I woke up before 6am on Tuesday morning, eager for a big day. A product launch is always filled with lots of emotions, especially in the first few critical hours.

What would happen? Dun dun dun…

At 7:30 there was a knock on my door. It’s Nicky Hajal! Our genius developer (AKA “kid wonder”) had arrived from New York the previous day. Nicky was in town along with Wes and Tera, our media team, for a tour of venues for this year’s World Domination Summit.

More on that process later—for now, Nicky was also here to help out with Tuesday’s launch of the Unconventional Guide to Publishing, our first commercial guide in more than a year. Since he was staying about a mile from my house, we decided he would just come over in the morning so we could do the launch live from World Domination HQ.

The previous night, Nicky had dropped off a monitor he “borrowed” for a few days while he was here. (Thanks, Office Max!) The monitor was now on our living room table, and on our kitchen counter was what he called his mobile workstation. Take a look at this:

Kitchen-Aid mixer not included

The setup looked suitably impressive to me, someone who has no technical skills and also no physical skills of any kind. (An unwritten post from last weekend: “Why Chris Guillebeau Is Not the Friend You Want to Help Assemble IKEA Furniture”).

As awesome as this workstation was, there was one small problem. Nicky connected a bunch of wires and antennas around the living room, and attempted to connect to the “liberator” WiFi network we use. After a few minutes, a furrowed brow was raised, and I heard lots of clicking.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

Nicky was silent for a few minutes. Finally, he announced the small problem… the awesome setup wasn’t WiFi-friendly.

Womp-womp.

No internet? This act of aggression would not stand—Nicky spends about 15 hours a day looking at code on a huge screen (thus the Office Max monitor) and needs to be online to do it.

Meanwhile, the launch was coming up in about 45 minutes… with at least 30 more minutes of things we needed to do beforehand. I was mildly stressed about getting everything done on time with an optimal setup, but now we really had a problem.

Side note: there’s a GREAT book coming out in May called The $100 Startup. I just happened to be proof-reading the final edits last week, and noticed an entire chapter all about product launches. Whoa! If only I had such wisdom before Tuesday. More news about this AMAZING book later. Now back to the story…

Don’t you have a laptop? I asked Nicky.

“Yeah… it’s back at the place.”

Don’t you have an ethernet cable? He asked me.

“Yeah… at my old apartment.”

Nicky hopped on my bike and rode back to his place to grab the laptop, and then to the grocery store to get an ethernet cable. (Yeah, it turns out grocery stores carry those… we were surprised too.)

Long story short, we kicked things off about 20 minutes later than planned. I wrote to our affiliates and apologized for the delay. It wasn’t terribly long, of course, and it’s always better to make sure things are going well before opening the doors to the masses, but nevertheless I still felt bad about the delay. To be safe, I delayed my own post here on the site an extra hour so that the affiliates who were rushing to get their posts up could do so first.

After getting underway, we still had a few problems. We’re moving everything over to our own in-house e-commerce system, which will be great… when it’s done. For now it’s still in beta, and most of the time it works well, but not always. A few users had problems with using Google’s Chrome browser. Others had issues making payment, logging in to a new account, or downloading files.

Computer-in-a-box with biscuit-in-a-box

Thanks to Nicky’s real-time tech support, most of the issues subsidized within an hour or so. We got on a roll with lots of orders coming in, and began receiving good initial comments from customers who were accessing the materials.

Meanwhile, other members of our team were working from various locations. David was sitting in Southern California, patiently entrusting the outcome of this process to my hands. (No pressure, Chris.) Sean, our newly titled “Chuck Norris” Affiliate Wrangler, had just flown in from Denver and was managing email communication with various partners. Reese, our superstar designer, was doing site reviews of other projects in a coffee shop somewhere.

As they say, it was truly a team effort! Thanks, team.

Continuous Improvement and Why Book Proposals Matter

On Wednesday, I cleared as many of my emails as possible, then sat down to review the order process. We still had a few challenges—some users had difficulty accessing their files, and others received payment errors when trying to check out. I knew that Nicky was working on that, and my skills are fairly limited, so I took a closer look at other things.

One thing I’ve learned with launches is that you can always improve results by making a few careful improvements, even after you’ve begun the process. In our case, the check-out page wasn’t as clear as it could have been. I revised it to clarify exactly what people would receive when they finished the transaction. If you’ve already purchased and something didn’t work as it should, check again—and don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re still having difficulty.

Another mistake I made in sharing the launch communication was in failing to explain why we had included several sample book proposals with the guide. When I was first learning to write a book proposal, I really struggled. I had written lots of different applications, proposals, and academic essays—but I learned that a book proposal is a very different thing. There’s a specific way you have to do it, and few good examples out there.

I totally forgot to highlight this fact about the launch, and David sent me a note about it:

In 20 years of doing this job I’ve always found that readers love it when I offer to send them an example of a proposal that has actually sold to a big house. And it’s extremely uncommon to get to see one that has sold for six figures. If you look at most of the books on proposal writing out there, they’re full of low-end, $10k titles and just aren’t very impressive.

Because David is the master negotiator, he was able to get us five complete proposals from books that sold for good amounts to leading publishers. Several of them sold for at least $100,000 and then became international bestsellers.

In addition to the 45,000 word guide and all the proposals, we also included a number of interviews with the guide. There are some surprising disclosures in these interviews, including long discussions on average selling prices for books, what captures an editor’s attention, and several good examples of marketing campaigns that helped new authors stand out in a crowded field.

All files, including these proposals and interviews, are available immediately upon purchase. All updates are FREE for the life of the guide.

Motivations, Thanks, and a Reminder

I work on a lot of different projects, and the motivations vary. In some cases, I want to create sustainability in my business. For some, I may be looking for a significant payday that will allow me to do other things that cost money. In others, like a webinar, I just want to do something fun and useful.

In this case, I was conscious of the fact that David put in a TON of work on this guide. We also had a ton of affiliates lined up to promote the guide, so for both their sakes—David and the affiliates—I wanted it to do well, not just during the launch period but on a long-term basis.

I really appreciate everyone who has supported this project by picking up the guide or spreading the word along. As mentioned earlier in the week, at least 80% of people say that they want to write a book sometime in their life, but only a small minority actually do it. Our goal is to help more of the 80% move into the minority.

Also, one final reminder: the special pricing for the Hemingway version of the guide expires tomorrow night (Friday) at midnight. David will also be hosting a special Q&A call for buyers at all levels who purchase before the deadline. After that, the guide will be in the shop on a long-term bonus, but without the bonuses.

Here’s the link if you’re interested.

Otherwise, thanks for being a part of AONC. Much more is on the way!

Question for those who are still reading: What’s the one thing you wish you knew more about?

You can share with others in the comments.

###

Image: Will

As I look back on the year during my Annual Review, I think about what went well and what didn’t in several parts of life.

This post refers specifically to the business side of AONC, especially UnconventionalGuides.com and related projects. The business grew substantially this year, despite having only one big launch, and despite my working from around the world at a frantic pace.

Here are a few lessons learned while making a living in 2011.

Monthly Pricing: A Good Thing

Much of the business growth came from one important decision: to create a membership site with monthly subscription payments. In the past, the business was humming along well, but depended a great deal on how popular the various operations were on any given day. If affiliates were working hard, or if we had a big product launch, overall revenue would substantially increase. But otherwise, it was hit-or-miss, with income coming in on a fluctuating cycle.

Launching the Travel Hacking Cartel in the beginning of the year, then continuing to draw in new members throughout the year, has brought a lot of sustainability into the business.

Tiered pricing, or offering products at a range of price points, created the most significant improvement last year. My first recommendation to anyone creating digital assets would be: offer your products or services in a (limited) range of prices. Your customers will like this, and you’ll like it too—because people will spend more. But now I have a strong second recommendation: find a way to ensure that at least some part of your income arrives every month, regardless of how popular everything else is.

In fact, this shift helped so much that I now plan to switch most of my business projects to this model in the future. I’ll continue to operate Unconventional Guides under the single-purchase model, but my next big projects will follow the pricing structure I used for the Travel Hacking Cartel.

LESSON: Whenever possible, get paid more than once.

***

Webinars: Quick, Easy, Profitable

A few months ago, I had planned to launch something, but it just didn’t come together in time. Then, another project was also delayed—leaving me with a calendar of more than twelve weeks with no product development or promotion. I’ve always operated AONC on a very low-key, no-pressure sales model (the majority of our readers never buy anything at all, and that’s fine with me) but I also like building and launching things on a somewhat regular basis.

That’s when I had the thought: instead of building a huge program, why not find a way to launch something quickly? Every day, people ask me the same questions over and over. Two very common ones are “How can I get started with traveling?” and “How can I work from the road?” Of course, we answer those questions in considerable detail with the Unconventional Guides products, but not everyone wants a whole product.

Therefore, I decided to offer two one-hour classes, one of them a “Beginner’s Guide to Travel Hacking” and the other on “Working from the Road.” I made them simple and cheap: just $29 for each one-hour class, with a free recording and resources page delivered afterward.

It actually took me a fair amount of work to prepare the materials, since I wanted to make sure they were jam-packed with helpful info instead of me just talking about general ideas. Still, it wasn’t a huge effort compared to the thrill of launching something quickly. We filled up both classes within a few days of launching, and it ended up being a lot of fun.

LESSON: If you can easily do something, do it.

***

Working from Anywhere – An Observation

Speaking of working from the road, I’ve recently noticed a key point in my own work. This year I visited 26 new countries—many of them fairly difficult ones to get to and work from, such as Somalia, Mauritania, Palau, and others. (The next post will be a full travel roundup of the year.)

Wherever I go, I’m always pounding away, making sure my commitments are kept reasonably up to date, answering lots of emails, and performing various administrative tasks.

What I’ve realized in more than a decade of doing this in one fashion or another is that I can maintain things from anywhere, but I wouldn’t want to develop and launch things from anywhere. The distinction is important: for long-term creative purposes, I need a certain amount of stability and reliable infrastructure.

The biggest challenge is not that I want to take it easy; it’s just that my creative energy is greatly reduced while on the road. I still work at least 4-5 hours a day wherever I am, but much of this work relates strictly to existing commitments. I have a lot less “creative space” on the road to build detailed projects, so I’ve learned to be more clear on scheduling extended periods of writing and building things when I’m not always jetting off.

LESSON: Travel the world, but set aside time to “make stuff.”

***

Future Planning: What’s Coming Next

I remain consistent in the core beliefs that have brought AONC this far, many of them originally articulated in 279 Days to Overnight Success: readers are extremely important, so maintaining relationships with them is also important. Don’t outsource your email or use autoresponders to keep people at a distance. Never pretend to be too important to communicate with those who care about what you have to say.

More than anything else, this perspective—and the ongoing commitment to publish and build things—are what sustains the ongoing work. I don’t always get things right, of course, but I try to keep these two principles in mind.

Business-wise, I hope to continue refining processes, moving everything over to our own server, our own shopping cart and processing service—basically our own system from start to finish. This has been a dream of mine for a long time, since every other solution inevitably has shortcomings, and we may even be able to license this solution for other small merchants as well. My small team and I also have other ideas, most of them working in conjunction with THE $100 STARTUP book launch in the spring.

Here are two projects in the works at the moment.

PUBLISHING GUIDE. I’ve been working with my master literary agent / Jedi knight, David Fugate, to create our first Unconventional Guide in 16 months. Yes, it’s been a long time, but this one is worth the wait.

Studies show that more than 80% of people want to write a book, but very few actually do so. Of course, you don’t need a publisher to write a book, but part of what holds people back is that they have no idea how the publishing industry works. The Unconventional Guide to Publishing will demystify the whole process, telling you everything you need to know about how to get a book deal from a traditional publisher, or how to take advantage of the many options now available for self-publishing.

I’ll have more to say about this project very soon—since we’re planning to launch on January 10th. Yikes! I’d better get to work.

EMPIRE BUILDING 2.0. After getting the publishing guide on the market, I expect my most significant business project of 2012 will be the sequel to the Empire Building Kit, our most popular seller in the shop. I’ll be carving out time to work on this soon… preferably not while I’m traveling in Central Africa!

***

I enjoy writing and most of the things that come along with being an author, such as planning tours, doing interviews, and connecting with foreign publishers putting out different versions of my book around the world. But I also enjoy my self-published business work. I feel fulfilled and motivated by the feedback I hear from customers, and I wouldn’t want to choose between the two different “jobs.” Instead, I want to create convergence (my theme of 2009) with everything I do.

How about you… what did you learn in your work during 2011?

Feel free to share a few highlights or lessons of your own.

###

Reminder: we’re compiling a list of other blogs doing their own Annual Reviews. If you’d like to share yours, include a link to one of this year’s AONC posts, and we’ll share a few highlights at the end of the series.

If you’re looking for a way to make extra money or start an all-new business, I’m working on a project that will help you do just that. Until then, the best ideas are usually free, and I learned long ago to give away as much as possible.

To start with, read through all of these responses. Many of them won’t work for you, but I’ll bet some will. And here’s another one, from me.

You can become a consultant for hire in less than a day—this post will give you everything you need to get started.

First, understand an important principle: most consultants aren’t actually trained as such. There is no “consulting school” or consulting degree. Instead, a successful consultant is simply someone who has learned to craft their knowledge into a marketable offer.

Therefore, your first and most important step is to identify something you can offer that other people will value so much that they will gladly exchange money for it.

Areas of expertise that people will a) be interested in, and b) pay good money for include the following:

Dating | Wellness | Lead Generation | Data Recovery

How to get out of traffic tickets / jury duty / other undesirable action

How to get something for less, or make some kind of substantial improvement in a shortened period of time

Whenever possible, avoid generic concepts—don’t be a “life coach” or a “small business consultant.” Be SPECIFIC. Hone in on the skill you choose, and be able to clearly explain what you offer.

An example: while I was writing the manuscript for my next book (we’ll get to that at some point—it’s still a long ways off), I was impressed with Gary Leff’s story. Gary is a travel expert and one of the few people more experienced than me at travel hacking (he’s the guy I go to when I get stuck). Gary noticed that his friends and family kept asking for help with their reservations, so he decided to try offering it as a service.

I think this idea is fascinating, because the service is essentially something you could do on your own for free—yet there is a long line of people happily willing to pay for it. Why would you pay someone a significant fee ($250) to do something that you could do for free? It’s simple: Gary is very good at his job. He books international, premium class plane tickets for people that would ordinarily cost $5,000 or more.

This kind of specialized service is a perfect example of crafting knowledge into a marketable offer. (He told me in a recent interview that his biggest challenge is having far more demand than he can reliably meet.)

Figuring out a clear value offering is the most important part of becoming an instant consultant, so if you get stuck at some point, it’s what you should come back to. However, it’s also true that many smart people with marketable skills never get around to doing anything about it, simply because they fail to take the NEXT steps.

Therefore, once you have a specific skill, or at least something close, you now move to these specific steps:

1. Create a basic, one-page (or less than 5-pages) website.

It doesn’t need to be beautiful or overly complicated. Your goal is not to create a masterpiece, but to create something that works—you can worry about the design awards later, because first you need a way to get paid. Go to WordPress.org to get your free site. Just need a header? Reese now does that on the cheap.

2. Get a PayPal account for free.

You may already have one, so you can safely skip this step if that’s the case. Bonus! If not, PayPal works in almost every country I’ve been to… currently 163. (They have their own count of the number of countries, which shows that they are better at helping people exchange money than they are in traveling the world.)

3. Create an offer.

An offer is where you put your skills and knowledge into a here’s-what-you-hire-me-for summary. The message you send with a good offer looks like this:

Dear Prospective Client,

You have a problem, and I have the solution. My fee is [x]. You can hire me over here.

In Gary’s example, the problem is “we have all these miles but don’t know how to use them.” The solution is proven through Gary’s own trips and all of the happy clients he has served. His fee is clearly listed, and to hire him, you simply click a button. This leads to step 4:

4. Make sure it is very easy to hire you.

A lot of consultants (of all kinds) don’t post their fees, requiring prospective clients to inquire first. This only makes sense if the person is truly booked up most of the time and is not actively seeking new business. If you want new business, like anyone becoming an instant consultant, be sure you a) post your price, and b) make it easy to be hired.

Think of it like this:

Basic Website –> [PayPal Account] –> Offer –> Hired

***

These four steps are all you really need, but to be safe, make a test purchase from your very-simple-website to ensure all goes well. Ask a few friends to carefully review your basic website for errors or suggestions for easy-to-make improvements.

Congratulations! You are now a consultant for hire.

You may wonder what comes next. If clients do not immediately come running, it is probably for one of two reasons:

a) Your offer is poor or unclear

b) You haven’t done enough hustling

If a, refer to the earlier section. Have you really identified a clear, specific need that other people are willing to pay for? All roads lead to this question.

If b, read up on hustling. The not-so-hidden secret to hustling is helping people. Becoming an instant consultant is a way for you to help people and get paid for it. To learn about building real relationships, read Chris Brogan and try to keep up (he writes a lot, and it’s all good).

As you serve your clients, ask them for referrals: this is where most new business will come from. You can improve your site and your skills, learn about increasing income, consider expansion opportunities, increase the systemization of how you deliver services, blah, blah, blah. But mostly you need to get started and retain your first client.

With the information in this post, you can open your consulting practice tomorrow. Oh, and one more thing: don’t actually call yourself a consultant, because that sounds boring. Better titles: strategist, solution-provider, alchemist, magician.

I hope this plan of action is helpful for someone out there. If you become an instant magician, come back and let us know.

###

Image: Beaver

As expected, I received a flood of responses to Monday’s question on paying the bills. In addition to hundreds of site comments (I posted at least half that came through, but it’s tough to keep up from the road), we also had hundreds of additional suggestions come in through Facebook and Google+.

You guys are so productive! And so smart, too.

Naturally, I outsourced the sorting of responses to my furry assistant Libby, now working back at home while I’m on location in Asia. (Anecdotal reports indicate that when her assistance is virtual, she slacks off even more. I’ll get back to impose discipline as soon as I can.)

Suggestions ranged broadly, and included everything from selling various bodily fluids to begging on street corners. Others suggested prayer or “manifesting” the money. Personally I am more of a “take action” kind of guy, but it’s all good. If manifesting money from the sky has a proven success rate for you, let it rain.

Here are a few interesting comments from our group:

Andrea said:

I’m a former math teacher. With a bit of hustle I can make $300 – $500 tutoring in a month. Particularly since it’s currently August and the next round of SATs are coming up.

Austin Bishop said:

Troll the “gigs” section on Craigslist to match someone’s need with your skills. Especially if you have creative talents (e.g. graphic design, photography, copywriting) it’s easy to make quick money doing something you enjoy. The beauty of this is that some of these gigs will lead to more consistent jobs with that customer, generate referrals, and build your portfolio. I’ve done this with photography–it’s a terrific way to make some supplemental income.

A.J. Parker said:

Focus groups! (seriously) have made as much as $400 a pop just for my humble opinion on stuff. Research and Development departments in companies pay well for your thoughts and ideas.

Tracy said:

I would take my camera to the park and offer to take portraits of people’s kids. I’d give them my card, which shows the url of my photography blog. At $15.00 per digital image, I could easily email them a proof online and send them a PayPal money request that afternoon.

Sarah Russell said:

I’d head over to the Problogger Job Board and respond to a few of the postings there. I’ve been doing that for the past few months, and it’s put *much* more than $300-500 in my pocket lately.

Karen said:

I’d go straight to my travel journals (I have several years’ worth) and write a few travel articles. Before I get told that there are no travel markets that pay up front and have a quick turnaround, I’ll share a few faves I’ve sold articles to that fit the bill: Transitions Abroad, BootsnAll and the Matador Network.

Kate Courageous said:

I’m a runner, so I’d contact locally owned athletic stores and ask them to sponsor me, with my promises that I’d run through downtown San Francisco, during morning rush hour when everyone’s getting coffee, wearing their brand. I’d have to commit to a certain number of miles per week to get decent sponsorship, so there would also be the win-win of keeping me really in shape.

Steven Petersen said:

Try Gigwalk. They pay $4-7 for you to walk around your neighborhood and verify business information and take panoramic photos of the business locations. If I were to do this in my neighborhood I’d earn $500 in roughly two days.

Felix said:

Here is something I actually did during my student years. I walked into the city park and picked up tree seeds. I went to a supermarket and bought exotic fruits and got the seeds out and dry them.

I packaged them in small portions about 10 – 25 seeds per pack and sold them on ebay for $1.50 to $3.50 and mega-packs for $9.99. Customers usually bought for $6 on average to save on shipping. This turned out to make me between $400 to $600 per month.

Eric Walton said:

I purchase used vintage mechanical watches, restore them and sell them on Craiglist. You can easily make $100+ with each transaction doing this if you know the value of what you’re buying (many don’t know the value of what they’re selling).

With the economy as it is people are rediscovering the value of quality craftsmanship right now and appreciate these older wristwatches. These can be maintained for a lifetime of use vs. throwing a cheaper watch away and buying a replacement.

Jodi said:

I’d offer high tech support to low tech people!

1. Go around to local boutiques in town and offer to set up their Facebook business page. Offer extra small fee for taking digital photo of business or their product.

2. Offer to take flattering profile pictures of friends and local business owners with my iphone, upload to their Facebook page and/or LinkedIn page.

3. Create a HOW TO USE YOUR IPHONE class, $15 for 15 minutes. Set up private lessons at the local coffeeshop.

Sarah in Prague said:

Offer some small group tours of Prague’s literary pubs and cafes. I had a column in the English language newspaper here for several years in the early ’90′s and wrote the first English language pub guide to Prague in ’91, so I can legitimately claim some expertise. Advertise on various tourist and expat oriented sites and in English-language newspapers.

Leah said:

My husband and I had this situation when we first bought our house and I was 6 months pregnant with our son. He had just lost his job, but happened to have a box truck, so we printed up a few cards which he handed out to all the local furniture stores, antique dealers, etc. offering his services delivering furniture. It worked so well he had to get a business license, insurance, etc and it is now his full time job.

If you are willing to do work (labor especially) that other people don’t have time for or don’t want to do, you can make a few hundred the first week easily.

Nathan said:

When I really need cash and I’ve already squeezed my monthly bills, I do this: first I post on Facebook to tell everyone I know that I am available for odd jobs (fixing computers, babysitting, help with yard work, etc) and wait for responses. If you have a network of 100+ Facebook friends you will definitely get some bites. After that, I go on eBay and sell off items I am no longer using.

Finally, Sandy R had a good idea:

Bookmark this comment thread and come back here and select the best fit suggestion for my current circumstances.

“It’s So Easy…”

A number of people said that making extra money is easy. I have mixed feelings about this sentiment. In some ways, I agree. Whenever I need money for something, I find a way to go out and make it.

However, I also think we sometimes skip steps in explaining what’s involved in a project, and therefore cause people to feel bad about their own financial difficulties for no good reason.

I’m not sure that most people could easily earn $300-500 in a short period of time from busking, for example. Some can, certainly, but it’s not widely replicable. That’s why I prefer suggestions that don’t rely on special skills or access to existing contacts.

(Like manifesting money, if you can busk your way to the bank, don’t stop on my account.)

The $100 Bounty

I promised a $100 bounty to one smart commentor. Naturally, there could have been many winners. You all win! But the cat and biased judges could only choose one person. Following much angst, a split decision was awarded to DARLENE.

After first posting an idea on Monday about renting out a spare room to a student and taking public transportation for a few weeks, here’s what she had to say on Wednesday:

So here’s an update — I posted an ad for our room for rent and just rented it for two months and $1200!!! I actually DID it. And it didn’t take 30 days, it only took two.

I know that not everyone has a room they can rent, but I liked the spirit of her suggestion-followed-by-immediate-action. As promised, I just sent Darlene her $100 winning bounty by PayPal.

My congratulations (and my hundred bucks) go to Darlene on her big payday. And for those who said the question was highly relevant to them, well, now you have some ideas.

***

As you might expect, I have a business project behind all this brainstorming. However, I’m not nearly as strategic as I sometimes get credit for—the business project is indeed in development, but with no target launch date. Sorry. In the meantime, you all have 300+ recommendations on what you can do if you find yourself in need of extra cash to pay the bills.

I’m in Singapore this weekend and heading on to East Africa shortly. I hope you have a wonderful week, wherever you are.

###

Image: NTR

I’ve spent much of the past four months interviewing unconventional entrepreneurs for my next book, and throughout the process I learned what kind of questions solicit the best answers.

For example, I often asked people whether their venture was “worth it,” which might sound simplistic. Of course it’s worth it! I’ve learned, though, that this question often leads to a good story, so that’s why I ask.

I also learned to ask if there was a specific moment when they knew for sure they would make it. These “moment they knew” stories can be fun and inspiring.

Here are three of them, from different parts of the world.

****

Even with our excellent credit history, 2010 was a bad time in banking to ask for money. We didn’t need much, but we couldn’t swing it completely on our own—my husband Jon and I needed a small credit line to lease the building where we planed to house our interior design and framing business. Unfortunately, the bank said no.

Later that day, Jon was on the phone with the landlord of the building telling him that we just weren’t going to be able to make it work, and that he could release the building to the other interested party. As I heard him saying those words on the phone, I had an incredible surge of hope and I remember shouting, “Jon, no! We have to give it another shot! Tell him we just need a few more days to try again. We’ll just go back in to the bank and make them hear us out. If they’ll just sit down and listen, they will believe in us.”

It totally worked! The bank did hear our plea, and we eventually got what we needed to get going. But we almost just accepted the fact that “it wasn’t meant to be” and carried on with our lives. I am so glad we put it more effort; it meant everything to us to give it one more passionate plea.

Karen Starr
Hazel Tree Interiors
Akron, Ohio

***

My husband and I were traveling around Europe after I had been hit by a car. We were going to travel and then go back to Chile to shoot weddings until the bookings stopped coming in and then go back to having “normal” jobs. We had been Couchsurfing to try and save money, but after a month and a half on the road I was sick of it. So we decided to splurge in Italy. We checked into an amazing room at the Meridien, and I decided to pay an ungodly amount to use the internet for ten minutes. And that was when I saw the email. It would be our second U.S. wedding and our first U.S. wedding where I had quoted more than simply travel costs. The bride had decided to hire us and she was going with our biggest package, over $5,000.

I freaked out. I called my mom and then I called my dad screaming—stupidly using the hotel phone, which ended up costing another hundred bucks. I should’ve paid for another ten minutes of the internet and used Skype. I wasn’t freaking out because of the money, though. It was more that for a bride to pay that amount of money to photographers that don’t even live in your country is a huge leap of faith. And that was when I realized—if there was one bride willing to hire us and fly us in, there were probably more. And I started to think that if we could work both in Chile and outside of Chile, we could make this work.

So we did.

Kyle Hepp
Independent Photographer
Santiago, Chile

***

The big day for us was August 20th, 2008—also known as the day when we realized our dream of moving back to my partner’s native Spain. When we set up the company in England in 2005, it was with the aim of eventually being able to move back to Spain and run the business remotely, although we weren’t sure of how long this would take. We had set up a perfect infrastructure, with cloud-based business management software, VoIP telephones, and so on, but the logistics outsourcing was the proving the biggest hurdle. We couldn’t find a company that could deal with the complexity of 250 different products, most of which were labelled in Spanish.

When we finally managed to set up the contracted out logistics operation, and drove away from the warehouse knowing that we no longer had to do the picking and packing ourselves and that the following day we were getting on a boat to Spain, I knew we had achieved what we set out to do.

Jonathan Pincas
The Tapas Lunch Company
Spain and United Kingdom

***

The stories are powerful because they provide a keystone moment when someone goes from doubt to confidence. When you have these moments, hold on to them. Remember them the next time you encounter a big challenge.

How about you—when did you have an experience where you knew your project would be successful?

###

Image: Chicago Man

When it comes to working online and making money on the internet, most discussions tend to look at specific tactics.

How do you set up a mailing list? How can you get a merchant account? And so on.

The answers to these questions may be useful, but you can learn about them elsewhere, and I thought it would be helpful to take a step back and look at something higher-level.

Fundamentally, how do you make money on the internet?

I’ve been making my living online for more than a decade now. The specific projects I work on have changed over the years (and may change again), but I can’t imagine not doing something that pays the bills through online work.

There are essentially two broad approaches to working online: you can either profit from an inefficiency in the marketplace, providing a solution to a problem someone else should have fixed, or you can make something valuable and share it with the world.

For the first 5+ years of earning all of my income through online projects, I focused on profiting from inefficiencies in the marketplace. In my case, this meant things like selling on eBay during its early days, when it was a seller’s market and high profit margins were normal. (Things changed later on.) Then it was playing an arbitrage game with Google Adwords and Adsense, profiting a small amount, many times over, from the split between the two. (Again, things changed later on.)

There was nothing wrong with these projects, but they also weren’t very exciting. I didn’t go to sleep at night thinking about how my business would help people the next day. For a while, that was OK, because I was involved in plenty of other things that were at least somewhat helpful. But as time went by, I felt challenged to contribute in a greater way, so I began to shift to the second approach: making something valuable and sharing it with the world.

I’m writing my next book all about unconventional entrepreneurs, and the topic of value has been coming up in many of the interviews. Value is something that is frequently mentioned, but rarely analyzed. What is value, actually? Your definition may vary, but I think of it like this:

Value means helping people.

With this definition in mind, you can easily find the most important principle of making money online: be incredibly helpful. Be useful. Provide something valuable, and people will be eager to support your work.

In any kind of business, the marketplace—i.e., your customers—decides what is valuable and what isn’t. You may think you are offering something highly valuable, but if it doesn’t get the response you hope for, you’ve probably got the value part wrong somewhere. (This can be different for non-commercial art, since you can make valuable work that may not be recognized commercially. But in business, the market decides what value is and how it should be rewarded.)

If you keep the focus on helping people, regardless of what kind of project it is, you’re off to a good start. There’s just one more important thing to keep front and center before we go on to more details:

To make money on the internet, you just need something to sell, someone who wants to buy it, and a way to get paid.

This short list is really all you need. Don’t get hung up on anything else! I share this concept frequently, because it’s very easy to get overwhelmed with all kinds of other questions, ideas, and concerns that are completely irrelevant. You don’t need to borrow money, you don’t need write a 60-page business plan that no one will ever read, and you certainly don’t need to wait until everything’s perfect before you get started.

Again, you just need:

a. Something to sell (a product or a service)
b. Someone who wants to buy it (your target market, which is hopefully more than one person)
c. A way to get paid (you can solve this problem in two minutes by opening a PayPal account from almost any country in the world)

***

In addition to these two core concepts, here are some additional principles that may be helpful to you.

Figure out what people want, and find a way to give it to them. You can sometimes do this through surveys, directly asking your prospects or existing customers what they want, then making it for them. It also helps to relate your offer to core emotional needs. Most of us want more love, money, acceptance, freedom, and purpose. Similarly, we want less stress, worry, and hassle. Give people more of what they really want or take away something they don’t want, and you’re halfway there.

Instead of selling, issue invitations. Most of us like to buy, but we don’t like to be sold. Therefore, treat your customers with respect, and don’t try to sell them all the time. One of the easiest, most helpful things you can do is make it clear who your product or service is NOT for. This kind of filtering helps you as much as anyone else, because it’s never good in the long-run to sell the wrong thing to the wrong person. Be clear about the benefit you provide, and make a good offer, but don’t push.

Language has consequences, so carefully consider your words. Be deliberate about how you describe your offer—the words you use matter. For example, I always advise information publishers to avoid words like “ebook.” When you say you have an ebook, you automatically create the impression of low perceived value. Don’t sell ebooks! Sell guides, manuals, blueprints, strategy plans, or whatever you want to call them… but if you sell an ebook, be prepared for a lot of consumer resistance.

That’s an example of what not to do. It’s also important to clearly communicate a vision for your project, and how the project will benefit customers. In my work I try to communicate a sense of scale, community, and meaningful independence. That’s why I have a small army of remarkable people. That’s why we talk about empire building and world domination. Not everyone likes these phrases, which is a good sign—as Bill Cosby put it, “I don’t know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everyone.”

Maintain a balance of free and paid work. Since beginning AONC, I’ve maintained a balance of doing at least 80% of my work for free, with only 20% or less for sale. (I am actually way over the balance on the free side lately, but that’s OK. I’m having fun and I’ll get back to “business stuff” soon enough.) Your ratio may not be that high, but there are almost certainly things you can do in your business to help people that you don’t need to be paid for. How can you help people without being directly compensated? Megan in Omaha recently described her business plan to me as “strategic giving”—I liked that a lot.

Whenever possible, make it fun. You don’t have to make it fun, but it’s a lot better when you do. If you make it fun, you’ll generate interest and trust, not only from those who purchase from you, but also from people who just enjoy following along. The best example of this from my own business was the first Empire Building Kit launch, where I traveled across the U.S. on the Empire Builder train for a time-limited launch. It was an exhausting-but-fun experience where I built up a lot of attention and respect for the Unconventional Guides business. (Naturally, I’m working on something just as fun for the near future…)

Base your price on value, NOT time cost or materials cost. Unless you are selling a commodity (which you shouldn’t, because why would you want to compete with Wal-Mart?), you should think about pricing based on the value you provide to the customer, NOT what it costs you to create the product. The time or materials cost is irrelevant; what matters is how people benefit from what you make. This is yet another reason why “be incredibly helpful” is the most important lesson in making money online.

Side note: once in a while, someone will complain that something I sell is “too expensive.” I always reply that it may indeed be too expensive for them, and I’d never try to persuade them otherwise—but only the marketplace will decide if it’s too expensive overall. If large numbers of other customers are happy buyers, it’s NOT too expensive.

Try to get paid more than once. Getting paid once is nice, but if you can get paid over and over for something, it’s much better. You can do this either by creating something that people need to buy in multiple, frequent units, or by creating a subscription service where access is provided over time in exchange for regular payment.

It took me a while to switch to this model, but I finally did so earlier this year with the launch of the popular Travel Hacking Cartel, where members pay for access to a series of Deal Alerts each month. This much-needed transition has caused a big shift for my whole operation, as it requires a less launch-intensive approach elsewhere. I haven’t done much business development work lately (writing a book and hosting a 500-person summit takes its time), but as I get back to things later this summer, I plan to produce much of my commercial work in a subscription model going forward.

If you want to consult, just start consulting. There is no “consulting school”—if you want to be a coach or consultant, get a $10 domain, set up a one-page site with WordPress, describe what you do, and get the word out wherever you can. It will help you greatly if you can be highly specific about the kind of service you provide. The more generic, the less valuable. Also, make it easy for people to pay you—if you require people to contact you for a quote, you’re missing out on a lot of business.

Advertising is like sex. I like this quote from a Fast Company magazine article: “In the future, advertising will be like sex: only the losers pay for it.” For the most part, I think the future is already here. I recently conducted a “$10,000 vs. 10 hours” experiment, where I compared the results of a targeted advertising campaign to an amount of time I spent working on free publicity. I’ll share the whole story in the book I’m writing, but the short version is… the 10 hours of “free” work easily beat $10,000 of advertising.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. As long as you’re being helpful and doing work that matters, you’ll be building trust with people (customers, colleagues, blog readers, Twitter followers, etc.) over time. These people will help when you ask them. Always remember that there are many ways people can help you, and giving you money in exchange for something is only one of them.

***

This longer-than-usual overview could be greatly expanded, but of everything mentioned above, the most important is… be incredibly helpful. More than making money, think about how you can make something valuable and share it with the world.

What has been your experience with making money online?

###

Image: Tod

After I wrote that the first WDS operated at a net loss—financially speaking, not in terms of anything that matters—I was immediately pitched by a number of event planners, venues, and various professional meeting people, all offering me free advice about how we should do things around here.

Whoa! Thanks for all the… unsolicited… input.

“It’s good you can bring so many people together,” one of them told me, “but we know how to make your next event profitable.”

This sounded like saying: “It’s great that you’re changing the world, but we can help you out at the cash register.”

Well.

I’m no event planner, but I’m pretty sure we could have made the first WDS profitable if that was our primary goal. To do so, we would have started by charging more money (we had the lowest cost of any three-day event I’ve ever heard of). Then, we would have moved to a bigger venue and sold more tickets (more than 800 additional people wanted to come, but we sold out five months in advance and did not change venues despite the demand).

Like plenty of other events do, we could have pitched products and services from the stage, splitting the commission with the speakers. This is a huge profit center that we were simply uncomfortable with pursuing. (To their credit, not a single speaker even asked me about this option—it never even came up for discussion.)

We also could have cut costs. True, we didn’t need an ice sculpture in the shape of a globe at the free opening party. Perhaps we didn’t need custom gift bags filled with valuable things (not useless things provided by sponsors). Attendees didn’t need to receive free t-shirts, water bottles, awesome scout books, journals, and so on.

We could have skimped on providing free coffee and healthy snack breaks, not offered free tours (eight different options), not hired free shuttle buses to take attendees to the free off-site afterparty, and so on. We didn’t need an airport greeting station, a hang-out hammock lounge, a mobile command center, or any number of other fun things that helped attendees feel welcomed.

Speaking of sponsors, we could have actually had them, and put corporate logos on all our materials to offset the cost. “This session of World Domination is sponsored by Nissan. See you all later tonight at the Budweiser afterparty.”

Again, I’m no event planner and don’t pretend to know more than they do. But I do know a little about business, and I’m fairly certain we could have made it profitable. My question is, would that have determined its success?

I think not, and that’s the problem. In the traditional marketing world, success is judged by one thing: does it convert? (Which means: do the ends justify the means, or does it work?) But I object to this standard on its own. You can be a spammer and have a successful business model. You can rob old ladies in the street and it might technically work. Your conversion rate could be very high. But how would you sleep at night?

The more important question is: what are we trying to do here? What’s the goal?

Here’s what I propose as a better standard: when you go to bed at night, are you extremely excited about what you’ve done that day and what’s coming up the next day? Do people tell you about all the awesome things they are doing, in part because of something you’ve created?

Are you making art, whether you think of yourself as an artist or not?

Whatever your dream is, are you living it?

If freedom is one of your highest values, are you experiencing enough freedom in your life?

These are some standards I prefer to use. These things are what matters. It’s not just about what works. Because sometimes, it can work… but that doesn’t mean it works.

###

Image: Ken

I recently had the chance to participate in the 99% Conference, a gathering of creative professionals produced by Behance.

The team put on a great show at the Times Center in New York, and my (small) part was to conduct a 90-minute “master class” on the topic of Redefining Risk: Increasing Confidence in Your Unconventional Career.

We began the class by looking at two traditional narratives of risk and career:

Narrative #1: Life is dangerous! Working for yourself is a risky, uncertain proposition. Better to take the safe road and work for a larger company.

Almost every entrepreneur or self-employed person hears this narrative when heading out on their own, especially from well-meaning friends or family members. I heard from a woman last week who has built a million-dollar company with more than ten employees, and her family still tells her she should try to find a job “to be safe.”

Narrative #2: Leap and the net will appear! You can do it. If you don’t want to work completely on your own, something is wrong with you or you’re afraid of change.

This narrative is also problematic. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but almost everyone wants to create freedom and independence. Sometimes we leap, and no net appears.

Entrepreneurs and creatives tend to be regarded as risk-takers. But what if there’s a third way between the undesirable choice of two all-or-nothing options? What about those of us who know better—we know that creating independence for ourselves is the right path, but we don’t necessarily have an aggressive mindset? We know that the cautious person doesn’t always win the race, so how can we avoid being left behind?

Our group in the Times Center lobby began with a risk-o-meter where we looked at how we view the roles of risk and uncertainty in our careers, based on questions like these:

“Working for myself is the only option. I never want to work a ‘real job’ again.”

“It’s better to do one thing very well than to be a jack of all trades.”

“I’d rather have less money and more freedom.”

***

The main part of our time together was focused on a pre-mortem. I stole the idea for the pre-mortem from a fun book on facilitation exercises. (Whenever you have no idea how to lead a 90-minute workshop, it helps to learn what other people have done.)

A pre-mortem is like a debriefing—where you meet to reflect on a recent project or experience—but conducted in advance. With a pre-mortem, you look ahead to a project or experience and identify everything that could go wrong. It helps to raise the stakes by asking, “How will this end in disaster?”

The goal is to find the problems in an upcoming scenario before they happen. In this case, we were looking at concerns related to independent careers. Many of the problems raised related to finances. Others related to a changing marketplace, and still others related to inertia, or concerns about our own ability to produce.

After spending a good length of time thinking about problems and disasters, the next step is to move to premptive action phase. In this phase, you identify which problems are the most pressing and also the most likely to be resolved through a change of course. For example, one group identified “the world will come to an end” as a potential disaster, and another group identified an earthquake. Those would indeed be serious problems, but there’s not much that most of us can do to prepare for either of them.

After we identify the pressing and actionable issues, we then focus on solutions. If we’re worried about money, we can establish an emergency fund. We can also establish a “fun fund”—in my case, I started a fun fund for my travel expenses a couple years ago, and it’s made a big difference in mentality. Even though I have no more or less money in my cumulative bank accounts, having the travel money in an account on its own has helped me feel more secure.

If we’re worried about a changing marketplace, we can create an opportunity list. An opportunity list is an idea list of opportunities we could pursue if we needed to generate more income. (My list is five pages long—I don’t have time to pursue most of the ideas now, but they are there if I need them.)

If we’re worried about inertia, we can use a carrot-and-stick approach: over here, I’m busy writing a manuscript for the AONC book sequel, and as soon as the first draft is complete, I’ll buy a Round-the-World plane ticket. Having the “carrot” in front of me keeps me focused, even though there’s no practical need to wait until the manuscript is finished before getting the ticket.

Your solutions may be different from these, but the goal is to increase confidence. Often, we’re worried about vague concerns and problems. This exercise forces us to bring the real problems to the surface, and then get serious about preventing them from actually taking place.

World Domination Summit Pre-Mortem

The day before heading to New York for this conference, I met with our World Domination Action Team to talk about the upcoming summit. This exercise was very helpful in identifying concerns. With less than 30 days to go until 500 people descend on Portland, what are we most worried about? Where can we take preemptive action to avoid disaster?

We talked through everything that could go wrong: a heat wave will strike Portland, causing an important ice sculpture to melt. Bottlenecks at registration will hinder attendees from a good opening experience. A speaker or VIP guest will have an emergency and cancel at the last minute. Hammocks will fall from the ceiling (long story).

We then thought about which concerns were the most important and what we could do to preempt (or at least mitigate!) disaster well in advance. Over the next half-hour, we created a list of more than twenty actions that should ensure a smoother show than we would have had without the pre-mortem.

Sometimes you may think that a potential disaster is out of your control, but there is actually something you can do to “manage it” in advance. One of our big WDS concerns is that it will rain on Friday night, where we’re meeting outdoors for an Opening Ceremony at the art museum’s sculpture gardens. Then, someone on the team suggested we rebrand the evening and call it the “H2Opening Ceremony”—thus telling everyone to expect rain. (Thanks, Tyler. And a note to attendees: expect rain on Friday night! If it’s sunny, consider it a bonus.)

You can think about these things in relation to your own career, like we did at the 99% Conference, or in relation to a specific event or group project, like we did for the World Domination Summit. It helps to begin by thinking only about problems without thinking of solutions. After all problems have been identified, then you start thinking about possible solutions.

***

The message of Behance is: “It’s not about ideas; it’s about making ideas happen.” I love their mission and they put on an excellent event—my thanks and gratitude to the team for including me.

Question: How do you think about risk and uncertainty in your career?

###

Image: Mackler Studios

Paul was an artist, painting in several mediums and styles. He lived in a Northwestern city known for its love of the arts, if not always its ambition.

As Paul grew up, his family and teachers encouraged him to pursue art as a career instead of just a hobby. Paul was not especially organized, as we shall see, but this idea suited him well.

What Paul lacked in motivation, he made up for in talent. During high school he was always the best artist of the class. He managed to attend college on a partial arts scholarship that left him plenty of time to paint, but other things kept coming up. When he took the time to complete his work, he was the star student. When he slept in or underwent long periods of “artist’s block,” however, he lagged behind.

Paul was recruited and highly encouraged to enter local art shows, but felt put off by the application process. Deadlines! So many forms! A $20 application fee!

He complained about these things to other local artists, who somehow managed to meet the deadlines, complete the forms, and cough up the fees. “What a waste of time,” Paul said. After the shows, the other artists talked about how they had been a major source of income and commissions, bringing many of them a month’s income from one weekend. Paul said they must have been lucky.

In fact, luck and fate were the recurring themes in Paul’s limited career. When something went well, he attributed it to his skill and talent; when something didn’t work out, he blamed others. The art world was a “scam,” he said, with no way for new artists to break in. “Being an artist shouldn’t be about answering your email,” he said to anyone who would listen. Some people thought that was funny—but no one bought any of his art.

Once in a while, Paul managed to overcome the administrative handicaps and enter an arts fair or city festival. There were other artists there, of course, but Paul stood out—he had real talent and attracted a crowd of onlookers. When people asked where they could find his work, however, he had no answer.

A while back he had seen another artist with business cards. “Those are nice,” he said. “Where do you get them?”

“Oh, it’s easy,” she told him. “You just go to this site, upload your images, and place the order.” Paul liked the idea, but never got around to doing it. He finally decided that business cards weren’t for him. After all, he was a painter, not a businessman.

Paul’s website, which he had made during an assignment in college, was similarly elusive. It included a lengthy “artist’s statement” that went on at great length about Paul’s philosophy without saying much about Paul himself. There were no prices on his site, or any info on how to pay him if someone liked his work.

Yet, because Paul was so good, several buyers eventually found him anyway, offering an average of $2,500 for an original painting. Paul accepted the commissions but never got started—there was always something else to do.

Frustrated, Paul finally realized what the missing piece was: a higher-level art degree. Yes! That was it. He ordered glossy catalogs from East Coast MFA programs, dreaming of a place where his talent would finally be recognized without the need to carry business cards.

The debtload for the programs was astronomical—more than $30,000 a year for tuition alone, not counting supplies, housing, or food. Many students began the programs and never finished, and many students who finished never actually worked in art. But Paul knew if he could get his MFA he would be “set” for life. Because the art world was a scam, this degree would secure his entry among the gifted few. If only he could get into the right program, three years and six-figures of debt later, all would be well.

By some miracle, this time Paul was only a few days late on the deadlines. Since he wouldn’t need them anymore, he canceled the commissions he had never started. With 90 days until the news of his applications arrived, he settled in to wait. The future was bright. Wasn’t it?

###

Image: MP

One year ago, I was passing through North Dakota on a train from Chicago to Portland. The train was the Amtrak Empire Builder, and I used the occasion to plan the launch of the Empire Building Kit.

A lot can happen in a year’s time.

The weeks around the launch took place during an intense season. I flew to the Ukraine, to West Africa (Cape Verde), and to Cyprus. On the way back, British Airways was on strike and I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to the U.S. in time. Everything was tied together—one flight connection to another, one event or activity to all the rest.

But as it usually does, everything worked out and I ended up on a Lufthansa flight to Chicago, followed by a commuter hop to Pittsburgh where I spoke at Carnegie Mellon with Jonathan Fields, then back to Chicago where I met up with J.D. Roth on the train from ORD. The next night we did a group meetup at a bar near Wrigley Field with Alexandra, Adam, and 50 other friends. J.D. signed copies of his new book, and we went back to the Doubletree Hotel before gearing up for the next stage of the journey the next day, April 6th.

The story behind the Empire Building Kit (EBK) launch is best told here. In short, a lot of things came together at the same time. I spent months putting together my most comprehensive business resource ever. Then after feeling stuck for a while, I finally decided to launch the project from the Empire Builder train, with the new Empire Builder bag, on my birthday, for 24 hours only on a trip coming back from Africa.

We boarded the train and set up a bloggers’ lounge (the only Apple Store on board Amtrak, as far as I know), drinking cheap sparkling wine disguised as champagne. We rode through Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Then at 6am the next morning, I launched the Empire Building Kit to hundreds of people who had been following the pre-launch and waiting for it.

It was a miracle that everything worked out OK—all the flights, the WiFi situation, actually completing the product in time, the merchant account not shutting me down for depositing large amounts of money in a single day. But for whatever reason, everything worked as it should.

I got off the train in Portland on April 8th feeling tired from the journey through six countries abroad and then across half of America, but confident that I was following the right path.

In the weeks afterward, I thought a lot about the life I had been building since at least 2006. This kind of intense life isn’t for everyone, but more and more I knew it was for me. The more I pursue adventure, the more adventure I want. Steven Tyler said recently, “There’s no rehab for being addicted to adrenaline.” I’m thoroughly addicted, and I don’t want to be cured.

After the Launch

After the launch, I rested for a couple of days, then got to work writing 365 daily messages for the new group of EBK owners. The concept of a daily email for a year turned out to be one of the most popular features of the whole project, and—true to form—I underestimated how much work it would turn out to be. I literally wrote two book-length manuscripts for the follow-up series. What was I thinking? I’m not sure, but I have no regrets. Every day I hear from dozens of people on different parts of the series, and it’s fun to be a small part of their world every day.

The AONC book came out last September, and we immediately started pitching the concept for book #2 around. (Publishing takes forever, so if you sit around waiting, nothing will ever get done.) I did conference calls with executives in New York, and I noticed that almost all of them, on different calls, were interested in the Empire Building Kit. A couple of them even asked for free access to the course, which I thought was funny—I told them to feel free to put it on their expense accounts.

The book I’m writing now is all about unconventional entrepreneurs, and is partially based on the material and case studies I gathered for the Empire Building Kit.

Quick side note: I’m still looking for a few case studies of unconventional entrepreneurs, especially from readers outside the U.S. and people who own offline businesses. (I already have more than enough online businesses in the study.)

If you meet the criteria listed here, put your info down over here for consideration.

The lessons of building a business around your passion are still very much relevant, and the material in the course has helped nearly 2,000 people so far. But just as important, I think, is the free lesson to always follow your passion (wholeheartedly) and find a way to connect that passion with what others also care about. No need to select from your choice of price tiers for that lesson; just implement it in your life and success will follow.

The Missing Relaunch

If I was more strategic, I’d have put together a big “One Year Later” relaunch with much fanfare and more train-riding. But another thing I learned last year, or at least had strongly reinforced, is that I am more productive and accomplish much more if I spend my time on projects for which I’m highly motivated. After writing the equivalent of two whole books for the follow-up material, I’m done with Empire Building for the moment. It was fun to ride a train for 46 hours across the U.S., but I don’t need to do it again for a while. On to other things.

Therefore I have no new offer, no discount code, no pitch. Empire Building Kit is still the flagship product for UnconventionalGuides.com, so if you’re interested, you can get it here.

But for me, these days I’m motivated to write the next “real” book and prepare to welcome 500 people to Portland in June, so that’s what I’m doing. I’ve restricted myself from international travel for two months so I can work on those things.

At the moment, however, I’m headed to Las Vegas, speaking to entrepreneurs tomorrow afternoon at GrowCo. As to why entrepreneurs who are more successful than me care about what I have to say, I’m still not sure, but I’m grateful for the opportunity. Aside from short trips like this one, I’ll be based at home in Portland until at least mid-June.

What was happening in your life one year ago… and what are you excited about now?

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Image: Mod