This is one of those books that isn't geared to self-improvement, but to updating your view of the world. In it Taleb talks about how highly improbably events happen all the time, but we only see them as probable in hindsight. I think it's a great read since we tend to think in cause-and-effect ways, when in fact the world works more in a probabilistic way.

>Not now, but the first such study was certainly interesting! How is that different from what we have here?

The first such study was useful, but not interesting.

As to the difference between this paper and the first study linking exercise and heart disease, I see a couple relevant differences:

1. This isn't a study. Nobody gathered any real world data. Linkage to real world results is therefore unconfirmed.
   
2. This is far from the first economics paper written on the topic of talent and luck that suggests that luck may have an outsized role in success. Indeed, this ground is so well covered that there aren't just papers, but books and books and books already.
   
   >The idea that we are solely responsible for our successes and failures already shapes social policy, so why wouldn't evidence for the contrary position do the same? At the very least, it should introduce more uncertainty and flexibility to evaluate specific circumstances.
   
   In my view, the theory that luck has a strong effect on success and failure has already been well established in society. The proverb that "it's better to be lucky than good" is so old that no one knows how old it is. I don't believe that social policy is grounded in the theory that people are solely responsible for their own success or failure.

Hard engineering is ee, bio, Chem, and so on. Easy is mech, civ.
While I know of one guy who is a CS phd, generally I normally see the more applied math guys.
As for things to read. I think you should start at the beginning and not worry about job titles ... Everything will change a few times before now and when it will be your time...
Some fun reads:
The black swan
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081297381X/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1348162692&sr=8-2


The big short:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393338827/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1348163015&sr=8-1

Read the E-Myth before you quit your job or invest any real money into starting a business: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

Read this book

The E-Myth teaches that in order to run a successful business you need to fill three roles:

1. Technician- who does the work
   
2. Manager - who sets up systems and focuses on the day to day...at the same time, not losing sight of the overall vision
   
3. Visionary - the entrepreneur, the big picture person...the person on top of the tree.
   
   In order to be successful, you need to be good at all three areas but the problem is that most people are only good at 2/3. Let's say, I can do the work (technician) and have the vision of where I want to be (visionary) BUT I can't focus enough on the plan to see it through...can't break it down to small manageable chunks. That's when I hire or partner with a manager. Someone that sees where you are going and helps you focus on taking care of the small things, so the big things can take care of themselves. I hope this helps because it helped me.
   
   Source: first generation American with no idea how to start a business in this country. The E Myth definitely made me see things differently. I now own 2 businesses, one has been going for 6 years grossing 15k per month and the other we just launched back in January. The key was to figure out my strengths very early on and delegate the rest either by hiring or establishing a strategic partnership.

Might I recommend a book.

Glad you found it helpful! You may also want to check out:

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

This post is spot on. I feel like this kind of behavior is often overlooked in the community. Headlining these kind of excuses is a very common "anxiety of finishing things" (there is probably a psychological term for this that I don't know) that goes along with perfectionism.

What also comes into play is a theory from "The E-Myth Revisited" (big recommendation btw), where it says that many entrepreneurs are in fact technicians who love the work they do instead the act of running a business. As a technician from the graphics department you will love reading for hours about the perfect logo for your company and how to create it. What you need to do instead is think like a manager and pick any good logo real quick and launch.
So if you ever get lost in reading to much about stuff instead of doing it, ask yourself: "Is this technician in me? What would the manger do?". Do this over and over and eventually you will learn to act like the manager more than like the technician.

Now I'm asking myself if there are any reports of failed businesses because any of those excuses were actually true? Does anybody know any business that failed, because the owner wasn't passionate about it or because the market was already saturated but the owner didn't notice beforehand?

Second this. Also E-Myth Revisited. link

Fully agree. This book's an oldie but a goodie in terms of getting you thinking about process and automation in building a business: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

E-Myth Revisited. I just read it after it being recced here. It talks about how to scale your business from a garage/labor of love to your first employee, and then more, and how to do it in precise, mechanical terms.

http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

The E-Myth Revisited: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0887307280&linkCode=as2&linkId=OKQNEFFPLTGGYABL&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl&tag=writin08-20

Read this https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 to see if it´s still a good idea for you. Do your research for your target market before jumping all in.

Start marketing asap: A website and building your online presence is a must. This one is a good one for one on one service: https://microbusinessapp.com or if you plan on selling a bunch of stuff online then https://www.shopify.com/ is good for selling a lot of stuff for shipping.

Use social media to start getting your brand name out there and just letting family and friends know you´re serious about starting your business they will help you get your name out there.

Use services that will help you automate your business where you may lack the skills: Some people use https://www.fiverr.com/ and the like to help when money is tight.

Have patience, be adaptable, roll with the punches and have fun!

Best of wishes on your new adventure!!

I think the trick is to read the book and allow the book to inspire you to create ideas for yourself. For example, I read "The E-Myth" which is somewhat crap if taken too seriously. But, it gets the ball rolling in my head and then I think of good ideas for making my own business better. I've also gain inspiration from "Influence, the science of persuasion."

As with any self help book, the value is in the inspiration. You have to come up with the idea then execute it. Ideas are easy, putting them into action is a pain.

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Revised-Edition/dp/006124189X

http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

Don’t know, but it’s a popular book.
Amazon Link They also have an audiobook version

What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team, NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html

One-On-One Meetings - https://getlighthouse.com/blog/how-to-start-one-on-ones-your-teams/

Growing Great Employees, Erika Andersen - http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Great-Employees-Extraordinary-Performers/dp/1591841909 (though I hate the stupid comparisons with plants)

The Year Without Pants, Scott Berkun - http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Without-Pants-WordPress-com/dp/1118660633

The E-Myth Revisited, Michael E. Gerber http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

Your job is to lead them, not to do the same job as them.

A person who starts a car company doesn't spend all day building cars. He/she figures out how to make both the company, and the employees, successful.

I'd highly suggest you check out a book call The E-Myth. It covers this topic extensively.

Don't have much input on your financial situation (other than as other people have mentioned, grow that business!), but may I suggest that you read a book like The e-Myth Revisited - Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber.


It has some great advice for how to take a business of passion where you are an employee (like yours) from something that consumes your life to something that can enrich your life and increase your free time instead of taking all of it. It's a quick read, and your situation sounds like you could really use it's advice. I really want you to succeed!

I don't have any relationship to the book by the way, financial or otherwise, I just think it could help you, and it is a quick read so it wouldn't kill you with your schedule.

Edits were because I suck at reddit formatting.

The book the E-Myth does a good job at answering this question.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

About 10 years back I came across recommendations for an oddly-named book. It was a great read.

I never did start a business but if I had, I would have jumped from the sole do-everything person to a designer/manager/facilitator as soon as I could. One huge problem with a small business is success, which kills a lot of operations. How many 20-hour days can you work? What happens when you need to work 30-hour days and 9-day weeks to keep up?

From the PDF summary (below)...

> The E-Myth, or Entrepreneurial Myth, says that most new businesses are not started by entrepreneurs who set out to build a strong business but by technicians who enjoy the hands-on work themselves. Because of that natural bias, most business owners focus on working in their business when really they should be working on their business.

> A business that is built and managed by someone who combines the approach of the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur will have a far greater chance of future success than one guided by someone thinking like a technician alone.

References:

> [Michael Gerber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gerber_(non-fiction_writer) (Wikipedia)

> Michael E. Gerber Companies

> The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (Amazon)

> The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (Amazon)

> Summary of "E-MythRevised" (PDF)

Any advice I'd give is better presented in this essential book: E-myth

e-myth revisited

ITT: A lot of people who could do with a read of The E-Myth Revisited.

The 33 Strategies of War

--------------

The E-Myth

----------------

Mastery

-----------------

Crucial Conversations

---------------------

Great Business Teams

---------------------

Power vs. Force

--------------------

Barbarians to Bureaucrats

----------------------

How to Win Friends & Influence People

---------------

The Hypomanic Edge

-----------------

The Law of Success

The E-Myth Revisited
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Congratulations, your business is growing.

You need to systematize whatever it is you do. Stop blaming employees, start fixing what doesn't work.

Most small businesses don't work because their owner can't or won't share knowledge. Sit down, breathe and read this s .

Go read the book e-myth revisted RIGHT NOW.

It will answer all these questions, or more importantly. What you should do about all these questions. You'll quickly find that the skills need to run a welding shop are not at all related to the skills needed to do fabrication and repair jobs and most people suffer at the former.

1: Quote based on what makes sense for you, track the accuracy of the quotes and revisit to learn where you're over or under bidding. Don't race to the bottom, if you're this busy raise prices. Do it now.

2: Yes, you walk in or call them up and ask them if they have any work they are looking to sub out. Owning a successful business is a large portion of having good people and sales skills. Listen to them and find their pain points. Is it turn around time, quality of work, difficult jobs they can't/don't want to do (large pieces, small pieces, one-off, difficult alloys). Pick something you're good at and layout why it's better to go with you than to do it in house.

3: No clue, all my work was B2B or done through web portals. Probably doesn't hurt to spend a few hours on a nice clean website as it makes you look legit.

4. Common rule of thumb is that you shouldn't be extract more than 2-10% of net profit. That is highly dependent on way too many factors. As a data point my side business did about 150K a year in sales and I was extracting 5-15K in profit the rest was reinvested. Once you start getting big enough I highly suggest you get an SBA loan or similar for working capital so that you don't have cash flow issues.

5: Make sure your business insurance, liability, waivers and paperwork are in order. Get good legal and tax advice for your area so you don't have any surprises come tax time.

Have you read "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber?

It lays out the concept and process for setting up your business to run itself without you.

Come over to r/smallbusiness and read E-Myth Revisited.

E-Myth

There is actually a book about this subject with a howto-approach: The E-Myth

Ironically after 6 years I just changed careers. If you're thinking about photography think about small business first. It's like having 2 jobs. You can be successful as a crappy photographer with a great business ability but not the other way around.
relevant reading

read E-Myth Revisited - it's about a woman who bakes great pies, so she opens a bakery:

http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335464106&sr=8-1

I have to draw a lot of conclusions from your post, but I have to second therapy or talking to someone about your thoughts. It seems like you might be doing that already.

About your business, it sounds like you're so stressed out because you don't know how to deal with problems that arise or why they're happening in the first place. First thing is you need to learn how to blame the process, not the person. When someone makes a mistake, you need to figure out how your process has allowed them to make that mistake in the first place. I think if you had better tools to solve your business problems, your passion for the business might spark up again. Hiring an additional person as people are suggesting I don't think is the right move. You'll have to pay them a large salary to deal with the stress and then you'll be held hostage when they quit or ask for a huge raise. The real problem is the stress itself and that's what you have to focus on getting rid of in your business.

Read the book The E-Myth Revisited if you haven't already. I think that can relate to a lot of your struggles and will help you to hopefully work more on your business than in it.

Then I would try and read 2 Second Lean. I don't know what kind of business you have, while this book is geared towards manufacturing, it doesn't matter. Lean is all about making work struggle free and even fun. The concepts can be applied to any business and for me implementing the ideas has made my business fun for me and gave me a new found purpose within it.

I'm sure you can turn things around for yourself. It's impressive you've gotten as far as you have and you're bound to have bumps along the way. Just have to keep looking forward.

10x Rule 10x

The E-Myth Revisited E myth

48 Laws Of Power 48 Laws Of Power

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

The E-Myth Revisited
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dRTTDbDKHC1JV

If you have time for a read, this is a great one. Everything you said here is covered in some form or other.

Being a hobbyist game dev you can take your time and enjoy it as an art form. If you want to make money as an independent professional, then (whether you understand it or not) you have now started a small business and all of the rules of entrepreneurship now apply.


I tool around in my spare time because it makes me happy to animate things with code, and it's a break from the monotony of corporate dev. I have owned several small businesses in the past and can say from experience that the best way to make a small fortune in game dev is to start with large one, but that's how it is with all of the entertainment industry, a winner take all scenario.

Still worth the time sink because it's fun - just know what you are getting into :)

E Myth helped me a ton. It's a book by Michael Gerber. The E Myth site also used to have free resources on it, but I don't think it does anymore.

Otherwise Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine and SBA.gov are all good.

I've also learned a ton from iTunes University podcasts by Yale Entrepreneurial Institute.

Hi, Do check out brightpod for managing your projects. It's a new project management software and is really easy to use. We have been using it since 2 months now and really like how simple it is to use.

Two good book to read would be The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It and The E-Myth Manager: Why Management Doesn't Work - and What to Do About It

This has nothing to do with /r/atheism... your friend didn't get to market fast enough and didn't protect her trade secrets. Business is harsh, she better hurry up and buy a few books on marketing.

Beyond that, this book is very helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Watch the Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3755718939216161559#

Also be sure to read The Emyth

http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

So I have to be an entrepeneur? Finishing up The E-myth Revisited.

You need to read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

very interesting reply, i also work with my dad and brother. would you mind if i DM you and ask you some questions? hard to find places for relevant information on improving a company with such a specific family environment.

also, i read this book recently (fairly commonly read i believe), it talks about the three roles within a startup/small business. may be of interest to you if you have not seen it before. very easy read. some parts focus more on creating franchises IIRC, which is not relevant to our business, but an excellent read regardless.

What is your margin? I know you said that you will have a $10 markup, but what are your total expenses?

Besides quickbooks, intuit purchased the homestead website builder company and they offer websites for $5/month or web stores for $25/month which are directly linked to quickbooks to make things easy.

Remember that at this point it is not a business as much as it is self employment. Pickup a $1.50 copy of The E-myth Revisited and at least skim it.

Buy her some type of Scott Adam's book.

Help her look for other job opportunities and keep reminding her that she won't have to spend her entire life there. People can tolerate things better when they know it won't be forever.

The Dilbert Principle.

Gronk

Si ça se trouve y'a des versions pdf qui circulent...

Its really not hard. honestly, read scott adams books. yes he write the dilbert stripes, but his actual books this one and this one will change your cube life. trust me.

I recommend the book [Landlording: A Handymanual for Scrupulous Landlords and Landladies Who Do It Themselves] (https://www.amazon.com/Landlording-Handymanual-Scrupulous-Landladies-Themselves/dp/0932956378/) - it is pretty much the "bible" for making money from self-managed rental properties.

Good luck!

There are legal publishing companies in most states that provide legal forms (rental agreements/leases) that you can purchase. We get ours from a local book store that sells legal forms.

Follow your state laws to the letter, most landlord-tenant laws are skewed to the benefit of the tenant. That is not a bad thing.

Decide if you are going to manage the place yourself or hire property management. In our experience a property manager doesn't look out for your interests nearly as diligently as you will, so we self manage.

There are lots of books out there. One called Landlording is excellent.

I do a set of activities as discussed in Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby.

Mad, Sad, Glad is a really great activity to focus the team's thoughts and Gather data. However, if you can define a full set of activities to draw insights and then add Spikes/Enabler to your Backlog, it will really help the team. From the time I started doing these activities, the team performance improved dramatically and I have stuck with the template. If you are interested do read about it in an article about the template that I have written.

​

Pens and post its work.


This book gives you hundreds of actionable opportunities based on the audience: https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649

Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984521402

The Phoenix Project is a great book and has some really interesting (though a bit idealistic in my opinion) theories about organization and execution. That book really jump-started my Kanban efforts. I don't think I could recommend a single book to cover everything because my current efforts have grown organically over years of trial and error and I pulled from a lot of different places to accomplish it all.

As I mentioned, I use Kanban to manage workflow and a bit of Agile/Scrum concepts for meetings. Some good resources along those lines are...

http://www.agilesysadmin.net/kanban_sysadmin

http://blog.digite.com/kanban-in-it-operations/

http://www.amazon.com/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary-Technology-Business/dp/0984521402

You may also want to look more into retrospectives, where you look back on what happened and discuss what worked, what didn't, what you could do better, how the process can be improved, etc. But also pulling in Agile concepts of iterations so your retrospectives don't wait until the end of a 6 month project, instead you'd hold them more frequently so you can derive more value throughout the process and make frequent changes/adjustments.

Not specifically Wall Street, but here's a couple of books I would recommend:

• The Investor's Manifesto
  
  
• Personal MBA

Simplest recommendations: read this book and this book.

I think you'll have a better direction of what to do next to start making a living. I was in the same boat when I was unemployable after graduating with an engineering degree (a perceived rigorous major).

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594201536/downandoutint-20

this book is in the direction of what you are asking for, but isn't actually what you're asking for.

Sadly, I'm not sure how to find what you're looking for. Best of luck.

You could try this, too.

All this and more! Also, for books, check out Strengthfinder.

https://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X

Strength Finder might help. You seem to get Peterson's message. Pick something and work up its hierarchy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/159562015X/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_BsJNzbY3W8SM3

It's a book that has like 34 personality types. You have to pay to take it though I just took it as like a team building thing at work and it was really interesting.

This sounds really bogus, but have you ever taken the Strengths Finder test? It's really fascinating and interesting and can help pinpoint where your most innate (if not currently innate) interests are.

I have always liked biographies but never really noticed or knew why. The results from the test sort of explained why. Maybe this type of thing could really help you focus in on whatever you're going through? Maybe it turns out giving another genre (Raymond Carver's newer biography is fascinating!) would get you going?

Hope this helps in some way. I know the Strengths Finder test seems goofy and corporate-retreaty, but it's really very cool.

(In case anyone was curious, my results were, in order: Context, Input, Intellection, Empathy, Communication)

It really depends on your interests, but I like to read, write, analyze anything I can get my hands on. I've been alone for a long time, but I'm young. I decided I'd rather be preoccupied than lonely. Something that might help you figure it out could be this: https://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501706061&sr=8-1&keywords=strengthfinder I didn't trust this at first, but I've taken my results and try to apply them in all areas of my very personal situation.

In sales, here are my two favorite books:

Art Sobczak: Smart Callling

Little Red Book Of Selling

Art's book is wonderful for anyone that is doing B2B. While most of his techniques are described onto to selling into larger businesses, his techniques can be applied anywhere. Basically the premise is to find things through the internet, social "hacking", etc.., to turn any cold call into a friendly warm call.


Jeffrey Gitomer book is a good quick reminder on some of the basics.

And for Sales Leadership
People Follow You

Each of those books really affected my sales profession, and the way I lead.

Early adopters are . .. well, early adopters.

Read this: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-Marketing-High-Tech-Mainstream/dp/0060517123

or the cliff notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

I remember reading this one a long time ago. https://www.amazon.ca/Crossing-Chasm-Marketing-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0060517123

I am not sure how relevant it is today... Heck, it predates Windows NT.

Thanks for sharing the link BirdHerder, you don't understand how much I appreciate you taking the time to write & share your opinion. I absolutely agree with you on the challenge of objective rating on such a subjective concept but we're hoping that society & group adoption would help establish the average norm as I'd imagine it would vary for each community.
Are you able to share with me some of those communities or applications that you feed would find a system like this beneficial? I've been reading the book crossing the chasm & the author keeps mentioning focus on market segments like you have mentioned but my background is biased towards in corruption in developing nations. I would love to know where you see such a system play a beneficial role...

So many tailwinds for the company now (new urban superchargers, integration of powerwall & solar roof tiles, launch of model 3, etc.). Will we see entire blocks of Teslas parked on the street and in parking garages in the near future? I believe we are close to the tipping point identified in Crossing the Chasm!

If your business is technology related then please give your investor this book and make him read it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060517123

Short term revenue is a bad metric if your aim is to grow a technology. On the other hand it's much better to argue about leaving some revenue on the table than about burn rates of a never-to-be-profitable company.

Correct for some companies. Especially, now that the internet has really helped us define affinity groups or tribes. Check out Seth Godin if you like discussing that.

The economy has scared a lot of companies into consolidating their products to target the acceptance of the mass bell-curve. This is the safe route; they don't want to wait for the adoption curve to pick up.

Here's the other kick: Some companies are too big to take small wins. A company has to show good returns on their stock every quarter. A small company can turn a profit from niche; however, a larger company has too much infrastructure to support for anything other than large wins and huge margins (to turn the same percent growth).

Suggest reading the Innovator's Dilemma if this is interesting to you.

The Innovator's Dilemma

Definitely ambitious, I’m sure there’s a market and winning formula in there somewhere. Like I say, much more of a business challenge than an engineering one though.

Subsequently, if you want to advance your idea then gaining business knowledge will be your best friend moving forward. I’ve read the below book and found it to be insightful into the world of business, maybe it can be of some use to yourself. At least it will give you a starting point so you know where you will need to go.

https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Day-MBA-4th-Step-Step/dp/0062199579

If you're looking for books written for the general public, I usually tell my friends who are considering graduate business school to read The Ten Day MBA to get an extremely general overview of the basic topics covered in an MBA program. It has flaws (the accounting and finance sections are particularly weak), but it's not bad from a 30,000 foot perspective.

Depending on your interests, others I'd recommend are: Getting to Yes, an outstanding book about negotiation; Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, a classic on marketing / organizational strategy; and Good Boss, Bad Boss for general management / HR. As another commenter mentioned, The Goal is also pretty good, but be aware that it's considered somewhat outdated by modern operations profs (especially the last 1/3rd).

>Do an MBA and switch

I got you fam https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062199579/

I'd start with either the Complete MBA For Dummies or The Complete Idiot's Guide to MBA Basics, 3rd Edition then advance to The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business or The Ten-Day MBA 4th Ed..

The 10-Day MBA

One book to rule them all.

Read Crossing the Chasm.

This looks good. Is it by Geoffery A Moore?

Hi guys!

It's me Zoran (zoka) from Fragrantica. Well as you know with 11 million visits globally on 17 Fragrantica language websites understand that fragrance enthusiasts get a lot of input from community. Mainly they would love us to stock all discontinued, rare and hard to find fragrances, allow easy sampling of fragrances and many want us to run retail business and be 'the cheapest of all'.

As you can see people want 'impossible things'. Most of discontinued fragrances do not exist and because of changes in regulations are not eve allowed to sell legally. Rare-hard-to-find fragrances are another bone not so easy to crack basically it is expensive and most of brand owners would not love to see their fragrances decanted so you could expect bunch of trademark violation lawsuits for selling your vial with their trademark name.

And lastly let's say what about service for "common fragrances" like mainstream and niche. If you plan to do what Scentbird did... buy some higher volume of atomizers from Alibaba or some direct deal from China (aka Silicon Valley for production) and let's be clear quality of merchandise can be high no negative illusions there and Scentbird stuff is very good quality. I am subscriber myself mostly to test and experience the service. OK let's say you do not have to spend 5-7 USD on good atomizer you got it in volume for less then US $2. Still you have shipping cost of something like US $5. It alone gets you to $7 plus fragrance plus filling etc.

How to calculate filling for 30,000 subscribers list. First they need warehouse to store boxes with vials for each fragrance they stock. Somebody has to do it manually at first because each subscriber has different preference even if you streamline it it is a lot of labor. Once I had to put 500 winners vials on cards into bubbly mailer, close it, stick shipping labels and we had about 4-5 hours of labor that is extremely boring. In nutshell if you are not going to automate it and do not plan to use prisoners or illegal immigrants to do your filling (This is irony of course but unfortunately many companies do use it) and if you have to comply to all state regulations like dangerous goods warehousing, insurance, etc you are in deep trouble and not much profit is left out of your $15 subscription.

There are some good things many people do not customize their orders but simply get 'fragrance of the month' so they can use that as a marketing channel where brands would give them fragrance for free and even pay to be in that spot and get their samples out quickly and get people talk about them. There is less risk of lawsuits regarding trademark violations if brands want to be there and for that they need volume to dictate rules of the game.

I see Scentbird now as is more like Napster and they have long way but they are moving to become Spotify of fragrance. Yes they are facing competition and their subscription service does not make much money but bottom line is how subscribers are happy how fast they can grow and how long people stay on their list. They have fair shot we will see are they going to make it.

If somebody thinks that they can compete starting from their living room or bathroom with few hundreds of vials that makes little hobby that makes few thousands just because they do not count their labor as expense and they would be much better off renting that room on airbnb then filling it with boxes... but people do not have perspective. They think it is business and they have no capacity to double it and they do not even have idea how it would look like if they would have to fulfill 100,000 orders or 1M of orders.

Every here or there I get email from somebody who offers 'perfume sampling service white-lable for Fragrantica'. They say something like this... you just need to put sample this fragrance button and payment sales funnel and we will send samples to customers you pay us once per month in batch etc. Sounds good? Yes but when I was doing diligence it was exactly what I described above. Somebody's wife/sister/brother/kids is splitting/decanting making vials and selling them on our forum and now they want to take business to the next level.

Well for all of them I would recommend reading the book http://amzn.to/1V1NE3t Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Collins Business Essentials)

BiggerPockets.com is a decent place to start, they put together a free eBook for beginners here: http://www.biggerpockets.com/real-estate-investing

Books are great, so here are some:

The Richest Man in Babylon okay, you're probably saying, "But TIGit, that's not a book on real estate!" It's a book on investing, and I consider it a must read. This is the book that started me off in life, I was gifted a copy by my grandmother when I was 16. Read it.

What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow and 36 Other Key Financial Measures this one is one of the best books on real estate. Real estate is a numbers game, there's a lot of emotion with all the negotiation and finding motivated sellers, but you need to keep the numbers in mind first*. If a property doesn't have a profitable enough margin you need to know to walk away. And to know "the numbers" this is the book.

How to Manage Residential Property for Maximum Cash Flow and Resale Value this one is for if you plan on building wealth through owning property and landlording. If you just want to be a wholesaler, buy a cheap personal home, or flip, this isn't the book for that. But it's important to keep in mind because the other REIs you compete with have this in their heads, and you should too.

Real Estate Finance and Investment Manual I don't like "fluff" books. Those quasi-motivational garbage real estate books are so common, but this isn't one of them. Stay away from those "Rich Dad Poor Dad" crap, those are just feel good word vomit. It reads more like a textbook, but it's good. None of that "Find the leader in yourself!" bullshit.

The 4-Hour Workweek this one also isn't a real estate book, but a must read. Ferris is a salt-and-burn serial business man, so bear in mind that he as a person is sort of shitty. I don't advocate taking advantage of people. But this book opened my eyes on how much of business is done. Exporting labor for cheap, using automation to save time and costs, selling products, setting up a business, and marketing. It's all there. And he's right. Tim Ferris is probably a sociopath, but he's dead on in how to succeed in business.

archonemis: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

What you're dealing with:

>Without Conscience - Dr. Hare

>On Bullshit - H. Frankfurt

Their methods:

>48 Laws of Power - R. Greene

>The Art of War - the Sam B. Griffin translation is the best

My businesses are not online. They make things!

I decided to work on them once I managed to get a bunch of angel investors interested on the first. That was the matter of getting a decent idea and putting a bunch of talent behind it.

I've got partners, yes. My partners bring skills I don't have, and expertise in domains I don't have. That isn't to say I know nothing, but they know a lot more.

A great book is 'The Founders' Dilemmas.' It goes through many of the problems you might face in starting your own business.

There are probably a lot of ways to answer this question, but here are some insights based on a combination of research and lived experience in a similar scenario.

First off, it's great you're at least thinking about this early. Plenty of people put it off in fear of conflict, due to naivete, or because they're too focused on other issues (which may or may not deserve priority). Having this conversation early is important since the longer you work the more expectations can be built around share size and the harder it is to negotiate a solution everyone is happy with.

Second, be wary of an even split. This might make sense if you both feel that you're both bringing an equal amount to the table, but you should both be sure of this. How you evaluate this is a personal choice. There are plenty of equity calculators out there (Foundrs.com has one that I've found pretty reasonable in some instances). A lot of this depends on how vital both of you feel your skills (and hard work) are to the success of the project. You may also get good feedback from others in this subreddit that have had to do splits in a scenario more similar to yours which may work just as well.

Another topic to think about is vesting. It may be unwise to pay out the shares immediately. Vesting helps make sure people stick around and that if they do leave early it's not as messy to buy back their shares so you can use that equity to bring in another person (if you still want to go forward). You can also tie vesting to things like milestones if you like.

Probably most important is that you split shares in a way both of you are comfortable with. Lots of people will say they're okay with a breakdown of shares to avoid having a hard conversation about money, but this can easily become a problem later on when someone feels unfairly compensated for their efforts. This can kill a company, no matter how awkward it may feel having a conversation (especially with a friend) about how much each of you are 'worth', it needs to happen to protect the future of what you're building together.

If you have time, I'd seriously recommend taking a look at the equity splitting portion of the book The Founder's Dilemmas.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to the both of you!

I would be aware of the data used in this article. There is a "survivor bias" people aren't usually aware of - we only analyze success cases and not failures, and draw conclusions from them.

You can analyze 10 out of 20 successful startups and realize many have solo founders... but you might not be including the 150 out of 200 that had solo founders and also failed.

Professor Noah Wasserman released an excellent book called The Founder's Dilemmas (https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304) where he presents research not very encouraging to startup founders. And his research included 1000 startups, if I'm not mistaken.

There's a great book written about this very topic

https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484838190&sr=8-1&keywords=unwritten+rules+of+engineering

An oldie but a goodie.

Excerpted/summarised from Unwritten Laws of Engineering (worth a read in any case - it's good stuff). Mostly obvious, but enough managers screw some or all of these up that it's always worth reposting...

Pick your favourite 5.

For Engineering Supervisors

• Every executive must know what's going on in his bailiwick.
  
• Do not try to do it all yourself.
  
• Put first things first, in applying yourself to your job.
  
• Cultivate the habit of boiling matters down to their simplest terms.
  
• Do not get excited in engineering emergencies keep your feet on the ground.
  
• Engineering meetings should not be too large or too small.
  
• Cultivate the habit of making brisk, clean-cut decisions.
  
• Do not overlook the value of suitable preparation before announcing a major decision or policy.
  
• Plan your work, then work your plan.
  
• Be careful to freeze a new design when the development has progressed far enough.
  Constantly review developments and other activities to make certain that actual benefits are commensurate with costs in money, time and manpower.
  
• Make it a rule to require, and submit, regular periodic progress reports, as well as final reports on completed projects.
  
• Do not have too many people reporting directly to one person.
  
• Assign definite responsibilities.
  
• If you haven't enough legal authority assume as much as you need.
  
• Do not create bottlenecks.
  
  What Every Supervisor Owes His Workers
  
  
• Promote the personal and professional interests of your people on all occasions.
  
• Do not hang onto a person too selfishly when he is offered a better opportunity elsewhere.
  
• Do not short-circuit or override someone if you can possibly avoid it.
  
• You owe it to your workers to keep them properly informed.
  
• Do not criticize one of your people in front of others, especially his/her own subordinates.
  
• Show an interest in what your people are doing.
  
• Never miss a chance to commend or reward a person for a job well done.
  
• Always accept full responsibility for your group and the individuals in it.
  
• Do all that you can to see that each of your people gets all of the salary that he/she is entitled to.
  
• Include interested individuals in introductions, luncheons, etc., when entertaining visitors.
  
• Do all that you can to protect the personal interests of your people and their families, especially
  when they are in trouble.

The Unwritten Laws of Engineering https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0791801624/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_HjgvybVGQCMBJ

Skunkworks is great. Super good insight into the growth of a career and how an engineer thinks.


https://www.amazon.com/Unwritten-Laws-Engineering-Revised-Updated/dp/0791801624/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=3VPKBNEXYOHHK&keywords=unwritten+rules+of+engineering&qid=1555021569&s=gateway&sprefix=unwritten+r&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Here's this book. I hear it's good. Haven't read it myself

You should read The Black Swan. An enlightening take on that and other things.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1483829158&sr=8-2&keywords=black+swan

The Black Swan sorry, no not the Natalie Portman movie

The Red Queen

Bonk

www.investopedia.com for looking up financial terms.

www.bloomberg.com for financial news.

Warren Buffet talk on youtube

Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters

Books-

The warren buffet way will help you analyse companies.

The intelligent investor the book on value investing.

Common stocks and uncommon profits the book on picking growth stocks.

The black swan useful insight into options trading.

Anything and everything by Michael Lewis, he writes so well, his books will give you insight into how the finance industry actually works and they're entertaining; Liars Poker chronicles how the Mortgage Backed Security was created and is a good start.

When you're done with all that, let me know and I'll send more your way! Studying for the CFA helps too as recommended by the other guy posting here but you by no means need a finance/business major.

You'd be happier not watching the news. I haven't watched it in years. I scan the headlines online and read what is relevant or interesting.

Nassim Taleb makes a case for not watching the news in the great book The Black Swan. It just makes you unhappy, and it doesn't add depth to our understanding of "what's going on." Mostly it's just human interest stories. They're tragic, and they make the world seem scarier, but that doesn't add any understanding of anything.

Submission Statement: Universality fairly easily leads to the conclusion that humans anywhere out of the left tail are fundamentally the same, mentally speaking.

>In computation, universality simply means a process that can simulate all processes — including itself. By simulation, we mean copying the behavior of a process to as much fidelity as we would like. At some point, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, we stop, and consider it a duck for all practical purposes. (There, I wrapped the Turing test for artificial general intelligence in a nutshell for you.) Replace “processes” with “machines,” and you roughly see how computers work: a universal machine is a machine that can simulate all machines, including itself. You can think of a machine simply as a process that transforms an input to an output following a fixed set of rules.
>
>...
>
>Think about it: if the human species depended on exceptional geniuses who nevertheless could never communicate their exceptional thoughts to another human being, then either they are intellectual con-artists (like postmodernist “philosophers”), or we would have been doomed a long time ago. Although a few critical individuals clearly hit upon the right ideas at the right place at the right time, many other individuals need to be able to independently verify and improve upon these ideas. The real intelligence lies in human cooperation. There is no such thing as an exponentially smarter human being for the same reason as there is no such thing as an exponentially taller human being. A genius who cannot communicate his thoughts to another human is, in fact, not a genius!
>
>...
>
>As an individual, what matters much, much more than your alleged IQ is what you do with your precious, limited time on Earth. Remember, universality says that we are all capable of exactly the same ideas. That is why even differences in human languages don’t really matter. (Whether or not the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, we get for free the result that it is ultimately irrelevant.) Remember, the insidious thing about IQ — as Nassim astutely observed with his owl eye— is that there are people who fancy “their” people genetically smarter than yours, and only want to “help” you. (They are often the same people who like to mistakenly think that the “West” discovered all civilization, and that the “West” is Nordic / North Atlantic / North Europe.) At best, they are overeducated idiots; at worst, they are racialists. No matter what anyone tells you, you can learn about anything you like. Go out, and find out what you are good at, what Nature put you here to discover, and teach the rest of us.
>
>So, who should care about IQ? Nobody! Why? Because we are universal!

> Normal Distribution

For what it's worth, research has shown that prices aren't normally distributed and the assumption that they are is argued to have caused an underestimation of risk that triggered the '08 financial crisis (among other market crashes). The Black Swan and the Misbehavior of Markets both discuss this for general audiences. The author of the second book, Benoit Mandelbrot, began to uncover these mistaken assumptions while researching the applications of fractal geometry to finance.

>read the most recommended book by financiers, OR the most recommended book by economists

Citation needed?

I've looked through several lists- and haven't found one that supports this claim. I found this recommendation, but it's rather shaky.

Based on the top review for your Black Swan on Amazon, your stance doesn't quite make sense in context of what the book is suggesting.

I'll quote it:

>One reaction to Taleb's arguments about how little we can ultimately know and on what shaky ground our beliefs lie is to stand, like a deer in the headlights, waiting for better information. Taleb argues that this is a mistake. It might be a bit better to proceed, looking for evidence that would prove one's course of action wrong, then modify one's model of reality and repeat the process. Doing this has the advantage that one can learn quite quickly about how any problem is bounded, and get some sense for the shape of the space inside. He quotes Warren Buffet: it is a great deal better to be approximately right than it is to be precisely wrong. And when choosing among things to believe, he advises us to rank beliefs not by their implausibility but by the harm they might cause. Although there are robust methods that draw on both judgments, this is generally very sound advice.

Sounds like your guy agrees with me, oddly enough. Maybe you've gotta make the wrong decision and course-correct to the right one- not do nothing or turn in reverse.

----

> it's doubtful that you read anything longer than 2 pages

I stay up-to-date on current events and politics. I read news articles and think pieces. I listen to a lot of podcasts about a lot of varied topics. I listen to literature via audiobook.

No, I don't make a habit of reading long discussions from just one guy's point of view. Heck, I've had the audiobook for Man with a Thousand Faces on my iPhone for about six months, and still haven't quite made it through, and that's a book I'm very interested in.

Never-mind something I'm not, that's supposedly going to tell me that we should lie on our backs and wait for the world's environments to collapse before we put anymore environmenal regulations in place. You know- just to make sure nothing too surprising happens.

1. The Power of Habit- explains the science behind habits, the human brain and the "keystone" habits that can change your life.
   
   
2. The Black Swan- will have you rethink your perception of reality and whether your choices are hardwired.
   
   
3. Willpower Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength
   
   
4. Brain Rules by John Medina written by a neauroscientist, awesome book read one chapter at a time.

It's not just Zero Hedge that expects the dollar to fall.

Rick Falkvinge: http://falkvinge.net/2011/06/17/the-imminent-dollar-collaps-explained-to-an-8-year-old/

Nassim Taleb: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-02-04/news/28430704_1_treasuries-bond-buying-program-bonds-next-week

Max Keiser: http://rt.com/op-edge/keiser-international-confidence-crumbling-snowden-182/#.UcloP9kuGEs.twitter

These are just a couple of links which I found within two minutes, kind of from the top of my head. I could find a lot more of them if I'd take the time, but I kind of feel like you're not reading any of them anyways - since apparently I'm just 'attributing poverty to a scapegoat'.

Like, seriously, if you're still convinced that the financial cartel is ran by a bunch of nice people who mean the best for the world - I don't know what to say. That honestly, truly, seems like some weird form of the Stockholm complex to me - but I believe I have said that already.

You have read about the Libor schandal, right? You must be aware of the '08 bail-outs - based on fraudulent financial products? And the fact that nobody has gone to jail over that? Like, surely you are familiar with the whole to-big-to-fail and to-big-for-jail concept... You know what, I'm just gonna copy/paste the urls I linked to before, 'cause I really don't know what else to say.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/joris-luyendijk-banking-blog/2013/jun/20/bankers-predators-proto-fascist-ideology

http://www.economist.com/node/21558281

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2174785/HSBC-scandal-Britains-biggest-bank-let-drug-gangs-launder-millions--faces-640million-fine.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-federal-reserve/10489

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/12/bigger-than-barclays-global-regulation

If none of these things - or any other of the many many scandals coming to light almost on a weekly basis now (like this one that surfaced yesterday) are enough to convince you that this isn't all fine and dandy or even incompetence, nothing will.

At some point, you will have to recognize all of this for what it really is: an inherently corrupt system.

I'm not just 'looking for a scapegoat'. In fact, I find that remark kind of insulting - it's obvious you're not taking anything I say seriously - or anything any of the sources I supply for that matter.

I am most certainly not getting lost in some 'echo-chamber'. Yes, I use the internet a lot - obviously. But if the Guardian, der Spiegel, the Economist are all part of some 'echo-chamber'... I... like... whatever.

Besides that, I actually read books on the issue. Currency wars and The Black Swan are very good - I think.

>you're trying to attribute poverty to a scapegoat. It's counterproductive, because the evidence does not support that hypothesis

Yeah, except for all of the evidence that I am supplying.

Sorry, this is kind of turning into a rant by now. Maybe we should just agree to disagree.

If you can't think of any reason, you haven't been looking at all. Impossible and improbable are not the same thing.

Some recommended reading.

Sounds familiar... are you referring to The Black Swan?

Here's a good book that has nothing to do with waterfowl but shares a name.

Agreed. A good follow-up to the Zimbardo book (a great read, btw!).

The Black Swan is also a good read in this vein: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X.

"A couple dozen school shootings". You don't feel weird typing that?

Also how many of those under 14 died en route to school? Regardless, it's an issue and why school zones are implemented. and why parent-teacher associations and school districts try to hire more people to help kids cross safely near the school. Your entire argument makes no sense to me. Why have fire drills? How many schools burn down a year so whats the point, right? Not all unlikely things are given the same weight. In the case of preventable, violent murder of children, I think we can practice a bit to make sure less of them die? Don't you?

You should read the book 'Black Swan'. Here's the amazon link. Just read the little one paragraph blurb and you'll see how it's relevant to this.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about a similar pattern in finance. I've read Black Swan and most of Skin in the Game- it's good stuff!

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X

The universe is not deterministic - it is chock full of randomness at the quantum level and of chaos at the macro level.

Also there is no such thing as cause and effect - at least in the singular. At any given moment there are a virtually infinite number of causes that give rise to a virtually infinite number of effects. Here is an example from mathematician Michael Berry, quoted in The Black Swan by Nassim Talleb, of a ball bouncing round a billiard table using only Newtonian mechanics:

> If you know a set of basic parameters concerning the ball at rest, can compute the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. The second impact becomes more complicated, but possible; you need to be more careful about your knowledge of the initial states, and more precision is called for. The problem is that to correctly compute the ninth impact, you need to take into account the gravitational pull of someone standing next to the table (modestly, Berry’s computations use a weight of less than 150 pounds). And to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single elementary particle of the universe needs to be present in your assumptions! An electron at the edge of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome. Now, consider the additional burden of having to incorporate predictions about where these variables will be in the future. Forecasting the motion of a billiard ball on a pool table requires knowledge of the dynamics of the entire universe, down to every single atom! We can easily predict the movements of large objects like planets (though not too far into the future), but the smaller entities can be difficult to figure out—and there are so many more of them.

Once you throw quantum effects into the mix then it is clear that the universe is not predictable even theoretically.

Look at it another way - if the universe was truly deterministic then everything that has happened in the last 13.7 Billion years was determined in the instant that the universe was created. Every birth, every death, every thought that everyone ever had was inevitable. The only way that could happen is if it was all planned out by some vast intelligence outside the universe - i.e. a god (but a deist one, since it could never interfere in what it had created). Atheism must of necessity reject the notion of determinism. It is only through the presence of randomness that we can exist - it is the driving force behind evolution and even the existence of stars and planets since if there were not random fluctuations in spacetime during the birth of the universe then matter and energy would be evenly spread out and the universe would be completely uninteresting.

It's so good that your statistics override your common decency.

It's probably not cost effective to invest in addressing minority rights as well, because they are a minority... It's better to only care about people in the mainstream because that's where the bulk of public opinion lies. Right? Outliers are outliers - they don't have any human rights. The Black Swan

I agree with the Manual for Creating Atheists book. That is an excellent one. My shelf broke in one semester many years ago when I took my first statistics class. Literally in a flash I realized that anecdotes are NOT data. Mormons are fine but they aren't healthier, happier, less cancer ridden, less criminal, etc. than other similar demographics.

You may also find The Black Swan by Nasim Taleb an excellent book and I highly recommend it. I hand that one out like candy and it works very well at getting people to think about what they "think they know" in a different light. Its great to use books like that because they have nothing to do with religion but they really do open eyes.

Black Swan

The better question to ask is why do you need this in the first place? If you were playing good and running good your mental game would be fine. The only thing that affecting poker player results are playing bad or running bad. Playing bad can be fixed by analyzing hands, reading good poker books and training. The effects of running bad can be lessened by understanding probability and randomness better. Running bad shouldn't really be an issue if you are bank rolled properly because if it is, then you are playing bad.

Most poker players that I know that are always frustrated or constantly tilting are almost always playing at stakes their bankroll doesn't support.
If you are using the 100 times big blind and 25 buyins recommendation, you shouldn't really have a mental game issue because you should be able to absorb the variance.

Mental Game Books

• The Mental Game of Poker
  
  
• The Poker Mindset
  
  More understanding about probability, randomness and focusing on the present can be helpful. If you understand those more it should help your mental game. I would recommend these books and at least understand their central points:
  
  
• The Power of Now - relates to poker because the hand you are playing now is the only hand you should worry about. There is no last hand. Each hand is a clean slate. Focus on the present hand.
  
  
• The Drunkard's Walk - relates to poker because whether you double up and lost two buy-ins could just be randomness.
  
  
• The 80 / 20 Principle - relates to poker because 80% of your wins or losses will most likely come from 20% of hands played. Thus making hand selection important.
  
  
• The Black Swan - one "black swan" situation could triple you up or make you lose your whole stack. Typically this means knowing when to fold big hands like AA or KK.
  
  
• Fooled By Randomness - relates to poker because you could win the main event and millions of dollars and still not be a good poker player. The poker gods and luck could have just wanted to hang out with you for a week.
  
  
  
  
  

Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Just to fill out the list by throwing in some right / conservative ones:

1. Black Swan
   
2. Freakonomics
   
   And as an absolute must, you should read this:
   
3. Ascent of Money: this one is very, very conservative and gives you a good perspective on how financiers really view history.
   
   Also, you'd understand these books more if you had a good foundation in economics and finance.

Someone is always going to argue against the common wisdom and be right. They are not geniuses, just lucky.

This Book should be required reading for anyone who relies on the opinion of "experts".

> Who?

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X

> And yes. But that's just because that we can apply the Central Limit Theorem and assume the profits each day is normally distributed

> the central limit theorem (CLT) states that, given certain conditions, the arithmetic mean of a sufficiently large number of iterates of independent random variables, each with a well-defined expected value and well-defined variance, will be approximately normally distributed, regardless of the underlying distribution.

it's just a hunch, but models based on stuff like that might be the reason why the financial system is blowing up. When I read stuff like "independent random variables", the ludic fallacy (also from that book) comes to mind.

I can really recommend the book I linked above. Probably a good idea to write that thesis first, though ;)

> What do we mean by "complex systems"? As in complex-systems theory?

Yes, complex systems theory (the study of ecosystems, economies, chaotic systems, etc).

> Got a book you can recommend?

If you read one book by him, read Antifragile. The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness are also good.

> You can suggest it in an open thread.

On /r/slatestarcodex or on the actual Slate Star Codex website?

> You can just tag him and see if he responds.

I tried this last time, but he didn't reply. Here it goes again: /u/EliezerYudkowsky

My favorite Black Swan

I recommend you read this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/

The author of that book, a hedge-fund trader whose expertise is in calculating risk, says the chances of Trump winning are about 50% (in the video):

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/03/black-swan-author-nassim-taleb-you-dont-have-to-worry-about-a-trump-presidency.html

Sam Wang's model is an absolute joke.

Read, The Black Swan, because people flying airplanes into buildings is a problem that rarely happens...

There are several good books.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439164991/ <- the best. also

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812975219/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/081297381X/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0273731963/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375758259/

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470393750/

> Darwin Devolves (Behe) is currently the #1 best seller in developmental biology on Amazon and goes into detail on why random mutation and natural selection cannot account for the modern creation myth of "single cell to man"

Yeah...it's not.

As of right now, the #1 seller is The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" (Incerto). Which just sounds...really boring...

The Kindle version is beat by this book about bees.

And I don't think a freebie should ever be considered a best seller.

This is the classic E-myth story: http://www.amazon.ca/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

Hey mate, i just read the first 2 paragraphs and I instantly recommend you read the book "The E - Myth Revisited" http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280

Im in the process of drawing up a business plan for a food service vehicle dishing up fruit and juice to customers along busy beaches. I have no business experience although this book has given me a lot of confidence to move forward. I hope this helps.

YOU ARE NOT AN ENTREPRENEUR.

Please, Read the E-Myth:

http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251200958&sr=8-1

The FDA's intransigence in the face of new medicines is well known and best describe in Tabarrok's book Launching the Innovation Renaissance. We need a more nimble and adaptive FDA in order to bring more medications to market and reduce the burden imposed by disease.

On olemassa paljon erilaisia malleja. Itse pidan eniten persoonallisuustyyppien/psykometrian kaytosta. Talloin asiaa lahestytaan, joko kuvaamalla minkalaisia persoonallisuuden ominaisuuksia tietty tehtava vaatii; tai minkalaista persoonaa tyonantaja odottaa; tai minkalainen persoona sopisi parhaiten olemassa olevaan ryhmaan. Toki jotkin ihmiset pitavat psykometrian kayttoa taytena humpuukkina tai eettisesti arveluttavana, mutta itse naen silla olevan vahvat perusteet. Oma mielipiteeni on, etta jos tyonantajan MUTU ja kaytettava malli sanovat hakijan olevan paras: palkkaa. Jos yrittaja ja malli ovat ristiriidassa toistensa kanssa, palaa takaisin piirrustuspoydan aareen - jotain on pielessa siina mita haet.

Jos et usko persoonallisuusmalleihin, mutta et pelkaa kokeilla uutta, niin hyva ja halpa tapa on tehda Strengts Finder 2.0 persoonallisuustesti. Gallupin tutkija tutki persoonallisuuksia ja abstraktoi eri piirteet 34 teemaan. Testi kertoo mitka ihmisen 5 teemaa ovat hanen vahvimpansa. Yleensa kukaan ei juuri yllaty siita mita tulokset ovat, mutta ihmisen loytaessa oikeat sanat, han voi helpommin kommunikoida omat vahvuutensa ja myos peilata tyotarjouksia niita vasten. Itse olen kaynyt tyotarjoukset hyvin pitkalle tata tyokalua vasten ja hylannyt kaikki tyotehtavat, joissa en ole voinut hyodyntaa suurinta osaa vahvuuksistani.

Ihan esimerkin vuoksi, jotta saat makua mita tulokset ovat niin tassa omat vahvuuteni...

• Strategic... People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
  
• Learner... People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.
  
• Positivity... People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.
  
• Achiever... People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.
  
• Ideation... People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
  
  Kun katson omaa tyouraa ja kaikkea mita olen tehnyt, niin parhaimmat tulokset ovat tulleet T&K:n puolelta ja selviytymisesta vaikeista tilanteista. Huonoimmat hetket taas on koettu tukitehtavissa ja jamahteneissa organisaatioissa. Itse esimerkiksi olen hyva aloittamaan ja viemaan eteenpain uutta tai perkaamaan taydellista sotkua, mutta asioiden tasaantuessa ja helpottuessa minut kannattaa vaihtaa toiseen henkiloon.

I would recommend Strengths Finder, it helps you figure out your personality strengths and how you can use them.


https://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X

Use the money you made trading to educate yourself about how the big scheme of things works: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X

There are so many flaws in your logic it's staggering, I feel like I read something by a kid who, after taking one class in a business school, thinks he knows how markets work.