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online education

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career

Start Earning Your Second Revenue Stream

Takeaways

If you only have a minute, here are the takeaways:

  • Moments in time (like a global pandemic) show us how fragile our futures are if we rely on a single source of income.
  • Earning multiple sources of income is a superpower. Consulting is the best way to start.
  • Consulting has two advantages over other business models: leverage and speed. Leverage = apply lessons learned from your 9-5, and vice versa. Speed = test, launch, and operate your business quickly.
  • How to find your first client? Get good at something and have 10 people know. Email them and ask for referrals. Without your first paying client, building a website or email list is just procrastination.
  • How to land your first gig? Give them a presentation. Show you understand their business, their challenges, and how to address those challenges.
  • Offer a number of packages, anywhere from an audit of their existing work, to a full Done-for-you service.
  • You can charge an upfront fee or a percentage of sales. I’d recommend both ($X upfront and Y% on the backend).
  • If you’re consulting AND working your 9-5, avoid burnout. Choose your niche strategically, manage your client, and get advice if you’re stuck.

—

I did the math as Zoom loaded. The answer was 7.

If we did layoffs, 7 colleagues would be let go before me. I was Chinese lucky number 8.

Like most people, I lived in this fantasy where my future was secure. Moments in time (like a global pandemic) tug at this facade. Behind the curtain is nothing more than a harried man peddling away at his Rube Goldberg machine.

Moments like this are the best thing that can happen to you.

It’s the Inciting Incident in your Hero’s Journey. Your opportunity to re-examine the fragility of having a single source of income (your job) and explore building multiple revenue streams.

For me, it nudged me towards landing my first consulting gig.

Why consulting?

Earning side income is a vast universe. You can teach online courses, start a food blog, sell ads against your content, and much more.

I choose to consult, trading my time to work on someone else’s education company/products, in exchange for money.

Consulting is the best way to start earning additional income for two reasons: 

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online education

Should you beta test or do a full course launch?

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:56 am

Summary:

  • When building an online learning experience, you can decide whether to beta test or go straight into a full product launch.
  • Both options have high stakes tradeoffs. You can use the Beta Test Spectrum to help you analyze your market and product.
  • The Beta Test Spectrum looks at five vectors: demand, competition, brand moat, price, and promise.
  • Use the Beta Test Spectrum to maximize the value you add to your students’ lives and value to your business.

Six months after the Writer’s Strike, HBO placed a $60 million bet on a pair of TV neophytes. Neither had worked as a series staff writer, let alone run a show.

In November 2008, actors were cast, sets built, and principal photography of the pilot began.

Later, the writers screened the pilot for a few colleagues. Consensus was quickly reached: that screening was one of the most painful experiences of their lives.

The plot lost itself like a bad alibi. The costumes felt like a medieval Dolly Parton cosplay. On a legal pad, someone wrote, in all caps: “MASSIVE PROBLEM”.

In a stroke of extreme foresight or extreme oversight, HBO gave them a mulligan (foreign pre-sales, so the hypothesis goes).

Do it again, the executives told them. You got this.

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online education

“The surface is just the surface:” Online learning methods, promises and surfaces

The surface is just the surface: Online learning methods, promises and surfaces

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:17 pm

Summary:

  • Online learning products and experiences follow a structure with three components: methods, value promises, and surfaces.
  • Methods describe how we teach.
  • Value promises are what the user gets from the product.
  • Surfaces are the pieces of the product or experience the user interacts with.
  • By mixing and matching methods, value promises, and surfaces, you can strategically build a “sticky” online learning experience
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career

Should You Join An Early Stage Startup? Lessons Learned At Reforge

early-stage Reforge

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 07:56 am

On February 22, 2021 Reforge raised a $20 million Series A, led by Andreesen Horowitz. It was a big win. A huge milestone after 4 years.

Six weeks later on a Friday afternoon, I clicked Zoom’s “End Meeting” button and completed my last day at the startup.

I am a founding member of the team, and there hasn’t been much time to reflect on the journey until now. I wanted to share lessons learned in getting an early-stage company to its Series A, from someone who didn’t know what a Series A was when he started.

In this post I’ll explain:

  1. What is Reforge and where it fits in the online education ecosystem
  2. Why you should join an early-stage company
  3. Lessons learned over the last 4 years

What is Reforge and where does it fit in the online education ecosystem?

Reforge is an online education platform for mid-career technology professionals who want to do great work and keep leveling up their careers. We started with growth marketing and expanded from there.

We’re solving the need for career development in that gap between entry-level roles (college or boot camps) and executive roles (networking and executive coaching).

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finances

My Brutally Honest Review of How to Win the Game of Advanced Personal Finance

How to Win the Game of Advanced Personal Finance

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 07:59 am

This is an honest review of How to Win the Game of Advanced Personal Finance, a program from Ramit Sethi.

Advanced Personal Finance (APF) is a video course that serves as the “next steps” in personal finance.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering:

“Should I buy Advanced Personal Finance?”

In this article, I’ll explain:

  • Who should buy Advanced Personal Finance
  • Who should not buy (and what to do instead)
  • How the Advanced Personal Finance program works and the changes I implemented in my personal finance system

Let’s get started.

Disclosure: I used to work with Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach.

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online education

How to Position Your Expertise in Online Education: The “Us vs. Them” Technique

Last updated on November 26th, 2021 at 01:20 am

 

I was talking to Brian Balfour about retention and engagement, and asked him this question:

[blockquote]“Should you try to retain people at the onboarding phase, or try to resurrect people who have churned and are now dormant?”[/blockquote]

You see, I’ve heard arguments for both sides, but when I told Brian this, here’s his response:

practitioners vs. non-practitioners

Later he explained:

“A non-practitioner will make all sorts of arguments as to why it’s better to resurrect churned users (they’re already exposed, it’s cheaper, it’s a large audience, etc.). But a practitioner knows from experience it’s always more valuable to focus on new or current users.”

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