Extra Credit Post - The 4-Hour Workweek

Written by Timothy Ferriss, this book had presented some interesting ways to deal with a big problem in the entrepreneurship business.  Ferris had brought up the point that 80% of your productivity comes from 20% of your time.  The other 20% of your productivity eats up 80% of your time.  Ferris called this the 80/20 rule.  Ferriss also presents intuitive ways to handle/eliminate the 20% of the productivity that eats up most of your time so that you may not have to work as hard.

The book is divided in four sections to tell you how to handle that 20% all summed up in a lovely acronym, DEAL.   The first section, D is definition,   talks about defining your objectives.  This is more of a planning phase.  In this section we are meant to set goals.

The second section, E is for Elimination, discusses the cutting away of fat and gristle.  Sure that shit may be tasty, but it isn't needed and in fact is unhealthy for you in the long run.  By fat and gristle i mean distractions.  Don't focus too hard on the 20% of the crap that takes up most of the time, go on a "low-info diet", and learn how to say "no".

A is for Automating cash flow.  It is used to increase income.  Basically Outsource your life by hiring a virtual assistant to take care of the menial tasks.  Develop your business to run automatically.

Finally, L is for Liberation.  Liberation in the sense that you free yourself from traditional expectations and design your job to increase mobility.  This could mean working from home in your pajamas with some ciggies and bourbon or utilize geographic arbitrage.

John Dimer Lecture Thoughts

There is a lot i learned from John Dimmer when he visited class.

First and foremost Mark Cuban is an ass.  After Dimmer spoke (well more or less gestured) about Dick Cheney-ing him, i went and watched shark tank when i got home.  That dude is a legit ass.  Like the sight of him is like chewing on glass... absolutely painful to see his assdom in effect.  He is even an ass to the other sharks!  The dude is Mark-centric that i bet if his c**k was long enough, he'd suck it himself to avoid having to deal with other people.

Anywho, back to Dimmer.  John was probably the best guest lecture (well maybe second best... Graham Evans British accent was just too enchanting) we had in class due to the nature of his discussion.  He Discussed how to get funding, and everyone know funding is the most important part of a business.  Because without money, any business will stop dead cold.

The biggest thing i took out of his lecture was the stages of investment.  When is still a concept or idea, it is mostly the owners money that is going in the project.  Then when you have proof of the concept, you go to friends and family.  There should be a stage in here that wasn't mentioned and that is crowd sourcing.  Next is that when you have a product designs, go to individual investors or Angels.  When you feel like expanding from there, go get some Venture Capital.