Meet Maneesh Sethi, founder of Pavlok, a wearable that helps you break bad habits from the threat of a mild electric stimulus. Formerly a productivity hacker, Maneesh recorded all of his experiments on HackTheSystem.com.
Pavlok was originally put on the map after a successful Indiegogo campaign that raised over $250,000. We started working together while preparing for launch number two of the Shock Clock a miniversion of the Pavlok that focuses on helping you wake up earlier.
We were going to do the impossible... Launch a successful campaign in two weeks. Essentially there was a very short time for a prelaunch campaign. The only way we got away with this, is Pavlok had a sizeable audience prior to the second launch.
As it turned out, it was a very successful product launch, raising more than $100,000 in 8 days after the launch.
Shock Clock went on to raise over $300,000, be featured in the NY Times, Spike TV’s Life or Debt, and Shark Tank.
Resources mentioned:
Pavlok.com
90 Days to Becoming a Berlin DJ
Maneesh Sethi 4HWW Success as a Digital Nomad
In an increasingly connected world, it’s ironic that people are not getting the value out of their connections.
As Jordan Harbinger says it, “If you hoard your network, it will atrophy.”
Jordan is the founder of the Art of Charm Podcast. It’s also his second time coming onto the show.
Their site has evolved from personal development with tips on dating to its current state where it emphasizes personality development for business and personal use.
One thing that Jordan teaches is how to become an awesome human being. From tips on becoming more effective in business through confidence and social building exercises, it’s come a long way from its start as a pickup podcast back in 2006.
We are losing touch with real relationships. As we continue to mix up relationships with our virtual friends, we lose our ability to form real ones in front of us.
Your network is your networth. In this episode we are going to uncover some pretty epic social strategies and you’ll also learn how Jordan escaped kidnapping not once, but twice.
True story.
During this episode we discuss:
– Social capital, what it is, and how to properly use it.
– Framing it: What’s in it for the other person?
– How to use great networks, and what happens to those who don’t have them.
– Deflect, defer, disclose: controlling the conversation
– The Tornado Technique
Resources:
There are a lot of people who have an idea but don’t know what steps to take to get it up and running. These are usually ideas which need to be seen and touched first before the value can be appreciated. There have been attempts to have these ideas crowdfunded, however, the truth is, there is a lot of work needed before an idea can be presented to the world for crowdfunding.
In most cases, it would be better for the project creator to launch a campaign once they have a working prototype, and a good idea of the costs associated with manufacturing and fulfilment.. A working prototype should be the first of your goals.
Our guest this episode is Dylan Horvath, the head of Cortex Design. In the past, Cortex has helped many successful crowdfunding projects with their end-to-end services.
This is an animated discussion which shows Dylan’s passion for engineering, design, and getting a product through the whole design process from research and visualization to prototyping, manufacturing and logistics.
We discuss why it’s important, and what you can do to get the product funded, certifications, off-shore manufacturing, and long term relationships with your fulfillment partners.
Dylan has had a life long love affair with engineering and how things work and he has leveraged it into an engineering design firm which provides solutions for startups. If you have a product you want crowdfunded, but is still in its infancy stage, this episode will help clear up what you need to do next.
“You have a whole lot of risk, especially with your timeline when you’re right at the beginning. As you try to mitigate risk as you go along, if that risk mitigation is under the watchful eye of 2,000 people on the crowd funding campaign, it could be a difficult place to operate from.”
Raising money to develop your prototype a hard sell, and extremely dangerous if you don’t have experience in estimating costs.
You could end up raising money, and realizing you don’t have enough to complete a working prototype, yet alone bring a final product to ship.
Dylan carefully outlines the steps toget an idea moving with a prototype, and on to manufacturing, and distribution.
This is one of the longest episodes we’ve had and it is well worth the time to listen to.
Resources Mentioned
Cortex Design
“Kickstarter is Debt”, The Bold Blog
Cortex Design YouTube Channel
Are you, at some level, squeamish about the idea of self promotion and building your audience?
I consistently promote making connections and building your list as job #1 for the project creator.
Getting press and connecting with influencers who could help you promote your project to their audiences is the best way to build a list.
Why? Think about it.
What do they have that you don’t?
An audience.
But influencers especially, don't want to be spammed. Top people get dozens of awkward requests every day from people who just don't “get it”. And those requests get ignored.
You have to know the right way to approach influencers or they will delete your email, and you will never get their endorsement... Even if your project would genuinely help their audience.
In this episode, we speak with one of the best at connecting deeply with experts, Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy.com.
Andrew had some street cred before launching Mixergy.com. He cofounded Bradford & Reed, a greeting card company that was grossing $38.5M per year.
After selling the company, Andrew went on to found Mixergy.com.
“I created Mixergy to help ambitious people who love business as much as I do learn from a mix of experienced mentors. I do that through interviews where founders tell their stories and courses where they teach a solution to issues that can cripple founders.”
Andrew has made connecting with influencers like Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, and over 1300 other world-class entrepreneurs into a multi-million dollar a year business.
This episode is filled with a number of dynamite tactics that will help you genuinely connect with influencers and make them want to promote your campaign.
But simply following the step by step procedures outlined won't get you very far.
Listen closely to how Andrew talks about his deep sense of curiosity and commitment to his mission, and how this will help you build genuine relationships.
Your outreach strategy should be built on a foundation of integrity, mutual benefit (as opposed to a “what can I get” attitude), and commitment to your mission.
If you do this, you’ll be able to take advantage of the #1 audience building hack:
Leveraging someone else’s audience to build your own.
Resources Mentioned