Archive for the 'Entrepreneurship' Category

Sep 03 2011

How I Motivate Myself to Do My Finances on Fridays

I need to start reconciling my finances every Friday, but it’s not my favorite task. Perhaps a playlist of money-related songs will help inspire me each week? (I recommend that my academic coaching clients create playlists for uninspiring tasks, but I’ve never done it myself).

After posting a request on Facebook, and searching out a list of 43 songs on google, my iTunes now sports this fabulous playlist:

We’re in the Money ~ Thomas Z. Shepherd
Money Honey ~Little Richard
With Plenty of Money and You ~Count Basie Orchestra & Tony Bennett
For the Love of Money ~Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes
Roll Your Moneymaker ~Hound Dog Taylor & the House Rockers
The Money Song ~John Tartaglia, Natalie Venetia Belcon & Rick Lyon
Money (That’s What I Want) ~Beatles
What do You Do for Money Honey ~Nikki Boyer
Money Makes the World ~Peter Jobak & Sara Lindh
Money Makes the World Go Round ~R. Kelly
Money Talks ~AC-DC
Money Talks ~Pickin’ On Series (Bluegrass remake of AC-DC’s version)
Material Girl ~Madonna
Money Money ~Toyah Wilcox
Money for Nothing ~Dire Straits
Glamorous ~Fergie
Money ~Pink Floyd
If I Had $1,000,000 ~Barenaked Ladies
Step Right Up ~Tom Waits
Beauty in the World ~Macy Gray
I love Money ~Debbie Thomas
Luxurious ~Gwen Stefani
Rich Girl ~Gwen Stefanie
If I Were a Rich Man ~Topol, Fiddler on the Roof
Ka-Ching! ~Shania Twain
Money Talks ~The Kinks
I Wanna Be Rich ~Calloway
Money, Money, Money ~ABBA
Work for Your Money ~Howlin’ Wolf
Takin’ Care of Business ~Bachman Turner
Opportunities (Lets Make Lots of Money) ~Pet Shop Boys
Money Song ~Monty Python

Do you have any additional recommendations for me?

Filed Under Academic Coaching, Entrepreneurship | no comments

Sep 11 2010

Life Long Learning: Worm Composting

Recently, I’ve noticed that I’m jealous of the students I coach. I haven’t done any formal learning in a long time, and frankly I miss it. As an entrepreneur I learn new skills constantly, but I usually have to teach them to myself. How refreshing to go to a class and let a teacher guide me through the learning process!

When I discovered a class on how to do worm composting, I jumped at the chance. If you are local to the Bay Area, I highly recommend Bay Worms to answer all your composting questions!

Mickey (see the picture) is eccentric, knowledgeable, kind, and incredibly helpful. I love that he announced right up front: “If it seems like I’m all over the place, that’s because I am. I have ADD. Now follow me!” We proceeded to walk all over his outdoor compost site, admiring the dark richness of the worm castings, feeling the hot soil, and listening to his bazillion stories.

I took three pages of notes in my planner (the same planner I have designed for my students, which works beautifully, I can honestly say. A blog post isforthcoming).

Here are my Favorite Four Facts:

Worms do not eat our food. They eat the bacteria that grows on it. My job as a composted is to make lots of bacteria!
One worm births 40 eggs, which in turn contain up to 14 eggs each. Wowzers!
When worms are at the top of my worm bin, that means they are hungry and ready for more!
Nitrogen is good for compost. Pee is a great source of nitrogen. So if I want to I can…well, you get the idea.

Not only did I walk away from the workshop inspired, I also had a pail full of 1000ish worms squirming in the rich brown dirt they’ve made themselves. They are now living under my kitchen table in a lovely looking Wriggly Wranch provided at a discounted rate by Alameda county.

I’ve never owned pets before. I’m quite excited about the worms. I will feed them my leftover food and shredded paper; they will provide me with dirt and some juices that I can use to water my plants.

I think that’s what’s called a symbiotic relationship. (Am I right, all you science buffs out there?).

Filed Under Academic Coaching, Entrepreneurship, Random Stuff | 1 Comment

Jul 10 2010

Doing Slow Business in a Fast Business World

***WARNING: This blog post contains some technical jargon. Don’t worry; I don’t understand many of the terms, either. Thank goodness for context clues!***

Why iMuseCubes Development is So Slow

It takes many folks up to 40-80 hours over three to four months to develop their iPhone apps. It’s taking Wendell and I over a year!!

That’s Wendell in the picture, by the way. He’s my iPhone app developer. He’s also (thank goodness!) my good friend.

It’s not surprising that our process has been so slow, given the limitations with which we’ve had to work:

Wendell and I both have full time jobs,
I don’t have the money to pay him upfront,
Wendell doesn’t own a Mac so he has to borrow mine, and
Wendell is learning Xcode (Apple’s program that develops the apps) as he works.

These constraints have necessitated that we work slowly. In some cases, really slowly.

How Slow Business is Helping Me Find Balance

Which is why I’m grateful to have discovered a movement all about the gifts of living life more slowly. Here’s what blogger Jerry Stifelman says in an entry titled Slow Business: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Lives:

Just as the Slow Food movement is all about really getting into food and the community it engenders, we think we need a Slow Business movement that’s about the quality of work and the experience of doing it -- as opposed to the alternative — namely the tendency to turn work into an ever-escalating arms race of longer hours, quicker email responses, and an obligation to be checking your Blackberry at your kid’s birthday party.

This ever-escalating arms race had gotten a bit out of control in my life recently, as I juggled MuseCubes and my growing academic coaching practice. Needless to say, my weekends were wittled down to naught. And I certainly wasn’t enjoying either the quality of my work, or my experience doing it.

In the spirit of slow, though, I’ve relaxed my expectations about how much each of these projects will grow this year. I’m still moving forward on all of them, just one small step at a time.

Lowering my expectations for how much each of my projects will grow has allowed me to reclaim my weekends, balancing relaxation and adventure (neither of which had been in my life on a consistent basis). As Jerry Stifelman says, slow business enables me to live as if I matter, my relationships matter, and joy matters. Hallelujah!

When the Rest of the World is Moving so Fast: The Down Side of Slow Business

However, slow business can also have it’s downside. Take the iPhone app.

Apple is constantly updating its operating systems and app development processes. Since we’ve been working for over a year on this app, we’re constantly encountering technological roadblocks that result from these updates. Often, the first chunk of our twice-a-month work sessions is spent troubleshooting outdated technology. Sometimes we lose the entire four hours to updates!

Just today, for example, it turned out that the provisioning profile on my iPhone had expired; we couldn’t move forward until we’d updated it. Luckily, Wendell moved past this road block pretty quickly.

However, during our last two work sessions, we weren’t so lucky.

Apple had updated it’s version of XCode (the program we use to develop the app), which takes hours to download, depending on the internet connection. Then, we had to coordinate all the new iPhone operating systems with this new version of XCode. Between the downloads and the troubleshooting, we lost about four hours of development time. That’s almost a whole month’s worth of work time. Arggghhh!!!

Patience Pays Off: What You Can Expect from the Updated iMuseCubes

Today, though, we were able to move through our roadblock rather quickly. And the truth is, iPhone app development seems to go pretty quickly without the technical glitches! All morning I’ve been writing this blog entry (using Wendell’s Dell laptop) while Wendell’s been lying on my couch working on the app (isn’t that a great picture of him, above?).

Infact, I wonder how he’s doing today? Let’s check in:

Me: Hey Wendell, how’s it going?

Wendell: Good! Within the next little bit, we will be able to not only download the expansion pack, but have it integrated into the process so that it loads the right sound files. Then we’ll be really close! We’ll just have to plug in Apple’s purchase API. After a little clean up, we’ll be ready to sell the expansion pack!

Cool! For the rest of you, let me translate: See, we already have a free version of iMuseCubes available for download from iTunes. However, soon we’ll have expansion packs available for purchase. Expansion packs will be sets of additional verbs centered around themes, like:

Barnyard (with verbs like “Bark” and “waddle”)
Wild things (with verbs like “roar” and “slither”)
BeeBop (with verbs like “croon” and “twirl”)
Sports (with verbs like “cheer” and “dribble”)

As I finalize the verbs for the expansion packs, I’ll probably send out a survey to my community to get ya’ll to help choose themes and verbs. Got any good ideas?! Stay tuned to my blog for more updates…

Finally…

Just now, Wendell chirped, “We’re close! We’re really close!” However, that was followed by a big “Oops!”

With just 20 minutes to go during today’s work session, we’ll get as far as we can get.

And that will be great!

Filed Under Entrepreneurship, MuseCubes | no comments

Jun 11 2010

Why It’s OK That I Don’t Finish My Homework

As an academic coach, I end the school year by meeting with parents to reflect on the ways their children have grown — and to identify goals for the next year.

Recently at the end of one of those meetings, a mom sighed and said, “My daughter is simply developing at her own pace. Not necessarily the pace that I want her to be developing. But her own pace nonetheless.” Mixed into this comment was lots of love, some resignation, a little frustration, and a bunch of pride.

Parenthood sure comes with a complex set of feelings. And so does solopreneurship.

My sweet little academic coaching business is sure developing at it’s own pace. Sometimes it bursts forward! Sometimes it crawls. Just like a parent can’t control every aspect of their child’s development, neither can I do the same for my own business.

I’m extra conscious of this slow pace right now, as I take the Right Brain Business Plan e-course with Jennifer Lee. I’m so behind on all my homework!! Every week I do a little something…but certainly not everything.

For example, this week we’re supposed to be making a balance sheet for our business. Instead, I’ve been working on the marketing assignments from last week. And even then, I’ve only did HALF the assignments.

The pictures (above) are the collages of my perfect customers that Jenn asked us to make. As I cut and pasted images that seemed to represent my ideal client, I learned a lot! For example, it seems that that my target clients are women and girls. That doesn’t mean that I don’t work with guys. Actually, I’m quite successful with a number of teenage boys. But my ideal clients — the ones with whom I feel like I’m “in the flow” when we’re working together — are usually women! So why not claim that!?

Speaking of flow: finishing up those “perfect customer” collages was inspiring, although perhaps not in the way that Jenn intended. Her next assignment was for us to create a marketing plan, (two weeks later and I haven’ done it yet). Instead, I feverishly created a flier for a girls-only time management workshop I’m offering in August. Click on the picture to see the flier and read more about this never-been-tried-before workshop!

After creating the flier, I couldn’t wait to send it out. Thus ensued emails, photocopies, conversations. In fact, because I’d pushed to make the flier, two parents have registered their daughters already! Yay!!

Turns out that I didn’t end up making the marketing plan, but I sure did a whole lot of marketing!! Which is a new experience for me. And now that I’ve had real world experience getting the word out about my workshops, it’s going to be a whole lot easier to make the actual marketing plan

At a different time in my life, I might have been more stressed about not doing all my homework for a course. However, my participation in InterPlay has helped me understand the importance of ease and incrementality. InterPlay is a community arts practice that unlocks the wisdom of the body. There’s so much about life that’s not easy! So when I’m feeling some ease around a specific task that I know is important to me, I give myself full permission to go for it, one small step at a time. Even if it means not doing my homework.

Uh oh. My Devil’s Advocate voice just jumped in:

Gretchen, I’m impressed on the positive spin you’ve just given your irresponsibility. Did it ever occur to you that you are just procrastinating?! Is it possible that your push to send out the flier was actually a sneaky move to justify ignoring the balance sheet that is this week’s homework?

Maybe. However, check this out: last night when I was driving home from the coaching office, I started daydreaming about the balance sheet. “How cool is it that I just got two checks?” I thought to myself. “I wonder how much the workshop is actually gonna cost me? I guess it’s time to start that balance sheet!”

Aha! Never before in my life have I day dreamed about balance sheets! Maybe this means I’m ready for that next, small step! Whereas before working with numbers seemed like a chore, now I’m entering the task propelled by curiosity, ready to take on a challenge that before now felt big and annoying.

Luckily, Jenn is not grading us on our homework. If she did, I’d totally fail the class. At the pace I’m going right now, my Right Brain Business Plan won’t be done when the course ends.

But every week I make some good progress. I won’t be done when the course ends in a few weeks. But I will have all the information I need in order to finish. Which is one reason I’m blogging about my Right Brain Business Plan process:

I’d love you — my big bold blogging community — to hold me accountable. My goal is to be completely done with the entire plan by the end of July. If you don’t see any blog entries about it between now and then, will you bug me? I’d sure appreciate it.

Now, I’m off on vacation for a week, which means yet another week of not completing my homework. But when I get back on June 21st, I’ll get RIGHT ON that balance sheet!

Bon Voyage!

Filed Under Academic Coaching, Creativity & Edges, Entrepreneurship, InterPlay | no comments

Jun 01 2010

Imperfectly Inching Towards My Right Brain Business Plan

I’m taking the most wonderful (and the most challenging!) course right now: the Right-Brain Business Plan with Jennifer Lee.

Writing a business plan is hard!!! It brings up all my inner demons — procrastination; waffling; shyness; fears (of commitment, that I’m not worthy, and that I won’t do it right, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah).

Luckily, Jenn has us playing with art as we crunch left-brained numbers. And that certainly makes it more tolerable. Down right fun, at times! Of course, in some cases I use the art as a procrastination tool in and of itself.

However, Jenn is encouraging us to trust the right brained process. And I’m encouraging myself to turn down the volume on my self judgment demons and trust that I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing at every step.

So even though I didn’t get all my homework for Week 2 done, I did want to share some of my small successes!

First I cleaned off my workspace. Ahhhh, a clean table top is such a delight:

Then I bought art supplies (markers, paint pens, acrylic paint) and fun orange containers in which to house them. I used to keep my markers in drawers, but I never used them. I think I’ll be more likely to make art if they are out, organized and visible, like this:

Then I finally launched into the easy part of Week 2′s assignment: asking folks for 3 Words that describe me. I posted a request on Facebook as well as sent out a GoogleForm to all my clients. Here’s what I learned from my fabulous friends and clients (there appears to be major consensus about a couple of adjectives):

Finally, I got into the hard part of the assignment: researching trends, markets and competitors. Blech. Numbers, numbers, numbers. I have so many different parts to my business: academic coaching for teens, writing and creativity coaching for grown-ups, MuseCubes. The overwhelm almost got to me, until I found a fun picture of a detective and remembered that I had an old magnifying glass lying around:

After taping them to a poster and putting the whole shebang up on the wall where I could see it, I suddenly found motivation! I decided to focus this part of the business plan on my academic coaching work, and began researching trends and competitors. I’m certainly not done with this research process, but at least I got started:

So there you have it: I’m inching closer and closer to my right brain business plan. Very imperfectly. Very incrementally. But getting there. And it’s actually kinda fun.

A few learnings about what motivates me in a difficult and triggering process like business plan writing:

colorful tools like paint pens
basic supplies like blue tape and poster board
plenty of wall space so I can keep my work visible while I’m working on it
a key metaphor and corresponding image (like the detective and magnifying glass) to keep me focused on my role AND to make it seem more fun
the permission to go incrementally and be imperfect
the freedom to make art along side make lists
a community of women doing the same thing and sharing about it online (Jenn has us working together in an online space).

Although I’ve taken and enjoyed Jenn’s day-long in-person workshop, I highly highly highly recommend this virtual process!! If you’ve been hemming and hawing about writing your own business plan, check out Jenn’s website.

Filed Under Entrepreneurship | 3 Comments