This post originally from Unicorn Free

When you create a product that people love, you take on a special kind of responsibility. This is what happens when you don’t take that responsibility seriously:

Mixin was a very cool little tool. Lots of people loved it. And now it’s dead, because its parents didn’t ensure that they gave their little product-baby what it needed to survive.

What a product needs to survive, of course, is cash. And that has to be baked in from the very start; the product-baby must be trained from infancy, as it were. A product’s gotta have what it takes to convince people to turn over their hard-earned money… or it’s going to end badly.

Twinkles in your eye aren’t enough. Coolness & popularity aren’t hard currency — outside of high school. Even being loved isn’t enough.

All those who loved Mixin are now left out in the cold.

RIP Mixin. Sorry you weren’t given a fair shake at life.

This post originally from Unicorn Free

image cc BurgTender

It’s an age-old story: Boy meets passion, boy follows passion, passion turns out to be a mirage and/or actually a big pain in the ass, despite how rosy it may have seemed from a safe distance.

(And, ladies? You’re just as susceptible to this as men. Don’t think I’m giving you a pass.)

Let’s Talk About You

So. You’re in love with a thing. Let’s say it’s coffee, books, design, code or solving interesting problems. You decide to open up a café to follow your passion for coffee. Or a used book shop, because you’re passionate about books. Or, because you’re passionate about solving interesting problems through code or visuals, you hang out your shingle as a freelance developer or designer.

Six months to a year later, and guess what?

Turns out that you hate running a café (or book store, or…). Turns out that running a café is as much about the coffee as raising a child is about snuggles. Yes, the coffee happens — and so do snuggles — but what really makes up the typical day is very little sleep and lots and lots of poop.

And who has a passion for poop?

A Perfect Example, in the Flesh

The small cafe connects to the fantasy of throwing a perpetual dinner party, and it cuts deeper–all the way to Barbie tea sets–than any other capitalist urge. To a couple in the throes of the cafe dream, money is almost an afterthought. Which is good, because they’re going to lose a lot of it…

Guess what, dear dreamers? The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it’s fun and romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have to is enormous. Within weeks, Lily and I — previously ensconced in an enviably stress-free marriage — were at each other’s throats.

— Bitter Brew: I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life.

Another well-meaning passion-follower falls victim to The Cute Little Café Syndrome. The Cute Little Café Syndrome will never die — it’s too damned appealing. It’s romance, it’s magical princes, it’s Happily Ever After with a side order of delicious Vienna roast and the absolute best croissants.

It’s Follow Your Passion.

And it’s hardly limited to real-life, actual cafés. The Cute Little Café Syndrome applies to any situation where you blindly follow your passion… and it leads you to a pit of despair (or at least, a pit of debt).

Battling the Cute Little Café Syndrome

Don’t want to find yourself chewed up & spat out by The Cute Little Café Syndrome?

There’s only one thing for it: abandon meatless aphorisms like “Follow Your Passion!” and take stock of reality.

In reality…

• Turning your beloved, refreshing hobby into a job can kill it.
• Doing something you love for yourself isn’t the same as doing it for others.
• You can love something and not know the slightest thing about it.
• You can love something and not be good at it.
• You might not know what Your Passion™ is, at least not with enough fiery motivation to get you going.
• You may believe you’re passionate about a subject but it’s likely your true deep-down-fulfillment passion is about actions, connections, or environment.
• Or, your logical conclusion is that you should engage in actions when your passion is really a subject.
• The Poop Factor is ever-present: most of what goes into running a real business is very different than what you fantasize about.
• Finally… some things just aren’t money-making propositions. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love them.

So. Does all this mean your working life is doomed to be dull and loveless? That you should go bet on “a sure thing” that you don’t enjoy?

Not at all.

Smokey Robinson Has the Answer

There’s nothing wrong with passion. Passion is a good thing. A good thing you nevertheless need to approach with your eyes open.

Take a page out of Smokey Robinson’s book:

Try to get yourself a bargain, son.
Don’t be sold on the very first one.
Pretty girls come a dime a dozen.
Try to find one who’s gonna give you true loving.
Before you take a girl and say I do, now.
Make sure she’s in love with you, now.
Make sure that her love is true, now.
I hate to see you feeling sad and blue, now.
My momma told me, you better shop around!

Yep. Shop around. Eyes open. Don’t take your passion and assume that its ultimate manifestation, the thing you should do, the thing to follow, is the very first idea that pops into your mind.

Don’t assume that just because you love coffee, you should open a café.

Or because you love books and cozy reading nooks, a book store.

Or because you love photography, a tool for amateur photographers.

Or because you love programming, a software dev shop.

Or because you love design, a freelance design co.

These are obvious top-of-mind ideas. And heck, you might end up loving them. But the likelihood is that you won’t.

After all: would you rather use your passion, or sell it?

Ask Yourself…

Would you still feel passionate when you were struggling to pay the bills and hire wait staff? Or struggling to deal with the clients that inevitably come with solving interesting problems on a freelance basis? Or what about handling customers who are cheapskates and not even particularly tech-savvy?

If you want to run a successful café — and enjoy it — you need to love a lot more than coffee. You’ve also gotta get some kind of pleasure, even grim satisfaction, out of the daily grind. (Ha ha.) Which means, of course, interacting with customers, hiring & managing wait staff, handling the day-to-day necessities like ordering supplies, cleaning, paying rent, marketing your butt off, and dealing with customers who want to squat on your valuable tables all day for just $2 of brew.

Likewise, if you love slinging code, but hate interacting with people who don’t understand you immediately, then you’re going to be miserable doing training or providing support of any kind. If you love creating dramatic illustrations of people and places, but chafe at people who tell you what to do, being a freelance illustrator is going to rub you raw.

And everyone’s heard the story of the guy or gal who quit the rat race, retreated to a cabin in the woods to write a novel… and proceeded to go absolutely bonkers from loneliness, without even a single chapter to show for it.

That’s what Following Your Passion can do to you.

The Solution: 6 Steps

So what’s the alternative? Go to law school? No. (Not unless you’d love being a lawyer. Which means, by the way, a lot more than enjoying reading about torts and arguing.)

What you really need is to:

• Figure out what your passion(s) really are — process? environment? action? subject? connections?
• Ask yourself all the different ways you could work that passion into different kinds of businesses — less obvious than coffee->café
• Add in the Poop Factor for your fantasies — all those daily things we never imagine when we’re fantasizing, you’ve got to confront them head-on — in advance
• Imagine selling it, or dealing with clients, or a certain type of customers — and be honest how you’d feel about that all day long
• Honestly appraise the potential for sustainable income — by studying other people/businesses doing the same kind of thing, and comparing it to how much you want to live comfortably
• Take your best shot from all of the above

It’s true that this won’t all fit in a three-word slogan as eminently tweetable as “Follow your passion”. But how about this?

Practice open-eyed passion.

Or, as Smokey would say:

You better shop around.

This post originally from Unicorn Free

• You shouldn’t feel comfortable with your meager little dreams.
• You should do a startup.
• You should chase the hockey stick.
• You should go viral.
• You should quit your job and work 90 hour weeks.
• You should be prepared to have everyone think you’re crazy.
• You should feel a manic, blind-eyed devotion to your Great Idea.
• And if you don’t, well, you should use special terminology like “pivot”.
• You should practice your elevator pitch.
• You should work on your deck.
• You should find a cofounder.
• You should learn about angel rounds, Series A, B, C, bridge rounds, and convertible notes.
• You should press the flesh.
• You should hire a team. Write witty job postings on Craigslist. In code.
• You should hire a CxO.
• You should go big or go home.
• You should experience a Liquidity Event.
• You should go back to being an employee at the acquiring company.
• You shouldn’t ask questions.

Well, well. Should you now?

When you’re bricked in on all sides by the same message, it’s time to ask yourself: Who benefits? Who benefits from all this feverish stumping for the magical healing powers of entrepreneurship? Who benefits from the chest-thumping rhetoric of freedom, when the idealized end is yet another fucking job?

In short: Where’s the money?

Find the money, and follow it.

It starts with venture capitalists and other people who bet on startups like they bet on horses. It ends with young people who’ve bought into the dream.

In the middle, it crosses through snake-oil salesmen. It touches journalists. It infects bloggers.

The same old myths about entrepreneurship, repeated, over and over, ad nauseum — repeated, shuffled, turned into top 10 lists, turned into a Cosmo quiz. “Are You a TRUE Entrepreneur?” “10 Signs Your Angel is Bored in the Boardroom” And like Cosmo, it begins as rah-rah troop rallying but ends in the poking of your deepest insecurities. Or as kindly, fatherly advice… from somebody who wants a part of you.

What is truly only one option begins to seem like the only option. It’s repeated so often, from so many different angles, that you start to believe it. It seems like common sense, like your own idea.

And that’s why it’s dangerous.

This post originally from Unicorn Free

Our Infoproduct Show & Tell was awesome! Turnout was fabulous: 112 people showed up to listen to me & Kelly hold a conversation on a wiiiiide range of infoproduct-related topics.

Click here to view the recording (a live, online Flash playback of our chat). Sorry, it’s not 100% complete — I forgot to hit record until about 10 minutes in, mostly missing the bits where we introduced each other. We got all the good stuff though!

Products we mentioned or showed:

• Gourmet Nutrition
• Havi Brook’s Monster Coloring Book
• Peepcode
• Kelly’s Blog Twister Game
• JavaScript Performance Rocks! (mine)
• PhilosophersNotes
• Summaries.com
• The Magick Menu (raw veggie meal planner)
• The Designer’s Guide to Web Applications, Part I
• Get Clients Now
• Making Better Presentation Slides
• Sean D’Souza’s Article Writing Course
• IDEO Human-centered Design Toolkit

Notes by smart, friendly types!

• Eric Davis wrote up some kickin’ notes
• Amy Jenkins forked Eric’s notes and added a lot; hers are here
• Ric Roberts also wrote notes (but his are his impressions vs literal transcribings!)

This post originally from Unicorn Free

I object to publishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercial rascality with artistic touchiness and pettiness, without being either good businessmen or fine judges of literature. All that is necessary in the production of a book is an author and a bookseller, without the intermediate parasite.

— George Bernard Shaw

This post originally from Unicorn Free

Infoproducts! Are! Awesome!

You know I already think so, which is why I’ve written about what infoproducts are, how to sell them, the reason they’re awesome for the future of, well, everyone, and of course, the math behind slowly freeing yourself from freelancing… all through the transformative beauty of the infoproduct.

But you know what they say about writing: Show, don’t tell.

That’s a challenge the ineffable Kelly Parkinson and I just couldn’t resist. So we’re getting together to show and tell.

Yes, we’re holding a little fireside chat, all about infoproducts, and you’re invited. (Gratis. For free. De nada. Etc.)

Did I mention it’s free?

Infoproducts Show & Tell, Dance & Song

What do we mean, “show & tell”?

Well, first we’ll do a little tellin’. Kelly and I both love infoproducts, not just individual ones, but the whole idea. (It’s no surprise that we’re both bookworms.) So we’ll jam a little on such topics as: why infoproducts, how we come up with ideas, and what really makes a runaway best seller.

Then we’ll do a lot more showin’. You would not believe the range of infoproducts out there, from bigass corps down to the tiniest soloist, on every topic and in every format for every problem you can imagine.

We’ll show you around this wild, whacky, wonderful world — focusing on some of the sparkly infoproducts that we’ve found, admired, and even bought.

Yep, that’s right, we’ll actually show you little snippets of infoproducts we’ve actually bought. That’s the best way to get the feel for what an infoproduct can be.

Add to that our running commentary on ideating, marketing, positioning, pricing, format-choosing, purposing, and more, and you have the complete package.

The Show & Tell Deets

WHERE? On the internet, sillyhead.

WHEN? October 29 (this Friday), at

• 9am – 10am Pacific (PT)
• 12pm – 1pm Eastern (ET)
• 5pm – 6pm London (GMT)
• 6pm – 7pm Vienna (CET)

(Sorry, accidentally had it listed as 2 hours – but it’s just one!)

HOW? Through the miracle of Adobe Flash. You surely have the plugin installed already. You do not need to dial in to anything. You don’t even need a real phone. Just broadband and a computer that ain’t dog slow.

Here’s the link to click when the time comes: http://s7.gs/showntell

Obviously, the meeting link won’t be live til, well, the meeting is live.

WILL AMY AND KELLY BE ON VIDEO? You betcha!

UH… DO I HAVE TO BE ON VIDEO? Nope, feel free to show up in your jammies. Or not in your jammies, if you catch my drift.

WOULD YOU PLEASE REMIND ME BEFOREHAND? Oh yes. No problem. Just join my advanced discount list.

CAN I TELL MY FRIENDS ALL ABOUT IT? Yes, please do! Wouldn’t it be fun if we maxxed out the teleconference software?

(Don’t worry that it’s on a different site — I’m undergoing a rebrand

See you there!

This post originally from Unicorn Free

Hey, would you look at the time? It’s getting late. Just two months until the deeply introspective blog posts start comin’ hot & heavy.

It’s still only mid-October, I know. Halloween decorations: in. Pensive rumination: out.

But hey, I caught myself thinking last night, I’ve finally caught up with the bookkeeping (thanks, Jess!), and I’m, you know, in the middle of a product launch… so why can’t New Year’s deep thoughts come early this year?

I’ve got a lot of deep to thought, but mostly I’m interested in the numbers. Yes, the money. Money money money!

First, a Teensy Bit of Not-too-boring Background

In 2008, my income from products was $0.

My product empire was born in late 2008, with the introduction of the crappy first versions of both Freckle time tracking and JavaScript Performance Rocks!.

Then 2009 was… well, let’s not go there.

But this year! The income from products (sorta) made it possible for me to quit consulting in January 2010.

I say “sorta,” because my products weren’t making enough to support me by January 2010. On the other hand, consulting was driving me batshit insane. So I took a look at my extra savings (a megapayment from a contract from hell), looked at my flagging products, and decided that dammit, I’ll make it work.

I decided that, come hell, high water, or income tax audit, I would figure out how to earn enough from products alone… enough that I’d never have to pour my creative heart out for a client ever again.

The Results are In

So… did it work?

I thought it’d be fun to share the numbers behind the products I’ve made with my husband, Thomas; with one of my very best friends, Alex Hillman, and by myself.

From Jan 1, 2010 to Today (Oct 20, 2010)

I know you’re skimming past all those annoying words and going straight for the digits. Hi. Hello. They’re right here.

Here’s all the product-based income I can claim from 2010 so far:

Hot diggity, that’s not too bad: $216,688. Actually, that’s a bigger number than I even thought.

It’s not all mine

That money’s not all mine — happily. I’m not a lone wolf. I’m a very sociable wolf who loves to hang out and hunt with a pack. (Okay… backing away from wildlife metaphors now.) That is, I don’t like working all by myself, even when I could do everything on my own. I like to work with other people because it’s fun, because it results in a better product, and because, honestly, I like sharing the wealth.

The top 3 products — Freckle, JavaScript Performance Rocks!, and the JavaScript workshops — are all joint Amy-and-Thomas productions. Thomas is my husband, and we make a killer team, and no, I don’t do all the spending. The money for the products goes straight to our LLC; some of the training goes thru Thomas’ Austrian company instead.

The first Year of Hustle Launch Class was a joint Amy-and-Alex production. (What I report as YoH income, though, is all mine — he paid me my share.)

The new, improved reincarnation of that class, the 30×500 Launch Class does have material in it that Alex created, but is being run almost entirely by me.

Other number-y details

Also, as an FYI, these numbers…

• Do not include costs. All numbers are gross — that means I haven’t deducted operating costs, including transaction fees, server upkeep, freelance help, advertising, affiliate/partner shares, etc., etc.
• Do not count discounts as costs. I’ve only included money we received, so all discounts we’ve offered were deducted before payment aren’t being counted as revenue. (And for the Year of Hustle class, that was only my share — Alex received the money, and paid me my part.)
• May be a bit odd because of conversion rates. Some, but not all, of our training courses were paid for in Euros. I converted them to USD with a rate of $1.30, a reasonable average.

In fact, I’m trying to roll most of the Freckle income back into making Freckle awesome-r, but that’s another post entirely.

Earnings Are Sooo Not Static

Just the year-to-date numbers don’t tell anything like the whole story.

A business is like a living thing: over time some things grow, others shrink. Following that slightly squicky metaphor, if my business were a body, Freckle would be the nose and ears (growing with age) and JSPR! would be, uh, something that shrinks over time. Height? Dignity? Neuroplasticity?

Err, anyway. Tossing that one in the discarded metaphor pile, along with my wolf pack…

Decline

JSPR! earned about $30,000 in 2009 (when it was new). It’s only earned half of that this year. We haven’t done many updates to it, and we haven’t pushed it much, either. This decline is natural, expected, and nothing to mourn.

Growth

Freckle, on the other hand, was earning about $3,300 a month in January. If constant, that would have added up to, let’s see… $29,700 in earnings to date, instead of the $70,952 that actually happened.

But when I quit consulting, I started spending a whole lot more time on it, and it’s grown quite nicely since. This month I expect we’ll just barely miss squeaking into the $12,000′s.

I’m still experimenting with what will help get Freckle keep growing at this pace, or even faster. (And, like I said, rolling much of the Freckle money into that!)

Windfall

Since you’re clever, you probably noticed that there are three types of income at work here:

1. subscriptions (Freckle)
2. ongoing trickle of one-off sales (JSPR!), and
3. windfalls (workshops & classes)

This is a beautiful mix, and one I’ll talk about in much more detail in another essay, but in short:

Windfalls kick ass. Each time Thomas & I do a workshop, we pocket a few grand — whether it’s the JavaScript Master Class or the HTML5 Mobile Pro. Or a corporate workshop (more work, more money).

For all the training income above, there were 3 corporate workshops and 11 open-to-the-public ones. The windfall income from these is fairly small but the reusability is very high!

The Year of Hustle class was a slightly bigger windfall – in total, Alex and I took in about $22,000, which we split. (I only reported my part of it, since Alex paid me.)

The new 30×500 Launch Class — starting Nov 1 — should be about $50,000 all told. (Again, that doesn’t include costs, or revenue sharing for someone who will probably be helping me out.)

As you can tell, windfall income actually has made up the lion’s share of that large, tantalizing number.

I wouldn’t want to live off windfall income alone. But it’s really kickass for helping fund our lives while we work on growing Freckle (and building our next SaaS subscription product, Charm).

What’s Next?

I’d like to grow the subscription income. A lot.

Almost all of my work on Freckle lately is either promotion (by myself and working with freelancers), or expanding features (designing features/improvements; finding, onboarding, coordinating with freelancers). Delegating is hard.

In Nov or Dec-ish, we’ll be shipping the private beta for our next SaaS, Charm. Charm is a bigger piece of software than Freckle, with more that could go wrong, but it will also be able to command a higher price.

I’m going to create more self-guided learning products, and do less live training.

I really enjoy live, 4-to-7-hours-a-day teaching. A lot. But it takes a lot outta me, and at some point, it’s not possible to charge enough for the tickets to make it worthwhile. (I gotta say, we haven’t reached that point yet! But we will.)

The on-going trickle of product sales (like ebooks) is sooo much less work… and Freckle & Charm are going to require a lot more attention soon.

So, Act I is to finish pimping & run my Launch Class. It’s almost 70% sold out so that’s good.

Once I can stop fretting about those last few seats, I’m going to spend a few days brainstorming on what kind of self-guided learning products I could create. I’m going to take a long hard look at what tech/biz things I know, am learning, or have been teaching, & figure out which ones would distill well and sell well. Then I’m going to make one or two of ‘em for the new year.

Am I never satisfied? Why earn more?

Money is a tool for me — I want more money to hire people full-time, to pay for some boutique development work I want done, to do a few personal things I want to do. I want to be able to work with my dream team (and they don’t come cheap). That sorta thing.

Other than that, it’s all about the joy of the chase. I want to make a difference in the way that software is designed, and the way people work. Money is a fun way of keeping score, and a way to fund the things that can make those goals happen.

(And the money doesn’t go as far as you’d think, considering I spend in Euros and live in Vienna, which is not the cheapest place. And, um, there’s the little issue of (cringe) taxes. Paperwork is my kryptonite.)

The Story in 3 Bullets

So, yeah. In short:

• 2008: $0 from products (building)
• 2009: $85,102 from products
• 2010 YTD: $216,688 from products (projected $261,000)

(What happened in 2009 is another story — a story I’m working on telling.)

Considering I originally thought of making my own products almost 8 years ago, I’m glad I finally got off my ass 2 years ago and did something about it. (I’m glad, particularly, that I learned the life lessons that made it possible for me to begin, and the ways of working that made it possible to finish.)

How About You?

Are you on your way to product-based income replacement? Do you want to be? Why or why not?

Intrigued? Want to create your own products but not sure quite how to start? I can help. You, yes you, might just like my 30×500 Launch Class.

This post originally from Unicorn Free

Is building a product hard? Maybe. Which part of it?

Committing to a schedule, doing the research, and serving a need that actually exists? Is that hard? Is reading books and forums hard? Is tabulating common themes in a spreadsheet hard? Is revisiting it twice a week hard?

No, that’s not hard. That’s don’t wanna.

Having the tough conversations with partners you need to part ways with…

… creating and sticking to a blogging schedule…

… taking advantage of the millions of opportunities that cross your path…

… sitting down for a couple hours, offline, and brainstorming how to increase your product’s reach by 10, 50, 100 customers…

No. Those are don’t wanna. Not hard. Hard would be, oh, I don’t know. How about growing up as a transgendered teen in rural India? That’s hard.

Hard means a real problem. Hard means that you can apply your full effort to it, in every way you can think of, for an extended length of time, and still lose. Hard means the requirement of delicate skills or expensive tools that are very tricky to acquire. Hard means a complete and utter lack of resources.

Not a lack of resourcefulness — that’s don’t wanna.

The real secret that’s stopping you from being an entrepreneur is this: You don’t wanna.

You’re not “showing up.” You’re not putting in the effort. You’re not laying down tracks you can chug along, faster and faster. You’re not devouring every resource that will teach you how. You’re not even going to the public library.

You’re not applying your full effort to it, in every way you can think of, for an extended length of time.

But let me give it to you straight: Nothing will fix you, but you.

No Magical Business Prince is going to waltz into your cube farm one day and deliver upon you an entrepreneurial liplock you’ll never forget. There’s only you, and what you do with your don’t wannas.

There is no single moment where you suddenly tip from being a hard-working schmuck to a successful entrepreneur. It’s just you, moving your damn feet, one step at a time.

It may never be “easy.”

But, luckily for us, it will almost never be hard.

This post originally from Unicorn Free

Does selling make you evil?

Am I evil? Wicked? Slightly naughty?

Well, am I? Some certainly would have you think so.

There’s a lot of people out there who think commerce is evil. The exchange of money for goods and services? Yep, evil. And inherently manipulative. That’s what they believe. It doesn’t matter whether there’s “undue profit-seeking,” or the rude exploitation of information asymmetry. It doesn’t matter whether the seller has some kind of power or edge over the buyer. It doesn’t matter if the seller is the tricksiest, slickest snake in the grass, or the world’s most honest downhome folky grandpa.

Commerce = EVIL. That’s what they believe.

Yep. Lots of people are doing the believing. And an awful lot of them are “in tech.”

Then you have me. I’m not only selling things (gasp!), but I’m selling things that teach other people how to sell things (double gasp!). I’m the meat puppet of mass consumerization! Me = double plus ungood evil. Right?

Anti-Cinderella Syndrome

Now, maybe you don’t think that Commerce = EVIL. Or at least, not so strongly that you’d admit it. You probably don’t think I’m evil, since here you are, reading my blog. (Unless, of course, you’re keeping your enemies closer. In which case, let’s snuggle!)

But I do have a question for you, because there’s something I like to think of as Anti-Cinderella Syndrome, and I see it all the time in otherwise smart, clever, intelligent, thoughtful, and creative people.

If you would be so kind, finish this sentence for me:

I think I could create some awesome products, or have created awesome product-like things already, but I’m afraid of setting a price and selling because…

A. I’m scared people will laugh at me, and/or hate me

B. I’m scared I’ll do it wrong, and screw up my business

C. I’m afraid that, as soon as money enters the equation, I will become obsessed with profit, damn the consequences! I will do all sorts of immoral things. I won’t be able to stop myself. I will lose my soul, doomed to become an evil marketer. The primrose path, you know! The primrose path!

If you felt more than a passing familiarity with Option C, then fret not: you sure as hell aren’t alone. And no, you wouldn’t become evil overnight. In fact, you are very moral. That’s the source of the whole quandry, isn’t it?

Because, in reality…

You Have Anti-Cinderella Syndrome

At some level, you believe that putting on a set of shiny glass slippers would transform you into a different, slicker, eviller person.

Or rather, you believe that that evil manipulation-ness is already hidden inside you, just waiting for the right set of glitzy huaraches to set it free.

There’s something about money — or specifically, profit — that makes you worry you’d turn all green and slimy.

Luckily, that fear? Not based on reality. And there’s an easy way to ensure that particular grim fairy tale never comes true.

Curing ACS

The cure for Anti-Cinderella Syndrome really is simple:

1. Do good. If you have Anti-Cinderella Syndrome, you’ve got strongly held ethics. Maybe you hold your ethics strongly because you’re concerned about them. But the point is, you have them. So stick to them. Create a product that reflects those morals — create immense value. Help people. Create something that leaves the world better than it was. It’s not that hard.
2. Make your mission bigger than selling your product. Take your good product, that leaves the world better than it was, and ask, “What’s the Bigger Thing? How does it help people?” That good result and make that your mission. If your fervent mission is to ensure that good result for everyone, including your potential customers, you will never have to worry that you’ll steer them wrong.

I Do Good, My Mission

I didn’t pull this out of my ass — it’s the philosophy I’ve developed while trying to run my own businesses in the most ethical way possible.

Here’s how I figured it out:

Do Good: My products do a lot of good — I help freelancers earn more, and make better decisions; I help people make their web apps faster, and learn new skills; and, last but not least, I help people like you create, launch and sell their own products.

The Bigger Thing: Foster (and encourage) healthier, happier, smarter indie biz.

Ergo, My Mission: Help people kick ass with their small businesses.

My mission is to help every indie biz I come in contact with. That makes it easy for me to navigate any dilemma: When a person has a problem, or wants to know if my products are really for them, I don’t have to worry about whether I want their money or not. I give them the answer that will help their small biz the most. Even if that’s a “No, this doesn’t make sense, please take your $700 elsewhere.” Or even if it’s “You know, your needs are really more suited for our competitor.”

It’s crystal fucking clear.

There, dilemma solved.

The Bottom Cinderell-y Line

If you create a product that’s good news, people will be glad to hear about it. Your audience will love to find out about it, buy it, use it. (Except for a tiny portion of haters, who don’t buy anyway.)

And if your mission is larger than “move product,” then you’ll have a nice and easy ethical guideline to follow. You won’t have to wonder, you’ll sleep like a baby, and again, your customers will be happy.

Also, little woodland creatures will be your friend.

The end.

Want to learn how to create and sell products in a happy, woodland-creature-loving, ethical way? Dream about quitting freelancing for the green fields of product-hood? My 30×500 Launch Class is filling up, so be sure to check it out!

This post originally from Unicorn Free

Yep, that’s right: it’s 6:30pm in my neck of the woods and the 75 tickets for the 30×500 Launch Class are now on sale.

You’ve read the details page, right? That lists exactly what the class is, how it works, what you get, how much it costs, and my extremely generous refund policy? Good. As long as you’ve read that, you’re ready!

Ready? Steady? Awesome: Book your ticket now.

I have absolutely NO idea how long it will take these to sell out. So, if you’re committed to the idea, please don’t delay.

Last-minute Super Brief FAQs

Questions I’ve received by email are in bold! My answers are obviously sassy, and brassy, but not bold as such. Not typographically, anyway.

1. Errr, I have this other thing that will eat up all my time for half of the course. In November, or January. Should I take the class now? No! I want you to succeed. You can’t succeed if you can’t spend the time on it. I’ll run another class in the spring, please wait for that.
2. Um, I don’t have an idea for a product yet. Is that okay? Absolutely. You’re the target market, my friend. The class is for you.
3. I already have a product I am very committed to, is the class for me? No. Not unless you’re having such a hard time with it that you’re ready to accept that you may need to scrap it and start fresh. If your product is actually doing okay, then especially no. This is a launch class, not a post-launch class. (I want to do a post-launch class, but it’s not ready yet. Email me if you’re interested.)
4. I already have an idea I’m thinking about, but it’s not, like, engraved in stone & signed with blood yet. Is the class for me? Yes! The class is made for you. You’ll learn a lot about how to evaluate that idea, and make sure you succeed with it. You may even discover that your idea isn’t going to do the trick to help you create a successful business. That would be a bit hard, but a Very Good Thing, saving you lots of time and pain, and potentially earning you lots of cash.
5. Following question 3… what do you mean, I might find out I’ve done things the wrong way round, and have to start over? Yeah, it happens. That’s business. You can’t reach the magic of $30 a month x 500 customers if you’re not willing to examine your efforts in light of better evidence. If that makes you vomit with fear or recoil in horror, then the class is not for you.
6. Do you have a payment plan or a way to pay other than PayPal? Sorry, not this time! Too much overhead for me.
7. Is this my last chance? Will there ever be another 30×500 Launch Class? There will be more. I’ll start another in the spring/summer. Never fear!

Any more questions? Email me.

Book your ticket now!