Startup Life
Year: 2017
Startup Life
Worthless Work
Why work for people who think your output is worthless?
Lifestyle
Boiling Frogs
Sometimes the frustrations build ever so slowly…
Startup Life
Migrations Suck
Migrations are a huge pain in the butt, and can end up taking more time and resources than you have.
Startup Life
One Question at a Time
Focus on answering your questions one at a time. Too many people become overwhelmed with the number of questions and then don’t end up really understanding whether or not what […]
Startup Life
Product Packaging
How you package your product is as important as the product itself.
Startup Life
Scaling with Credit Cards
Scaling your business resources has never been easier, but it requires a different way of thinking.
Lifestyle
Becoming a Curmudgeon
There’s a reason decision makers and owners get grumpy.
Lifestyle
Self Importance Problems
When talking with other people it’s vital to understand that they do not see the world from the same perspective that you do.
Lifestyle
Restarting as a Skill
People focus to much on trying to study 15 hours a day, but do a bad job at simply restarting their training when they have to temporarily stop.
Startup Life
Predicting the Future
Prediction is a skill like any other. The more comfortable you become with it the better your career will go.
Startup Life
Making Everyone Happy
You can’t make everyone happy…
Startup Life
Time Allocation
Are you “working” 5 hour a day on your social media marketing, or are you just watching a lot of cat videos?
Startup Life
Can You Afford to Get Sick?
Have you setup you business model to allow for you getting the flu?
Startup Life
Wanting the Actual Job
You may want the title, but do you actually want to do the work?
Social Issues
Social Fear and Courage
Social courage is many time far more difficult than physical courage.
Startup Life
Don’t Expect Support
Expecting and depending on support from others can be a fatal flaw.
Lifestyle
Embracing Insanity
It’s not about finding sanity. It’s finding the insanity that suits you.
Lifestyle
Limited Turns at Bat
Time moves ever onward towards old age and death. Don’t imagine you have more time than you do.
Lifestyle
The Door Metaphor
The door always exists even if you can’t see it.
Startup Life
Judging Motivation
People are motivated by different things.
Lifestyle
Losing the Conversation
The conversations you have may lead to consequences you did not foresee.
Startup Life
Failing by Overextending
One way many businesses end up failing is by overextending themselves, and then not being able to pay the bills.
Lifestyle
Working Through the Blahs
The blahs hit us all. Working through them is vital for success.
Tech
TOS Traps (Terms of Service)
Terms of Service for SaaS can cause more problems than you realize. If you don’t fully understand the TOS you’re agreeing to it may end up costing you a lot […]
Lifestyle
Not Talking About Plans
There are times to tell everyone about your plans, and others when you should stay silent.
Social Issues
Consequences for Words
Everyone deals with consequences for what they say and do. The question is whether you’re moving towards your goal, or simply padding your ego.
Startup Life
Tone of Messaging
How you present your message is as important as what you actually say.
Startup Life
Super Mario Odyssey in Relation to Tech Industry
My excitement to run out and buy Super Mario Odyssey can offer a lesson about the value of diversity and issues with prejudice in tech.
Startup Life
Mining Gold in Ghettos
In the United States EVERYONE as money. Ghettos and poor places can be terrific areas to start when you’re a n00b or starting your tech business.
Lifestyle
Golden Cages
When does ownership of possessions end, and possessions start up owning you?
Lifestyle
“Flexing” on Social Media
It is becoming more common to show off material possessions on social media. Whether or not this is a good idea for you depends on what you are trying to […]
Lifestyle
Self Aggrandizing
Self aggrandizing is a way many people try to make themselves look impressive, but it generally does not work out how people imagine it will.
Lifestyle
Honesty vs. Transparency
There’s a very real difference between honesty and transparency. Being honest I can say that my revenue on YouTube has gone up by 30% since I started doing Mukbangs. Being […]
Startup Life
Failing into Success
Failing may be the beginning of your success. It sounds odd, but in my life has been true.
Lifestyle
Graduating from Mentors
Mentors can get you ahead in life, but they are not a limitless resource.
Startup Life
Unexpected Metric Correlation
Metrics do not always correlate the way that you would think that they would. As my YouTube channel bleeds subscribers the view count, and revenue has increased. Correction: Revenue has […]
Startup Life
Dancing Monkey
Sometimes the the future path only looks a tiny bit different than what came before. Those tiny changes may make a world of difference though.
Startup Life
Where Startup Ideas Come From
I’ve been pondering an idea for the past few days that I think is viable, that I have the skills to launch, and the resources to support. The current name […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
YouTube Pivoting Away from Independent Creators
The people to get where you are going, are not the same as the ones that got you to where you are. -Business Owner With everything happening with YouTube right […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
Mike the Cop: YouTube Channel of Police Officer
One of the greatest values I see in a platform like YouTube is that ability to humanize people and allow different folks to be able to explain the world as […]
Lifestyle
Listening to the Canaries of Tech
I have the reputation for being arrogant with many people which is ironic considering that I hold very few strong personal beliefs. I come off strong, and sometimes condescending in […]
Lifestyle
Tech “Cool” Factor
Apple haters many times like to say that people who buy Apple products are “sheeple” that just want to feel cool. The argument is that folks are paying for a […]
Lifestyle
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for Switch
When I purchased the Nintendo Switch on launch day I honestly only did it as a way to try to boost views to my YouTube channel. Back when I thought […]
Lifestyle
Mentorship Myth
I was in the mall yesterday and a viewer recognized me and approached to ask for help. Their ask was for my mentorship. They think by being taken under my […]
Tech
PixelBook: Time to Take Chromebook’s Seriously
Time and technology continually flow by. What was absurd a year ago becomes common sense all too quickly. I’ve been a person that has believed in the potential for Linux […]
Tech
Smart Speaker vs. Bluetooth Speakers
Google has now come out with their Home Mini, and Home Max Smart Speakers to compete with Amazon’s Echo line. A few years ago when the tech industry started talking […]
Social Issues
Leave Commentary to the “Professionals”
Why do I talk about White Privilege, Voting for Trump, and my unease with the US’s antagonistic actions towards Russia? Because I get paid to TALK. My job is LITERALLY […]
Lifestyle
Mukbang for Professionals
Having given up on YouTube I may have inadvertently found my way forward with the platform (At least until it sinks.) What I’m playing with now at first blush may […]
Lifestyle
What is “Real” Work?
Yesterday was a bit of a hard day. It just took a long time and a lot of brain power to work through a solution. Thankfully by the end I […]
Lifestyle
Boogie2988 and Non Scale Victories
Boogie2988 recently did a video talking about “non scale victories” on his YouTube channel that I think is appropriate for many tech professionals and entrepreneurs to take to heart. Long […]
Tech
GameTrainer.co: Professional Video Game Coaching
Our platform allows gamers of all skill levels to get 1-on-1 lessons quickly, simply, and safely (plus at a great pricepoint – $30 for an hour lesson with a pro […]
Lifestyle
Working on the Toilet
Last Friday I was the Tech Breakfast Ask a VC event in Georgetown and had the disheartening situation of the founder Ron forcing me to actually signup like a normal […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
Vimeo Live: Live Streaming Freedom
Vimeo has been a solid alternative to YouTube for a number of years for professional content creators with their own methods for monetization. A large appeal of Vimeo has been […]
Startup Life
Lead with Your Website
Yesterday I went to the Ask a VC event put on by Tech Breakfast in Georgetown. This even offers startup founder the ability to ask questions directly to a panel […]
Lifestyle
The Financial Value of Playing
I was at a Meetup last night watching a presentation on Augmented Reality. The presenter talked about his credentials, what he did, and how he became interested in AR. To […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
Cloudflare Stream to Kill YouTube
Cloudflare has now put into beta their own video delivery platform. On the surface level there doesn’t seem to be a lot to say. Essentially this is their take on […]
Lifestyle
Elliptical Machines for Aspie Hamsters
The thing with now being 41 is that over the years I’ve gotten into shape, and then back out of it many times. At certain points my life was physically […]
Tech
Smart Coffee Machine from Smarter
One of the problems with so much of the technology that is currently being sold is that it does not in fact solve any problems people actually care about. Tech […]
Social Issues
Are Race Focused Tech Meetups Wise?
I was on Meetup last night to see what’s going on in the tech scene in the Baltimore area and came across, “Baltimore Black Techies Meetup” for which the tag […]
Tech
Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket with Touch Sensitive Fabric
Whenever the conversation about wearable technology comes up it invariably leads to smart watches and AR powered glasses. The people in “the know” all seem to agree this is where […]
News
Star Trek Discovery and Yet Another Crappy Paywall
To my surprise Movie Bob says Star Trek Discovery is good. It’s too bad I may never see it. One of the issues we’re running into currently in the […]
Tech
Matternet Station: Robot Serviceable Robots
Matternet has been working on a system to use drones to be able to automatically deliver packages by air. They’ve been at it a while, and were the first company […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
PayPal vs. Patreon: Daily Income
I decided a long time ago for a number of reasons not to use Patreon. The TL;DR is it’s a financial tech startup run by a musician. Do I really […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
Milking YouTube
Let me clear. I’m not “back” to YouTube. I’m milking the hell out of something I spent years building until it falls in on itself. I did a Livestream today […]
Startup Life
Make Money as an IT Consultant
The good old days of making a pile of money for swapping hard drives, or setting up routers is long over. Whatever value there remains is being eaten away by […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
YouTube Needs to Buy a CRM
Here’s the thing… You’re only paranoid if you haven’t been screwed with consistently. At the point you’re screwed with at an ongoing basis it’s no longer paranoia rather it’s just […]
Tech
SmartDesk 3 for Augmented Reality
A company called Autonomous has come out with an “AI” powered standing desk. Basically this is a desk that raises and lowers like a regular standing desk, but also has […]
Tech
TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 Videos
Do you know what’s better than flying across the country and paying a crap ton of money to attend TechCrunch Disrupt? Sitting in my “may the forest be with you” […]
News
YouTube Sponsorships and the Adpocolypse
YouTube has started offering the ability for viewers to sponsor Gaming channels for $4.99 a month. This is supposedly in response to many gaming channels having their ad revenue tank […]
Tech
MacOS Text Autocorrect Problems
Because I have been creating text based content over the past month you have not been able to watch me slowly lose my mind as my shiny new MacBook Pro […]
Startup Life
Linus Torvalds and the Weirdos of Tech
One of the things that is lost on many n00bs in the tech field is that many different types of personalities are required for a tech venture to be successful. […]
News
Byte 3 Mini PC with 8GB of RAM from Azulle
Mini PC’s have been around for awhile, but have really only become useful in the past year or so. Before then you could say that they “technically” worked, but even […]
Startup Life
Danger of External Validation
I was sitting at the bar with a buddy a few days ago and we were talking about business. He looked over and said, “Tell me about this new site […]
Startup Life
Tunnel Economics Lesson from Elon Musk
I was watching an interview of Elon Musk on TED’s YouTube channel and was hit with a concept in the economics of boring tunnels. Musk was saying that in order […]
Tech
elistair Safe-T: Power Tether for Off the Shelf Drones
Drones are becoming more useful for many everyday tasks, but a major problem is battery life. With some DJI drones you can get up to 30 minutes of use, but […]
Startup Life
The Danger of Examples…
I was talking with a founder the other day and they were espousing all the great things about their startup. By and large I was sold on the idea, but […]
Startup Life
Listening to Tone Instead of Words
My career has put me into in an odd position when it comes to to the concept of “truth”. It’s not that “truth” escapes me, but rather truth is generally […]
Social Issues
Blaming “White” People is Dangerous
So apparently Fast Company has a “7 Lessons that White People Can Learn…” article about the brouhaha over the naming of the startup called Bodega. Now I think there are […]
Startup Life
Every Startup is a Pizza Shop at Heart
It was in the late 90’s and I was on my first day as a delivery driver for a local pizza shop. As the owner walked me around and showed […]
Startup Life
What Customer Did You Lose?
I was talking with a startup the other day, and I thought everything was going well right up until they started talking about the paint. The startup has done some […]
Startup Life
Advice that’s Replicateable
On a rather routine basis I get the question of why the hell anyone should listen to me, and to be fair this is a good question that you should […]
Startup Life
I Don’t Wanna
When I started working on Failed Normal the idea was that I was going to continue creating a large amount of video content. I setup Vimeo so that I could […]
Startup Life
Bodega Startup Attacked by Hipsters
I woke up this morning, sipped my cup of coffee, and learned of the evils of a new startup called Bodega. Bodega is essentially a fancy vending machine with a […]
Tech
Significance of Apple Watch Series 3
When looking at the new Apple Watch the first thing that comes to mind is, “I still don’t want a watch”. The second thing that comes to mind is, “This […]
Tech
Too Many iPhone’s
Can I be the first to admit that I’m lost? I’ve been reviewing the announcements from the Apple event yesterday and by and large they seem interesting. The Watch with […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
Weaponized DMCA
So the story up until this point is that PewDiePie said the “N” word with a hard R (you can’t forget the hard R) on a live stream, and now […]
Startup Life
PewDiePie’s Destructive Utterance
I want to take this moment to bow our heads and offer a silent prayer in thanks for no longer being on YouTube… So a major YouTube content creator did […]
Startup Life
Churn and Addressable Market Space
The concept of churn and the overall addressable market space is something that many startup founders do not think about. Founders use an odd variation of math where the minus […]
Startup Life
You Can’t Buy “Authentic” Marketing
Thanks for your reply. But your site FailedNormal.com is not very related to our products in general topics and other parameters like domain authrioty and traffic. I don’t mean that […]
Startup Life
Approaching People for Business
Knowing how to approach people in regards to business is a vital skill in the tech world. You basically have to convince people with far more experience, clout and resources […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
Building a YouTube Competitor…
So… I guess I’m having a Skype meeting with a founder who wants to create a competitor to YouTube next week… yup… I feel like I’ve had this conversation before… […]
Tech
Pluralsight Live 2017 – Yet Another Crappy Tech Conference
When I read the spam that landed in my inbox from Pluralsight about their conference my first thought was that it was a joke. I then clicked the link to […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
High Cost for Free Speech
As I have said, a case like this is extremely draining — especially on an emotional level — and can create massive chilling effects on free speech. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170906/13431338159/case-dismissed-judge-throws-out-shiva-ayyadurais-defamation-lawsuit-against-techdirt.shtml Over the […]
Startup Life
Buying Art
I just spent a few days down in Asheville NC during which I spent some time shopping to add to my art collection. I’ve been collecting art for a long […]
Life on the YouTube Plantation
YouTube is Killing Valuable Content
Last week I was talking with my wife about the future of Failed Normal, and brought up that I plan to start doing video interviews again. At that comment she […]
Startup Life
Giving Up on Best Buy
I’ve been buying items from Best Buy for years. Long after Amazon became the far cheaper alternative I would trudge down to the local Best Buy because I actually believe […]
Startup Life
Tracking Goals in Google Analytics
Here’s the thing. I don’t care what you think. Frankly I don’t really care what I think. The argument that will either settle my anxiety, or change my mind is […]
Startup Life
Talking About Money is Not Evil
One of the things viewers tried to gig me on most while on YouTube was the fact I talk about money in almost all of my videos. There is this […]
Startup Life
eBooks vs Membership Blog
I’ve been asked for years why I don’t write books, and now that I’ve dumped YouTube the question is more relevant. There are a few reasons that revolve around my […]
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