The Unscripted Entrepreneurial Network

A couple of lessons in today's business news. #1) The Commandment of Control strikes again. Unity Game Engine has changed its terms, making game development extremely expensive and out of reach for most aspiring game developers. The fee changes will cost existing games thousands and likely erase all profits. We saw this recently when Reddit changed its API terms. Same story, different company. When one company can destroy your business, you accept a risk that is paramount. Business, by itself, is risky. If your company is dependent on one company NOT changing its terms, you're playing Russian Roullete. #2) STAKEHOLDER DEMOTION = Opportunity for all entrepreneurs. FACT: Any once beloved, customer-centric company turns into DOGSHIT after going public. Sonos, Etsy, Upwork, I lost count. Why? Customers are demoted to livestock as the new focus is shareholders and Wall St analysts. When your customer is your #1 stakeholder, you hold an advantage over big public companies whose priorities are upended; meeting Wall Street earnings expectations, appeasing shareholders, and essentially squeezing every ounce of margin out of their customers. ADVANTAGE: YOU. I hear Unity Game Engine customers are going through the same discovery. Reddit too, as they prepare for IPO. Sucks when customers become livestock. How many times has a company you loved gone public and turned to crap? For me it was Sonos, the audio company. I hear a lot of people are upset at Etsy and Upwork. What was it for you?

MARKETING AS A POWERFUL VALUE SKEW View forum thread: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/marketing-as-your-only-value-skew-somewhat-scammy.110412/ If you follow my work, you’ve heard me mention that MARKETING is a VALUE SKEW. If you can take a unique product that is UNDER-MARKETED and ADD MARKETING, you just created SKEW. A value skew is something a consumer will perceive as unique and special about your product, enough to compel a customer to buy. In this case, the SKEW is simple awareness. In many marketing circles (and many gurus) like to promote the IDEA that marketing can be your only skew. While this is true, the result is somewhat questionable (scammy?) because you are simply exposing an underexposed product to the masses. The return on your effort is an INSANE MARKUP. Here is a classic example. If found a company advertising on Instagram a pair of neck messagers. Their advertising hook was a video of very attractive people using the product and just raving about the relief they were getting. I must admit, after watching the eye candy OOH and AHH about their neck relief, I wanted one. They were asking $60. But here’s the deal. I knew immediately this was a MARKETING SKEW venture. After researching Temu, I found the same products for sale for LESS THAN $9. Yes, $9 bucks. And that’s not including any discounts which Temu readily offers. $9 acquisition. Sell for $59. Add a few costs for ads + slick packaging ($11); the net ROI is a whopping 436%. A 436% ROI is asymmetric and how you get rich. This is HOW marketing, by itself, can be your only SKEW. While I wouldn’t find myself doing this, it demonstrates that opportunities can be created by exposing the underexposed.

The most powerful factor in wealth creation has nothing to do with motivation. It has nothing to do with effort, persistence, discipline, or the usual suspects commonly pushed. While these help, the most important thing is likely something you never considered. It's this... The most powerful tool for wealth creation is within the SYSTEM you put yourself in. Your choices dictate the system. For example, if you elect to get a job as an electrician, that's a system. A doctor? A system. A cashier? It's a system. Nurse? You've given yourself a system. Likewise, electing to be an entrepreneur also endows you with a system. Starting a sandwich shop on the corner? System. Starting a software company? System. Joining an MLM to sell overpriced goods and far-fetched fantasies? System. Starting a YouTube channel? System. Self-endowed systems go beyond jobs and business. An aspiring actor is part of a system. Artists. If you become a politician and are elected, congratulations; you're now part of a system. Enter office with a net worth of $1M, leave 15 years later with $250M. Ultimately, the SYSTEM determines how your EFFORT, motivation, and discipline compounds into momentum, or lack of it. The SYSTEM determines if you have access to asymmetrical leverage--which creates wealth- or no leverage at all. What leverage does your system offer? Or does it? The best analogy of the SYSTEM/EFFORT Concept is equate your system to a vehicle. Many jobs are like a tricycle. If you throw Usain Bolt on a tricycle, you'd beat him in a race. Did he suddenly get slow? No, the problem is a poor system suddenly marginalizes his EFFORT. So many people work harder and longer than myself. And they're more talented. Their work ethic isn't the issue; it's that the system they've adopted hinders their effort. Want to get paid what you're worth? Change your damn system and get off the tricycle. This is why Fastlane Entrepreneurship is the most potent SYSTEM; it's a system swap where your effort compounds and gives asymmetrical leverage a chance. A great effort in the JOB SYSTEM gives you a 4% raise. A great effort in a BIZ SYSTEM gives you a 4000% raise. SYSTEM > EFFORT > MOMENTUM Choose wisely.

Audience first? Or product first? What should you focus on? For example, if you have 2M subscribers on YouTube, it would be easy to push them a product right? And not just a great product, but ANY product, right? Everyone wants a IG following or a YT channel with millions of followers/subscribers so they can sell their influence. This is not a bad strategy, but I don't believe it is optimal. For starters, Control and Entry, which are non-existent on such platforms. To circumvent Control, you need to get so huge (think: Mr. Beast) that you possess leverage and unprecedented influence. Second, just because you have a large audience, doesn't mean success is guaranteed. Mr. Beast and Joe Rogan are implicitly implying with their success that if we have millions of fans, monetization (selling them something) is super-simple. It isn't, because ultimately, selling *something* comes down to a product. Unique value. Something different. If you attempt to sell your audience something that does not have perceived value and is seen more of a "money grab," you will be exposed as a fraud, and many in your audience will leave. This also goes for paid influencer promos -- ultimately, the product has to do the heavy lifting. On the flip side, if you had an awesome product but started with ZERO audience, the speed at which you can get traction is greatly diminished, or worse, impossible, especially if you don't know how to market. The cure for cancer goes unsold if you can't sell it. Both paths are not for the thin-skinned, or for person who quits easily. However if I had to make a choice, I'd say that YOUR PRODUCT is most important. That is my default answer, pending more information. Good products are viral. And good products sell. A large audience? That doesn't guarantee success, sales, or traction. Remember Google+? Google Glass? New Coke? Another great example right now is Threads, by Meta, which hasn't (yet) seemed to have gained market adoption. Zuckerburg has the largest audience on the planet, and Threads sucks. So... #1) Build a product that a significan audience wants? And let your product help build the audience? #2) Or build an audience and plug-in something later? I'd pick #1 every time. A great example is my own audience at YouTube. I think I have 60K+ subscribers, a mid-sized audience. This audience would not be interested in a fishing product, a vegan snack, or a beta-reading SAAS for aspiring authors. There has to be product-fit with the audience, so it creates somewhat of a pigeon hole. PS: There is NO right or wrong to this question as like many things, it can be solved in the gray with "It depends." Here's the forum thread on this discussion which includes a link to some of the biggest product failures from Gigantic companies with Gigantic audiences.

So many people complicate wealth into this multi-variate octopus that needs taming. -- Cold showers. -- Value. -- Scale. -- VC Funding. -- Meditation. -- Education. -- Waking up at 4AM. -- Blah, blah, blah. The accumulation of wealth comes down to one incredible simple thing, something that I wrote about over a decade ago: The Law of Effection: The more people you impact in scale or magnitude, the richer you can become. Impact millions, make millions.  The statement doesn't care about education, race, gender, location, etc. It only cares about numbers. Wealth is simple math. Most customers = more wealth. More influence =- more wealth. More money = more wealth. As for the other factors that can correlate or have causation with respect to this law, stuff like socioeconomics, government policy, poverty, etc, yes, it matters. For example... ...a person in New York has much better opportunity to "impact millions" than a poor person in rural Ghana. ...a woman in Venezuela does not have the same opportunity to "impact millions" as one does in San Diego. ...a privileged student who gets a free ride to Harvard will have more opportunity to "impact millions" than the poor farmer's kid attending Clayton County Community College. ....the offspring from a family who owns a successful legacy company has a better chance at Effection than someone struggling in poverty. Bottomline, the one question that needs to be asked wherever you are on the planet, or whatever your circumstances is... How can I put myself in a position to impact millions?

Ever stumbled upon claims like these? I sold $300K of X widgets in 3 weeks; here's my secret My company did $4M last year; here's how you can too! Our real estate holdings will earn over $16,000 in rent next month If you ever catch wind of these grand proclamations, let suspicion creep over you. Why? Because they likely are subject to what I've dubbed, The Revenue Razor. If "razors" sound foreign, let me acquaint you with these sharp-minded instruments. Razors are thinking blades that help you carve through information, dissecting the fat of falsehood from the lean meat of truth. You might know Occam's Razor, the famous blade that prefers the explanation with the fewest leaps of logic. When presented with revenue or sales information, apply the Revenue Razor: When somebody claims a large number of sales, income, or revenues on a gross basis, always assume that the net profit, or bottomline, is terribly small and unimpressive. https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/364132/emails/96603194993411206

Ever stumbled upon glittering claims like these? • I sold $300K of X widgets in 3 weeks; here's my secret... • My company did $4M last year; here's how you can too... • Our real estate holdings will earn over $16,000 in rent next month... If you ever catch wind of these grand proclamations, let the shadow of suspicion creep over you. Why? Because they likely are subject to what I've dubbed, The Revenue Razor. If "razors" sound foreign to you, let me acquaint you with these sharp-minded instruments. Razors are thinking blades that help you carve through information, dissecting the fat of falsehood from the lean meat of truth. You might know Occam's Razor, the famous blade that prefers the explanation with the fewest leaps of logic. Other versions include: • The simplest explanation is usually the best one. • When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better. When presented with revenue or sales information, I present to you the following wisdom: The Revenue Razor. When somebody claims a large number of sales, income, or revenues on a gross basis, always assume that the net profit, or bottomline, is terribly small and unimpressive.

How to Stop Cheating Yourself, And Earn What You Deserve. Two hikers, both smitten by the Fastlane entrepreneurial bug, stood at the base of two different mountains, faces steeled, resolve unshaken. They weren't climbing for the view. No, these mountains had something else that lures you, me, and every dream-chaser up here: The Reward. One mountain, which appeared less treacherous, promised a $50K trophy for the relentless soul who reached its peak. The other? A staggering $25M. Two mountains, two hikers, two entrepreneurial dreams. But here's the twisted truth: the mountains were exactly the same in every jagged rock and treacherous slope.... Continue... https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/364132/emails/96055059467470172

You’re 25 years old. Someone offers you $2,000,000 (USD) to sell your kidney, part of your liver, cornea, and left leg. Part of the terms is you won’t receive and/or enjoy any of $2M until you hit 65. Then you can have fun! Would you take the deal? Of course not; you’d probably even laugh and tell the person to take a hike. If this is true, then why on earth do we continually give credence to the idea that if you work hard enough for 40 or 50 years, one day you can retire rich with financial freedom? Bottomline, TIME and FINANCIAL freedom are subject to discounting, just like money. IOW, skiing in the Alps when you’re 35 is worth far more than trying to do it when you 70, after 40 years of job and market stress have destroyed your health. I wrote an article in the newsletter if you’d like to read more… https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/364132/94800438617966231

Entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. Here are 5 essentials that you will need to succeed as a self-sufficient entrepreneur who excels, and creates life-changing wealth. Life is too short to just pay the bills for the month and repeat... #1) Learn how to solve PROBLEMS. As I like to say, entrepreneurs are professional Problemologists. Every day is a new problem to solve and it should be your expectation. If you give up easily at any problem in your life, you won't make it as an entrepreneur. Keep the job. #2) If you can't stay FOCUSED any longer than 10 minutes without getting frustrated at certain mundanities, keep your job. If you find yourself giving up after navigating your state's LLC or incorporating pages (which certainly will suck), keep your job. #3) If you can't stay MOTIVATED while your feedback loop is disconnected (translation: no dopamine) stay at your job. Health and fitness are very similar, where short-term actions (diet/exercise) only deliver long-term results. #4) If you can't handle the idea of having thousands of BOSSES, your customers, many of whom will critique you and your venture, you should rethink becoming an entrepreneur. Yes, you can fire bad customers, but generally, more customers = more bosses. On the contrary, customer feedback, even the negative, is a powerful source of critical intelligence. #5) If you're worried about what other people think, PUBLIC CRITICISM, you should keep your job. It is impossible to live Unscripted while worrying about what others will think about your life and career decisions. Good news is, mostly no one cares. And finally, if you do decide to be a Fastlane entrepreneur, promise yourself this: Keep grinding at it until your first sale, your first profit, occurs WHILE SLEEPING. Making $$$ 24/7 separate from your time is incredibly intoxicating. Once you experience it, there's no going back. Good luck!

I tweeted this the other day and it was in the Fastlane Newsletter. If you haven't seen it, it bears repeating: "Financial blasphemy: I drink $6 coffee. I spent $5.3M on a 13,000 sq/ft estate w/a $6K mortgage. I have 12 credit cards where $1000s are charged monthly. I dine out 3-5X week. When I shop, I don't look at prices and throw whatever I want into the shopping cart. The word "budget" is not in my vocabulary. I also have no savings plan, I don't make regular investments in index funds. Despite doing everything CONTRARY to what financial experts preach & every finance book ever sold, I have total financial freedom. Here's are 8 truths that made it happen.." (you can find the full tweet in the link) Among one of those truths, there was one I want to call your particular attention to: The true secret to wealth/unfettered financial freedom (not the mediocre suckfest promoted nowadays) is by owning things you can control as an INSIDER. This puts the power of asymmetrical business returns that compound into your grasp. Buying index funds does not count. If you look at any person who has accumulated wealth (and by wealth I mean at least $10M+) you will see the above FACT as common denominator. In fact, Sam Altman (the entrepreneur behind the ChatGPT AI) echoed the same in a legendary blog post on becoming successful. He said: Continue reading… https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/364132/emails/93514015180850948

Reminder as we head into a weekend, and for many here in the USA, a long weekend... The best investment you can make is not in your business, the stock market, or in some cryptocoin; it's in your HEALTH. It's understanding that your FREE TIME young is worth far more than your FREE TIME old. Don't sacrifice your youthful vibrance in a savings scheme that pays elderly entropy. If you're finally *free* but too old to do anything with that freedom (Travel the world, ski, play sports) then what is the point? Your $1.9M portfolio that you slaved and saved for 35 years means nothing if you killed yourself in a job and can't enjoy it, much less walk a flight of stairs. Make HARD decisions today so you can earn the interest of EASY later. Have a great weekend!

Luck is for Schmucks. *THIS* is for Winners How to make luck work in your favor! I swear, if I hear another wannabe entrepreneur justify dropping out of college because Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropped out, I'll vomit. Read on and discover why these two examples mean nothing, especially if you think dropping out of Johnson County Community College with no education, experience, or skills is a good idea. In the vast cosmic ballet, there's a pervasive illusion that luck is the master choreographer. Hang out on Reddit or some other mainstream media rag, and you'll be bludgeoned repeatedly with the idea that luck is in control. I mean, why bother trying to win your best life when luck lurks around every corner, thwarting your best attempts? But what if I told you there's a powerful tool, honed by centuries of thinkers that can smack luck in the face and let you take charge of your destiny? READ ON: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/luck-is-for-schmucks-this-is-for-winners.109274/

You can't change the world until you learn how to change yourself. Every year of my life I've changed and I'm proud of it. I would NOT recognize younger me from 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago. If you're the same person today as you were just a few years ago, you're doing life wrong. Stop being change-adverse and start embracing it. BONUS: CHANGE is also what creates wealth as shifts in culture, technology, and tastes evolve. Those who continually adapt, win. Think about AI, the latest emerging technologoy. Countless wealth will be created in this tech by early adopters who learn how to leverage it and bring it to the common masses.

SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND GET TO WORK! Summary? No one cares, and no one believes you. I was raking in the cash and needed an extra pair of hands to keep things rolling. Enter my mother. She had reluctantly taken up the unenviable task of managing the accounts receivable while I hunted for a suitable employee. Let's back up a bit, though. See, my mother had always been the voice of pragmatism. She wasn't exactly the cheerleader for my entrepreneurial ambitions. And truth be told, who could blame her? I'd been running with one idea after another, tripping up more often than not, while she sent up her daily mantra from the foot of the stairs, "GET A JOB BABY!" So, picture this. She's poring over the monthly invoices, numbers running into six figures, and she looks at me wide-eyed, "You're owed all this?" I nod, and her jaw quite literally drops. That was it. That was the moment her doubt evaporated, replaced with a newfound faith in my business pursuits. Years later, I'd take great pleasure in wiping off her mortgage with one fat check. https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/364132/emails/90986578829116937

The price of your comfort and security is mediocrity. The reward for your discomfort and insecurity is wealth. Choose wisely.

The $2 "life-hack" that can change everything. From the Fastlane Newsletter... I had this nagging itch on the instep of my foot a couple of months ago. It got so bad that it started affecting my sleep and work. I scratched the hell out of it to the point it got calloused. Still, the itch remained and continued for months. After trying the usual modalities to rid me of this itch, like antifungals or hydrocortisone, I started testing other treatments. Was it food related? Was it nerve related? Was it poor posture? I tried various things, like a food-elimination diet, acupressure, lymphatic massage, and a bevy of strategies that might impact this nagging issue. About 3 weeks later, the itch was gone. While I didn't discover the cause, I did find a strategy that lessened the itch and ultimately eliminated it. And it was all made possible by a lifestyle strategy you can deploy with just a few bucks: a health journal. CONTINUE... https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/364132/emails/90426822565562191

Want to spare yourself from an expensive divorce in terms of TIME, MONEY, and EMOTIONAL toll? I posted this on the forum and it's a SMALL piece of advice that can have a BIG outcome. This concept was mentioned in The Great Rat Race Escape and it applies to both men and women. This is my own personal guideline that has served me spectacularly. This also is a great example on how you can manipulate probability to change the odds into your favor. They say all marriages end in divorce at about a 50% clip. Follow these rules, and you likely reduce those odds from 50% to 25, 20, or better, 10%. It’s called the 1-2-3 Rule of Relationships… 1 HOUR 2 DAYS 3 YEARS Before you even think about getting married, DO THE FOLLOWING, or any variation of… SPEND 1 HOUR to discuss core values like religion, politics, kids, hobbies, financial priorities, fitness and health priorities, and other things that cause huge relationship divergences. Most relationships fail under the burden of mismatched values. • She wants to save and go Fastlane, you want to spend and be a Sidewalker. • She wants to be Christian, you want to be an atheist. • She wants to be a fiscal conservative, you want to be a pink-haired milquetoast socialist. • She wants to hit the gym 4X a week and eats plant based, you want to sit on the couch and eat cheese all day. • She wants 3 kids, you want 3 rolls on your chin. • She has "can do" growth mindset, you blame everyone with a fixed mindset. • She loves camping, you love gaming. Can that relationship survive with these divergences? No -- and this relationship will DIE under its own weight. SPEND 2 DAYS in the most hellish conditions to see each other at your worst. Basically, you’re looking to share a highly stressful situation. Some examples: - You’re trapped at the airport due to bad weather. - You and your partner do a home renovation that goes bad. - Moving from one house to another house involving moving a lot of boxes, furniture, etc. - Putting together a backyard shed (think IKEA furniture stuff) SPEND 3 YEARS to date each other to understand how you grow together, if at all. Relationships diverge. Or they grow into each other getting stronger. The 3 years is a great standard to learn each other fully, to go beyond the "honeymoon stage," and to go beyond the fake role-playing, and to truly see each other as raw individuals. Follow these 3 guidelines, and you likely will save yourself from a marriage that ends badly. And instead, live happily ever after.

Many folks asked me how to make better decisions... HERES HOW. 📈👍 In 2021, I made the biggest purchase of my life, a 13,000-square-foot, $5.3M estate in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. At the time, housing prices were at all-time highs while the cost of money, or interest rates, were at all-time lows. In the last newsletter, I stated that your life's superpower is your choices. Decisions shape your destiny and engineer your life. Like your decision superpower, there is another superpower you can leverage to make good decisions. It's the superpower I used to make the hard choice to make the biggest purchase of my life. No, this fantastic decision-making tool is not a website, a matrix, or complicated life hack. What is it? Read on... https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/364132/emails/89081760727435147

Started writing my next book, no details to disclose at this time because my track record of writing can take years. The topic of this book is not about wealth, or “Fastlane” and is pretty narrow. Stay tuned!! Hope to have it not take forever, have a new writing environment! Hope everyone has a great weekend, give a loved one a hug 🫂 ❤️!!