Notes on TMBA293: Start a Business This Weekend Using the Software With a Service (SWaS) Business Model

• Reach out to bloggers and offer to reach more people with their content via slideshare (learn how to use slideshare!)
• Work with software and offer a package where you come with the software and do it for them. e.g. Quick Books.
• Mat wrote a book detailing all the things his prospects could do / ways they could get ahead if they didn't hire him. Prospects saw he knew what he was talking about. But also saw it's a lot of work if they were to do it themselves.  So who could do that for them? Mat.
• Mat then systemised all his advice, automated it, and found people who could do it. Charged clients monthly in part because of constant improvements that they could then be part of. Paid to be part of his platform.
• Got into Startup Chile without fancy degree or full "tech" credentials by leveraging his track record ("directed x# of site traffic to y site") and his network (DC, people he knows there and what value he has added to community).

Original post/podcast available here: http://www.tropicalmba.com/swas/

Background:

I have been listening to the Tropical MBA podcasts and feel they add great value. However, it is a bit of a pain to listen to a podcast for a number of reasons (time, cheesy intros/outros, inability to understand US accents/slang). Unlike SPI, TMBA does not currently include online transcripts, so I have taken my own notes as I listen to the podcasts (so that I would hopefully not have to listen to them again) and am sharing them here. They are things I find relevant, including my own thoughts that have been triggered from listening in. 

Notes on TMBA294: A Guide to Finding, Winning, and Creating Location Independent Apprenticeships

Different model: Spend your time doing things you enjoy with people you enjoy. (The Dream!)

Apprenticeship: like capoeira. Learn from the masters through conversations and observation. The essence, that you can't get without being there, spending time with them, having deep conversations, listening. You can't fake it. They can't fake it.

1. Establish personal brand. Give yourself the green light. start today. Build portfolio, either from freelancing or blog or both. Have a voice, a track record. Let people know who they are dealing with.

2. Follow the right companies, brands, sites, and individuals. And make yourself visible to them. Follow on RSS. If the site posts a good article, respond with a good comment that adds value. Once influencers see your name over and over, when you do reach out to them, you're not some random stranger.

3. Create a free work campaign.
Make it valuable free work.
Make it fun as well as useful.

• Good use of time.
• Geniuine.
• Not necessarily about ROI.

Original post/podcast available here: http://www.tropicalmba.com/apprentice/

Background:

I have been listening to the Tropical MBA podcasts and feel they add great value. However, it is a bit of a pain to listen to a podcast for a number of reasons (time, cheesy intros/outros, inability to understand US accents/slang). Unlike SPI, TMBA does not currently include online transcripts, so I have taken my own notes as I listen to the podcasts (so that I would hopefully not have to listen to them again) and am sharing them here. They are things I find relevant, including my own thoughts that have been triggered from listening in. 

Notes on TMBA298: A 10 True Clients Business Model Case Study

• Don't name a company after yourself (because then you can't outsource to a team!)
• Use Skype in order to meet your client at their place. 
• It's more intimate
• It's more convenient (you're in their living room). At a time convenient to you/them. 
• No need to dress up. 
• No need for clients to worry about expensive overheads (like a nice office).
• Reminder: A happy fund manager is best execution. An unstressed fund manager is best execution. When you are happy and comfortable and un-stressed, you can give your best service to the client.

Original post/podcast available here: http://www.tropicalmba.com/10trueclients/

Background:

I have been listening to the Tropical MBA podcasts and feel they add great value. However, it is a bit of a pain to listen to a podcast for a number of reasons (time, cheesy intros/outros, inability to understand US accents/slang). Unlike SPI, TMBA does not currently include online transcripts, so I have taken my own notes as I listen to the podcasts (so that I would hopefully not have to listen to them again) and am sharing them here. They are things I find relevant, including my own thoughts that have been triggered from listening in. 

Wannabe Adventure Capitalist: Subversive Transport in Bali

When I first returned to Indonesia in 2009, I marvelled at the number of modes of transport I used within 24 hours of landing in Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Jakarta. Taxi, motorbike, speedboat, kopaja bus, bajaj, angkot, and others I have since forgotten were on the list.

Arriving in Bali in 2015, I took the usual over-priced airport taxi to my accommodation upon landing late at night. Schoolboy error. Amateur mistake.

When I met up with friends from KL 2 days later, they told me they had Uber-ed to their hotel in Nusa Dua for a quarter of the price I had paid to get to Kerobokan! That spurred me into action, reminding me of the range of apps now within reach of anyone in Bali with a smartphone and a data plan (paket data). The big boys shaking up transport in other parts of the region had reached Bali.

Uber
Yes, the ubiquitous Uber is now available in Bali. Coverage seemed patchy, however, and our one and only available driver cancelled on us after we had waited for around 10 minutes for him to arrive. I was also charged for this, although upon explaining the situation to Uber, the charge was reversed.

Grab Car
Hot on the heels of Uber, as anywhere in Southeast Asia, is Malaysia's start-up darling, Grab Taxi. Operating in Bali only as Grab Car (for now), they had a promotion on for the Kuningan festival, and we were able to get to Nusa Dua (or anywhere else in South Bali) for a bargain price of only Rp15.000 (just over USD 1)! They also seemed to have good coverage, with several cars in the vicinity. My friends confirmed that their driver was polite and obliging.

I then used Grab Car to help me move from Kerobokan to Ubud, and had a chat with the driver, Ketut. He said that Grab had only been in Bali for around a month and it looks like they are working with local transport consortiums to increase the fleet quickly. Ketut had had good business coming from the Grab app, averaging 10 customers per day, mostly people from Jakarta, who had already downloaded and used the app. Well played, Grab!

Go-Jek
An ojek is a motorcycle taxi. Go-Jek offers delivery or transport services from a motorcycle (which is handy in Indonesian traffic!)

Another newcomer to Bali, having established a presence in Jakarta, Go-Jek has been on the island for around 2 months. It is the newest addition to my own personal app library, as it does not currently offer services in KL! It may have been the novelty factor, but it was hard to dislike anything about the Go-Jek app or service, from the cute icons and user-friendliness of the dashboard, to its relatively large range of services (courier services, food delivery, shopping/errand runs, or transporting YOU!), to the efficiency, politeness, and general air of professionalism of the driver.

(The Rp10.000 to anywhere promotion running until 27 July 2015 didn't hurt either!)

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Going forward I'll be sure to use my phone more to help me get around Bali, rather than leaving it to chance. The traditional operators will certainly be facing a challenge, and it will be interesting to see how this will play out here.

Bali

Back in Indonesia, enjoying "Bali Winter". There is something about waking up somewhere new that resets the body clock and habits. What do you think?

Lesson 1

A hammock is not an ideal place to use a laptop. Find another work surface for the laptop/taking notes. Save hammock time for kindle/tablet.