Dane Maxwell- Build Software Companies in 6 months w/o money, experience

[MJ DeMarco]

The greatest lessons from gurus are what they DO, not what they TEACH.

Pay. Close. Attention.

 

[PatrickP]

Is this the guy that says upfront he is not a millionaire and yet he has been doing this for something like 4+ years?

Does it make sense to pay $500/mo when there are guys who have made multiple millions whose book you can by for around $24 or the kindle version for less than $10, you know like ahhhh ahhhh oh yea our fearless leader,

MJ, himself

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime.: MJ DeMarco: 9780984358106: Amazon.com: Books

 

[Vigilante]

High % of new posters in this thread --- always a curious sign to me when it involves an outsider guru selling information.

 

[wade1mil]

I applied because I feel lost and need some direction. Reading books and going on forums only works to some extent. I can't wade through information and know what to follow and what to do to reach my goals.

Willing to do whatever it takes at this point.

Think about what you just wrote.

You're "willing to do whatever it takes at this point," but you "can't wade through information and know what to follow and what to do to reach my goals."

It sounds to me like you want to pay $500 a month for a step-by-step plan. It's just a guess, but I bet you part of that plan is to wade through information.

 

[Mike39]

Lol, just got an email form Mr. Dane himself as I am sure several other did as well, the sales page is out, and with it, the pricing! $300/mo for basically nothing helpful, $800/month for "regular" membership, and 10k for a premium. Anyone who buys into this should be tarred and feathered, the real lessons come in his launch & marketing skills, f*** the software stuff

The REAL profit here is not in starting a software company, it's teaching how to start one.
Guru-ing: $800/mo X 300 people= $240,000 a month
Software biz: 3 separate companies, 7k/month each, you get the idea

 

[hobokook]

What do you guys think of Dane Maxwell of The Foundation?

Check out his interview here - SPI 046 : Building a Lucrative Business with No Ideas, No Expertise & No Money with Dane Maxwell

Really awesome stuff and it really opened my mind.

You basically go into an industry, find the pain, and ask the customers questions to help build a product around that pain.

If what Dane does Fastlane?

Thanks

 

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[TheTruth]

Think about what you just wrote.

You're "willing to do whatever it takes at this point," but you "can't wade through information and know what to follow and what to do to reach my goals."

It sounds to me like you want to pay $500 a month for a step-by-step plan. It's just a guess, but I bet you part of that plan is to wade through information.

Wade hit this on the money. Why would you blindly shell out $500/month when you could come up with your plan, post it on this forum, have millionaires tell you what they think, take some action and report back, see the results and get millionaires to give you more feedback, then either drop it or take their advice and run.

This would also cost you nothing.

 

[theag]

IMO all the content you need to follow his approach has already been shared. the foundation sounds like a handholding thing to me, you can have the same here in this forum for free.

don't get me wrong, I feel the same about the content they shared and really like it. in fact I am going to follow this approach, starting now. I just don't think its necessary to pay 500++ a month to be part of the community. to me, the whole foundation thing turned a bit too much into a typical internet markting infoproduct launch.

Is anybody interested in starting a live chat between some members here that are building software or apps, similar to what they have in the foundation, in addition to the forum?

 

[jon.a]

In my email this AM...

"Congratulations!! You're in...

Today marks the beginning of an epic,
life-changing journey that will propel 300
people towards the lives they dream about.

If you're up for the challenge..."

No thank you

 

[snowbank]

Pat Flynn at SPI went to the dark side a while ago.

He started out legit selling real information to a real audience (how to pass the LEED Exam).

Then he morphed himself into another shovel-shelling Goo-Roo separating the dreamers from their money.

Edit: These Goo-Roos don't sell Fastlane--they sell the Illusion of Fastlane to people who don't have the ability or experience to tell the difference between actual Fastlane and the Illusion.

No.

Pat Flynn is one of the very few people in the blogging/make money space who gives great value. There's only a handful, and he's one of them.

Just because he makes money off of teaching others to make money does not mean he can't make money on his own. He can, and does.

Pat is legit. I say that about almost no one, because almost no one in that space is.

Just because he doesn't teach "fastlane" in your opinion doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about. He has a niche, and just because it's different than MJ's niche doesn't mean it's bad information.

If some things he talks about don't apply to what you're trying to do, that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to what others are doing.

 

[fellipe]

I'm not sure it's all regurgitated, well-known info.

Read the books:

The Millionaire Fastlane
Lean Startup
Start Small Stay Small

You will learn much more for less than 50 bucks.

What Dane's done was create a 'brand' and target people 'new' to the whole web software/startup scene. Because all he's teaching is well known and cheaply available.

The difference is paying him $800 per month makes you believe you're closer to success.

Dane ideas in a nutshell:

1) Find a small business market that has a pain. How do you find it? Well, Dane seems to call small business owners and play the role of a psychologist. This can work. But it's not the only way.

2) After you find the pain you figure out how to solve it with a computer software. Call back owners and present the solution. Ask for their money to finance the development phase.

3) Build it (remember you are using money from other people).

4) Launch and Profit! Easy huh?

All he's done is validating an idea before committing a line of code. OH! Of course there's the whole 'support' from the other wantrepreneurs haha.

People need to understand that Dane is a hell of a great marketer. His extremely giant sales copy for the foundation proves it. I remember I saw something on Cashvertising book (recommended by MJ DeMarco) that long sales copy makes you believe everything on it is true. He's using every little dirty secret to sell to people that are desperate for making money.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Lite Tier? How many tiers are there?

The lite tier is for people who are lightly interested.

Now for the serious entrepreneur, there's the serious tier; that's $800/mo.

Now wait, there's more.

For the SUPER-SUPER-DUPER-SERIOUS, there's the SUPER-DUPER TIER ... that's $8,000/mo.

 

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[TK1]

For all the people finding this thread in the future thinking about joining 'The Foundation' (...or any other 'premium priced' guru product):

I bet this fastlane forum has more success stories than most of the next big thing hyped guru programs.

So stay here with us,
talk with real millionaires...FOR FREE....
read thousands of highly valueable posts
(and yes, written by millionaires, too)...FOR FREE

:icon_super:

 

[Mike39]

If instead I were to do the Fastlane INSIDERS, I doubt 300 people will be starting at the same time and all going through the same materials.

Your right, you'll be forced to listen to insight from multi-millionaire entrepreneurs and guys with tens of years of experience at 1/100th of the cost instead of blabbering about your issues with 299 un-experienced wantrepeneurs running around with their heads cut off looking for guidance from your holiness Dane

Dane and I had a video call for a few minutes last night. I asked him a question that I wanted to present through audio & not cause him to go on the record. He gave a great answer & more info then I was looking for. ... this was not the first conversation we have had, this month it's been something most days through either email or chat. He seems very similar to me, but has been more successfull

Well I am sure he is going to be extremely nice to you for $800/month. I'll be glad to say a bunch of nice things about you for just $500/month, PM me for info!

Now a question, and I really have no clue the answer - Whould or Should I really expect an equivnt experiance & result from the Fastlane INSIDERS?

Again, nope, you won't have some warm loving community of 300 career junkies turned overnight entrepreneurs, all you would get is to speak with guys who are worth 10x more than dane, run far more successful companies than a 60k/year (or 500k for that matter) software company, and won't charge you $800/month to talk to them.


On a side note: I completely respect Dane for what he is doing, he is a GREAT marketer and is going to make some serious bank off of other peoples desire to be an "entrepreneur" and work for yourself. I just think it is funny how nation and his other cult followers completely turn a blind eye to how Dane is ACTUALLY making his money and are buying into his ploy hook, line, and sinker!

Think about this, if B2B software was SOOOO great then why did Dane get out of software completely and start teaching instead? Because of his "passion to help others" or because he can make double the cash teaching people how to come up with an "eh" business when he is really the one cashing out? (I am not saying there is not money to be made in B2B software)

 

[andviv]

He sounds determined and this is a decision already made. Let's wish him the best and hopefully he can share lessons learned from this seminar and about his outcome and experience.

Like I've said many times before, a lot of courses/seminars/etc are great and provide a roadmap on how to make something happen. It is up to the student to follow the master's guidance.

It sounds to me like nation has identified like this is a winner for him. I don't see the need to mock him or attack him for that. This may as well be the best investment he ever makes and may return millions.

I am very interested in the system used by the marketer. He has created a great package and hopefully a great product as well. Scarcity, Need, Crazy Desire to be part of the group, Perceived Value. All of these are very great and it is valuable to learn how to implement them for your product/service.

nation, I wish you the best of luck and please do keep us posted on your progress. Would love to hear how it goes for you and let us know if you need help with anything.

 

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[Mike39]

Pretty soon Dane is going to have to build his own board game and then hold wealth seminars worldwide, he is true guru material

 

[MJ DeMarco]

When you're accepted by "The Foundation" you get presented this heartfelt cultish indoctrination-like video about how its time to change your life, and this is what you've been waiting for, and blah blah blah... then you see the pricing plans

The idea is to get you emotionally involved and committed, that way, you're more likely to fork over an obscene amount of $$$. It's a psychological tactic used to alter buying behavior.

and after a week or so I start receiving these apology emails about how their payment processor wasn't set up and then couldn't receive more then 10,000 dollars because they hit their charging limit or something of the sort, so supposedly everything was either put on hold or some people couldn't get accepted, at this point I do not know. Quite laughable really.

Sounds like this fiddle is played regardless of when anyone joins ... like it's a timed autoresponder.

The whole getting accepted process was just part of their marketing plan to get you to publicly post why you want to join and why you believe it will help you. After getting accepted it simply just started to feel more and more disingenuous.

I think the some of the others have made it clear that there probably is some value in this program, yet, there is probably equal value in paying attention to how he promotes the program, and that is free. Again with gurus, you usually want to pay more attention to what they do and how they do it, versus what they teach.

I'm pretty sure we're about as far as we can get with discussing The Foundation itself, so my suggestion is this thread gets locked and I'll create a new "Lean Startup Discussion" thread, where Foundation members as well as those working off lean startup ideas can bounce ideas off each other.

I'm going to take your advice here and lock the thread.

 

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[wade1mil]

Best post on the forum, ever.
This is pure gold. Speed++

You've been a member for less than a month and you've read every thread already?

$500/mo for what?

$500 per month to be part of the competition maybe? I missed the call the other day and I'm sure he has some valuable information, but with all of the newer people on this forum pushing his calls, threads and Foundation thing, I got turned off a long time ago. Whether true or not, it feels like a huge orchestrated sales pitch to me now.

 

[nzerinto]

The general concept of what he does is absolutely fastlane. Ask companies what their pain points are, then solve them. Anything more than this and you are over complicating it...

 

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[Mike39]

V

this probably says more about you then it does me.
Text is a limited medium & I am doing the best I can, but you always read into the text based on your world view.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing I could do the change your opinion, but maybe if you just assumed for a moment that I am not & everything I ever said was true you might, who knows?

So did you get accepted?? And are you going to invest $800/mo in master yodane

 

[fellipe]

I said I've been accepted and not that I'm part of it.

$10k to hear some stuff that I can find online or from a mentor? Nah...

Le novamente meu amigo!

And my point was in fact about you being 'accepted'.

It proves that Dane strategy on creating a sense of 'exclusivity' works.

To make it clear, there's no 'being accepted' or 'not being accepted'. EVERYONE who filled the forms have received the payment information.

It's a strategy to make people feel important by feeling they were being accepted after a long 'analysis'.

 

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[Vigilante]

Maybe there is a forum over there you guys can continue the discussion on? Since neither of you post in anything but this thread, it is obvious that this is where your passion lies. Good luck to you! Make it happen.

 

[AlasdairM]

If you don't know programming how can you even monitor the progress and know what you are getting that you pay for?

In other words, don't you have to be somewhat of a savvy buyer of these outsourcing services to actually get a good deal on a quality project?

You need to implement performance benchmarks. The first time I had a programmer produce software for me, I didn't provide benchmarks and the software worked as per the specs I gave him, but it was slow as hell, so basically useless.

Also, there are ways to advertise a job that immediately weed out the crappy programmers, so you can get to the cream of the crop.

You really have to spend considerable time drawing up the specs for exactly what you need the software to do, and ideally what it should look like. There's software you can buy (fairly cheap) for creating wireframes so you can show the programmer what you want the interface to look like.

Anyway, I'm babbling on here, but hopefully this answers your question.

 

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[andviv]

Absolutely, how to market to the naive.

I love the sarcastic way you mention it.

However....

Naive and Lost is not the same.

There is a need for the uneducated (don't believe me? look at college applications and tuition prices).

People need to be guided.

You have two choices:

a) Ridicule them and do nothing about it
or
b) Create a program, market it and have students go through it. Make money for your time and effort.

It is up to each of us to decide what to do about this.

But again, the market is there YELLING at us, begging us to give them information. How-to. Guidelines. They want a leader.

Now, if you are going to put up a crappy system and scam people then we are talking about a different story.

I prefer to focus on the need and how to supply what the market demands.

 

[andviv]

people that buy and don't do anything.

And because of this, most won't even claim the money back... lazy people are lazy even for that.

 

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[nategoddard]

Hey guys, I'm a current student in the Foundation and will be happy to answer any questions along the way. It's 6 months long and we're about 2 weeks in so keep that in mind.

I have no interest in being biased or defending anyone's good or bad opinions of the program, including my own. I simply want to help out any way I can by answering questions about the program or the software as a service business in general.

 

[Epictetus]

Do you really think that we won't see your posts as the promotional spam they are, just because you bought the INSIDERS subscription?

Well that's certainly a nice welcome. I guess you're not allowed to offer a differing point of view on something the forum has made it's mind up on? Maybe it pays to be paranoid about marketers here but it seems like you're jumping to conclusions a bit quickly, purely because I've uttered a positive word about The Foundation.

Would you like some negative ones instead? The site was pretty buggy at first, content was slow in the first week (supposedly due to a problem with the merchant account, undecided whether that was just an excuse or not), it can be hard to get onto Dane when you live on the other side of the world. I miss most of the Q&A calls because I'm working while they're on, so I listen to recordings. I had a 1 on 1 call booked with Dane, turns out the booking system screwed up on Google Calendar and I ended up getting up at 4 in the morning for nothing. To be fair, Dane jumped on the phone with me out of schedule and got me right back in a good headspace when I really needed it.

But seriously, no promotional spam. I'm just enjoying the course so far and wanted to offer my thoughts. My name's Leon, I'm 21 year old IT tech and I live in Australia. I guess I'll go make a proper introduction on the relevant forum.

P.S, you're not giving him a lot of credit as a marketer either. Do you really think he'd bother making new accounts on this forum and spamming happy things about his course to a group of people likely to see straight through anything like that? If Dane wanted to comment on this thread and respond to what's been said, he would almost certainly do it as himself.

 

[Mike39]

"SaaS - The Boardgame"

So what are your thoughts Mike? Of course Dane is setting himself up as a guru, but what's your opinion of the process itself? The guy definitely has results from his software and he still works heavily on that, despite hiring a CEO to run the day to day. As far as profitability go Zannee and The Foundation are at about the same level. I understand "do what the guru does" but what if the guru does both and his results on each are equal? And I have absolutely no interest in becoming a guru?

Don't get me wrong I completely agree with Dane's process of finding the pain and getting customers preferably before you even develop the product. The problem with "his" process is that it is already a process that is well known and has been put into practice by entrepreneurs for hundreds of years, his process is nothing original, nothing new, there is no secret sauce or winning formula. The reason I lack respect for these so called "gurus" is that they basically all pitch the same message and feed off of peoples desire to get rich while getting their hand held by someone along the way.

I know Dane's process and I am not a member of the foundation, I could go out today and build a successful software company, and I don't have to pay 10k to do it. No offence to all you in the foundation but nothing should justify $800/month, you don't have the cash to build your own software yet you dish out almost a grand every month so you can hear regurgitated, well known info? That $800/mo should be going into your business! It's like people pay ridiculous amounts to go to all these wealth seminars, "if I just go to enough of these, eventually something will click and I will get rich".

My problem isn't even with Dane necessarily, if you can get people to pay you $800/month, do it! I guess the more and more I think about it my problem is with all the people (participants) in the foundation.

Pretty soon Dane is going to have to build his own board game and then hold wealth seminars worldwide, he is true guru material

And this was primarily a joke comparing dane to another well known guru.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Maybe there is a forum over there you guys can continue the discussion on? Since neither of you post in anything but this thread, it is obvious that this is where your passion lies. Good luck to you! Make it happen.

This whole thread just seems like a huge promo for this program. Maybe it should be locked? Maybe not but getting tired of the promotion.

 

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[glenm]

I listened to that interview and the one he did on mixergy. His stuff is definetly fast lane.

He is finding the need. He is asking what they need.
Separating his time from money. It can be sold day or night and he doesn't need to be there to sell it.
Barrier of entry is high. Not everyone can go create his product.
His business is very scalable. He can sell 1 or 1,000,000
And he is the one in control of his business. He is not dependent on something else to have his business.