samh

Suppose you have an idea for some software for travel agents. Before opening an idea or writing a single line of html you go to the phone book and find the number of a travel agent. You call them and say :

"Hi can I speak to the manager please. Hi there, my name is Sam and I have an idea for a computer software tool that might be useful for Travel agents, I'm not selling anything but would you have 15 minutes available for me to talk to you and get your feedback ?"

Do that 20 times. Talk to 10 different people. List any repeated phrases, objections or suggestions. Ask each of them "Do you think this would be useful to other travel agents ?".

Now if you have the guts to do this very simple but difficult thing enough times that you actually talk to 10 different potential users you will know whether there is a market and if there is you will already have real beta testers lined up.

People may want to pick holes in this "what about..." "what if...". Yeah, you can analyse on the internet all you want but the fact remains, if you do this the chances of you building something people will buy goes up dramatically.

And the reason people don't do this is almost always fear.

(note: I was the Sam Howley in the article)

"Deliver to world what you would buy if you were on the other end of the deal"

"Have lots of assiduity. That means you sit down on your ass and do it until it's done"

All Charlie Munger

Surely in the vast majority of cases it's what people agreed was the arrangement that matters. I know tax considerations complicate this.

That order of magnitude is my experience. Google for "the hackernews effect". I know Justin Vincent from the techzing podcast (great podcast) has posted numbers from when his web app Pluggio (formerly tweetminer) was on Hacker News, so you could search for that.

How many mechanics have email ? I think a large percentage.

How many people starting up new mechanic businesses are in their 30s or even 20s and reasonably net savvy ? I imagine quite a few.

Course these questions are best answered with some research and discussion with mechanics.

I think google does a pretty good job of providing good incentives. I mean there are a lot of people competing to create content that other people are interested in. That's a lot better than many of the alternatives.

My 2 cents.

The wall has a bunch of project notes and motivational stuff

"There is 0 value is fear and anxiety" "Differentiate every day"

and my favorite

"The thoughts of others were light and fleeting, of lovers meeting or luck or fame, mine were of trouble and mine were steady, and I was ready when trouble came - Houseman".

http://www.querycell.com/da_desk.jpg

People who have money at stake in some way is probably best.

My 2 cents anyway.

I think the next one I make will be examples of using aggregate functions.

If you have suggestions for cheat sheets to make let me know.

SQL is more likely to be used in different applications than code in an organisation I would say. So there is more use to an independant library location.

Also code is usually in the context of a project / application where are SQL statements often exist in isolation. I think most code snippets exist as part of a code base, but SQL statements often do a single job.

That's what I'm thinking anyway. Not too sure. I guess I shall note you as someone who doesn't see the value.

Good feedback to have.

Question one, are you more attached to your self image as someone who has a real problem with shyness or are you more attached to the idea that you need to solve this problem for real ?

Are you serious about overcoming it ?

If you are, what you need to do is to take steps, possibly very small steps, every day, to push yourself past your comfort zone and be around other people and overcome your shyness.

There is no knowledge that will help you, you cannot read, think, research or write your way out of it, you can only practice and train your way out of it.

- Every day this week I will smile at a stranger. Then smile at two a day, then ten. - Every day I will say 'hello' to people as I pass them and smile. - When I deal with a cashier or serving person I will say "Thanks, you having a good day ?" I will practice small talk.

Action not thought will help you.

It's amazing that there still isn't rock solid agreement on how to explain this kind of stuff.

I guess it's a reminder to always question.

I would think about the option of all videos being free forever but a monthly subscription to access a Mixergy forum, a members area, where people discuss the interviews and talk about the issues they raise.

Use the interviews to create a high quality community that people are willing to pay to join.

1 - Why do they keep interviewing him about the future but never talk about how accurate he was in the past.

2 - He is deliberately couching everything he says in 'weasel words' so as to never risk being wrong.

But he wears a suit, has a position of authority and looks like he should know what he is talking about, that seems to be all they want.

Much of the world is a confidence trick.

Piet Eichholtz the Amsterdam series 1628-1973

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L5RRx0Db...

It's interesting data if you have this conversation :

"Buy property it always goes up" "It always goes up due to inflation" "no over the long term it always goes up in real terms, if you pay A x average yearly income for a property then in 10 years you can sell it for A + B x average yearly income!" "Well here is a graph that shows B is hovering around 0 from 1628 to 1945 and has risen dramatically since then".

It certainly is a different way to look at things.