Are You an Idea Hero?
Logan Fields • February 23, 2019
Since I run an app development firm I hear a LOT of ideas throughout the year. Some are really, really bad, but many are good enough to become million dollar companies. Whether it’s a college student or a 60 year old business veteran, when a potential client is talking to me about their app idea they inevitably ask; “do you think it’s a good idea?”. Usually, the answer is situational. Your experience, funding, time availability etc all play into the viability of a business.
When you’re going to start a new business, app, or project you want to be sure the idea is “great”. I would define “great” as something that has a reasonable chance of being viable within the time, experience and financial resources you have available to you, or can make available to you over time. Here are 3 tips for evaluating your app or business idea:
- Get input from the RIGHT people. I’m sorry, but your grandma doesn’t count. She’s too nice. You need deep, honest input from people who can be fairly objective and who actually have business experience. Meaning; if you want to start a million dollar company, don’t get primary input on your idea from people who have not built a million dollar company. Friends, family, and colleagues may think your idea sounds cool...but that doesn’t mean they actually think it’s cool enough to where if they came across it in a random ad they would pay for your service/product/app. Get business advice from business people, and if possible from business people in the industry you’re looking to enter.
- Count the cost. Starting a new business, app or project is going to take at least some money and almost certainly a lot of time. More time than you think. You need to calculate your startup costs, revenue goals, how many clients it will take you to reach those goals, and how much money and work it will take to reach and convert those clients.
- Decide if the time is right. Just because you have a great idea does not mean you should commit to it. I have a lot of other businesses I’d like to start, but for most of them, it’s just not time yet. My focus is needed to continue building The App Guys and it will be that way for a while. You don’t need a good idea...you need the right idea for right now.
An idea hero isn’t someone who has the best ideas. An idea hero is someone who can decide which ideas are right for the moment, and is willing to put in the work and risk to make it happen.
The blockchain is a distributed database that allows for secure, transparent and tamper-proof transactions. Blockchain technology was first introduced in 2009 as the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Since its inception, blockchain technology has been adapted for various other applications, such as supply chain management, data security and authentication. One of the most promising applications of blockchain technology is in the field of blockchain-based smart contracts. A recent example of this is Solana, a blockchain platform that aims to build the world's fastest blockchain by using Proof of History to achieve consensus without mining. Solana's approach could enable it to handle up to 710k transactions per second. That's compared to Visa's peak capacity of 24k transactions per second! Beyond speed, blockchain technology also offers other advantages over traditional database technologies, such as reduced costs and increased security. For these reasons, blockchain is quickly becoming a key technology for a variety of industries and applications. If you're looking for more information on blockchain technology, I'd recommend checking out these resources: - How Does Blockchain Work? (Blockgeeks) - What is Blockchain Technology? (BlockchainHub) - A Beginner's Guide to Blockchain Technology (Coindesk) - 10 Uses for Blockchain Technology (TheBalance) - How Blockchain is Changing the Way We Do Business (Entrepreneur)
Nikola Tesla was writhing on the ground in pain. The vibrations from the train were so violent and overbearing that he couldn’t think or see straight. But believe it or not, the train was 20 miles away. When Tesla was young, he went through an extreme breakdown. His subconscious senses had for some reason taken over his conscious thinking. Light, vibrations, everything was completely overwhelming. His brain was at war with itself. Eventually he was able to get past this breakdown and his thinking and physical senses turned back to normal. What you may not realize is that we are all experiencing thoughts, realizations, sensations etc at an extremely high level in our subconscious. Right now, you can probably feel vibrations from cars on a nearby road and don’t even realize it. In fact, the subconscious is 10x as powerful as the conscious mind. Here’s the kicker: when you take advantage of and TRUST your subconscious, you will 10X a lot of things in your life. Emotional health, productivity, learning, fitness, finances...basically anything that involves the mind (which is pretty much everything). Here are a few practical methods for actively stewarding your subconscious: 1. Bulk Reading: You CAN read an entire book in one sitting. And get a ton out of it. Want to know why? Because your mission is to UPLOAD the book to your brain. Then, let it sit. No pressure, no timeline. Go onto the next part of your day and let your subconscious do the work of comprehending and applying the important stuff. It’s like uploading a file to a computer. I recommend you try this at least 10 days in a row. You will be completely floored by how quickly and starkly you can feel your brain upgrading when you do this. You can download the Logan Fields app on Android and iOS for my free “How to Read a Book a Day” course which goes into more detail on how to do this. 1. Lofty Goals, Asked as Questions, Spoken Out Loud: Have you ever wished you were a wizard and could cast spells and just make crazy stuff happen? Dude...this is basically the same thing. Let’s say your goal is to make $100k a month. Say it, out loud as a question: “Why do I make $100k a month?”. It gets embedded in your subconscious like a son of a gun, and you will start seeing things come to you that help towards that goal. Many of those things will simply be your own actions and mindset. Your subconscious is trying to catch up to the lofty question. This is the first thing I do in the morning. I get in my car and go on a drive. On the drive, I say (and sometimes scream) my goals as lofty questions out loud. Ya, even at stop lights with people in the other cars looking at me weird. A secondary benefit is it helps me not edit my own habits, performance and momentum because I’m worried about how it looks to others.
In ancient times many languages didn’t even have a word for “blue”. Crazy right? To them, “blue” was either green or sometimes purple. More amazing than that: they couldn’t even perceive the color blue...because there was no language around the concept. There was an interesting study done by Jules Davidoff, where he found a fairly isolated African tribe who didn’t have a word for the color blue...but they had many words to describe various shades of green. Because their language was all about green, they thought in green. They literally could not see the color blue. Here’s how he tested it: Tribe members were shown a circle of squares. Every square was green, except one blue square. The distinction was, to a “blue thinking mind”, completely obvious. But test after test proved that the tribe members could not tell which one was different...to them, every square looked green. If you haven’t internalized language for something, it effectively doesn’t exist. Inversely, as soon as you master a language around something specific (good or bad), it will be the most real and obvious thing in your world. Master the language of the gossiper and you will have an incredible amount of drama in your life. Master the language of the Navy Seal and you will have an incredible amount of self-discipline.
Meet Brandon. Brandon created a Facebook automation software for entrepreneurs, and in less than one quarter made his initial investment back AND was cashflow positive month over month! Brandon realized it would be a great time to sell...if he could get the right price. So, he called The App Guy (that’s me) and asked if I could help him self it. Less than a month later, Brandon received a lump-sum payment of over 5x his initial investment! Here’s what the process looked like: I found him a potential buyer (one of my existing clients) The buyer hired us to perform a quality check on the code We approved the code quality and verified that cashflow We brokered the final deal points Brandon got a pile of cash The new client got an awesome software that’s already cashflowing I’m addicted to win-win deals! This is one of the reasons that, from a business perspective, I love software so much: when the deal is done right, the buyer and the seller both come out ahead.
Cheetah just raised $36-million on their round B ! This is a great example of building a strong infrastructure, and pivoting when market opportunity presents itself. Apps and software are AWESOME things to own. But listen, Cheetah didn't just pivot to grab cash on a trend. They are going to ride this trend into long-term market share. I love the strategy! Check out the details here: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/from-b2b-to-d2c-cheetah-raises-36m-for-contactless-food-pickup-delivery/
I own 9 custom softwares at the moment. This year (2019) we’ve made money on those investments, next year we will likely 100X (yes, really) what we make on those investments, and in 5 years...even though The App Guys is growing significantly year over year, I anticipate our income from owning small portions of custom softwares will outrun what we are netting in our service fees from building software. An important law of wealth that we all know; you must have multiple streams of income. If you are a 6 or 7 figure business owner, I definitely recommend owning a custom software as a new revenue stream. The problem I’ve personally run into is that I need to focus on building my primary business/income which for me is The App Guys. So, for me to have other streams of income at the moment, they have to be relatively automated. Enter custom software... I started investing in customer software (not just making it for others) about a year ago. Basically, someone will come to us with a great idea, and the new business partner and I will co-invest in the software. I typically take less than 30% in the new venture. The beautiful thing about creating your own custom software is that, depending on the concept, it doesn’t have to take too much management once it’s launched and can create a super strong and dependable income stream. Aside from that (again, depending on the concept), your custom software can bring your leads for your other business and vice-versa. You add EQUITY to your brand when you own custom software. If you’d like help with the ideation process just let me know. We can talk about your existing company and help you determine what kind of custom software could be created for you that would be a natural fit for your brand. Also, if you’re looking for a co-investor, let’s talk! In particular, I’m looking to build and invest in custom software in the following categories: Biohacking. Fitness. Holistic medicine. Entertainment. Education.
1. Audio Bible right when I wake up. When I wake up I go downstairs, get my phone and turn on my audio Bible. I listen to it while I shave etc as the first thing I do for the day. I don’t allow myself to open social media, email or even texts. The reason I decided to do this is I learned that the first 20 minutes of the day is when your subconscious is the most impressionable...so I want to make those 20 minutes count! 2. Using the high-performance planner every morning. Brandan Burchard’s High Performance Planner is AWESOME. I especially love the mindset questions in the morning and the end-of-day evaluation. It helps me track my progress holistically and keep focused on what really matters. 3. Email and social media only twice a day. Oh ya...and NONE on my days off. Before I must have checked email and social media 100 to 300 times a day. Turns out checking it twice a day gets the job done just as well, and gives me at least 98 less things to do a day. Mentally, this enforces healthy boundaries for me. Little work things and even big work things are not allowed to rule my mind all day. I give them the appropriate amount of attention and then move on. 4. Podcasting Hopefully, you’ve seen my show...it’s not half bad ;) At the time of this writing I have published about 60 episodes, and it was way easier than you might think. I do a simple, 8-minute show, which is very easy to get the guests I want to commit to. It allows me to make a deep connection with the people I want to know very quickly and also gives me and my friends a ton of regular and valuable content to put out. If you’re thinking about starting your own short-form podcast be sure to hit up Bob Clark. 5.No phone in bed. I realized that the blue-light exposure right before bed really downgrades the quality of my sleep, aside from the fact that the endless scrolling and YouTube videos just keep my mind going. I sleep better and have a more peaceful feeling in general with not bringing my phone to bed and greatly restricting how I use it in general.
It’s tempting; making “them” the bad guys. Those people who were negative about your choices and didn’t believe in you. When you make them the bad guys it gives you a focus, a drive...an enemy to defeat. I totally get it. But what no one seems to be saying is that pushing for success in order to “prove them wrong” is immature, and a sure sign of a toxic mindset. First of all, people have their own baggage to deal with. The fact that even those close to you may have been negative or skeptical isn’t really that big of a deal. Most of the time a person’s negative opinion about you or what you’re doing has way more to do with them than you. Negative people tilt that way because they are broken people who haven’t confronted bad things in their life in a way that would allow them to see clearly and optimistically. They aren’t even there for themselves, and they can’t be there for you. Secondly, being motivated to succeed just so you can indirectly rub it in someone's face is a flat out bad way to operate. Plenty of people gain success by getting energy from twisted motivations...and it steals the soul. Do you really want to win because you let someone else’s negative opinion of you have so much power over you? Sure, there were people who didn’t believe in me. They thought me staying in business when things weren’t going well was irresponsible, they thought I was all talk, they thought I was wrong. Some people probably still think that too. Who cares? And I don’t mean that in a “screw them” sort of way. I mean, seriously, it doesn’t matter what they think. I don’t need their belief to feel validated or their disbelief to feel motivated. There are good things in life and noble purposes to pursue...I choose to be motivated by the good things.
If it’s ok with you, I’d like to tell you why Bob paid us $20,000 more than we asked for. It will definitely give you some insight into how we operate and hopefully will give you something you can take away for your own business practices as well. Also, just to be transparent, it's a shameless plug. Bob is a business OG. He runs a successful marketing agency, has sold a company in the past, and teaches marketing to MBA students just for kicks. I’ve been trying to work with him for years. Finally, he called me up. He had an app that needed to be built and wanted us to do it. I was excited to work with him and in my eagerness offered him a pretty good deal, around $50k. But Bob didn’t just take the deal and run...he asked more questions. Basically, he figured out that my profit on the $50k wasn’t super high. So, he said “no, let’s do it for $70k”. Now, this is the only case where I’ve had a client negotiate for a higher price, but we’ve had a lot of people tell us we are the most expensive out of the developers they've received quotes from...and they still go with us anyway. So, why are we priced higher than others, and why do people choose us anyway? More than that...why do over 90% of clients use us for their hosting and maintenance after the initial build (instead of taking the well-built app to a cheaper developer for maintenance)? Trust and quality. People trust us in the beginning, people trust us after they launch, and people trust us when they’re ready to add more to their app. We pick up the phone when people answer. We fix problems when they arise (and trust me...there are plenty of problems in projects this size!). We get the app launched. As far as quality goes, we spend more than some other companies on the people we hire and spend a lot on constantly improving our systems and processes. We take it really seriously when people spend not only their money, but also their time with us. Because of that we aim to create the best quality team, service and end products possible.