employees suck

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Employees Suck

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Sure-fire ways to move toward self-employment, quit your job and live happily ever after. Video of most of this presentation: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/961379

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Page 1: Employees Suck

Employees Suck

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This presentation will start shortly.

(I promise it won’t suck)

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This presentation can be downloaded from:

http://slideshare.net/johnbuckman

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This presentation is under aCreative Commons by-sa 3.0 license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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I can be reached at:

[email protected]

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This speech is entitled:

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Employees Suck

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managing is no fun

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Coordinatingtalented & motivated

people.

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Now that’s fun.

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firing is no fun

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permanent employees are mostly

unneeded

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changing circumstancesdemand

new skills

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instead of retrainingemployees,

get new contractorsfor your current

projects.

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but note:

virtual cooperation isvery difficult

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Hollywood does fine without employees

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Bosses suck even more

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Nobody can work8h straight

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Talented people are 10x more productive

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but paid, at most, 3x as much

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and normally they’re paid only 20% more

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you’re usually paid lessthan your boss.

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why!!?!?!

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employee=

mostly dumb-work

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employee=

very few satisfying tasks

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why be clever?

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why do your best work?

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paid by the hour

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rather than paid for your contribution

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solution:

quit & make intellectual “goods”

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solution:

and sell them for theirtrue value.

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“good enough” is rewarded

when you’re anemployee

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“great work” is rewardedwhen you’re

selling the product itself

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Do you enjoy your life?

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Do you enjoy your work?

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Do you want kids?

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Do you like learning?

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Do you want to get paid for what your work is

actually worth?

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Steps to self-employment

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Think of lots of ideas.

Write them down.

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Do nothing.

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For a while.

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3 months later, are they still good ideas?

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Explain your best idea to a friend in a noisy place, while they’re drinking.

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Do they have an instant positive reaction?

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Next, think about your product.

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Make an elevator pitch

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Write the first line of your press release

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Write the first paragraph of your home page

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Make the home page

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Hunt for unique names

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Figure out how to do the idea really, really cheaply.

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So cheaply that you don’t need anybody else’s money.

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Show a mockup, then a demo, to people who might

buy it.

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Launch before you’re ready.

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Pitch bloggers.

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If nobody cares, maybe your ideasucked.

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Start again.

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If your idea was good, all other problems are

solvable.

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Don’t quit your day job.

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If your idea starts to take off, slowly lower your day

job commitment

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don’t quit until your idea is paying more than your day

job.

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when you run your own company, you will

discover:

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Salespeople are a bad idea

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Fallacy:

“our product is great, it’s just not selling

because we don’t have any salespeople”

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Good products build word of mouth, and sell

themselves.

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Fallacy:

“our product is great, we just need PR and marketing to get the

word out”

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If the product were great, your early users would blog that fact, and you’d be on your

way already.

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The secret to getting massive press:

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(1)

Be really interesting

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(II)

Convince two influential bloggers that

you’re interesting.

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P.R. secretfor

traditional print media

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Focus on the freelancers, not staff

writers.

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Be a cause a freelance writer would personally like.

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Staff writers get assignments from their

editors.

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Freelancers have to pitch stories to an editor to get paid.

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A press blitz example.

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Magnatune:

Creative Commons & Boing Boing ->The Inquirer ->

Fark ->Slashdot ->

USA today / NPR ->New York Times ->BBC / Le Monde /

Die Zeit / Nikkei Times

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Magnatune story angles:

Fair use & Creative CommonsLabel embraces Sharing

Biz model in Peer to Peer realityPiracy used as a promotion toolIndie musicians abandoning labels

Not suing our customersMusicians actually getting paid

The big money is in music licensingMajor labels are EviliTunes has it wrong

Successful entrepreneur tries againLinux vs Microsoft == Magnatune vs Major Labels

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the “elevator pitch”

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they say:

“download, sample cut-up, share”

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I say:

“remixing makes better music”

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They say:

“On Jamendo artists allow anyone to

download and share their music. It's free, legal and unlimited.”

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I say:

“Download tons of music from artists who

don’t want to make money”

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Magnatune says:

“We are not evil”

“We work directly with independent musicians world-wide to give you downloads of MP3s and perfect-quality

WAV files. We never work with major labels, and our musicians always get 50%. You can listen to every album in

its entirety before buying or becoming a member. “

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Magnatune says:

“We are not evil”

blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah,

blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah...

blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah... blah, blah, blah...

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Whoops.

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They say:

“Give books away,get books you want”

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I say:

“Give a book away for free, and you can ask

someone to send you a book for free”

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A good test:

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“Will people pay more for this than it costs to create

it?”

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Some final tips:

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Dedibox.com is psycho-cheap hosting.

for French people only. Ha! Ha!

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Use Open Source

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Use PHP initially for everything.

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Find €3000 for a good independent

graphic designer.

Make your home page pretty.

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Do everything yourself.

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If you’re not technical.

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Learn to be technical.

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PHP is not difficult.

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Read tons of books.

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Learn:sales, marketing, programming, tech support.

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You can’t lead peopleif you don’t know how to

do their job.

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Don’t hire.Until you are getting less than 6 hours’ sleep per

night.

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Only hirefor well understood

tasks.

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Don’t borrow money.

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Without debt,your idea can fail and youcan try again next week.

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Take small steps.

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Give yourself 3 yearsto figure this out.

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It will take at least 7 years to get decent at this and to

make any real money.

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You can do it.

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This presentation can be downloaded from:

http://slideshare.net/johnbuckman

Contact me at:[email protected]

This presentation licensed underCreative Commons by-sa 3.0