Sexy, simple calendars for your biz planning needs

Productivity — 5 comments

Thomas and I are trying to get our shit together. Which is to say, we’re dreadfully disorganized, suck at habits, and routine, and not only is it making us irritating but it’s starting to affect our business.

Bummer.

Traditionally people like us (and, okay, us) try to patch this problem with software. But you can’t solve a social problem with software, and the same goes for personal problems.

Ever tried software deodorant? Yeahhhh, like that.

Paper, it’s the coming thing in planningville.

Entré these awesome planners by Charlie Gilkey. These (and Charlie’s coaching) have been a great help.

But they don’t include a calendar. And I desperately wanted a calendar. A clean, sexy, minimalist calendar without all the chart junk.

A calendar I could use to play Don’t Break the Chain and other fun things.

So I made one.

And now I’m sharing it with you.

Download my sexy clean calendar

May – December 2012, PDF, with blanks for writing new months.

Pages template – Monthly, work week only.

Pages template – Monthly, 7 days.

Fonts used: Archer (good free alternate would be Copse) and Governor.

Productivity Trick for Creating New Months

I figured out how to create new months in a really efficient way. Check it out:

Let’s get better together

I’m going to keep working on this stuff… in public. Just as I bared my soul about why I can’t remember to brush my teeth but I can run a business.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m no Planning Polly. I’m a creative, chaotic spaz, who’s always told herself that she works better under pressure (and does her best work at the last minute).

Which should make for fun reading. (Or embarrassing reading. Whichever.)

My theory goes, though… if it works for me, maybe it’ll work for you, too. Especially if you’d also self-describe as creative & chaotic, if you feel like you rely on deadline bombs to get anything done, if you think you need to live & work in a pressure cooker to achieve anything.

Want to join me? Follow me on Twitter or get my blog posts by email so you won’t miss a thing.

The 5-part 30×500 Taste Test

The Product Revolution is Coming!

Hey there, sexy.

As you probably know, I’ve got a launch on right now for the 4th round of my 30×500 Launch Class — aka, the coolest, most bullshit-free, most hilarious, most systematic way ever to start & launch your first product.

You also probably know that I’m not just into all this *waves hand at entrepreneurship stuff* for the money. I’m on a mission.

So, when I think about how I should market 30×500, I ask myself:

How can I market and reach my ideal audience, while also furthering my mission in general? How can I market in such a way that even just my marketing will help smart, creative people learn how to create products? How can I use my marketing alone to help folks break free from being used to create wealth for the people with money — bosses, clients — and use those crazy skills to create wealth for themselves?

The answer is obvious:

Give some of the awesomeness away. Give it to the world — for free.

Which, I’m gonna be honest with you, is fucking scary. On several levels.

But I didn’t go through everything I’ve gone through to create my business, and my life, just to shy away from doing something good just because it’s scary. If I lived every day just to maximize every penny, I would be a miserable, miserable girl. Luckily, in my experience, doing what I love (helping people!) with a mindset of “I can afford to give” makes everything better.

Now, there’s so much of 30×500 that I can’t give away. 30×500 is an intense project.

I spend a huge amount of time each class helping you, my student, personally with your product concepts — and the pitches you’ll use to sell ‘em. (And occasionally dispensing a corrective kick in the pants.)

That level of personal attention simply doesn’t scale beyond the folks actually in my class.

But what I can do is give away a few lessons. In the hopes that you’ll find them useful even without the structure of a regularly scheduled class, group chats, and lively mailing list.

So here they are! Free stuff abounds.

Your Tasting Menu: 5 lessons, 1 video

First, start with what the Austrians call “a greeting from the kitchen” — a little pre-appetizer appetizer. Then the appetizers. Followed by the first main course, second main course, and dessert.

Taste away:

Setting the Stage: the first 3 lessons from 30×500 (a manifesto, if you will)
Worldviews Rule, Niches Drool: why marketing is sooo much more than niches, and a workbook that’ll help you bake that understanding into every aspect of your future product (words, colors, design, features)
Pain Killers: an intense workbook to help you identify rich opportunities to “mine the pain” — to figure out where your customer hurts, and how to help him
Stacking the Bricks: can ruthless pragmatism rev you up? this video will prove it to you — the premise is that 8 years ago, 37signals had no products, & now they have millions in revenue (a month!). This video’s about the path they took, and how you can apply that to your path.

Yummm.

One Last Word: Before You Dive In…

Don’t just right-click this stuff and let it rot in your Downloads folder.

Oh yeah. I know you do that. I do that too. Get all excited for the smorgasbord of delicious content. So excited you gorge on it like a hyperactive hummingbird, jumping around from PDF to PDF without ever settling down long enough to absorb & use it.

That’s a huge part of why, when you take 30×500, the lessons are metered — they come out on a schedule, and there are deadlines for homework, and regular group discussions.

But seriously. Don’t waste this stuff.

Download it, and take the time to carefully read it. Ideally more than once. Print the workbooks out. Actually do them. Actually watch the video, in its entirety.

These lessons will help you kick total ass, if you’ll just give yourself the time.

Finally: The Goodies!

Download away, friend! I’ve broken the goodies up into the sections (appetizers, first main course, second main course, and dessert) I joked about above.

Enjoy.

Appetizers: Get Psyched, Get Your Head Screwed On Right

First, the first three lessons from 30×500. They’re all about the mistakes & missteps & suffering that we all suffer on the rocky path to profitable-product-owner-hood.

You know, that whole cycle: you wake up energized, eureka! You’ve found your great idea. It has such promise. You know that this time, it’ll work. You’ll make money. You’ll achieve your financial goals. You’ll be able to build the life you want.

But it never works out.

Why not?

Read these lessons — and you’ll slap yourself in the forehead and wonder why you didn’t think of it before:

It’s kinda obvious in retrospect, isn’t it?

Worldviews: Everybody’s Got One & You Need to Know Em

I hate niches. When you get into business, you can’t swing a cat without being told you have to find a niche.

What the hell’s up with that?

Obviously you know what a niche is: a group of people defined by slots and numbers, like middle-aged housewives, young men with disposable income and technical skills between the age of 18 and 35, white Republicans with an income of $70,000 to $100,000, new mothers, cat fanciers, Rails developers, web designers. Blah blah blah.

And there’s the problem. Those people may share a demographic, but they don’t think the same. They don’t value the same things. They don’t look at the world the same way. They don’t buy the same way.

Niches-ism doesn’t respect the way people actually buy.

On the other hand, Worldviews — and the 3 Laws of Customer Physics — do. Learn to spot Worldviews, and you’ll save yourself so much heartache, like when you try to sell to people whose worldview will prevent them from buying. (So sad!)

And your understanding of Worldviews will also answer that age old question: Does design matter? (The answer is: it depends on what worldviews your potential customers have.)

In short: this lesson is vital. Don’t miss it. Download it now:

Lesson 21 & 22

(This taste test lesson also includes a lot of background on the other stuff you’ll learn in 30×500. As you’ll see, the lessons build on each other.)

Pain Killers: Everybody Hurts… So Make & Sell a Soother

You know that REM song, “Everybody Hurts”?

It’s not that different from that Buddhist saying, “Life is suffering.” Which is, if you ask me, is a sentiment with an unfairly bad rap.

To be human is to hurt. That’s just kinda the way it is.

And one of the best ways to make a profit while helping people is to kill their pain. Either take away the pain, or transform it into enjoyment and even joy.

But… other than just trying to spot a “problem” to solve, how the heck do you know which pains exist? Which pains to tackle? Which pains you can fix most awesomely? Which would be profitable?

That’s what this next lesson is about.

When you take 30×500, there are a bunch of lessons between the beginning 3 I already sent you, and this bad boy.

First off, you learn how to pick an Audience to investigate. Then how to find them, and learn from them. Figure out if they’re your ideal customers — or not. How hard it will be to sell. What they need.

You collect all kinds of crazy raw data.

Then you do THIS lesson, lesson 13. (And lesson 12, which is similar, but about money.)

This lesson guides you through, step-by-step, sifting thru that data and squeezing insight out of it. And what do you get at the end? Delicious juice?

No! An infinite number of potential product concepts. As many as you could ever want.

Lesson 13: Pain Killers

This is part of the awesome process that is 30×500: pick, gather, apply rules, apply a system, apply effort, and BAM!! Results.

Dessert: From Lowly Peon to Rich & Famous

You know 37signals? Of course you do. You know how many products they had when they started out 8 years ago?

Zero.

You know how they got from zero, to millions of dollars of revenue a month? The same way you will get from zero to the income you want.

They did it by Stacking the Bricks. So did just about everybody else you see who’s successful. In this video, I dissect the product career paths of 37signals and 4 other smaller companies (including moi). And turn it into a lesson you can use.

Watch Stacking the Bricks

Other Things You Learn in 30×500

I’m not joking when I call this set of lessons a tasting menu. They are only a taste. There is SO much more.

Take 30×500, and you’ll learn:

how not to fail (based on my outline of 14 failure patterns!)
how to start with an audience
how to find your audience’s watering holes so you can:
understand & analyze them
market to them
how to do guerilla market research — for free
what to look for:
how can you ensure you don’t fail before you even start?
how do you pick an audience that you can easily sell to?
who will be good customers?
and how to mine that raw data for product concepts — as many as you like
and then how to turn those product concepts into persuasive pitches you can use to market your product before you make it
how to pick the best product concept for your needs (AND theirs)
how to flesh out a tiny product concept with great detail
how to break down that concept into a tiny, shippable atom
how to plan to build that atom with the time & resources you ACTUALLY have (you know: on the side, after your day job!)
how to combat & conquer featuritis
how to speak your customer’s language
how to price for value… and conquer pricing fear
how to write your sales letter
how to launch

This is meaty stuff. It’s theory and it’s practice. It’s actionable. It’s in-depth. It’s ways to think about biz that you can use forever, and in many different kinds of projects.

(Alumnus @adambrault recently told me he used 30×500 concepts to organize his first conference! And LOTS of alumni have used the 30×500 principles to improve their freelance or consulting businesses. Yeah! It’s good stuff.)

That’s what you’ll learn in 30×500. And you won’t be alone.

What Else You Get: A Recipe for Kicking Ass

Okay. Take all that stuff above. Think about it. Think about what you want. Do you want to create financial freedom for yourself? Do you want to be able to say “no” to a day job, or client work — possibly even forever? Do you believe that creating value, & selling directly with the folks who benefit from that value, is the way to do that?

Awesome. We’re totally on the same page.

Now ask yourself, What if I could have…

Step-by-step help implementing this system?
Personal advice from someone who’s been there, & done it, over and over? (hint: me! and I don’t pull punches!)
The support of a lively community of nearly 300 people who’ve taken the class before me… and another 64 taking it with you?
Access to all those goodies… fooooreeeeverrr?

Oh yeah. I haven’t really mentioned that last part, have I?

30×500: You can check in, but you can never leave! Just kidding.

You get access to the alumni group – forever. The lessons – forever. Free updates to those lessons (and new lessons!) – forever. The custom courseware – forever.

Plus, if you ask nicely, I’ll answer your biz questions even after class is over Just ask @edavis10 how often we’ve talked about his products since he took the first class nearly 3 years ago.

You really can’t beat this package for structure, sense, and support — certainly not at the price of half a class at a serious university.

APPLICATIONS OPEN: Friday the 13th, 3pm Eastern

That’s TODAY! So set your alarms now!

This time around, we’re doing things a lil differently. You have to apply. Here’s why:

In short: I’m selfish. I want more awesome success stories, and that means helping ensure everybody in 30×500 is ready to be there and make the most of it. Thus the application process.

Want to apply? Awesome! Here are the questions so you can prepare in advance. This isn’t a pop quiz, this is real life

Want to know more? This page has ALL the details — dates, prices, how it works, how 30×500 got built to start with.

Oh, and, how about some numbers from my business? I wrote a lil retrospective from 3 years of bootstrapping** — and include a huge list of 30×500 alumni kicking ass. Cuz it ain’t just about me.

Not Sure?

Remember: if you aren’t sure if the class is for you, drop me an email. I’ll do my best to help you decide. And yes, I tell people “No.”

That’s the reason I offer a 100% money-back guarantee: I want you to succeed.

And, thanks

Thanks for sticking with me for all these words. I hope you enjoy the sample lessons. Use them in good health!

I’ll see you in class.

Vaccinate Yourself Against Crappy Customer Feedback

Customers — 8 comments

Gosh, sometimes I love the internet so much I want to marry it. If only internet bigamy were legal! (Sorry, honey.)

Right now I’m crushin’ on the internet because of Least Helpful, a blog which does nothing more complicated than put together screenshots of terrible reviews, along with some witty one-liners. Very witty one-liners, in fact. Driest of the dry. I nearly snorted my tandoori chicken and it burned.

But that’s not why I love Least Helpful.

I love it because it’s like a shot in the ass for the productmaker’s soul. A booster shot. Because with great power comes the occasional batshit insane customer email. Which, if you care about your business, can be terribly upsetting, because you can’t help but think What did I do wrong?? and your natural instinct is to engage and try to fix it.

This is often a mistake.

For starters, you often can’t fix it, because the customer has a serious problem… and it’s not your product.

Secondly, in our desire to be helpful and in our natural response to criticism, we are all too tempted to spend all our time & energy on the tiny segment of loud, angry customers. Which means we are neglecting the large, but quiet, group of happy customers. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but it never gets happy and it’s not all that likely to spread the good news, either.

This goes doubly for “potential” customers who claim they would pay you “if only…” — the most seductive of lies!

Lastly, there are customers you don’t want at any price. But when you get in reactive mode, it’s hard to remember that.

So when you’re feeling alone, crazed, and self-doubting, try these lil posts for a nice dose of perspective and a lil bit of learning:

Killing you with kindness?

It says you are the most impossible customer in the world.

[Least Helpful's comments are in italic!]

VACCINATE: You are not a therapist. It’s your job to do a great job and provide good customer service; it’s not your job to babysit the egos of needy, grasping customers. By all means, when somebody says something nice, thank them! But if they then criticize you for not thanking them enough, head for the hills. If you make it your job to reassure them, you’ll spend an awful lot of time doing it… and it won’t pay. Except if you take screenshots. Then it pays in lulz.

So understated it’s passed out of “ironic” and into “dead serious”

There was no commentary on this one. Probably because the only potential comment is simply too maudlin:

VACCINATE: Some people have no music in their souls. They will never appreciate your work, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to fix them. Moreover, it’s not your job. You can’t please these people, so stop trying.

After all, it’s just a hole in the ground.

The sweetest sound in the universe: me

don’t worry guys, he’s an art major!

VACCINATE: Most people crave a sense of importance more than anything else. Which sadly often manifests itself as self-importance. What this guy really wants is a pat on the back for being soooo young and sooooo smart and sooooo insightful and sooooo witty. When you get (potential) customer email like this, it might be about features or your whole “flawed” approach. Suffice to say, this hot air bag is just looking for a direction to blow in… and hey look, there’s your inbox. Respond politely, but noncommittally… if they are paying customers. Otherwise, disregard them completely.

After all, a nose held high in the air is not an emotion.

I tell ya, I tell ya, I tell ya… you know what I mean?

E. doesn’t really believe that this page exists for the purpose of reviewing the human known as Steve Jobs, right?

Right?

VACCINATE: To a guy with an axe to grind, your face looks like a whetstone. This guy is clearly off in his own reality. Does he even know where he is writing? Who knows! He has a story and he’s sticking to it! For you, the trick is to not feed the crazy, but back away as politely and noncommittally as possible. You do not want to encourage these people to write you, ever again.

“Thanks, we’ll take that under consideration” is a douchey classic you should never use on your good customers, but sometimes the douchey shoe fits.

This sux.

Ah yes, Wing Commander, that great Mexican classic.

VACCINATE: You can’t teach taste. So simply don’t try. There’ll always be That Guy who looks sideways at the filet mignon on his plate and demands Cheetos instead. If That Guy is truly your target market, gods help you.

It looks and tastes exactly like what it says!

VACCINATE: They got what they wanted. And now they seem surprised? Well, now. Unless you have a refund policy, this is not your problem. If you do have a refund policy, just get it over with, with a minimum of fuss. There’s absolutely nothing to be gain by engaging with a person who got exactly what she asked for, and then complained.

Self-aware? Almost but not quite enough

“You could say I’m responsible for my child, but I prefer to leave parenting up to inanimate objects.”

VACCINATE: I did (or didn’t) it, but it’s not my fault. You could say the blame lands on the customer for misusing, or failing to use, your product and then complaining that it doesn’t work. And you’d be right.

Exception: if you get more than a handful of these emails over a period of time, chances are that your product is confusing or hard to use, and then that is something it’s up to you to fix. So keep your eyes peeled.

Sometimes you just wanna set your inbox on fire

AND WEIRDLY SOME OF THE LETTERS WEREN’T CAPITALIZED

VACCINATE: Nitpicking ninnies are not your friend. Customers who spot genuine errors and who, in the spirit of cooperation and friendliness, point them out politely? Golden. Love them. Customers (or worse, pretend customers) who threaten absurd “punishments” for meaningless, minuscule infractions? Ignore them. Completely. Really. Don’t even respond. Don’t encourage them. You don’t want their money. Once they give you money, then they think they own you, and it’ll only get worse.

So what advice do you have for wrangling the crazy?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Why You Gotta Apply for 30×500 & Why You Should LOVE it

30x500 — No comments

SoooOoooo.

I put together a little video for ya, all about the 30×500 application process. If you’re planning to apply, you should definitely watch it. For starters, it gives you a lil taste of the Amy Universe. And who doesn’t want that?

Also… inside, I spell out exactly why you have to apply (hint: I’m terribly selfish), and why my character flaw is awesome for you.

Finally, if you wanted the nitty gritty inside details of how the application process works (do you have to dance? sing? do me favors? buy me pineapple jalapeño margaritas?), this video is for you.

Lastly, you’ll hear a very compelling reason for you to prep in advance and apply at your very first chance.

Applications open on:

Friday the 13th, 3pm Eastern

View this time in other time zones.

Like to get organized? Download this handy .ics file for your calendar (should respect time zones)

You wanna prep in advance? I like your style! Here are the questions you’ll face.

See ya in class!

My Smart, Generous, Very Attractive Students Teach You Stuff

30x500 / Pricing — No comments

I’m a little occupied with the launch of the new 30×500 class. In terms of launching the brand spanky new application process, we-eeeell… let’s just say my mouth wrote some checks my butt couldn’t cash. Still working’ on that.

(Pssst. If you want to attend, you better get on the list now.)

On the upside, this gives me an excellent opportunity to pass the blogging torch to my smart, generous, attractive and eloquent students:

Jarrod Drysdale on premium pricing strategy

Jarrod and another designer happened to both launch design ebooks on the same day, to very different results. Why? You’ll have to read on to find out:

The coincidence that Sacha Greif and I both launched our design eBooks (Step By Step UI Design & Bootstrapping Design, respectively) on the same day presents a unique opportunity for a case study. We employed significantly different pricing; at launch, my book cost $39, and Sacha’s cost $3-6.

The difference in our numbers is astounding. Sacha achieved more than six times as many sales but still earned less money.

What was the difference between the two??

Read the rest of Jarrod’s post to find out. (And if you don’t already read Jason’s blog, where Jarrod’s guest posting, you should consider starting! It’s one of my faves. That’s why he’s in my sidebar!)

Brennan Dunn on his first round of billing

Brennan launched Projector just over a month ago, which means that in the world of 30-day trials, he’s just made his first product dollar:

590 sign ups, 2,584 tasks created, 2,943 comments posted, 10 paying customers, and 37 days later, my first SaaS product is profitable. Okay, so just upwards of $100 is less than my hourly consulting rate, but this is a long-tail game.

Read the whole post over on the Projector blog and learn why we should “cheer for the turtles.” (A great phrase that you’re going to see me use over here on UF!)

Dimitri on why he’s building PhotoCouch

When you attend 30×500, one of the things that you’ll hear, see, experience, and practice over & over again is what Brennan recently called “pain, pain, PAIN!”

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t love pain. In 30×500, you focus on killing pain. And to kill pain, you first have to understand what kind of pain it is. Then you have to show your potential customers that you feel their pain.

Dimitri is doing a fantastic job of this in his first 2 serious blog posts, aimed at his potential customers, which have turned into a kind of manifesto:

When you are ready to go back to business you need to pick-up where you left. You are exhausted of the creative work and you have to switch back to the ‘business’ mode.

Have you been overwhelmed after a shoot when you jump into the business seat? Do you immediately know which business tasks to handle during the time your photos are uploading to your Macbook? Do you know what to do next when waiting for models?

Read Part 1 & Part 2 over on the PhotoCouch blog.

Bonus: Brennan reviews 30×500

What’s the one thing I love to see in a review of my own work? Initial skepticism. (I’m so serious here. Not joking.)

Brennan doesn’t disappoint:

My background is in lead generation and advertising, so I’ve been exposed to my fair share of “money making systems” or products that promise to help get me out of the rat race. Having worked for myself and for others in various roles, I’m not sure how free of worrying about money you can ever be, short of having an anonymous benefactor or winning the lottery. And I don’t pretend I’ll ever be asking, like old lady Grantham from Downton Abbey, “A weekend? What on earth is a weekend?” But I do think there’s an extraordinary amount of freedom in being in complete control of how your bank account is filled.

So I bit the bullet and signed up… And started getting PDFs sent to me. I’ll admit, at first I was a bit turned off by this. After all, what makes Amy’s PDFs any better than that $9.99 ebook promising the same results? As somebody regularly in charge with needing to weigh and assess purchase decisions at work, I started questioning if this was really worth it.

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED? Did the hero get the girl? I mean… err… read the rest of the review to find out.

Join the 30×500 Announce List

Free mailing list. Free goodies. You’ll be first in line to apply for 30×500… which is great cuz there are fewer seats than last time, more folks on the list, and it’s first come, first serve.

What do you have to lose? Nothing, but maybe a kilobyte or 2 of your inbox.

3 Years of Bootstrapping – Half a Million Dollars A Year Later - and 30×500, Redux

30x500 — 2 comments

Hello, Q2 2012!

I meant to do one of these retrospective posts in January, but you know what? Tax season seems like as good a time as any.

3 Years of Biz – The Numbers!

In case you don’t know the story of my business, here’s the short version: in 2008, I married my rockstar JavaScripter husband Thomas, and moved to Austria. That summer, before our wedding, we built some fun projects together which attracted interest from big name Fortune 50 clients who wanted a piece of the action.

There was just one problem: despite fun projects and checks in the mid-five-figs, I was sick of being deployed as a tool for other people’s economic gain.

So I persuaded my man to help me build a subscription software app. (He was pretty skeptical at the time!) Thus was our joint consulting-and-product biz born:

In 2008, we had $0 revenue from products. We built Freckle over the second half and launched in December. We launched our first ebook in January.

In 2009, we had $85,000 in revenue from products & classes.

In 2010, we raked in $240,000.

In 2011… well, I had estimated we’d hit $600,000/year in revenue in 2011. I was wrong, alas.

In 2011, our little product empire brought in $549,142.41. We missed my goal by a margin of 8%.

Shock! Awe! Meh?

I’m still kinda shocked by my reaction to these numbers.

On the one hand, meh. I’ve adjusted to these numbers. I made a lot of mistakes. We didn’t meet my goal for 2011. Boohoo. (Yes, really, that’s exactly what I thought when I read that P&L sheet. (I know how obnoxious that makes me sound… and I’m okay with it. Honesty on the internet!))

On the other hand, holy crap!! I grew up going to school with holes in my clothes, with the power and phone turned off on a semi-annual basis. “We can’t afford” is the phrase that most comes to mind. And 7 years ago, almost to the day, I accepted a job offer for $55k/year with NO benefits and thought that was pretty great.

Sooo, when it sinks in, more than half a million dollars a year… wow. We spent more on developers & other outsourcing in 2011 than I ever made as an employee. (Nearly $200k on this alone! I spent over $200,000 last year!!) Staggering.

Meh and holy crap. Contradiction? What contradiction??

As Whitman so famously wrote,

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Not only is only entirely possible to hold both these reactions in a single head at the same time, it’s hard not to.

This applies just as much to business as life as a whole. (Thanks, Walt!) Which is just one of the many, many startling and redonkulous things I’ve learned on my Epic Product Journey.

All this hedonic adaptation doesn’t mean that my life isn’t awesome. It pretty much is. It just means I (and you!) have room to Learn & Grow. Lots and lots of it.

Business is a microcosm of life as a whole, with all the good parts and bad parts.

Starting and running a product business, especially, is a crash course in personal development

Which is why I’m sooo delighted to have field alumni from my 30×500 Product Launch Class who are just beginning their Epic Product Journey in earnest:

Jim Gay (Summer 2011) just launched his beta ebook, Clean Ruby, yesterday. He’s already made five figure sales. (More than double the price he paid for the class, not a bad ROI!)
Brennan Dunn (Summer 2011) is marketing up a storm for Projector, and he’s getting the signups to prove it.
Jarrod Drysdale (Summer 2011) is selling his Bootstrapping Design ebook like hotcakes.
Adam Brault (Fall 2010) is recovering from a few stumbling blocks, and about to kick some promo ass with his innovative app &! (AndBang).
Eric Davis (Spring 2010 & vet of the very first Year of Hustle call in Dec 2009!) is about to join the SaaS club with Chirk HR, his 3rd product (he made two others: Refactoring Redmine & Redmine Tips and bought one more).
Matthias Meyer (Summer 2011) who, with the help of 30×500, cut down his monstrous & impossible project to the slim, sexy, shippable and profitable Riak Handbook. And who made pretty great money doing it.
Brad Pauly (Summer 2011) who definitely wins the Sexiest Landing Page award for Realview.

And there are so many more who are on the verge: Dimitri with PhotoCouch, Brook with ReadySetRails, Noah with Rebuilding Rails, Thibaut Barrere with WiseCash, Sarah with Faster Founder (no link yet), Brett Bibby with his Polygon Reduction Plugin, Phil DeJarnett with Pinup.

The list above are just a handful of folks who are top of mind for me at this moment, when I wrote this blog post. There are more who deserve to be here, who I’ll probably add when they tweet me “hey, why not me?”

And there are ever more who haven’t yet finished the course, returning alumni who write me things like:

The lessons and nuggets that I picked up from the first few lessons have made quite a difference in our consulting work already, and have made this class more than worth the money we’ve spent on it.

And…

30×500 has been huge for me because it’s cut away all of the bullshit ideas I’ve picked up over the years about making products and businesses and shown me a realistic plan for getting from where I am in life to where I want to be…

It’s been worth every penny, even though I haven’t yet launched. Best decision I’ve made in a while and a “path to freedom” for when the day job gets me down.

And…

We’re doing some interesting things in class: defining success, taking time to consider failure, realizing what we’re doing, being honest with ourselves. This has floored me about every other day. It’s a dialog with myself and with you guys that can get to the core of things quickly. That’s how it should be.

All this right here? Better than any pay day. By an order of magnitude!

I Love Money… But Love Being a Human Lever Even More

Let’s be honest: I love me some money.

I like nice things, and I love knowing that I don’t have to think about it. I love that I can feel comfortable giving 10%+ of my personal income to charities I believe in, and that I can afford to work with awesome people. I love knowing that, fates forfend, if I’m incapacitated by illness for 3 months (again), I can relax and recuperate knowing I cannot be fired and that my business (and income) will just keep on truckin’.

There’s also the touchy feely side:

I love getting emails from Freckle customers telling me how much more money Freckle helps them earn, how it helps them be less neurotic about their time & work and enjoy their lives more. I love getting to chat directly with people who use what I make instead of committees and clients who obscure the relationship between my work and their end user.

But what I really, really love is this:

Watching my students kick ass in the 30×500 Product Launch Class. Watching them learn what I’ve learned, and experience the joy of working directly with the people whose lives they touch. Disintermediating away clients, committees, and bosses, and getting straight to the quick. Watching them feel, for the first time, the joy of realizing they can choose how much they want to earn.

And watching them get letters from their customers as they help them kick ass.

Then seeing them give the same great advice and encouragement — sometimes even better! — to their fellow alumni.

There’s nothing better.

So while my accounting paperwork this year reports that I indeed started a business which brought in nearly $550,000… I know that, every year, I’m helping my students launch businesses which, in toto, will multiply that by ten over the next few years.

I get to be a human lever for awesome. And train new human levers for awesome!

Some day, if there are enough of us, we will move the world. Even if we only move the world a little bit, for a hundred people here, a thousand people there, we’re still moving the world. Which amazes me anew every single day.

This is why I designed 30×500 the way I did:

30×500 is a pretty decent money maker for me, but it’s not as profitable as if I’d pour that time and effort into growing Freckle and Charm. On the other hand, it has a much bigger impact on a smaller group of people (my awesome, awesome students). And that’s what I love.

Which is why I don’t try to maximize my personal 30×500 ROI, but rather my student’s ROI:

When you join 30×500, you join for life. Shit happens. Sometimes you can’t finish the class you’re in “on time.” I know it. As an alumnus, you can retake the class any time you want or need.

You also get a lifetime subscription to all the updated, improved and expanded lessons. (And I don’t rest on my laurels; I’m always trying to make 30×500 better, more effective, for you. I’m not perfect, but I’m always trying.)

You’re also invited to the weekly Office Hours chats, as long as I hold them. (Which over 2 years have grown from sporadic now and then, to twice a month, to once weekly. And I foresee doing this for a long time.)

Perhaps best of all, you have access to the alumni mailing list — an awesome, involved group of motivated people, like yourself, who are there for you, to answer your questions, poke holes in your mistakes, point out things you’ve overlooked, and generally help you kick your own ass. Who are there, sharing their successes and trials, to inspire you and show you that you’re so very far from alone.

The quality of this alumni group cannot be overstated:

Right now, some 30×500 alumni are organizing a study group for those who are “behind” the official class schedule. This is amazing to me. And brilliant.

And every week (or more!) we get emails like this one from Brennan:

I just pushed a few updates based on the awesome feedback I’ve received. (Once again, this class has paid for itself and then some!)

[Later] … I pushed [changes based on your feedback] last night, and am already now getting 8% conversion rates (instead of < 2%).

I have pages and pages of quotes and comments like this.

Together, we’re building a bootstrap army, inspiration delivery network, and support group all in one. And it kicks ass.

Would you like to join us?

30×500 Summer 2012 is Opening Soon

If you want to be a part of the next 30×500 class — if you’re really ready to make this enormous change and you’re willing to put your time & effort where your mouth is…

Join the mailing list for first dibs, details, and early bird discounts:

This time, I’m doing things a little differently… in the hopes of continuing this awesome trend of ever-increasing quality, and ever-increasing student results:

You’ll need to apply, so I can help ensure the class is right for you right now
I’m reducing the number of seats
I’m supplying self-guided learners with 100% of the materials before the class starts (after applied/accepted/paid, of course)
I’m throwing out the crappy over-designed software I created, in exchange for working the way people really want to communicate with each other and me
I’m making the Office Hours weekly, instead of twice monthly
I’m adding more structure to help you actually get shit done (and cuz I am famously structure-sucky, I’ve arranged expert help)
and I’m heavily enhancing the lessons & expanding the curriculum (everything’s a bit theoretical right now, and I want to round it out with timelines, checklists, templates, case studies and successful student interviews)

It’s almost time to open up the application process. This will be first come, first served for the 65 seats available. Here are the questions, if you want to prepare. (NB: they may change slightly, based on my “beta testers.”)

The price is also going up: $2,450 (Early Bird) for the 3+ month long class, all the awesome new lessons, structure, weekly chats, and alumni group for life.

This may seem like a lot, until you compare what you get to the cost of a single class at a business school: This is not lecture-and-test-and-forget-it. This class is not taught by a TA, it’s taught by a veteran (me!), with over 2 years of experience teaching this stuff, and backup from alumni who are making it happen. You are not alone, you are surrounded by people who are striving to succeed, who have a common vocabulary, and who care.

And you get to be a part of this forever.

What else can you get for $2,450? A 5-day vacation somewhere moderately luxurious and tropical? That’s nice, but it doesn’t last, and it won’t ever pay you back.

On the other hand, Jim Gay’s revenue from his very first beta product launch has paid him back handily. Brennan recently calculated that at a reasonable (10%) rate of growth, his new SaaS will be earning $96,000 a year by the end of 12 months. (This is after starting at just under $100 for his first billing cycle, three days ago. That’s the maddening beauty of subscription income.)

And Jarrod just informed me that he made 242 sales of Bootstrapping Design — $8,753 — in his first 48 hours. All without being even remotely famous! He exploited the 30×500 recipe, and his own sweat & tears, to make something that people want so bad that he could get those kinds of results without fame.

Several alumni have used 30×500 to improve their consulting practice, or launch an in-person training workshop, which has paid for their tuition. One alum wrote the mailing list to explain how she’s using 30×500 to slowly revolutionize the company who bought her employers — from the inside out, by spoon-feeding them the lessons she learned in my class.

30×500 is built for products, but it’s really a way of thinking which can change the way you look at everything you touch that has anything to do with money.

In short: I believe this is the absolute best investment you can make right now for your future success.

Unless… you just wanna maybe learn something and explore the idea of making a product because it sounds like a fine thing. In this case, I hope I’ve priced 30×500 out of your comfort zone. I don’t want you to waste your money, and I want the class to be full of people who are really motivated to be there.

On the other hand, if you’re seriously ready to learn, to change, to implement, and to ship, there’s no reason why your investment couldn’t pay you back with your very first product.

And if you are, now’s a great time to join my mailing list so you get first dibs on the application process, and the seats:

Funmail Guarantee: Obv there’s no obligation whatsoever. You can unsubscribe at any time. And I promise to send you nothing but information on the class, free goodies, stories, samples and discounts and awesome stuff like that!

There are only 65 seats available (a nearly 15% reduction over previous classes). I’ll be making them available first come, first serve, for those who apply. There are 900 people on this mailing list. Not everyone on there is really ready to make that commitment and shell out that cash, but… you do the math

See you in class.

Building Habits: Respect Your Cues, & Listen to Your Organs When They Talk

Biz Book Friday / Day to Day — 2 comments

Here’s that adorable habit loop diagram from The Power of Habit:

Last week, we established that I absolutely suck at habits.

But why?

Well, last week I had a theory: I suck at structure. This is undeniably true. I thought the next logical part of the explanation was:

And cues are what trigger routines. They’re the bottom part of the habit pyramid. And since I don’t have structure, I don’t have cues.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? I don’t brush my teeth because brushing my teeth is a routine waiting on a “Amy Is Going Out” cue, and I don’t always leave my apartment. No “Going Out” cue, no toothbrushing routine. Firm. Logical.

But over the past week, experience has shown me that, oh yes, I have cues. Lots and lots of cues.

And I’m absolutely fantastic at ignoring them.

My mother used to say that a bomb could go off while I was reading and I’d be none the wiser. Well, that’s not as true as it once was. But I do seem to have a remarkable and perverse ability to ignore cues… even the most biologically imperative ones.

Viz: I can’t tell you how many times, over the past week, I’ve caught myself resisting the cue to pee.

Even the Toilet Pictogram People are shocked.

Here I am, a grown woman, in an office full of friends, or in her own apartment — alone, even! my husband’s not even here! — resisting the urge to go to the clean, private, well-stocked, well-lit bathroom.

What the hell? Why!?

Because I’m doing something, natch.

Aside from the overall embarrassment of catching myself doing something so silly, this casts a shadow on my I Just Suck At Structure theory. A shadow in a Dick Tracy hat, who taps the ash off its cigar before asking me…

How can I expect to learn how to use cues to build a demanding new habit like daily exercise if I can’t even be trusted to empty my bladder when it asks me nicely?

Big fat (embarrassing) duh on that one, my friends. (Also, note to self: Shadows are dicks.)

I owe at least 90% [1] of this insight to my friend Colin, who riffed brilliantly on my rambling, incoherent post:

[Example]: if I walk into my room and cringe at the clothes on the floor, I should put some of them away. I don’t have to go on a cleaning spree, but I can at least hang one jacket up.

As for new habits I’m trying to create — I now start thinking about the cues I’ve set up for myself. An excellent example is invoicing. Normally I invoice twice a month, however my current client wants invoices only once a month and on a slightly different date than when I usually send them out. I do have a calendar event set up to remind me to send out invoices, but it’s not on the right dates.

Instead of training myself to take care of invoices promptly, I’m training myself to ignore my invoicing calendar event! That’s no good.

Indeed, Colin, training yourself to ignore cues — like calendar alarms — isn’t merely no good, it’s terrible. It’s a slippery slope that’ll end in tears. Just ask my bladder.

Colin even has a catchy name for his smart new rule, which I stole for this post title: Respect Your Cues. He says, “What that means is that if I encounter a cue — either a new one I’ve consciously chosen, or a natural one that bubbles up from my unconscious — I absolutely should not ignore it.” Hence the “at least hang one jacket up.”

This makes so much sense it hurts. Or maybe it’s not the sense of Colin’s statement that I’m feeling.

Pardon me while I go… somewhere.

[1] The remaining 10% goes partly to my mindfulness in noticing, my absurd willingness to admit it in public, and of course, a small hat tip to the hilarious fact that I am, in fact, a girl who refuses to go pee. Which would be tragic if it wasn’t so funny. I’d like to thank the Academy…

I Can’t Remember to Brush My Teeth… But I Can Run a Business

Biz Book Friday / Day to Day — 11 comments

If you know me, you know I don’t really… do routine. Regular bed time? Ha! Regular wake time? Ha! Making my bed? Going to my office every day? Paying bills which aren’t automated? Regular grocery shopping day? Planning a week in advance? Umm… committing to a weekly blog post on a certain day, say Friday?

Ha ha ha ha. Not my forte.

Sadly, my teeth are just one part-time casualty in a long line of irresponsibilities.

Don’t worry, though. You don’t have to wear a gas mask when we hang out. You’ll never meet me with unbrushed teeth (or hair).

And now, thanks to The Power of Habit, I know why:

A habit isn’t a thing, it’s three things: a cue, a routine, and a reward. And it’s not three things, it’s a loop.

The routine is the practiced set of actions you take — the thing we all call “a habit.” The cue is the trigger on the gun of routine, the thing that says chop chop, brush brush. The reward is the nice thing you get at the end. Behaviorism aside, the human brain really does wire itself up to react to rewards.

Put these 3 things together, in a loop, and run it again & again, and you have the makings of an automatic habit.

Vis a vis toothbrushes, leaving my apartment is the cue. The reward is the opportunity to engage in polite society. The routine is the actual brushing itself, of which, I can assure you, I am capable.

So, aha, there’s the problem: When I stay at home, there’s no cue. “Brush Your teeth” is a subroutine in the “Amy Is Going Out” routine, which has the cue of “Hey, It’s Time To Go.”

If I don’t leave the house, chances are good that I’ll forget to perform the routine. Because I’m not really thinking about it, I’m waiting for the cue to trigger the loop.

Sadly, this problem isn’t limited to my (not so) fresh breath.

The “Amy Is Going Out” habit loop is based on one of a very few cues I have that actually work at all. There are other routines I use very effectively to get creative work done (funnel process, review process, mind mapping, brainstorming, outlining, planning, weighing, analyzing, researching, composting). They help me kick ass.

The thing is, they aren’t hooked explicitly to any cues. I only remember to use them some of the time:

Now, it’s terribly twee to complain about how disorganized and overwhelmed I am, yadda yadda. Obviously I manage to function pretty well. My business is profitable (and growing). I’ve got a great life. My customers are happy.

But, I can’t help but think: How much more profitable could my business be? How much better could my life be? How much happier could I make my customers? If only I could get my shit together a higher percentage of the time.

So, why do I suck so bad at habits? Am I just incorrigibly mercurial? Or lazy?

I’ve wondered this for a while. And til now, this is where my introspection ended.

I knew that I could work predictably inside a structure (“Amy Is Going Out”), but I’ve also always sucked at creating that structure in the first place. Impasse.

This is the most powerful thing I’ve learned from The Power of Habit so far (half-way through):

One paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits.

More than 40% of what we do isn’t due to conscious thought, but habitual. Aka habits:

This is how new habits are created: by putting together a cue, a routine, and a reward, and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop.

And: habits are a skill. (Duh, this part’s obvious.) Not only is deploying a habit a skill, but research has shown that creating habits is a skill, too. And research shows how to go about learning the skill of creating habits. (This part is new!)

Now I’ve got research at my disposal to teach me how I can consciously and systematically set out to whip myself into something more resembling a Human Who Has It Together. How you can, too.

And there’s no good reason it can’t work:

Habits aren’t destiny… habits can be ignored, changed, or replaced.

But the reason the discovery of the habit loop is so important is that it reveals a basic truth: When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks. So unless you deliberately fight a habit— unless you find new routines— the pattern will unfold automatically.

So here’s to making what we want unfold automatically, instead of what we don’t want.

Posterous Down! The Startup Graveyard Continues to Fill Up

5-Second Slayage — 5 comments

Deadposterous

Once again a beloved, free social startup has denied it is for sale, only to be immediately swallowed up by a company known for breaking its toys.

Posterous, 20 Days Ago:

We have absolutely no plans to sell, shut down or go anywhere anytime soon. We have a strong business model, private investors, and have plans to launch an optional paid subscription service in the future…

– Source

Posterous, Today:

Big news: Posterous has been acquired by Twitter!

The opportunities in front of Twitter are exciting, and we couldn’t be happier about bringing our team’s expertise to a product that reaches hundreds of millions of users around the globe.

– Source

The Social Startup Finger: Reading Between the Lines

It’s clear that this is a death knell for Posterous lovers, if you just read their post with a critical eye:

… we couldn’t be happier about bringing our team’s expertise to a product that reaches hundreds of millions of users around the globe.

We (“our team”) be working on Twitter, not on Posterous.

Plus, the people at Twitter are genuinely nice folks who share our vision for making sharing simpler.

If we were truly excited about this acquisition, we’d have something nicer to say than “nice.” Isn’t that nice.

We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service.

We will. We’re just not announcing it yet.

For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.

We’ve brought up backing up and migrating to get you used to the idea. Posterous is going in the bye bye box. And Mommy is playing on the roof.

You can find more information answers to other questions you may have here.

Information and answers, you understand, in a metaphorical sense. As long as you don’t actually ask for more information or answers, we’ll promise to give them to you, y’see?

Finally, we’d like to offer thanks to all of our users, especially those who have been with Posterous since day one…

Bye bye!

The last four years have been an amazing journey.

And whaddaya know, it is the destination.

Your encouragement, praise and criticism have made us better. Thanks for that.

Kinda sorry about screwing you, but…

We look forward to building great things for you over at Twitter.

I’ll call you.

I do kinda feel bad for them.

Who sets out to spend years building something, only to discover it’s only useful monetarily as dog food — to be gobbled up, squeezed for nutrients, and shat out by a larger company? Nobody.

It must suck.

That’s why I encourage my students & readers to build a sustainable, profitable business first — then grow, if that’s what they want.

Posterous was losing to Tumblr in just about every way. That was the game they chose to play.

Posterous was loved; they probably could have become a business with a paid product. Their user base would have shrunk further, though, and that doubtless wouldn’t result in an outcome their investors wanted. Investors don’t actually want you to be profitable.

But if you play the social startup game, you’re playing winner-takes-all. And as it turns out, just everybody else — founders and users alike — loses.

Scary Things I’ve Done That Could Have Killed My Business (& Some I’m Gonna Do)

Fear / Hard Work / Thinking like a Slayer — 4 comments

Today’s a Sunday. That means I spent >90 minutes on Campfire with my 30×500 students, answering questions, talking about biz and shootin’ the shit.

Today, I wanted to get my students’ opinions on some changes I’m making for the next 30×500. I’m always trying to increase the number of students who stick with it all the way through to shipping.

Here are some of the ideas I presented:

an application process
distributing 100% of the materials a month early to people who attend
major changes in the software I use to run the class (tossing out a lot of the functionality, turning the rest on its head)
a significantly higher price, which may require a payment plan

David Richards, a member of the current 30×500, weighed in on that last one:

Something in my gut says a payment plan might be a headache while dealing with student retention. First payment of $xxxx, sucking air after some Safari work, next payment’s due… naw, I’ll just bail.

I agreed with him. It’s certainly a possibility. There are parts of the class which require a lot of personal investment in time & energy to complete, and who knows?

But, I said,

…one thing I really worry about is NOT doing things I should do, out of fear.

The fact is, each one of these steps is scary to me.

I worry people might just “stop paying” on the payment plan

Even though the first Year of Hustle class had a payment plan, and nobody “just stopped paying,” I worry someone might.

I worry about raising the price

Even though I’ve successfully raised the price by over 300% since the first class (and worried about it every time).

I worry about sending students the 100% of the materials in advance

Even though last time, I gave away the “secret revelation” behind 30×500 (1, 2, 3), and three of the meatiest lessons (from deep inside the class 3 & 4, 5) — and it resulted in an even more productive, profitable class.

I know this one, particularly, sounds ridiculous. Why would I worry that more people will drop out or ask for refunds if I give them the material all at once, when my refund rate during class is already so low? People who have already passed the application process and already paid?

Well. Ever downloaded a bunch of ebooks or PDFs or slide decks, and because you had so many, you never dove into any of them? Yeah. I worry about that. And that a new student might read it all — and say “So, what?” Despite the fact that only one person out of nearly 300 students ever said anything like that. Yes, less than 0.4%. It’s still on my mind.

I really worried when I first offered the 100% money-back guarantee

It was a >$1,000 class. What if people take advantage of me? What if they took it to the end, took all the materials, got a lot out of it, and then dicked me over?

Every time I revise the sales page, and I leave that guarantee in there, I worry anew. Even though I’ve only ever given a handful of refunds per class.

It doesn’t matter.

What Does Worry Mean??

Worry isn’t always rational. Hell, most of the time it’s not. Worry is a sign you’re doing something you haven’t done before. Or it’s a sign you’re doing something you have done before, which worked just fine, and your subconscious is refusing to learn the lesson.

Or it’s a sign of absolutely nothing.

So yeah, I’m worried. About allllll kinds of things.

But whenever I feel worry, I’ve made it a habit to remind myself:

I should be much more worried that I’ll straightjacket myself with fear. That the real thing to fear is doing the same thing, forever.

NB: This blog post was inspired by Brooke Riggio, a 30×500 alum, who’s worried about his money-back guarantee:

I gave him that advice because when I was worried, other people gave it to me. And they were right. And I am right. But it is still scary and we still worry.

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