Bruce Murray Firestone

Gadgets and Gizmos Bruce Murray Firestone

Gadgets and Gizmos-how to tell if you own a real business or just an expensive hobby-was written for all creators and entrepreneurs who dare to dream, innovate, experiment and produce services and products that transform our lives as well as make a profit. Think about just the last few years-our ability to seamlessly communicate at very low cost with a worldwide community via email, websites, messaging, crowdfunding and crowd sourcing, skype and zoom, as well as a huge diorama of social media to select from. How about the rise of the sharing and gig economies-how many of us can make a living or at least add to our incomes using these services invented by (mostly) young people, but open to every age group willing to learn new ways of doing business? Next, we are going to see an explosion in productivity through AI. Many entrepreneurs quit before their sales are given a chance to really takeoff. This is because a) they start listening to Monday morning quarterbacks who disparage them and their company and b) they don't have a coach/mentor/teacher/adviser who can counteract this by telling them they are on the right track/keep growing (or when to pivot if they are on the wrong one). But like many aspects of entrepreneurship, things are never really this simple-there is always ambiguity. So, how do you recognize when you own a Zombie company or when a project, product, service or division of the organization is dead and needs to be pruned from the herd?This handbook answers this question and a lot more... "I believe in mentors. If we all lived to be 300, then we wouldn't need them-we could learn everything on our own. Coaches like Prof Bruce are your shortcut to success-they are the least costly, highest ROI investment you will ever make," Fab Di Franco, Technology Executive+++Another reason I wrote this handbook is because I am always pushing myself and my clients to prove their concepts before they spend a ton of time, money and sweat launching a product or service that, it turns out, the marketplace rejects. The market is always right, even when it's wrong. This means-don't substitute your own views/opinions for what the market demands, something that can be proven/ demonstrated. You are NOT the market. In this learning outcome handbook, you'll learn, for example, how Ryan North failed to raise $20,000 on Kickstarter for his proposed book project-To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure. Indeed, Ryan failed miserably to raise $20k. Instead, he successfully ended up with 15,352 backers who between them pledged $580,905 USD to help bring his project to life. At the time, it was the #1 most funded publishing project on Kickstarter ever. When this happens, you no longer have to guess if your product or service will be a success nor do you have to risk anything but your own time to find out...+++I've been known to (accused of) putting the cart in front of the horse. Why? Because once you have three sales (of just about anything) a) you have "proven" your concept, b) it forces you to accelerate delivery and c) no matter how smart you are, as soon as you come into contact with a potential client, s/he will ask you questions/challenge you in ways that no matter how much time you spent pre-planning your rollout of a new product or service, you could never anticipate. +++Here's a 48-second video I did riding around with my friend Walter Willett, Horse Country Campground founder, https: //youtu.be/k7a3p6O_sn0. Its title is: Don't know anything about business? "Don't worry. Your customers and clients will teach you all you need to know," Walter says, who knew zilch about running Horse Country Campground when he started. Prof Bruce