Arhiva: iunie 2017

I don’t have that many friends on my personal account on Facebook (I’m not talking about the page). Still, they are about 100-ish. People that write updates, that put links, photos and the likes. But I don’t see any of those. Yes, the screenshot above is how my personal account looks like. Sometimes there’s an ad there.

In September – October last year I unfollowed everyone on Facebook.

The reason? Well, every 2-3 minutes I would take the phone, open it using TouchID and press the leftmost icon on the third row from the top. Yeah, that was Facebook’s app icon. Then I’d pull the screen down to refresh. And lose myself for the next several minutes. It didn’t matter if I was talking to anybody: my parents, my girlfriend, my sister or, even worse, my niece. I just got lost in a black hole, all of a sudden.

At some point, though, this was happening so often that nothing would’ve changed on Facebook. I still did it. It was time to stop.

So I unfollowed everyone, as I was saying. I moved the app’s icon to another folder on the phone (I still need Facebook for access to business accounts, this is why I can’t delete my account, though I thought about it for a little while). Then I changed the icon in position 1 on row 3 with the Weather app icon.

And YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT :)

For the next week or so I could tell you exactly what the weather would be for the next 10 days. Yeah, you asked me and I was the weatherman. Because my habit was still there: pick up the phone, unlock it by TouchID and then open the app in that specific position on the screen. And it took several seconds for my brain to understand that I already know what the weather will be like.

So, yes, social media plays games with our brains.

Almost a year in, I don’t open Facebook that often and, even more important, I don’t pick up my phone as often as well.

I also love that when I meet with my friends I don’t really know what they’ve been up to so we need to talk about it and I’m genuinely surprised most of the times. I still talk on messenger with many of them, so I know the most important going-ons in the lives, but I don’t see random pics, I don’t see random links.

Another side effect is that I don’t write that many personal things on Facebook anymore. I do, from time to time, but my time in the app dropped dramatically. I still get some notifications, I use Facebook Pages a lot, so I still got on Facebook. I just have a much more clutter-free life.

Were my friends unhappy with this move on my side? Some. There are some that will find out now? Yes. Will it change the way I use the app? No. I enjoy my new found freedom :)

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Photo: my Facebook account at the beginning of a Sunday morning.

And I’m happy about it, so I thought I’d write a blog post.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here it is: a reminder.

The course itself is not that difficult, especially if you’ve written code in your lifetime. I understand some things better now (like what this means in a method) and I signed up for the advanced course (which is paid). I didn’t watch any of the new videos yet since I’ve been a little bit busy these days (with the RebelBio office hours and other things, like taking my girlfriend to Wonder Woman – the first movie we see in the cinema in Cork since we moved in).

I’m quite excited about the new course since it goes deeper on the subject of JavaScript. People that went through it really enjoy the fact that it teaches you to read code somebody else wrote, which is really helpful for me. I want to hack things around to create MVPs, so I need to be able to read the code and use bits and pieces to get my ideas to life in a short time frame.

Oh, and read this article from Derek Sivers. Combined with the “Quantity over Quality” article on my blog, it really made me think about writing more on this blog. So expect more :D

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Photo: yes, that’s a badly taken photo of my monitor while watching one of the coding tutorial videos. I want to use more of my own photos (no matter the quality) instead of stock ones on this blog. And, yes, Ireland is colder than I’m used, ok? :D

As you know, I send a weekly newsletter with business articles to read, things I find interesting and similar stuff. One of the best-received emails is this one about subscription boxes. I’m putting it here exactly as it was sent because I think it can be interesting for a lot more people than the hundreds subscribed there.

Interesting (for me) is that since then (January 2017) I helped my girlfriend start a subscription box of her own (Miruna’s Illustration Box) and it’s as interesting as a business model as I thought.

Finally, before reading it, consider subscribing to Bobby’s Curated Reading List, as well :)

Hello!

I’ve always had an attraction to things based on subscription (this newsletter is one of those, after all :D ). But an entire business model based on subscriptions? Yeah, baby!

This model is called subscription boxes and I recently recognized that it’s actually a thing. I mean, I knew about Dollar Shave Club (being sold for $1 billion), BirchBox or BlackSocks, but I didn’t know there is an entire business model out there based on this. And there are, actually, about 10,000 different “boxes” sold, from Japanese candy to all kind of toys, books, food and whatever you can imagine.

The business model is this: the customers pay a monthly subscription and they receive a box with stuff. The big thing about this type of business is that you don’t need too much starting capital because, at least in the initial stages, you just buy the things in the box as needed. You don’t have things to store, you don’t have maintenance costs. Almost perfect :)

So, to the links (and read the comments in the reddit threads, as well):

1. The inner workings of a subscription box company
2. Wet Shave Club – 1 year update
3. Ask Me Anything with these guys

These guys started by buying a subscription box business that had a $4000 monthly revenue and they’ve grown it to $350,000 in the first year:

4. Candy Japan crosses $10,000 in monthly revenues

This is a guy that sends Japanese candy all over the world (he also has a book written on the subject of subscription boxes).

5. How I Built a Subscription Business that’s Made over $50k in 6 months

This guy started several businesses with this model (including going through Y Combinator and getting $1,000,000 as investment for one of those).

6. Hot Startup Trend: Boxing Up New Business
7. How an Ordinary Couple Made it Happen with Less than $1,000 and Our Insights on How You Can Too

8. Use Shopify: How to Launch a Subscription Box: Lessons from a Successful Korean Beauty Business
9. From Socks to Sex Toys: Inside America’s Subscription Box Obsession
10. How to Start a Subscription Box Service (Infographic)

There are some more interesting articles above and below, there are some subscription box directories, just so you see how many types there are:

– Hello Subscription

– Subscription Boxes
– Crate Joy

Yeap, lots of links, I know :) But really, it’s that interesting.

Bobby

P.S.: Oh, and don’t forget I might contact you next week to tell you that you won a book (one of these three I’ve written about here). And, also, if you think this email is interesting for somebody else, forward it and tell them to subscribe to this list, please :D

A lot of people pride themselves on being efficient. And this is not bad. Unless you’re efficient about the wrong things. Which means you’re not being effective.

Take this: you have a business selling a hat. And you devise the most efficient marketing plan for selling the hat. But truth is, the hat is bad. SO BAD! And you just spent 3 months creating the best and smoothest marketing plan. And you don’t sell anything. Because people can see that your hat is bad.

Effective = successful in producing a desired or intended result.

Obviously, what you need to do is make a better hat and THEN create the best marketing plan. And, I know, sometimes it’s not that clear.

Basically, what you need to do is to become effective instead of efficient. You’re being effective once you move things forward, once you put your energy in the RIGHT things. Like improving your product. Or creating a great marketing plan ONCE you have the right product.

To sum up, effectiveness is the combination of good efficiency and good prioritizing.
It’s being efficient about the right things.. Once you have these, all you need to do is put in the work.

Anytime you hear someone saying “I’m very efficient” ask “what about?”. Because you want effective people around you. Those that are efficient about the right things.

A recent example from my own history was when we tested if people wanted to play Solitaire Arena in a very efficient way – time and money wise.