The Architecture of Success is Failure
The biggest lesson I had to learn was how to fail faster… That’s why when I left Xerox at five o’clock, I would go up the street to the nonprofit charity, helping homeless kids, and I would dial for donations at night. I had a goal every night of getting rejected thirty times. The more I increased my failure rate, the more success I had at Xerox.-Robert Kiyosaki in The Education of Millionaires by Michael Ellsberg
Thirty rejections a day! Thirty!
I do a large amount of reading, and cannot remember the last time I read something so completely stunning.
Not the fact that he failed 30 times, but that he went out with a goal of coming home with at least 30 failures.
I suppose the biggest successes are built, often on a mountain of failure. Before Microsoft, Bill Gates started a data company that went nowhere. Before Twitter Evan Williams, started a podcasting platform that was crushed by iTunes.
The concept of failing faster goes hand-in-hand with lean startup theory: fail fast, fail cheap, move on to the next idea.
A Windows Desktop Mac Users Envy
Yeah, I said it. A Windows desktop Mac users can envy.
If you own a Mac you should probably stop reading.
You see that image above?
That is what my desktop looks like right now. It’s efficient, beautiful and has an awesome clock. The best part is that setting it up takes less than an hour. That includes cleaning all the crap off your desktop.
However, it wasn’t always that way. It was once cluttered with a mess of folders and papers in complete disarray.
How to Get a Job Interview Tomorrow with Facebook Ads
I know that writing this will give away some of my good mojo, but I think this post will be extremely useful to many job seekers.
About a month ago I began a proactive job hunt experiment – Use Facebook ads to target potential employers, and use a landing page to see if I could sell them on my potential.
I have always questioned traditional job hunting methods. Everybody is creating the same bland one column, Times New Roman, 1-inch-margin resume. How are you supposed to stand out from the pack if you do the same things that everybody else does? Even if you submit a well designed resume with decent credentials like mine, the chances of an employer calling you back are slim.
I decided to take a different approach. Rethink the channel for job candidacy. Using specifically targeted Facebook advertisements, I created different ads targeting companies in industries that interested me. I gave myself $150 and about two weeks to see what would happen.
The results? I placed my first Facebook Ads and got a phone call the following afternoon from a startup in Los Angeles (hence the post name). As a result of this campaign I scheduled five interviews, received 18 job related emails, and had others wishing me luck. I had two blog posts written about the campaign. One from Tom Singer, College Student Seeks PR Job and Goes Beyond the Normal Path to Get Noticed, which was picked up by the Texas Entrepreneur Network. The other post was by Dave Ambrose, founder of Scoop St., a company similar to FRUGGL.
My Most Successful Failure
FRUGGL was the first business I’ve ever created. Now that FRUGGL is officially dead, I wanted to take some time to reflect on my experience.
FRUGGL was my first foray into the world of entrepreneurship. A social coupon website, FRUGGL offered college students discounts to local shops, or restaurants every week. It was created before all of the deal website the hype. Groupon was only in a handful of cities. I simply saw an opportunity to give deals to college students around the country.
It all began the summer of my junior year, I was working an internship with V3 Media Group doing copy writing, seo and social media stuff. During that time I discovered several startup blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch and The Next Web. Every morning that summer I woke up and devoured every new story on those sites (yeah, I know that is a lot of reading). I was addicted.
Startup Articles
A collection of must-read startup articles for the first-time entrepreneur. The articles below should give you inspiration and direction for your next startup. Most of the articles are geared towards web-based startups; however, the principles of starting a business remain the same. You may be unfamiliar with some of the tools and terminology used in the articles. It is imperative that you learn what they are and how to use them. Google is one of the most invaluable learning tools ever created.
Getting Started
How to Create a Million Dollar Business this Weekend - Tim Ferris, Noah Kagan of AppSumo on creating a profitable idea, finding customers, and assessing their value.
How I Quickly Test and Validate Startup Ideas - David Berube founder of MoFuse. A short post that will give you a taste of how to test startup ideas. NOTE: Contrary to what he says, I think Facebook and Google AdWords are awesome for testing.
How to Build a Web Startup - Steve Blank’s Lean Launchpad. He is an expert on starting a business with minimal risk. This is one of the most complete posts on starting a business.
Minimum Viable Products & Testing
How I Built My Minimum Viable Product - Micro-testing (testing products that don’t exist yet) won’t work for all products. Ash Maurya on putting together a MVP.
From Minimum Viable Product to Landing Pages - Ash Maurya on creating and testing landing pages.
Customer Development
Customer Development Checklist for Web Startups – Part 1 - Ash Maurya’s checklist could be the most valuable to startup entrepreneurs on the internet. It is a step by step process for building your product.
Customer Development Checklist for My Web Startup – Part 2 - These articles have been so popular that he built, Running Lean, an entire book around them.
The First Thing That Matters: Product/Market Fit
How I am Measuring Product/Market Fit
Educators to Follow on Twitter
This is a list of my favorite thought leaders in the realm of education reform. You can skim through and individually follow them or you can follow my list.
@MichaelEllsberg - Michael Ellsberg is the author of “The Education of Millionaires,” which includes interviews with some of the most successful people on the planet who didn’t complete college and who educated themselves in the real world.
@khanacademy - Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a Gates Foundation backed nonprofit that uses YouTube to provide a free world-class education to anybody anywhere.
@DaleJStephens - Dale Stephens is a Thiel Fellow, and founder of the UnCollege movement. His UnCollege Manifesto lays the groundwork for ways to acquire an education outside of college.
@SirKenRobinson - Sir Ken Robinson is a internationally recognized leader in education, creativity and innovation development. He is the author of The Element and Out of Our Minds. His TED talk Do Schools Kill Creativity? has had more than 200 million views worldwide.
@clarkaldrich - Clark Aldrich is and educational game designer, and the author of Unschooling Rules. He discusses the value of experience-based learning.
@aronsolomon - Aron Solomon (no relation) is an education entrepreneur. He is the founder of Smartswise, and is currently a partner at Futurlogic, an education venture development studio.
Lunch with Bobby Lowder
Today I had lunch with Bobby Lowder.
Our six members of the newly formed Auburn Student Entrepreneurship Organization sat in the lavishly decorated Alabama Power Room at the top of the Edward L. and Catherine K. Lowder Building. Named after his parents, the building is the crown of Lowder’s generosity towards Auburn.
I had little idea what to expect or what he would be like. Lowder is somewhat of a mythical figure here at Auburn. It is impossible to walk through campus without seeing the Lowder family name. After all, without him Auburn may not have a business school. Some stories paint Lowder as a hero, while others see him as a notorious booster. Either way you see it, the man has a presence.
The next next hour was filled with stories from his days in the military, and the lessons he took with him into the business world.
He discussed the importance of keeping in touch with others, and not going to them only when you need something. We talked about traits he felt the best entrepreneurs had: a good energy, an inquisitive nature, and a get things done attitude.
He asked us questions about our ideals, goal, and aspirations. And he did so with a sparkle in his eye. You know the kind, when someone is really engaged , when someone is really resonating with what you are saying. He was genuinely as excited to meet us as we were to meet him.
As our hour drew towards a close Bill Hardgrave, Dean of the College of Business, entered the room signaling the end of our discussion.
Behind him some 30 students entered the room, all Lowder Scholarship recipients.
People will have their own opinions about the man, but in that room there were 30 students who may not be in college if it wasn’t for him. He believes in education, he believes in entrepreneurship, and he believes in Auburn.
Promoting Ideas with Klout
Pitching the right idea to the right people can make a world of difference. The question is how do I find the right people?
These last few weeks I have spent a great deal of time brainstorming ideas to promote the Elephant on Campus. When thinking about people to pitch we are looking for people that are influential about higher education reform. We must figure out a way to target a small, but passionate group of people with no budget.
About this same time I discovered Klout, a free influence measurement tool for Twitter. Klout’s algorithm measures the interactivity of the content users create and share on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more influential the user.
The most important tool is Klout Topics, which pinpoints topics specific users are influential about.
So, for the documentary we are looking for those who are influential about #education, #college and #educationreform. The Top +K Recipient category is the most accurate way to measure who is influential about a specific topic, because users are the ones that awarding influence.
Once potential influencers are found it is up to you to reach out and make a compelling pitch. This is just a way to find influential people interested in a particular topic, that are not necessarily famous.
Please Excuse the Mess
Welcome to my new website.
Right now everything is a bit of a mess, but hopefully I will have most of it sorted out in the coming weeks. It was about time I moved my blog to WordPress. Tumblr is a great service, but it was time for me to move to something with more features and flexibility. You can still follow me on Tumblr. http://samuelrsolomon.tumblr.com/ I will still post interesting pictures and videos, but most of my writing content will be on this site.
I have a lot of projects I am working on.
- PaperMob Application – Web application that allows publishers to easily add digital content, social media buttons, commentary and more to print media. We think this is the next big thing for newspapers and magazines. Interested? I thoughts so. We are opening the beta to a limited number of publications. If you are a publisher don’t hesitate to get in touch.
- Crisis Center of East Alabama Campaign – My final project for Public Relations Campaigns. A group of us are working on reviving the CCEA, a nonprofit crisis hotline. I can’t give away too much right now, but here is a logo I made last week.
- The Elephant on Campus Documentary – A Michael Newman documentary about the need for higher education reform in America, and the problems created by the inflated value of a college education. I am assisting with promotion efforts. If you are a student, professor or anybody interested in rethinking higher education check it out. Just a $10 donation gets you a copy of the movie before it is released. The teaser video is below.
The Elephant on Campus | An Ornery Moment in Higher Education from Mind Twin Media on Vimeo.
Because of these projects, this website, and other school work it has been a while since I have posted. Don’t fret I have several posts that are works in progress.
- The Parallels of Design and Entrepreneurship
- Social Media & Job Hunting: How to Advertise to Employers
- Thoughts on the Future of Social Interaction
- Three Lessons of an Entrepreneur for Politicians
If you have any topic ideas feel free to let me know.