Optimism
7 Business Tips I Learned from Playing Poker
I just finished a Texas Hold-em tournament and received 2nd place. This was the 2nd tournament I ever entered and during my first tournament I was the first one out.
I feel there are strong similarities between poker and business.
1) Learn from your mistakes - I was too aggressive too fast during my first tournament - (In a startup don’t be too aggressive. Be more conservative in the beginning. For example, keep your overhead down. Don’t hire a lot of people right out of the gate. Don’t go after the largest client when your product is in alpha. Work out the bugs first before you begin to market aggressively.)
2) There are a lot of Bull Shitters - (Learn to read people and weed them out. Hire slowly and fire quickly)
3) Don’t back down from the bully - (Your competition is bigger and more experienced than you. Don’t be intimated. They are usually slower and less focused. You can and will beat them)
4) The one with the least amount of chips is usually the one who offers the most advice- (Find mentors that are winners. Learn from those who have succeeded. Be careful of those who talk and don’t walk.)
5) The one with the most chips at the final table doesn’t mean they will win - (Things can change quickly. Stay focused and do one thing very well. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Be calculated. Remember what got you to the final table)
6) Don’t let them know you are scared - (Learn to control your nervous characteristics. In business, learn to overcome your anxieties. When speaking in front of a large client, prepare and practice. Control your fears with knowledge, breathing techniques, and practice.)
7) Take the blinds when the time is right - (When your chips are down, know when to take the blinds by taking a calculated risk of a large bet even when you have no cards. Take risks. Be calculated. Enjoy the ride.)
10 Ways You Play Golf Can Kill or Improve your Business
The question is:
When you play golf or if you were to play golf, how do or would you play?
- Do you set a goal before starting the game?
- Many just go through life without setting goals. Even if you are playing for fun, which you should always do or why play at all, you should have a goal in mind. Do you want to hit below 100 this round? Set a round goal. Set a hole goal and then set a swing goal. You will be surprised how much better you will do if you have a goal that you want to achieve. Business Tip: Set goals and quantify everything of importance. You will see it improve dramatically.
- Do you run the swing and putt in your mind before you actually do it?
- This is called visualization. Every successful athlete and business person in the world are great visualizers. They plan everything in their head before they actually do it. Business Tip: Vision map where you want your business to be in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and beyond. Define it clearly and run it through your mind daily.
- Do you write down your scores?
- Do you write down your goal and score on every hole. Goals and progress must be written down or you will never improve. Business Tip: Write down goals and goal progress and share with your teams.
- Do you move the ball when no one else is looking?
- Taking short cuts will never help you improve. Business Tip: Do not cut corners. Immediate revenue due to unethical actions will always kill your business and reputation.
- Do you take advantage of situations, use your experience and a little luck to win?
Business Tip: When you do things right, sometimes you still need a little luck.
- Do you give up?
- Are you one to play 9 holes and then give up? Can you get past the dip?
Business Tip: Chinese proverb: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”
- Are you one to play 9 holes and then give up? Can you get past the dip?
- Do you complain over things you can’t control?
- We can’t control the wind. We can’t control the hole placement. We can’t control how fast the party in front of us is playing. There are many things in life and business we cannot control. Business Tip: Focus on things you can control. Don’t worry about outside forces you cannot change.
- Do you have fun?
- You can’t be serious all the time. Here is Tiger Woods Farting.
Business Tip: Have fun. Life is too short.
- You can’t be serious all the time. Here is Tiger Woods Farting.
- Do you play it safe or do you take calculated risks?
- Some like to play safe and others like to take calculated risks. Which one are you?Business Tip: To grow your business you will have to feel uncomfortable. Take risks. Learn from your mistakes.
- Are you mentally tough?
Business Tip: Stay focused. Do extraordinary things and do it one product and customer at a time.
Lessons Learned from the Olympics
- You are never to old to conquer your dreams
-Records are meant to be broken
- Never. Ever. Give Up
How to Get Your Start-Up Mentioned in TechCrunch
TechCrunch is the most popular start-up blog on earth. A simple mention of your product or service can increase your traffic dramatically over night. Recently, rentBits was mentioned in TechCrunch and since the post, our traffic is up over 25%.
A question I have been asked is, “how did you get written up in TechCrunch.” Below are 5 tips to help your start-up get mentioned.
- Develop a great product or service
- Why is your product different?
- What problem does it solve?
- Tell a Story
- Provide a frame of reference
- i.e The Zillow For Rentals
- Get their attention
- The editors of TechCrunch receive many emails a day. They should know exacly what your service or product does by reading the first two sentences of your email.
- Help them get to know you
- Add your company to CrunchBase
- Got technology news? Send them tips with a link to your blog post. We got two links to our blog from this and this post.
- Don’t use PR superlative “fluff”
- Stay away from terms like, “best”, “fastest”, “most”, etc. Also stay away from words like “revolutionary”, “web 2.0″, “leading”, “disruptive”
10 Rules to Succeed in Business and Life
Anything you do and want to be extraordinary at, shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will land among the stars……
Whether you are running a fortune 500 company, a real estate business, property management firm, ice cream shop, a charity or are a stay at home mom, these 10 simple rules will make you achieve extraordinary results.
1. Set Goals and Quantify Everything of Significance
You will be amazed how much something will improve if you set goals and measure the results. Break up your dream and vision into sizable parts. A dream can be broken down into goals, each goal can be broken down into steps, and each step can be broken down into tasks. Each task should have a completion date.
“Without goals and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” - F. Dodson
“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” - Helen Keller
“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.” - J.C. Penney
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs” - Henry Ford
2. Find Great Partners and Mentors
Learn from those who have succeeded and failed. Don’t waist your time with those who have done neither.
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” - Henry Ford
“A friend is one who walks in when others walk out.” - Walter Winchel
“Tell me what company thou keepst, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” - Miguel De Cervantes
3. Feel Uncomfortable every Day
Feeling nervous, unnatural and scared, helps you grow. Think for a minute about your biggest challenges and fears in life. Is it public speaking? Is it losing that extra 10 lbs? Is it having a more loving relationship? Is it making cold calls? We can all improve on everything. Do an extra 2 reps when your body says it can’t. Join a public speaking class when your mind says no. Make another 4 cold calls when you think you have already called enough. Make it a point to feel uncomfortable each day and you will grow exponentially.
“Success is always to be found on the other side of fear.” Unknown
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy
“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.” - Theodore Roosevelt
“I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do” - Eleanor Roosevelt
4. Get past the Dip
There is a Chinese proverb that says, “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.” Gym memberships and gym traffic go through the roof in December and die down to normalcy in Feb. Why do you think that is?
“Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.” - Ross Perot
“Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” - Thomas Edison
5. Follow your Passion
Passion is contagious. People can feel and touch it. It lives within us all and allows for extraordinary things to be accomplished. Find your passion and you will be extraordinary.
“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.” - George Burns
“A shot glass of desire is greater than a pitcher of talent.” - Andy Munthe
6. Solve Problems
A bi-product of solving difficult problems is innovation.
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” - Henry Ford
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” - Albert Einstein
“We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.” - Unknown
“Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.” - Henry Ford
7. Focus on one thing
Resources are limited. Peanut butter is easy to spread thin, but it sticks to the roof of your mouth.
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody” - Bill Cosby
“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.” - Nido Qubein
“One thing at a time, is my motto - and just play that thing for all it is worth, even if it’s only two pair and a jack.” - Mark Twain
8. Just do it
An idea is just the beginning. Get up and make the idea a reality.
“My mother said to me, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.” Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso” - Pablo Picasso
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” - Pablo Picasso
“You’re not a failure if you don’t make it. You’re a success because you tried.” - Susan Jeffers
“Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.” - Theodore Roosevelt
9. Fail often, Learn from each Failure
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill
“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” - Thomas Edison
” You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.” - Napolean
10. Laugh and Smile
One thing is for sure, we are all here for a limited time. Make the most of it and have fun.
“I never worked a day in my life. It was all fun!” - Thomas Edison
“Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - it doesn’t matter who it is - and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.” - Mother Teresa
VC Non Admissions
Fake Steve Jobs 10 Commandments
10 Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs:
1. Never let people know where they stand. Keep them
guessing. Keep them afraid. Otherwise they get complacent. Creativity
springs from fear. Think of a painter… he’s going to starve to death if
he doesn’t get his work done … Same goes for the people at Apple and
Pixar. They come in every day knowing it could be their last … they
work like hell; trust me.
2. You don’t have to hire the best people. You can hire anyone as long as you scare the shit out of them … Look at the crappy cars that get made in Detroit, where nobody ever gets fired. Compare that to the stuff that gets made in Vietnamese sweat shops … We can’t literally put our employees lives at risk [but] we never could have made OS X so reliable if our engineers didn’t believe [every] time a bug surfaced one man was going to be killed.
3. Only promote stupid people. But not just any stupid people. You have to find the certain type of stupid people who actually believe they’re super brilliant. They make insanely great managers and are incredibly easy to manipulate. It’s easy to spot them. Former McKinsey consultants are top candidates.
4. Never tell people what is expected of them. Hold people to an impossibly high standard, but here’s the twist — don’t tell them what that standard is.
And fire them if they fall short. You know what that does to people? It
makes them crazy…Crazy people are more creative. And more productive.
Every shrink in the world knows this.
5. A manager should be inconsistent and unpredictable. Be random. One day say something is great and the guy who made it is a genius. The next day say it’s crap, and he’s a moron. Watch how hard that guy will work now, trying to impress you.
6. No praise. Ever. Management gurus also tell you to reward performance … I disagree … Start praising people and pretty soon they starting thinking they’re as smart as you are. You cannot have this. All employees must know at all times that you are better in every way than they are. Repeated criticism in the most humiliating fashion is one way to accomplish this.
7. Keep people’s spirits broken. Fire people on a regular basis for no reason. Fly off the handle, shout at people, call them names, then fire them. Or better yet, don’t fire them. let them believe they’ve survived for a few days. Then, when they’re relaxed, call then in and fire them.
8. Throw Tantrums. One [tactic] that should only be used in extreme circumstances … literally cry and scream and roll around on the floor like a three-year-old … It works because it freaks people out to see a grown man crying and screaming. They’ll do anything to make it stop. Brilliant.
9. Don’t speak to employees in elevators. I’ll get on the elevator… and smile or say hi … sometimes [employees] carry on a conversation with each other, one that does not include me. I’ll wait until we get to my floor, and then, as the door opens, I’ll turn and say: ‘What you just said is completely wrong. You know not whereof you speak. Please go clean out your desk.’
10. Start with the ad campaign. Part of what makes [Apple] different—and, yes, better—is the way we create products. We don’t start with the product itself. We start with the ads. We’ll spend months on advertisements alone … Everybody else starts with the product. [This] is why most advertising sucks. At Apple … If we can’t come up with a good ad, we probably won’t do the product.
About Me
I am Dan Daugherty and I am an entrepreneur, poker player, CEO and Founder of rentbits.com, a rental search engine and rental advertising distribution network on the net.
I am an active real estate investor and am currently investing in Colorado
During my "employee" days, I worked at various start-ups including Google where I ran the Operations team and helped to increase revenue from 1 million to 100 million during my tenure.
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These are my own thoughts, generated by me, representing me. They - and this blog - are in no way affiliated with rentbits.com, Inc or any other company that I have any involvement in.
