Jason Leow

Chasing money vs chasing interest: Which comes first?

Conventional wisdom would say chase money first, then you chase your interests and do interesting things with the money.

But hearing what @ShaanVP said about the topic on the My First Million podcast was insightful and refreshing. Paraphrasing here:

"There’s no separation between the things you’re most interested to do; learning about; experimenting with, versus money. Find a way for money to be the by-product, the exhaust coming out from the chimney, of that factory of interestingness."

What a great way to say it. Factory of interestingness. Money is a by-product - what blasphemy haha!

As creators, instead of asking “How do I make money out of my interests?”, we should really be flipping it around and asking “How do I be interesting, so interesting that people will pay you money for that interestingness?”

So it’s less about profit motives being the first mover, but curiosity, fun, play and learning as first movers.

Build on what you already curious about, have fun with, that feels like play while others feel like work, and helps you grow as a creator or human being. Once you built up that creative factory out of your interests, then sell the by-products coming out of that factory.

Have fun sculpting out of wood, then sell your sawdust.

Reading about @JustinSaaS’s non-fancy funnel, I realised I’ve been doing it ALL WRONG.

Again.

I’ve been super consistent with my content so far. Maybe even prolific. But I’d tweet something, and then do a direct ask to the effect of “Here’s my site, pay here”. Too upfront, not enough information/trust before they feel like they can pay.

It’s like trying to squeeze a huge block (of content) into a tiny hole in the wall (my funnel). I’m literally choking my funnel with all that content, because the pipe is too narrow to fit.

Or it’s like using a firehose to water your plants. Quantity not matching with capacity (to buy).

I’m brute-forcing my marketing through content alone, catching people’s attention, but not helping them to make more informed decisions progressively.

Lots of inefficiencies, lots of waste, lots of wasted potential.

Truth is, I had been lazy. I knew about funnels all along. But avoided it because it sounded so complicated and I was comfortable just pushing out content. It seemed to be working anyway, so why bother? So I thought.

Maybe that’s why there’s only about average of 5 trial users signing up every month for the past months, and only 1-2 actually staying on to paid users. The dismal conversion was a sign of a poor funnel, but I didn’t heed the signs.

It’s one of those blindspots again, like not needing to do marketing and just building features.

I need to optimise my funnel waaay better.

https://sheet2bio.com/valhalla_dev/

💡💡💡 New SaaS idea?

Demo: https://notyourcustomer.carrd.co/
(Next: add a copy to clipboard btn...why is it so hard!?)

Inspired by @csmikecardona
https://notyouruser.mikecardona.com/

I find myself typing loads of canned replies and messages lately. In my DMs, Telegram group messages, in emails. Then I saw @csmikecardona’s canned reply on a webpage where he redirects people to, and I thought - this is it! That’s what I need! And I went and made one for myself.

Here it is:

https://notyourcustomer.carrd.co/

That was a fun 30min build! But that also got me thinking:

What else can I make that will help me with more of these canned replies?

Crazy idea:
A directory of canned replies for the common situations we all face at work. A searchable directory, with filters for different types of replies (saying no, rejecting a meeting, out of office) in different tones (sarcastic, positive, passive-aggressive). It’s like one of those resource directories for cold sales emails, but not for sale but normal day to day work.

You can view others replies, click a button to copy, and paste into your email. Or you can upload your own replies for everyone to download from, or create your own private database of replies that you use often at work. Future versions can include a Chrome extension where you can search, copy and paste directly in your browser without leaving your current tab/window. Throw in GPT-3 to get unique reply templates you can use without fear of looking the same.

Canned-replies-as-a-service.

A copywriting SaaS for the days when you need more colourful replies at work.

I’m realising more and more that the I’m thinking about habits wrong in relation to how it helps with being an entrepreneur/creator. Some habits help. Some don’t. But just habits alone isn’t enough to succeed. It’s all about which type of game I’m playing and how habits and systems figure in them:

“Recognizing good opportunities requires plenty of idle time, wandering about, tinkering, trial and error, long walks, randomized attention, and other ‘inefficiencies’ of that sort.” – @dvassallo

I’m slowly beginning to realise why working too hard, stressing myself out isn’t good not just for my health but also my luck.

Is that why despite starting indie hacking since 2018, I’m still nowhere near the success I seek? (Which is just ramen profitability on my products, excluding consulting).

That’s because I conflated success with being efficient in my work habits.

But in fact, I need to be inefficient.

I need to do everything opposite of what I’m taught in school, sports and office about what it means to succeed. Because that’s a different, linear and predictable world compared the stochastic world of entrepreneurship. An opposite universe where the laws of physics are flipped, where gravity lifts people up, where the sun rises from the west, where reward doesn’t rise with effort.

From school, all I’ve ever known is studying hard brings good results.
From sports, all I’ve ever known is discipline in training brings trophies.
From office, all I’ve ever known is working overtime brings promotions.

But from being a creator, entrepreneur, all I’ve ever known is none of the above guarantees anything at all.

Necessary, but not sufficient.

I just hope I can overcome my stubbornness and eventually adapt to this new universe before all hopes for achieving those dreams are dashed.

I hope.

Biggest realization about luck so far, for myself.

Luck and opportunities come when I’m relaxed, open, having fun, playing, not busy, not over-worked, not stressed out, slept enough and slept well, feeling healthy, energetic, having exercised enough, have happy time with my family.

Luck begins from a frame of mind, a lifestyle choice.

So the solution?

Be less busy. Self care

It’s like… to optimize for luck, you got to look at your whole lifestyle, way of being, your moods and internal state. It feels like you got to look it it the same way a professional athlete looks at every aspect of not just his training but his lifestyle, schedule and habits to find micro-improvements to compound towards.

Update: Turns out, he signed up to roast Lifelog sign up process!

https://twitter.com/nathanjpowellUX/status/1522612718393561089

https://youtu.be/FYGmVpagSgY

The best lessons in life, I learned from hanging out with a 2-year old.

I always thought children teach us adults more than we can ever teach them. Even as a parent, sometimes my role is reversed. The teacher becomes the student, and the student turns into a teacher.

So very often, I found that the very things we say to them, we should really also be telling ourselves. Like:

“Are you hungry?”
“Drink more water.”
“Eat your greens.”
“This is good for you.”
“Don’t eat the whole bag"
“Good morning.”
“Good night.”
“I love you.”

Our children are our mirrors.

We didn’t birth them to show them the world, they came to us to show us our world.

Not elegant fix... just adding a note in the cell to instruct users to add "mailto:" to their email if using emails as contact link.

Tried to find a Javascript solution for it but hard to cover all possibilities...