What is MySubie you may wonder, well MySubie is for Subaru Enthusiasts alike. Anyone and everyone who enjoys their subarus (thats “ur a bus” backwards…just saying) and who enjoys the scene and meeting people, need to checkout and join MySubie. Robert recently launched MySubie and we are doing this tour to help promote his site and get more subie fans together and interacting.

The next 15 days Robert and I will be driving and streaming some video on our adventure around America.

So if you are in New Jersey, Northern Minnesota, South Kent, WA, or Fremont stop by and say hi

To help you digest this video, let’s think about it. You have this idea, which spawns off a bunch of other ideas, but after an hour of writing these ideas you really have NOTHING. A great example of going from idea to taking action was a great brunch meeting I had with Jim Hopkinson. The meeting mainly talked about one project, but during this talk spawned off a bunch of ideas and how you need not only an idea, but execution. This whole meeting just kept reminding me of the video and the need to get $%&T DONE! Just remember the nike slogan, just do it! Well rather then doing nothing with the idea we ended up taking the idea and creating a basic website that could now get easily updated using WordPress and go from an idea to a shell.

One thing that I have realized with projects is you need to focus on building shells. What are shells, shells are the basic structure you need to go from idea to prototype as fast as possible. Think about a shell as creating the smallest piece of an ideas to get others to either use it or understand what it is you are doing. Once the shell is built and live, you can constaly launch, iterate, launch, iterate, and go from a crapy version to a premium product.

So while rewatching the video I realize I am now that other guy who is on his next version of a product rather then dreaming about all those people clapping for ME!

So the point of all of this is that you need to get ideas out of your head and into the world, remember it’s the execution multiplier that makes the big bucks, do it!

I know personally I am trying to take more and more action each day to improve my passive income. I have too many ideas a minute and too many projects that are collecting dust to keep me from taking action. So each morning I write a list of 3 goals for the day that I need to get done. These goals can be as simple as creating a blog posts to something as complex as a WordPress theme.

Remember, taking action is hard. Like Thomas Edison, “one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”. So break an idea/project into small chunks and start with just the “shell” the smallest piece of an idea and launch, iterate, launch, iterate…

So last night while at the grocery store I had a simple recipe stuck in my head and I picked up all of the 4 (yes count them) 4 ingredients. Okay Okay, so maybe 6 if you count milk and butter, but those are just ingredients you already have in the house (hopefully). Also the milk and butter add a bit more flavor and taste, so you could always do without them.

1 package of chorizo
1 package of 4 Cheese Mexican
1 box of elbow pasta
1 bag of peas

You just need to cook and slice the chorizo. Boil water and add pasta, once done add cheese (optional milk and butter) then stir. Now add those peas. Once all has been melted add the chorizo and your done.

For all you food porn addicts, you should end up with something like this. For all those entrepreneurs out there, this is some home cookin cheap eats. Enjoy!

The basic article discuss how ideas have little to no value, it is all about the execution of an idea that determine how much the idea can be worth. The idea of a execution multiplier.

Derek Sivers explains with the following concept:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000

“The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas.
I’m not interested until I see their execution.” via oreilly.com

This is the most brilliant concept I have seen in a while and hit me like a slap in the face. I have millions of ideas day in and day out, but executing them, well I have been slacking in the department in the past, but trying to change.

Ideas are just thoughts, they need to be ironed out and eventually executed. Recently I had an idea about some SEO tool and wanted to executing them. Myself and another partner have been working on building these SEO Tools, that I am sure my readers would want to use. These SEO Tools have mainly been developed based on a idea of automating SEO optimization. I had this idea, but can’t be worth that much, but if executed, it can be vary valuable. So I want to improve on Derek Sivers post by discussion automation as in an Idea is worth little to nothing, executing an idea has a multiply and automation well, that can raise the number to a high power. The automation of a product can also be the repackaging of a product, just checkout 37 Signal’s post on Making Money Twice. You want to automate processes so you can leverage the idea/execution as another stream of passive income. As for my SEO Tools I am hoping to demo the product by end of month, but always looking for beta tests, so contact me if your interested and/or do some SEO work of your own.

A couple of weeks ago, my SEO idea was just that, and idea, but with some help, this idea can be executed and later automated to bring in a steady stream of passive income. While working on executing my own idea (or any idea) you need to surround yourself with like minded people who ask tough questions, give advice, and can help put you in contact with people who can help. Well, early this week I received an email about Ultra Light Startups and was blown away after I saw what Ultra Light Startups promote (Low permanent headcount, low overhead, low budget, and outsourcing) and how they can help (network,share ideas, work together). I have been looking for a group of entrepreneurs who help each other take ideas and get them executed and out the world, hopefully this is it! For myself I do not want to just see myself succeed in a business, I want to help everyone I can and make it a win/win. Much like cashflow, the goal is not to get yourself out of the “rat race”, you want to get everyone out of the “rat race”.

I will be sure to write up a whole blog post about the event. Ultra Light Startups is focused on ’100% participatory’ and even offer a discount for those who “demo” a idea, how awesome is that. I will be attending their next meeting Thursday October 2nd 2008. So if you are in the NYC area and want to meet some entrepreneurs, register now.

I really am looking forward to this event and hope to meet other entrepreneurs who have taken ideas and executed them by building a low overhead business via outsourcing and working with one another. I am a big fan of multiple streams of passive income. By offering a group that encourages you to take an idea and act on it that requires small amounts of money, well.. I am just really excited. As I said, I will be posting the full story and review in my next post. I hope to see you there or at another meetup/networking event in NYC.

1. Feedburner FeedSmith – Do you want to put ads or monitor your RSS/Atom Feeds. Sign Up for Feedburner and you will have access to this. WordPress is great for creating feeds, but you need to monitor and see how many of those readers actually just read your blog and don’t comment. I know it has blown me away, and sometimes helps me get through the dips knowing there are a bunch of people who subscribe to my blog. Thanks!
2. Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress – Seriously, who DOESN’T want SEO help. Adding this simple plugin creates your “sitemap” for your site and leverages the guidelines of sitemap dot org who now support the major Search Engines, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. Just install, and bam, your SEO will go up as well as “get your blog out their”.
3. Sociable 2.0 – 2007 was the year of Social Networks, why not leverage them and get your posts published on digg, del.icio.us, Stumble Upon, and many more. You can pick and choose the ones you want to show up, for easy adding for users. Highly recommend it, you just need 1 person to use it to make it worth your time. Very simple to setup/install, so just do it!
4. TLA Inlinks – As much as I like to be that “volunteer” person, I have to say that blogging CAN and (prolly is) making you some money. I get the problems with Google Adsense and/or other Advertisements, christ I have (might) just be my own Advertisement and sell them through Google Checkout/Paypal, but have not done that (yet!). Making money blogging can be a part full time job. I enjoy blogging and it helps with seeing where I was in the past as well as offering the knowledge I have learned and giving to others. Text Link Ads pays a nice monthly figure, so why not leverage it if your not. Hey, bills don’t pay for themselves, and I know it’s a great way to leverage some passive income for bloggers.
5. WP-Cache – For those who WANT to be on digg, make sure you can HANDLE the load, or even stumbleupon, you need to KEEP YOUR SITE UP. Caching will do that, so download/install, and be ready for a lot of traffic. It only takes 1 story to send you 10,000+ page views, so be ready.
6. Back Up Your Data – Think of how much time you put into blogging, do you REALLY want to not have an “external” stored backup of your blog? The thing that should be valuable, other then the domain, is your content. I use this plugin to not only create weekly backups, but I also have them email them to a gmail account or offsite webmail. (A great place for simple/easy external storage of small files). I am not saying I use like 2 or 5gb of gmail, but I try and keep a couple of those compressed ZIP files in my inbox, just in case.
7. Popularity Content – Notice that list of 10 posts at the top of my blog, labeled, Most Popular Posts. Yea I use this plugin to create that, and actually change some of the backend numbers to “push” other content. Posting up your “best hits” helps by getting those new blog visitors to see some of your “greatest work”. I find that I average about 2 page views per visitor to my blog. This means that they stay for at least 1 more click to another view, (and not always just the homepage). Having that list might perk their interests and want them to check out some other “great work” I have done. I know I could leverage this plugin more with posting up within each category, but maybe I will look at that on the next “redesign” of this blog
8. Similar Posts – Something I just recently added and find it great! I do not have to do any work, it does some search/keywords matching and finds/list the posts. Pretty simple, but yet great for keeping the reader clicking on more inbound links.
9. akismet – Got comment spam? Yea, I know back in wordpress 1.5 and previously, this was a big problem. Having open commenting means that you are constantly fighting an up hill battle. Well thanks to Akismet, all you need is a wordpress account and boom, copy the API key to your plugin, and it takes care of this comment spam problem.
10. Dasher – Want to customize that Dashboard option in WordPress to view various things when you login, yea this will take care of that. Pretty customizable, and just what I need when I log into my blog.

When you first have an idea about something, like IDK, maybe something like a social network for baby boomers, or a speed dating services using web cams, you need to understand that buzz will build, but buzz can’t build if it’s only fun for a million users. You need to take and have an idea that is fun for 1 to 10 people as well as scales for 10,000 to 1 million.

Not to get into any specifics, but I attended a networking event and someone was discussing an idea they had (which I think could work, I do not think there are bad ideas, just bad implementations) and how if they could get 1,000 or 10,000 users it would be fun. Well let’s think about that for a second, 1,000 users.

Do you have at least 1,000 people in your address book? Would those 1,000 actually USE the product/service your pitching? How fast do you need this product/service to spread before people use it daily? Does this concept scale, would it be fun with 1 million people, or is it more for a small startup business.

Okay, so not to shoot down the product/idea, but you need to keep your feet on the ground before you swing for the fences. I know myself I have had these moments and then started to realize how HIGH these numbers can get, but you need to KEEP these numbers realistic of people who would use it daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Thinking an idea will work if only 1% of China’s population works, well duh! If a lot of people use it, then YES it could work, but how are you going to get 1% or 10,000 users using it before people just forget about it. Hey I am not one to say it sucks, but … bubble? just watch the video. Friendship bracelets and newspapers!

Okay, sorry for that small rant, but building traffic and getting people to use something is hard! So you built your product/service and now you want the buzz to grow, well how can you make it a Purple Cow and get it out there. You blog about it, you get your friends to blog about it, maybe you get some PR from sites here and there, but it can easily takes 6 weeks to build up 100 or even 1,000 users. Even if you average over a million page views a month, having 1 or 2 ads that pitch the site still will only give you about a 2% signup rate.

The hard part IS building this network, once you are there, you can leverage this network for the next one. In fact, you may want to join or get contact lists from others who are in a similar niche market. But getting that “first burst” is very hard and I hate to see so many people work on ideas that would ONLY work if there are a LOT of people. I know for myself, this is something that I have really started to focus on. Why build it, if you need a 10,000 users to make it fun. Build it so that it’s fun with 10 users, and build up the buzz.

I would also recommend the idea/concept of “stand on the shoulders of giants”. How? Well, as I recall APIs and Mashups are the new pink, so try and leveraging “members” from facebook or Develop it with open social.

So yea, almost every idea is good when you have a lot of people using it but building up that “network” of users, is hard and should NOT be the focus of a concept. Think of something that you use everyday, is it fun for 1 to 2 people to use it, maybe a small office? Does it scale so when 10,000 of your “friends” are using it, its still fun? Then hey, go with it, but don’t waste time on an idea that only works with thousands/millions of users. And if you ARE that passionate, leverage a network like Facebook or Open Social.

Now being a Green Thinker I would suggest going with a ereader but ALL OF THEM SUCK, BIG #@%$!

So getting back to the idea of a online or electronic magazine, do you think their is a niche market for these. A blog form that has and posts daily stories, but also creates a weekly PDF you can download/print, or even prints out a monthly version you can buy online. I know for myself I am still attracted to reading articles in magazines and physically holding the paper while I read. I can only tolerate so much pain a day while staring at a screen 17+ hours a day. Since going to college and now having a computer almost always in front of me, my vision has been taking dramatic leaps towards going blind. (For those in the eye profession, I started at a -1.75, Im at about a -5.25, in about 4 years, yet its bad)

So thinking about all this content out there and even looking at building a user submitted magazine, ($%&@ the social network part) but a site focused on content as well as provided content that you can print and bring with you. Does this interests people? Do you enjoy having instant interaction with the write and/or submitting your blog posts and getting published in a emagazine?

I know in the past many emagazines have failed, pretty badly, but I think they are trying to use technology that is NOT already adapted by millions of users. Looking at a wordpress magazine adii was discussion, he would use wordpress to syndicate the stories, and just write the content. So maybe the idea of a emagazine is just a web 1.0 style and a user submitted online/print syndication is more of dare I say web 2.75?

So I have a couple of user submitted sites that I will be launching later this week, as promised, but just keep thinking about this news aggregator site that encourages you to print their stories and offer a printed magazine version too. Obviously I would focus on a IT topic, like ruby on rails, news, or something that interests me.

I have been using wordpress for well over 2 years and have always saw it as a content system rather then blogging. So taking the idea of submitting a “horror story” to a blog/content system that you could post comments to and link to, hence a “bitch to system”. Yes, I have created the ultimate system for posting up great stories about the cellphone carriers as well as other issues you find with your phone, etc. People love to read these types of stories and post feedback/comments/etc. So the system is pretty easy, you send an email and it’s posted to WordPress. I get notified and review it (weed out that spam) and post it up. This system is totally automated and I WILL hire a virtual assistant once I get tired of reviewing them.

This system is pretty slick and simple, I spent a total of 1 day (more like 4 hours) customizing off the self software (WordPress, some plugins such as postie and draft notification, a cron job, and some php skillz for the ladies). I have a LOT of ideas with this system not just for sell phones but more for a “bitch to service” to help people get $#!^ off their mind as well as premium content (something funny to read) and hopefully some useful content that will help users get over their woes of the cellphone industry.

I haven’t built a customized template yet, but found a nice simple iPhone template. I will be working on this more and post up about it, but just wanted to tease my readers with some new projects that are DONE, just doing some testing and waiting until after the holidays to release them. So if you do have a cellphone/mobile horror story, send it to submit@mobiwoes.com. I haven’t written out all the “cool” automation that is built in (mostly thanks to postie) but I will be sure to discuss this in full in the next 2 weeks. Until then, enjoy spending some time with (or without) family/friends, etc and be sure to RELAX and DEstress yourself!

Resource Links
Postie plugin for wordpress.
Draft notification plugin notification for wordpress.
Pending Reviews what are they and how can you leverage them.
Fix Categories for WordPress 2.3 with Postie This was a HUGE help and started to do more hacks with Postie due to this. Thanks!
I also used a cron job, but wanted to thank Russell Heimlich for his post about dreamhost and cron jobs. I always enjoy seeing a simple way to do something technical, so if your on dreamhost and want to use (levearge?) postie, check out his quick tip that will make your life so much easier.

Early this week I got pitched a business like this and it just blew my mind. I have heard of the buzz around network marketing, but thought, scam, etc, well I was wrong. I have already broken even with just 2 sales! Basically you are signing up for a ebook that you can sell for $67 and you get a 50% rip! Think about it, you sell 2 and you just broke even, better yet that 3rd sale is pure profit of $33.50. This system WORKS and is exactly what most people want. Simple, easy, and a great stepping stone with online marketing and sales. Just to give you a taste of the product, I want to give you a FREE 35 page ebook about the lies of Network Marketing. Just click here and scroll down and fill out the Name and Email form. If you like what you see, you can then continue on and order the Renegade Network Marketer. I do NOT want to pressure you into buying anything, hey you DON’T have to. I am just saying, if you every wanted to even TRY and start a small business, why not now and why not online.

If your thinking I am pitching you, well you can take it or leave it, but just keep in mind, you can build passive income today that pays for your life tomorrow. I seem to be spending more time getting back into the business and NOT saying NO! (I know I need to “be like Tim” and say No to people as well as FOCUS on what I am trying to accomplish.) I need to build/start a business that is making money for me right out the door. This network marketing system works, and you get access to all the “how-to’s” and information you need to make money as well as learn their system and how to rip this system off and create your OWN! Think about this as a short term investment, start a business with a $67 investment, break even with 2 sales of $67 bucks. Read what they are teaching you and build your own system in which you use affiliates to spread the word and create a viral marketing campaign.

I am constantly reading books (or ebooks) about make money online and actually focusing on the fact that I NEED TO MAKE $100/day in Passive income by Feb 2008. How am I going to do this, well there are a lot of ideas, but this one, is just icing on the cake. I have always wanted to get into selling and pitching ebooks, but have not dived in deep with them. I wanted to build a test system that would help teach me what I need to know. Well after paying $67, I have a system that DOES ALL THE THINGS I NEED AND MORE! I have all this knowledge about the internet and IT, but I am not monetizing it. I am getting beat by a 14 year olds in the Philippines. (Imagine that!) Who is REALLY making money online.

So if you are a reader and do not want to be pitched, well wait for the next post, but if you are interested in trying to start a business and don’t want to drop hardly any money and take a small risk, what better opportunity then the renegade network marketer. Seriously, what business can you start and break even with 2 sales of a product that almost sells itself. One thing I have learned this past summer is Google Adsense makes hardly enough money to pay for beer. You need to think big if you want out of the “rat race”. Selling something like an ebook which pays for itself after 2 sales, DO IT!

I know your thinking, but John I do not want to get into selling ebooks, I have a passion for (insert topic here). Well let me first start by saying, you need to learn sales to be a successful business person. If your not selling, your not making money. So why not practice and improve your sales techniques as well as LEARN something for a low price of $67! Seriously, you could be making money right now by using their proven system. I do NOT plan to start pitching these type of affiliates on my blog and am working on starting up a couple of separate blogs, but I know that their are entrepreneurs that read my blog and looking for another source of passive income.

So take a look and signup for a FREE Copy of “The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing” an ebook that taught me a lot about network marketing!

I have been online since 1996 and have built various websites, blogs, etc, but never got my feet wet into e-commerce. (imagine that!) I have always wanted to setup my own online store, but never had a simple product to sell. Most people have ideas for a t-shirt or a custom bag, but starting a business around it can take a lot. So starting small by selling 1 or 2 items is something everyone should look at. Some ideas such as clothes, hat, bag, widgets or whatever, can be resold and start your niche online store with little to no money down.

Late last week while catching up on the drama between John Chow and Shoemoney, Shoemoney posted a very interesting article about setting up a niche storefront in minutes. After reading through and seeing how this “storefront” is really just a ebay/item aggregator with some ads on it, I thought well, there is no “tangible” products he is selling, but links to items other people are selling.

I know in college I was always interested in cafepress because I could create something in photoshop and put it in a t-shirt and buy it for about $15. Everyone has ideas for T-shirts with funny sayings or something that everyone would want to wear. I even bought a couple of these type of T-shirts while at college like an absolute UVM (University of Vermont) shirt.

So if you have those ideas (everyone does) why not dive in and build a simple site with 1 to 3 products and take some risk with little or no upfront cost. Well thats my plan for the month of December. I guess the timing is a bit off, I should have done this in November knowing that I could have made more money during the beginning of the Holiday season. Anyway, here are my thoughts on building a simple niche online storefront with little or no money down.

So I am guessing you have a blog, website or can put together something with mozilla composer. If not I think this should work with blogspot or blogger, but depends on the Terms of Service. Anyway, I found Fat.Free.Cart today and just was blown away. This is exactly what I was looking for in terms of a simple online e-commerce software. First off the software is FREE, and its integrated with Paypal and Google Checkout. This software is built on xHTML,CSS, and JavaScript (ajax) so you don’t need to be a Geek Guru to use it. They not only offer free code examples but also created a code generator. So with Fat.Free.Cart and a blog/website you have your shopping cart, payment system, etc rolled all up. The only thing you have to worry about is sending out the products and keeping track of inventory. I would HIGHLY suggest creating a separate GMail account and using it for everything from product receive, inventory, payment, etc. You can utilize the auto labeling for incoming purchase as well as paid and shipped items.

So now that I blogged and posted my plan to everyone about how I will be doing this, its time to take action and DO IT! I recently was told about a networking event where a person was talking about staying on track and finishing projects. Their idea was to call up people you know and tell them what you plan to do, this way the next time you talk to them, they will prolly ask you how _____ is going and have you finished the project. So by posting this blog entry up, I hope that not only my readers, but friend will keep me on track and actually FINISH my idea of my own online store.