Supercool School

Stealing Beer & Food From Facebook

David and I went to the Lunch 2.0 event yesterday @ Facebook. It was a great networking event and I even got to talk to Mark Zuckerberg ( cool guy). But the coolest thing happened in the end of the event when we stole 12 bottles of beer, 2 packs of M&M's & alot of good food from Facebook. We walked out of the office shouting:

The difference between rich startups with funding and poor startups without? We have to steal food and drinks to survive!

Actually, we didn't really steal the stuff but rather saving it from being thrown away. You see one startups trash is another startups treasure ;) And the cleaning lady told us to take as much stuff as we could carry so...

Anyway...we've been out of our little apartment room for two events over the las month. The Techcrunch Party and Facebooks Happy Dev & Lunch 2.0 event. Both times it was well worth it. But now I gotta get back to work. For all of you who keep asking me for the launch date: Soooon. I promise to publish some great news on this blog asap.

Much power to you!

Best Productivity Post Ever!

Stop reading and go to work.
P.S. If that's not enough help - go check out RescueTime

Don't be evil? Be good? Nah - Google still don't get it

Googles corporate motto is "Don't be evil."

I think that's a dumb-ass motto. Anyone who understands a bit about language knows what I mean.

It's like saying don't think for one minute about a blue elephant. Can you? Just one minute without thinking about a blue elephant?!

Did you see a mental picture of a blue elephant even for one sec.?! Yes you did...c'mon admit it..

The evil reason why we have to imagine a evil blue elephant is because our evil unconscious can't ( it's ironic ) process evil negations like no, don't, won't, can't etc...

What happens is that we have to make a mental image of a blue elephant in order to understand what we shouldn't do ( that's how our mind processes language).

All this happens unconsciously.

So saying don't do this, don't do that, causes our mind to focus on exactly what you want to avoid.

Anyway...enough about linguistics...back to the topic:

Googles motto isn't total bullshit. It isn't total idiotic. It just sucks ;)

I thought that "Be good" would be a better google motto. But after seeing an evil interview with Sergey Brin admitting that their motto isn't really good and saying that "Be good" would have been a better evil motto I thought about it for a evil minute and changed my evil mind.

Damn. "Be good" sucks as well. Although it sucks less than "Don't be evil".

So what's a better...eh...a good motto? How about "Do Good"?

Yeahh! "Do good" would be the perfect motto for a company that wants to DO exactly that: GOOD! I love google and admire what they have done so far. No doubt that they actually changed the world ( instead of bitching about negations like me ;) ).

But in the end, it's what a company does, not what the company is that distinguishes good from evil. And google has done some real good stuff so far!

Hmm...well since it's too late for them...maybe we should take "Do good" as the motto for our Supercool School. What do you think?

Idiot Or Genius - Difficult Distinction

Question: Best indicator that you're a freakin genius/visionary?
Answer: Everyone other than you is an idiot!

Question: Best indicator that YOU are actually the freakin' idiot?
Answer: Everyone other than you seems to be an idiot.

Hmm...

Energize, Entertain, Inspire & Perform: A new concept in business

As entrepreneurs we often forget that what we do is really art and not science. You have to be inspired to inspire other people. Put energy and love in what you do to make other people put their energy and love in your company and perform whenever you can to entertain and motivate your audience.

This is a lesson that we as entrepreneurs can learn from the music business. Watch this little video showing Ryan Leslie in the Sony studio recording a song and you'll know what I mean.

Observing HOW he recorded this song changed my whole day ( it effected my business meetings, my work, my inner dialogs, my feelings and my favorite song for the next week).

Enjoy and learn:

You Wake Up As The Man You Went To Sleep.

One of the most powerful lessons I refuse to learn is this: If you want to change anything - you have to start the change before you go to sleep. Only start - even if it is a tiny step. Anything will do it. But you gotta do it before you go to sleep.

Take it from a hypocrite: Don´t persuade yourself at the end of a day without action that you´ll do it tomorrow. If you are really ready to stop the procrastination you will start now. Before you go to sleep. Your chances are pretty good to wake up as a new man/women and continue your work then.

It´s 2:50 am and  I refused to start till now - but I refuse to go to sleep before starting too...let´s see if I get some sleep soon  ;)

I´ll keep you up-to-date about my learning progress in the comment section. Sweet dreams...

Value Your Time - The Path To Productivity

Mig tagged me. It´s a productivity meme...now what the hell do I know about productivity? In one word - nothing.

It´s a topic that keeps me busy every day. How to get more things done in less time?

Extraordinary personalities who manage to get more things done in less time seem to handle their time in a different way then the rest of us.

They know the value of their time. They know what they can create ( money, value, results, whatever) in a certain time-frame and they act according to that. The interesting thing here is that their acting creates the value and the value influences their acting. But don´t worry...it´s all virtual anyway ;) Both time + value are only concepts in our minds. But powerful ones that have a real impact and can shape our reality.

Blablabla...and what does all this mean for you? Answer these questions & follow the process:

1. What´s the best you can create in an hour? NOT do - create! Money, written pages, songs, blog posts, websites, etc etc...(must be quantifiable) EXAMPLE: $100 / hour
2. You have to decide how many hours/day you want to be truly productive. If you think...hmm...well I want to be productive ALL the time you don´t know what you´re talking about. Trust me...you´ll find out in a minute ;) EXAMPLE: 5 hours/ day
   
3. Now take the time and the value you can create and make the math. EXAMPLE: $100 x 5 = $500 / day
4. Now you know how much your time is worth. So what? Try this: imagine you would have to pay this amount of money everyday to the "productivity bank". Over the day you would have the chance to earn your money back. It´s up to you. If you waste your time doing things that don´t CREATE anything of value your ass will end up broke.

Life has given you the power to create and the time to execute. If you waste those recourses - you´re wasting your life. If you use them - you create something of universal value: MEANING

Productive people know that. They act like that. And we love them for that :)

Everyone who read to this point is tagged. Have fun!

"Starting" Is The New "Continuing"

You don´t have to keep going to finish a project. You just have to start. Doesn´t make any sense? It will in a minute...

Most people know how hard it is to finish a project/achieve a long-term goal. But it´s wrong to think that the solution to a long-term goal is a long-term approach. It isn´t. It always comes down to taking action in the moment, day-by-day.

You need to answer these 2 simple questions every day ( not with words but with action):

1. What´s the fastest first step I can take today to make a progress?
2. What´s the next step I can immediately take?

We all know how motivated we can get after taking the first steps. It´s easy to keep going after you started. But it´s hard to start every day. Especially when you know that the goal is long-term. It feels like this thing will take so much time to get done so that one day doesn´t count that much. Bzzzz!!! Wrong answer!!!

Take action every day - early in the day - very very early and get in the "action-mood" as fast as possible. Write down these 2 questions on a piece of paper NOW and put it in a place near your bed. Wake up...read the questions...answer the first one...take action...answer the second one...take action!

And enjoy your day ;)

P.S. This post was written with ScribeFire. I love this tool!!!!! Go and check it out now.

Nothing is worse then nothing

I don´t know why but some people seem to think that not answering an email is an answer ( and I do NOT mean people who need some time to respond ).

It´s not - It´s a statement.

I write emails to many people every day. Sometimes I used to be a little bold and even wrote to important personalities without any chance of success ( it takes a little time for a novice to understand that you have to build relationships and not just cold-email everyone you want to get in touch with).

What I love is that some very important personalities tend to ALWAYS answer even if it is "just"  a...

"I´m not interested right now. Wish you good luck with everything."

I think that´s cool! And it tells me alot about these people. Why don´t we all answer all emails - even with a small note like that? It´s polite. It´s nice. It´s a statement about who you are and how you value other peoples efforts to get in touch with you.

Music can help your startup!

If you want to know what kind of music inspires me these days you have to check out Next Selection.

NS4LIFE.COM is a daily video journal about the Next Selection Lifestyle Group, a music-focused media company based in Harlem, NYC run by RYAN LESLIE.

Music is something very inspiring for many people BUT I doubt that many Internet startup entrepreneurs open their eyes, ears & hearts to get real business inspiration from new music entrepreneurs like Ryan Leslie and his company Next Selection!

I already talked alot about what I call Business Incest and this is just a perfect example of how I use the principles in real life!

So the days & nights get very long these days and what is a big help to me is music. I started to listen to music from Cassie and Ryan Leslie and "just" enjoying their music. It was later that I started to realize how this company makes marketing.

Here some things I think many entrepreneurs can learn from the music biz:

1. How to use social networks to make great marketing ( Cassie & Next Selection is really a MySpace phenomenon and you can learn so much by observing what & how they´re doing it on www.myspace.com )
2. How to entertain. I think we all have to remind ourselves that no matter what we think - we all perform and have to give a good show to people. When I´m watching a young R&B singer performing on stage and giving everything to his audience I´m wondering how much love, energy and power I give to my audience?
3. How Videoblogging can be a perfect way to communicate with your audience and give them a real taste of what you´re doing and how hard you´re working to give them your best
4. How to use services like youtube.com to make contests or other cool events. They created a open account at youtube where talented artists could upload a video performance to get attention from the label. What kind of event could you do to get in contact with talented people?
5. Sexappeal is good! How many artists do you know that have some kind of sexappeal? Alot right? What´s with companies??? Hmm...apple...bmw...porsche...not too many right?

So start thinking outside the damn box! Go behind the obvious and ask more intelligent questions! Like what can you learn from the music artists you like? How could you get some inspiration from another field and do something different in your area?

Go & and let the evolution happen! Go and spread the genes apart :-)

Much power to you!

Steli Efti, Education Revolutionary