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Burned down my slowlane political career for entrepreneurship 17 months ago

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Cat Lady

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And yes, I heard at some point I could start hiring people, but 18 months in, I am NOWHERE NEAR that yet aside from the occasional contractor (i.e. legal, illustration, design, animation for videos). First up for me will be social media because I would be 30% more effective if that was just HANDLED for me and out of my brainspace.
 
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jramos02

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I'm an outgoing introvert, in that I'm chatty and good at listening and appear upbeat to others, but LOVE alone time (my favorite is work travel to other cities where I get tons of alone time in the airport/at the hotel but also I have to network and speak and schmooze when I'm ON.) So a job where other people are around but I don't have to work directly with them most of the time, like doing database work, is somewhat ideal.

This is basically me. Outgoing introvert. Definitely love my alone time and just playing videogames at times. Being around people, specially a lot of people, can be exhausting at times. I live in a big city so that affects it.

Keep at it though - you are only getting started and you are off to a great start. I will be cheering for you from the sidelines! (And in here)
 

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Apparently I've missed this thread until now. I'm glad you found this forum, I've followed your journey on the other one, but there was a lot of non-business chat in there so I didn't really join in.
The wife is interested in doing budgeting/financial life cleanup locally, so we may be ordering your book to see if she wants to use them for her clients.
 

Cat Lady

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Apparently I've missed this thread until now. I'm glad you found this forum, I've followed your journey on the other one, but there was a lot of non-business chat in there so I didn't really join in.
The wife is interested in doing budgeting/financial life cleanup locally, so we may be ordering your book to see if she wants to use them for her clients.

HEY! I am so excited that there is some crossover (I wondered how long it would take). Yea, I'm looking to separate the non-business/business a bit more between forums since I get a lot of advice from people who have never run a business on the other forum with varying degrees of usefulness.
 
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Cat Lady

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I want to hire a social media/online marketing person that ideally has experience with growth-hacking and establishing relationships with micro-influencers (ugh I hate that word). I'm trying to figure out a reasonable bootstrap way to find and pay this person. I can afford some flat fee, but I'd love to top that off with a commission in order to make it a reasonable pay range and to incentivize good work. I'm not thinking full-time, but someone that I hire as a contractor who has other clients for a few months to see if it works out. Is upwork a minefield or is there potentially good folks on there? Is there anyone on the fastlane forum that might be in this business that folks would recommend?

It's not that I can't do it myself, it's just that I don't like to do it so it always falls to the bottom of my long list. But it has the biggest potential impact on growth. I'm unlikely to get bullshitted to on analytics since I used to direct digital advertising for Big Name politics, I just want someone to do the grunt work (segmentation, planning out campaigns, reaching out to influencers).
 

Cat Lady

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May report:

I brought in $2,658 gross from the business last month. I only took home $800 of that but in the long term, I should be able to take home about 50% after COGS, overhead and taxes (I had hundreds of pre-orders to ship that I spent $$ on getting out this month).

Nearly 100% of that was book sales, all direct-to-consumer since I don't have any wholesale accounts going yet.

I now have an Amazon ebook compatible version of the book (not easy given the amount of images/extensive layout and special fonts) but with only 8 physical copies left before the next round of book copies get here on the boat from China, I'm holding off on getting the ebook up. I'm hoping/planning to do FBA for the physical copies.

Plan for June
  • 80 hours of data contract freelancing - will make about $2400 from that plus all the free coffee I can drink
  • Start taking in ads for the podcast and radio show ($200 gross)
  • Prep for the first of weekly youtube videos starting July 7th
  • Get the book up on Amazon including FBA for print copies
  • Get audio book done recording
  • Reach out to 6 retail stores
  • Send preview copies to 10 bloggers
  • Come up with a paid promotion scheme with instagram micro-influencers
  • Working with my agent to submit the book proposal to mainstream publishers in the next 2 weeks
  • Set up book tour dates for next month in 2 cities
  • New website situation worked out
  • Fiddle with retargeting and paid ads
 

Cat Lady

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So, I am endeavoring to make a product-based business, not a service one. But because I am on the radio talking about a topic and have a book on the topic, I get (weekly) requests for one-on-one coaching on that topic. I'm not really interested in one-on-one coaching, both for the scalability issues and the fact I just don't really love doing it. It's also in a field that's regulated, so while the coaching is legal, there are a few issues I can run into with providing advice to folks.

The long-term strategy is to build my platform and then create a program where folks can be "certified" to be coaches/teachers under my brand. I only want to do that once I can guarantee value though, and I don't have the bandwidth right now to build and nurture that program.

I also want to take existing folks in the industry and have them pay to be listed as an endorsed provider on my site as lead generation. That is going to happen sooner rather than later, though my reach isn't HUGE yet so I'm worried about not providing enough leads to folks.

But I've been wondering if I should just start saying YES to coaching requests because it IS money. Service can be profitable, especially in the short term, and doing more of it could help me put together a program. But at the same time, it takes real time and effort and requires me to put off time on other verticals that are more scalable and fast-lane long-term.

Thoughts? Experience?
 
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jramos02

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So, I am endeavoring to make a product-based business, not a service one. But because I am on the radio talking about a topic and have a book on the topic, I get (weekly) requests for one-on-one coaching on that topic. I'm not really interested in one-on-one coaching, both for the scalability issues and the fact I just don't really love doing it. It's also in a field that's regulated, so while the coaching is legal, there are a few issues I can run into with providing advice to folks.

The long-term strategy is to build my platform and then create a program where folks can be "certified" to be coaches/teachers under my brand. I only want to do that once I can guarantee value though, and I don't have the bandwidth right now to build and nurture that program.

I also want to take existing folks in the industry and have them pay to be listed as an endorsed provider on my site as lead generation. That is going to happen sooner rather than later, though my reach isn't HUGE yet so I'm worried about not providing enough leads to folks.

But I've been wondering if I should just start saying YES to coaching requests because it IS money. Service can be profitable, especially in the short term, and doing more of it could help me put together a program. But at the same time, it takes real time and effort and requires me to put off time on other verticals that are more scalable and fast-lane long-term.

Thoughts? Experience?

I don't have any experience in this area but just a general question - what are they looking for Coaching on specifically? Feel free to PM me if you want to keep it private but is the need similar amongst everyone?

Basically, is it something you could package into an online course where you can coach multiple people at once?

Cheers!
 

Cat Lady

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Basically, is it something you could package into an online course where you can coach multiple people at once?
Guess it's not worth keeping it under wraps. I teach personal finance and have a call-in financial advice radio show with a focus on millennials and particularly freelancers/non-profit/artist folks.

I have an online course which I funnel folks into which is one of my main products, but a lot of people have questions specific to their situation that they want handholding on (tax issues, specific small biz/retirement issues, or just wanting an accountability person.)
 

jramos02

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Guess it's not worth keeping it under wraps. I teach personal finance and have a call-in financial advice radio show with a focus on millennials and particularly freelancers/non-profit/artist folks.

I have an online course which I funnel folks into which is one of my main products, but a lot of people have questions specific to their situation that they want handholding on (tax issues, specific small biz/retirement issues, or just wanting an accountability person.)

Definitely know the feeling as I am slightly familiar with the personal finance world myself.

A lot of folks have their very personal situations, so I can see how that can be hard to "generalize".
 
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Cat Lady

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Update: I am 2-weeks into a 6-week "pay the bills and save up for dark times" stint working 20 hrs/week at Medium Corps. It is an extremely good reminder that I am not actually looking for Slowlane and that I LOVE making things myself and being in control but I do really enjoy the free coffee and snacks.

I have a few projects I'm really excited about coming down the pipeline: a video series with some corporate partners and a new website.

Meanwhile, I'm wrestling with: Amazon e-book submission issues, setting up a radio tour in late July when I'm already traveling, booking speaking gigs at colleges for the fall, and getting this book proposal to my agent (now a week behind.)
 

Cat Lady

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This has been a rough month for focusing on the business. Scattered between volunteering, freelance, part-time job, and doing PR for the book, instead of focusing on business work. But book orders are still coming in, so that's cool. Made some progress working with a potential new advertiser and partner last week, a call with another one this week.

Plus side: I have put aside about 3 month's of expenses from contracting this month, so I'm very hopeful that I'll have be able to start renewed next month on focusing on the business as my freelance contracting ends.
 

Cat Lady

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Well, updates on business things:

1) Confirmed a sponsor for the podcast beginning next week. My first paid advertiser!
2) Was invited to put together a proposal to produce a podcast for a cool financial software brand. They have a significant budget, and it's scary but exciting because it could take me into making a decent living territory. Proposal due next week.
3) LAUNCHING A YOUTUBE channel on Saturday!!! I've put up a few videos but I'm committing to one year of weekly videos. This is terrifying but it's time. Struggling to figure out what to put on my brand channel vs what to put on my business channel.
4) Doing a giveaway to build list/increase social following.
5) Have begun accepting coaching clients again even though it's not where I want my business to be long-term, it's money in the door and helps me talk directly to my target customer (and serve people's needs). This is based on a recommendation from @CareCPA
6) Got invited to talks to a prestigious invite-only podcast network that would really catapult my brand if I get in and help me outsource sales.
7) Working on new website now - this is a HUGE barrier since my current load time is abysmal due to wordpress javascript craziness.
8) investigating bots and follow/unfollow for insta to build business account.
9) Still wrestling with Amazon for REASONS.
10) 3 different college speaking clients are in talks with me. Hoping to close by end of week. This is a BIG portion of my income relative to the amount of time it takes me.

Also I talked to my friend who owns a company at a 4th of july BBQ last night and he's STILL interested in hiring me for a data/gov't sales/advocacy position in my old field if this all falls apart. Essentially the offer has remained open for years now. So every time I am scared no one will ever hire me for a "real job" again if this whole business thing fails, I will remember that.

I read 4 Hour Work Week again (last read it maybe 8 years ago) and there's actually a lot of useful stuff in there if you can get past the bro-ness of it all. Combined with TMF , it's actually a really good look into efficient business practices.
 
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CareCPA

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There are a couple threads on here recently about Instragram strategies. It's not something I've tried, so I didn't follow them very closely, but if I find them I'll link them in here.
 

Cat Lady

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This forum has SO MUCH gold on instagram strategies. I think I've read nearly everything on it.
 

Philip Marlowe

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Plan for June
  • 80 hours of data contract freelancing - will make about $2400 from that plus all the free coffee I can drink
  • Start taking in ads for the podcast and radio show ($200 gross)
  • Prep for the first of weekly youtube videos starting July 7th
  • Get the book up on Amazon including FBA for print copies
  • Get audio book done recording
  • Reach out to 6 retail stores
  • Send preview copies to 10 bloggers
  • Come up with a paid promotion scheme with instagram micro-influencers
  • Working with my agent to submit the book proposal to mainstream publishers in the next 2 weeks
  • Set up book tour dates for next month in 2 cities
  • New website situation worked out
  • Fiddle with retargeting and paid ads

For some reason, I imagine you as the T1000 from Terminator aggressively sprinting towards your goals. The above list would be nice for me to get done in a year!

Definitely watching this thread. Rep+
 
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jramos02

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Was invited to put together a proposal to produce a podcast for a cool financial software brand. They have a significant budget, and it's scary but exciting because it could take me into making a decent living territory. Proposal due next week.

Is this with the company I think it is, or another one? :)
 

Cat Lady

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For some reason, I imagine you as the T1000 from Terminator aggressively sprinting towards your goals. The above list would be nice for me to get done in a year!

Definitely watching this thread. Rep+
Oh my gosh that was so sweet <3 Thank you! I will attempt to live up to the props.
 

Cat Lady

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Is this with the company I think it is, or another one? :)
I'm not sure which company you think it is!

I'm not sure I'll win the proposal (3-5 other people will compete against me), but they did SEEK ME OUT and buy me dinner twice and buy me coffee so they clearly have an interest in me particularly. They did a season one of the podcast so the former host will be competing against me, too, but I am confident enough to say I am WAY more dynamic on radio than him, and have access to a full professional radio station.

I'm going to go all ovaries to the notaries on this proposal - cut together a sample episode using audio from their live event, etc.

I know their top top budget is $5K/month for the show, and they want it as a full package. I want to compete on price a bit because I believe I'll be competing against Panoply, Gimlet, Wondery - the big production companies. Thinking of proposing something inside of $3800/month - that would have me taking home enough for marketing, paying an editor, paying hosting/transcripts, while paying myself more than enough to live on, especially considering I will still have other money coming in. I estimate this project will take me about 5-10 hours/week.
 
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jramos02

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I'm not sure which company you think it is!

I'm not sure I'll win the proposal (3-5 other people will compete against me), but they did SEEK ME OUT and buy me dinner twice and buy me coffee so they clearly have an interest in me particularly. They did a season one of the podcast so the former host will be competing against me, too, but I am confident enough to say I am WAY more dynamic on radio than him, and have access to a full professional radio station.

I'm going to go all ovaries to the notaries on this proposal - cut together a sample episode using audio from their live event, etc.

I know their top top budget is $5K/month for the show, and they want it as a full package. I want to compete on price a bit because I believe I'll be competing against Panoply, Gimlet, Wondery - the big production companies. Thinking of proposing something inside of $3800/month - that would have me taking home enough for marketing, paying an editor, paying hosting/transcripts, while paying myself more than enough to live on, especially considering I will still have other money coming in. I estimate this project will take me about 5-10 hours/week.

Oh nevermind then, I think. I thought it was the company I DM'ed you about but I dont know if that sounds like the one haha

That is awesome though! $3.8k a month could be pretty solid for essentially less than part time work! Plus putting yourself and your brand out there too. Really really cool.

Best of luck!
 

WestCoast

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@Cat Lady

Great work on making such a switch in careers. No matter what the numbers, you're clearly focused and checking things off your list towards your goals.

It's also really good to see more female participation - we need lots more of that in business!

There are more entrepreneurs in Portland than you might first expect (sounds like your SSO might know some of them :). I find it to be a tight community that actually seems to care.

Regards from NW PDX
 

Cat Lady

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@Cat Lady
There are more entrepreneurs in Portland than you might first expect (sounds like your SSO might know some of them :). I find it to be a tight community that actually seems to care.
I'm pretty familiar and friendly with a lot of them - unfortunately there's not as many media entrepreneurs here, they tend to be pretty tech- and manufacturing-heavy. But this community is filled with really amazing people, and Silicon Florist and Nedspace (two lynchpins of the startup community here) really helped me get off the ground. Mercycorps NW (our small biz nonprofit) gave me a start-up grant. I also got runner-up in a pitch competition run by the local biz community last year.

I do, sometimes, seriously want a business partner. For both my own accountability and for the mashing of skillsets. Someone who LOVES marketing and can take my marketing ideas and turns them into better things. I do not like marketing, but I recognize the value because when I get a PR or blog hit, I make money. People find me, and are helped by my content. I just can't make myself spend time on it (I prefer the "making" not the "marketing" side.)

I can already see several opportunities that you are overlooking...
Well, that's a wildly unhelpful comment.

Here's the thing about "opportunities" - I have to pay my bills each month, I have to sleep and eat food, and I'm only one person. There's a HUGE amount of opportunities out there, but many have a long lead time to profitability and require upfront capital/time investment or require skills that aren't my specialty. I allocate my time to have minimal capital investment while recognizing that I can only work about ~60 hours a week consistently before my body breaks down (as I keep discovering).

Media is a slow build business without lots of marketing investment especially if your brand is centered around authenticity. However, I feel pretty good about where I am at for 1.5 years of doing this as a side gig.

(She says before she spirals again into feeling like she's wasting her life.)
 

Adeoluwa Adejumo

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I'm pretty familiar and friendly with a lot of them - unfortunately there's not as many media entrepreneurs here, they tend to be pretty tech- and manufacturing-heavy. But this community is filled with really amazing people, and Silicon Florist and Nedspace (two lynchpins of the startup community here) really helped me get off the ground. Mercycorps NW (our small biz nonprofit) gave me a start-up grant. I also got runner-up in a pitch competition run by the local biz community last year.

I do, sometimes, seriously want a business partner. For both my own accountability and for the mashing of skillsets. Someone who LOVES marketing and can take my marketing ideas and turns them into better things. I do not like marketing, but I recognize the value because when I get a PR or blog hit, I make money. People find me, and are helped by my content. I just can't make myself spend time on it (I prefer the "making" not the "marketing" side.)


Well, that's a wildly unhelpful comment.

Here's the thing about "opportunities" - I have to pay my bills each month, I have to sleep and eat food, and I'm only one person. There's a HUGE amount of opportunities out there, but many have a long lead time to profitability and require upfront capital/time investment or require skills that aren't my specialty. I allocate my time to have minimal capital investment while recognizing that I can only work about ~60 hours a week consistently before my body breaks down (as I keep discovering).

Media is a slow build business without lots of marketing investment especially if your brand is centered around authenticity. However, I feel pretty good about where I am at for 1.5 years of doing this as a side gig.

(She says before she spirals again into feeling like she's wasting her life.)
what's the book about if you can share and how many people already bought?
 

Cat Lady

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Adeoluwa Adejumo

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The book is cats explaining purr-sonal finance - and I've made about $22,000 gross off of it, with about 600 copies sold. Total print run of 1000 copies, with about 200 of those going to low-income youth through our pay it fur-ward program.
The book is cats explaining purr-sonal finance - and I've made about $22,000 gross off of it, with about 600 copies sold. Total print run of 1000 copies, with about 200 of those going to low-income youth through our pay it fur-ward program.

so to be clear you are really interested in revving up revenue + strengthening your brand

I'm sure you i can show you some of the things you totally have the ability to do and are NOT doing YET

& you'll probably share a thing / two about fundraising with me sometime

If It's okay I'm going to send you a private message
 

Cat Lady

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I'm sure I have plenty I can learn, feel free to DM me.

--
Relatedly, this week has been exceedingly frustrating. I am having so many issues with Amazon - all I want is my Kindle book to be uploaded and linked to a fulfilled by amazon version of my print book with my ISBN (NOT print on demand) with my author profile linked to both. Not so hard, right? At this point I have:

  • 2 different versions of the book, neither of which are displaying the cover
  • 4 different amazon accounts all of which required identity verification: amazon merchant, amazon advantage, amazon KDP and amazon author central
 

Cat Lady

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It's been quite awhile since I updated.

Book is on Amazon and has been selling steadily thanks to 2 great reviews that came out on blogs (yay sending sample copies!) Doing both FBA and FBM for that.

I got a sponsor in the financial service industry for the podcast finally!

I decided to not go for the podcast production contract due to the amount of time I'd need to work on it instead of my own media production - plis on the fact that for-hire podcast production is not the focus I want my company to have.

Went on an 11 day business trip and had two listener/book events in two cities and one speech to a few hundred people while in spandex, a wig, and 5" platform boots. Met a bunch of potential awesome folks that can help the business, including several podcast networks, a radio broadcast broker (I have been doing the sales myself) and have a few calls set up with potential talent managers.

Booked two paid mainstage speaking gigs - one at a college, one at an invite-only conference for internet creators.

I've been mildly depressed all of July and going into August, and it's definitely affecting the business - the amount of shit I need to be doing that I don't have motivation for (more wholesale sales, instagram strategy, finishing website rebuild, editing and producing more videos) is really F*cking with my interest in being an entrepreneur, combined with low take home pay ($434?! seriously fuuuuck) last month due to travel expenses taking up most of my business income. I did completely sell out of books while on the road though, and even sold quite a few to random people I met in bars. So that was cool.

I have started to use Airtable and it's been pretty awesome for managing media schedules and sponsors across all the different content platforms and stations I'm on. It's a lightweight CRM + google sheets, essentially. I have been loving it.

I have had a few offers of "day jobs" and I am sorely tempted right now to take one with income as it is. That being said, I'm not in any acute financial stress - the business can still pay its bills, taxes, and I'm taking a small ($500/month) amount of money out. I have personal savings.

But as I've been writing this, 3 more amazon orders have come in, which is saying something about maybe I should stay in the business.

Still considering making a paper planner focused on budgeting pretty heavily - extremely small test print run (250-500), launch on kickstarter (already had some success). I love planners and know exactly what I want to make but want to know if I can actually sell it before I invest the time in graphic design (which I hate doing but can, begrudingly.)
 
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CareCPA

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I have had a few offers of "day jobs" and I am sorely tempted right now to take one with income as it is. That being said, I'm not in any acute financial stress - the business can still pay its bills, taxes, and I'm taking a small ($500/month) amount of money out. I have personal savings.
I wouldn't take any job until you're sure that you've contacted every outlet you possibly can about wholesale options. @Scot has a good thread on wholesaling in here that may give you some pointers (I don't know if I mentioned that before or not).
 

Cat Lady

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I wouldn't take any job until you're sure that you've contacted every outlet you possibly can about wholesale options.
Even if I wholesale 100% of my remaining inventory, I still take home less than half of what a 3-month contract position would give me.

Here's the thing: the business earns money every day (passive income! The magical promise!) but it's still not enough to live on by itself most months. I can buckle down and press hard to get it to cover my living expenses and whittle a few hundred bucks off my (significant but not endless savings) each month the next three months.

OR I can bank $8,000 doing a contract position that's Monday - Friday, 9-5 through November.

But if I took that, I would be working 55-70 hours a week for 10 weeks just to tread water and it's likely I'd have to say "no" to some opportunities that would be good for my business. I'd put off some projects I should be doing for my business since I still need to be doing weekly show production, shipping books, and doing a speaking gig nearly every weekend between September 8 - November 3rd (including a TEDx talk!)
 

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