Internet Business Mastery: Business Development and Internet Marketing for the Web 2.0 Age

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This is Internet Business Mastery, episode 55.

In a world where bosses control your life, and thoughts of escape fill your mind, where inspiration seems dead, and cynicism rules the masses, you have a desire to break free, you feel the need to take control. Now, there exists a place where the secrets of freedom and wealth are given to those who believe. Internet Business Mastery.com – free your mind!

Jay: Hello, and welcome to Internet Business Mastery, you can find us online at InternetBusinessMastery.com. I’m Jay…

Sterling: And I’m Sterling.

Jay: And we are here to help you escape the ‘9 to 5,’ and live the lifestyle of your dreams by turning your life’s passion into a profitable internet business, even if you’re just getting started today.

On this episode of Internet Business Mastery, we’ve got some real life cubicle escape stories, talk about how they did it, and how you can too. Some people who’ve recently quit their jobs, and are making money online. And in the Quick Tip, we’ve got a kind of metric that will give you invaluable insight on how to find out how user friendly your site is.

So this episode is coming out on the 1^st of 2009, kind of hard to believe. 2008 has now escaped us. So Happy New Year to everyone…

Sterling: Happy New Year!

…and we’re excited to see where this new year takes us!

Sterling: Whee!

Jay: Yet another year gone. It’s unbelievable. So Sterling, how do you feel about 2008? How has 2008 gone for you?

Sterling: Loved it! Absolutely loved it! Went over the old goal list when I started 2008, and a lot of things happened in 2008. I think a couple of the most notable things were recurring income, mmm…love the recurring income. The monthly income coming in, the whole membership site thing is just…I absolutely love it to no end. And one of the other was some lifestyle design stuff, got to finally move where I wanted to be.

I wanted to be on the beach in San Diego, and bam I’m here. I absolutely love that as well. So 2008, you know, two very big, big things that were able to happen for me, and other minor things as well. But being able to not only get the income thing very solidly squared away, but also to make some actual lifestyle…I’m not only working all day, or not somewhere where I’m miserable, or any of that kind of stuff.

Obviously, those are big things for me. How about you?

Jay: Well, let’s see. 2008 started with the crazy idea of moving abroad and going to Argentina. And we did make that happen; it’s crazy to think that the idea came to our mind, and a matter of weeks later we were living there.

Sterling: That seems so long ago, I even forgot you were in Buenos Aires.

Jay: Yeah, so it’s been the year of traveling for us, which it’s been a lot of fun. I mean we always wanted…when we got married we always wanted to have experiences of living abroad, and we hope to have more still. And finally with my wife graduating from her graduate program, we didn’t have anything tying us to one place.

And despite the fact that we loved New York City, it was time to enjoy the freedom that we’d always wanted when we got married, and we hoped to make happen when I first quit my job and went into internet business.

So this year, we definitely got to enjoy that; going and living in Argentina, and then various places in the US – visiting family, going to Hawaii for a while, Lake Powell in southern Utah for a while. It was a lot of fun. Now, things took a different angle. At first we thought hey, maybe we’ll just try doing this for like two years straight.

But we discovered maybe that wasn’t our ideal lifestyle. It gets very exhausting, always picking yourself up and moving to a new place. I know people who do that, but we started deciding hmm, maybe we’ll spend a little more time in each place. So it’s interesting to see how your lifestyle design goals kind of evolve as you find out what some of them are really like.

But we’re happy to be in Portland. It’s funny, I mean even from back before my wife and I were even dating and we were in a band together, we always knew Portland was this awesome place that we wanted to go check out and live in. And it’s been a lot of fun.

So we’re enjoying discovering that place for now. So it’s been the year of travel and discovery, and finding out what that kind of freedom is like. And that’s been a lot of fun.

And like you said, the membership site has been awesome. And now of course, now that it’s finally up and done, and again, we wonder why we didn’t do it two years ago. It’s always been one of those things in the back of my mind; we knew that’s a business model we wanted to put into place, and so it feels great to have finally accomplished that.

So despite the fact that I haven’t reached every single little goal that I had for this year which is going to be typical, it still feels really good to finish out 2008 where I’m at, and to look forward to this stuff that we want to do in 2009. So it’s exciting times for sure.

Sterling: Well and you know, one of the things that I want to do for 2009 that didn’t do quite as much as I usually do in 2008 was do the seminar thing. Go check out more seminars, and meetup with people and things like that because in 2008, what did we do? We did one?

Normally, I do like five in a year, and I see them as incredibly important. I mean in the year before, let’s see the year 2007, geez I think I went to at least five seminars. And just a great place to not only meet people, find joint ventures, you know all that kind of stuff, but also learn.

Learn the new things, learn little things that are coming down the pike that you might not know about. But yeah, 2009, I’d like to do several more seminar things as well.

Jay: I was just going to say that’s a great goal, absolutely. I knew that in traveling so much in 2008, that was something I’d be giving up a little bit. Because obviously it’s hard to bounce around, but yeah, I mean I can tell in not having done that you start missing some of that interaction, and networking, and some of the opportunities that come up from doing stuff like that. So yeah, that’s a good goal to have for our business in Internet Business Mastery.

Sterling: Well, and I thought of 2008 as, this is the ‘buckle down’ year. It’s time to take all this information that we know, and make it all work in one specific place. So that to me, I was like, I’m already flowing with knowledge and ideas. I don’t want to get more when I haven’t fully implemented every little thing I already know, so that’s kind of why that happened this year. Now, I’m ready, what’s next? What more?

Jay: Yeah definitely, and something that I’ve realized from 2008, I think in all the traveling and some of the stuff we’ve done with the business, by the beginning of 2008, I had eliminated any one-on-one consulting I was still doing through podcasting which was just a portion of my time. It wasn’t all my time, but it was something I was doing to establish my brand and get success stories, etc.

But I cut all that out, now that was totally in line with what I wanted for my lifestyle design, was not to have that one-for-one kind of exchange of time for money. However, there’s an interesting thing now that everything’s so systematic and we have this Academy that lets us deliver value to so many people at once.

And we get to interact with them, but still…and not having spoken as much. I spoke tons in 2007, and like maybe once in 2008, which was a deliberate move. But the things that I’m finding ending in 2008 is I kind of miss some of that direct interaction, in person interaction.

Whether it’s the phone call with the consulting client, whether it’s the live in front of people at a conference, the little more direct interaction is actually something I thrive off of a bit. And I don’t know, maybe it’s the performer in me going back to my guitarist in the band days, or something.

So I’m actually trying to think, okay what are ways in 2009 I can integrate a little of that back into what I’m doing and enjoy it, but not have it take over my life? So I’m trying to think about whether with doing maybe a live podcast, or with speaking engagements, or maybe just very limited one-on-one high end consulting, something like that to bring that back into what I’m doing.

So that’s been an interesting process of discovery as I’ve thought back on 2008. So I have some exciting things with my podcasting brand that I’m going to be launching going into 2009, and wanting to bring that back into what I’m doing.

Anyway, let’s go ahead and jump into the success stories that we’ve got. We’ve got some very exciting interviews today. It’s awesome now that the Academy’s been out for a few months; just starting to see that momentum build up, and people starting to say, “Hey, I quit my job,” “Hey, I’m making money,” “Hey, January 2009, I’ve got my plans. I’m leaving my job; I’m escaping the ‘9 to 5.”

So we wanted to get some of these people on the line. So let’s find out how they did it, so you can get some of those insights. So let’s go ahead and jump into the featured segment and the interview clips that we’ve got with some of the other Internet Business Mastery community members.

And now, the featured segment…

Jay: Alright, so in this featured segment, we’re excited to have two interviews. Yes two, this is going to be a double episode – two interviews from recent Internet Business Mastery community members and Academy members who have had very successful cubicle escape stories.

They’ve escaped the ‘9 to 5,’ and are enjoying the fruits of their businesses, and there’s some great insights to be learned from them. And both of these interviews just turned out so well, we were going to maybe put snippets or whatever, and try to keep the episode down to the normal length, but they turned out so well we just thought, you know what? We’re just going to throw both complete interviews in there, and they’re absolutely worth listening to, both of them all the way through.

I just always get really excited hearing these kinds of stories from people, it gets me stoked and makes me want to go and take action or do something in my business.

Sterling: Yeah, we just did the interview, and I’m like shaking from, “Oh I love this!” I love hearing this kind of stuff.

Jay: Yeah, it gets you quivering with excitement. So get ready to quiver people, because we’re starting out with Patrick, who actually lives in the San Diego area near Sterling there. And his website is InTheLeed.com, and we’re going to be putting links to these guys’ websites in the show notes on the blog. So you can go check them out if you want.

But we’ll start out first here with Patrick, and then the second one is going to be with Matt. Let’s go ahead and dive right into the interview with Patrick.

Jay: Alright, on the call with us, we’ve got Patrick Flynn, who’s been doing some very interesting stuff. He joined the Academy a couple of months ago, and he started taking bold actions right away. So we’ve been kind of watching as he’s progressed with this, but he’s going to tell us more about what he’s doing.

But we’re excited to have him here with us today, and to share a bit of his journey, and the process to making money online, and so it works, and hear all about it. Thanks for joining us, Patrick.

Patrick: Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Jay: So let’s go ahead and start out just by having you give us a brief background on what you do, and what led you into doing internet business, and where you are today?

Patrick: Well, when the internet and all that stuff started happening, and eBay came out – I was a really big eBay fan. I started selling random stuff around my house, and I got really excited when I got paid for it. So every since then, I’ve been a fan of making money online and just after I found you guys, I figured out there was more ways than eBay. And I’ve been doing pretty well since then.

Jay: Your online journey started with eBay, were you just selling physical products and dabbling in that a little bit?

Patrick: Yeah, I was selling physical products, and then when I got into making more money, I was like hey, maybe I should buy some concert tickets when it’s close to the date of the concert, I’ll go ahead and sell those as well. And I made a few hundred dollars, which was awesome to me, especially since I was still a teenager. And a few hundred dollars was like a million dollars, so…

Jay: So you got started at a young age, that’s very cool.

Patrick: I got started at a young age, but I mean obviously I wasn’t making enough to make a living. But a lot of stuff happened in the last six months with my job, and all that stuff that led me to start making a lot of money online which is awesome – which is thanks to you guys.

Jay: Well maybe tell us a little bit about that. What has the last six months been like? What is some of the stuff that’s transpired for you?

Patrick: Well, I went to school for architecture, and I started working at an architecture firm. I worked at one in the [inaudible] area and in San Diego for about three years now. And then just recently with the whole economic crisis that’s going on, I got laid off unfortunately.

And luckily during that time, I had started a website about a test that I took called the LEED test, which stands for Leadership and Energy Environmental Design. All I did was I put all my notes online, put some tips, and basically it was just for me so that while I was at work during lunch, I could go online and study and all that stuff.

And all of a sudden all these people around the world starting using that website too, and saying how awesome it was and how well it was helping them. So that just drove me even more to make sure the material was good, so that everyone else could pass the exam as well.

And based on me as an expert, which is crazy because I definitely wasn’t an expert. I was just a guy who knew just a little bit more than they did, who put that information online, and then I became an expert. And then I passed the test, and I became even more of an expert. And that just led me to start monetizing it after I started listening to you guys, and realizing that I had the opportunity to do that.

So when I got laid off, I was making like $10 a month using Adsense, just running some small advertisements. And I thought that was awesome, I was like oh sweet, $10 a month! That’s awesome!

Sterling: I make money online!

Patrick: It’s gas money! Um, but then once I got laid off, I was like I need to do something. I have an opportunity here, I’ve learned from Sterling and Jay that if you have traffic, and people who trust you, you can sell something. So what I did was I created an ebook, basically the stuff that was on my website already, but I just tweaked it and made it a lot better, and lot more presentable, easier to access, stuff like that.

And I sold it, and within the first week I had already made over $2,000. And that was amazing to me; I could not believe my eyes. And then I was like I’ve got to join the Academy, because all the stuff I learned from you was just from listening to your podcast. And then I heard about the Academy, and I joined that, and I implemented some more tips, took some more bold actions with my email opt in listings and all that stuff.

And now I’m going up to $10,000 a month and I honestly would not know what to do if I didn’t have that going on for me. Because now that I’m not working ‘9 to 5,’ if I didn’t have this internet business, I definitely would be poor.

Sterling: Oh yeah, so you’re saying that on your site then, what are you selling specifically?

Patrick: I’m selling study tips, just a summary of the massive book that the test is about.

Sterling: And right now, that’s how you make your money off the site.

Patrick: Yes, currently that’s how I make money off the site is through an ebook.

Sterling: Got it.

Jay: Now the ebook format, and what made you decide okay, I’m going to do an ebook, versus other types of products. What led you to choose that particular format for yourself?

Patrick: Well it’s funny because when I had the site going, and I didn’t have anything else other than just what was on the blog, everyone was telling me, “Hey Pat, you should write a book. You should write ‘LEED for dummies,’ or you should write a book, I’d definitely buy it.”

And I got a few people emailing me saying that, and I said oh, it’s too much work…blah, blah, blah. I don’t think anyone’s going to buy it. But then after I got ten more emails, I was like hey, I have an opportunity here, so I’m going to take it. So I spent the next two months, or just one month creating it. And I am so glad I did that. I couldn’t believe it.

Sterling: Yeah, after about $10,000, you’re like hey wow, I guess people will.

Patrick: Yeah, if I had the chance to go back, I would have done it earlier without people even asking me. I’m sure I missed out on a lot of money by not starting it earlier. So I was really fortunate to have people ask me. I know a lot of times that doesn’t happen, and so I got really lucky.

Sterling: Oh don’t we know how it is…

Jay: Yeah, we’ve been there. We’re like, why didn’t we do this a long time ago?

So that’s an awesome story. The couple of things I’ve really liked there is I think that the expert thing some people get hung up on. They’re like…and maybe the ‘expert’ is the wrong word, but like you said, it may be that you just know a little more than them. Or maybe that you just took the effort to put it together in a meaningful way online, on the website, and now in an ebook.

And so it’s more that people just look to you as a trusted source of information, saving them a lot of time and energy. It’s not that you are like the biggest PhD at the highest Ivy League school in this particular subject, it’s like no, who cares? That’s not what people need; they just need somebody they know who can make their lives easier when it comes to taking this test.

And you’re actually the second person we’ve known that’s been able to quit their job and be able to do this kind of thing based on just helping people in a very specific professional niche, where they’ve got a type of test that they’ve got to take.

And so yeah, it’s interesting. The other one is in project management, and you’re in architecture, so clearly there’s an interesting demand there. And so I just really enjoy that aspect of your story that you’ve shared.

Patrick: Oh thank you, I’ve been really fortunate to just fall into it, and I got really lucky.

Jay: Sorry, I was going to say it’s a good thing you didn’t go and write “LEED for Dummies” or whatever, because you would have made like a buck a book.

Patrick: Yeah, exactly.

Jay: When people ask me, are you going to write another book? It’s like well, I could, but you know, the last one really didn’t make me any money. It’s a fancy business card; I would rather have my next book be a multimedia course online that I made $97.00 off of a pop or whatever.

Patrick: Yeah, exactly.

Jay: But it’s cool that your community was giving you that feedback, and so you’re like, okay there’s something here. I’ve got to give them something, because they’re asking me for it. And that’s kind of what happened with us with Internet Business Mastery. And so even if it’s just a few people saying, a little light should go off and it’s like, yeah I should make a product and fast!

Because like you said, you didn’t know it, but there was just money sitting on the table the whole time. And who knows what more you could have had the quicker you’d done it. It sounds like you’ve had no problem acting quick and taking bold actions, and having them pay off for you, so that’s awesome!

Patrick: Oh, thank you.

Sterling: Alright, so we’ve heard all the good stuff, now what’s the biggest obstacle you had to overcome in launching your site, and how did you overcome it?

Patrick: Well, when I started the site, I really didn’t know much about blogging, and all that technical stuff. So I spent a lot of time researching that, looking at other blogs, and going to websites with tips, and actually buying a lot of books about blogging, and stuff like that, and how it could be a content management system which was my original goal.

So that was a big hurdle for me, I spent a lot of time, maybe a month or so just researching that. And if I could take it back, I would definitely find someone who could do that for me, because it’s stuff that I don’t really need anymore, and I could have saved a lot of time, and probably made a lot more money that would have paid off the costs of hiring someone to do that right away.

So, that took a lot of time. And also, along the same lines of spending money for the actual domain name and stuff, I know it’s only like a few dollars a month, but spending money to do something that you’re not sure you’re going to get back in the future is pretty difficult.

But there’s no way you’re going to make money in the future if you don’t spend even just a few dollars a month just to get that domain name and your hosting site up, and stuff like that. So that’s something that…like I’m a pretty frugal person, so it’s hard for me to spend money sometimes. So I didn’t connect the spending money now to earn money later type of deal, so that was another thing that I had to overcome.

Sterling: Well now, on the upside, as far as Internet Business goes, at least it’s a low barrier to entry; it’s a low amount of money up front.

Patrick: Oh yeah, definitely! If I was trying to do like a brick and mortar business, there would be absolutely no way I could have started it or done it so fast.

Jay: I mean what do you think has been your investment in getting your site up and going? How much money do you think you’ve spent in launching this business?

Patrick: Um, honestly $100.

Jay: Yeah.

Sterling: I know people get blown away by that…

Jay: I understand the whole…I can remember a day when I’d go online and find maybe…I was the ebook consumer and it was like $27 ebook? Oh, that’s so expensive! And now it’s like I might not hesitate to throw down $2,000 for a course if I believe it will help me.

But yeah, I can remember being in that place. At first, it’s like…and yeah $100 can seem…but the truth of the matter is, look how quickly you made that back. And probably from the launch of your product you probably made that back in less than an hour.

But like you said, brick and mortar, I mean there’s so many business people out there, we’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars, and big loans they have to sign on, or years of time. It’s like $100 for a chance at a business, and increased income, or even a little more freedom…now it sounds like you’d agree looking back, it’s like that’s a drop in the bucket.

Sterling: I do that over and over again.

Patrick: The odds are good like in poker, put in a little bit in to get a lot on the pot. That’s exactly the case here.

Jay: Yep. So what would be the biggest tip you could share with others who are maybe still trying to get their site up or choose their niche, or working towards making that first dollar online? Now we’ve heard the success you’ve had, these people are like okay, what’s the number one tip you can share with me? What would that be? What tip would you want to share with others trying to do this?

Patrick: My tip would be you don’t have to do everything perfect right away, just get something out there. Get a product or just start writing on your blog, something. Get something up there, because there’s no way you’re going to make money unless you have something up there. So don’t worry about getting it perfect now, you can always tweak it later.

For instance, my book wasn’t all perfect; there was some corrections that need to be made. But people were willing to help and offer their suggestions, and that just made the book even better for the future. So again the number one tip is, just do something, just take a bold action and do it.

Sterling: Yeah that’s awesome. It’s funny, it reminds me now how different I am now compared to when I started. Like when I started, every tiny little thing had to be perfect before I would even put the website up. So not only trying to sell something, but getting the website up, everything had to be perfect. And now it’s funny our mindset change is so different.

It’s like we’ve sold a coaching course before we’ve even made it. So now, you if you know you’ve got the information, it’s like it’s a completely different mindset now. So that’s definitely a huge tip there.

Now one thing we wanted to know, you’re very active in the Academy. We wanted to know how the Internet Business Mastery Academy community helped you in the process of making money online.

Patrick: Well you said it right there, it’s a community. And really the courses and everything is just tons of information that…there’s so much stuff that I love, and so many tips that I’ve implemented on my own website that I just love. But honestly, the best part is the community, having everyone there help each other out.

You guys coming on the forums, and other people telling us about their products, and their websites, and also giving tips about my book and stuff like that. So there’s a lot of people on there willing to help, which is awesome. And I think that’s the best part of the Academy, in addition to all the wonderful material that’s on there, and how easy it is to use and all that stuff.

Sterling: That’s funny to know…by the way to everybody out there, Patrick’s actually in San Diego. And I met with Patrick and a few other people from the Academy, and as we’re all sitting there talking, it’s funny that sometimes you’re just so close to your own business, that it just takes another person to mention one little thing, and you’re like oh my gosh! That was the problem!

Like it reminds me, one of the guys in our group, his name’s Colin. He was talking about this whole business he’s designing and everything, and after we were chatting suddenly he was like, “Wow, I just need to get something up today!” Like let’s get something selling now, don’t build the entire empire before you even get your first dollar or something. And that was just from sitting there chatting in the community.

Patrick: Yeah, and that’s what the Internet Business Mastery forums are like, it’s just like that.

Jay: So you talked a little bit about how part of this process…you’ve escaped the ‘9 to 5,’ but it was almost forced upon you with everything that’s going on with the layoffs and stuff. But still what was that process like? You could have gone okay, you know what?

I’ve got to go get another job ASAP or whatever the case might be, so what was that like – getting laid off from your job, wondering okay, what am I going to do next, and kind of being forced into this situation of maybe making some decisions regarding your internet business. Can you share a little bit about the process with this, and how to come to whatever decisions you made?

Patrick: Sure yeah, that’s a good question. And I know whenever anybody that’s laid off just like I was, it’s a tough thing to take. You put in so much hard work, you work eight hours a day for how many years. And it’s just heartbreaking when you’re asked to leave, even when you are doing good work.

So it took a couple days just to get over that, and then I really had to make some internal decisions and say hey, what am I good at? What opportunities do I have in front of me? And what I saw was my website, and the Academy helped me drive that website into something that I can live off of now which is really awesome.

And again, I can’t thank you guys enough for everything you guys are doing for everybody, including myself. And part of it was just trusting that it was going to work, and just knowing that I had the power and the community behind me to get me to where I needed to go. So again, thank you guys, and I just want to thank the community as well.

Sterling: You know, you’re very welcome. We love to hear that.

Jay: Yeah, it certainly is very fulfilling for us to hear that. I mean that’s the kind of stuff that we’re wanting to help out with in doing Internet Business Mastery. But you know, you’re to be commended for the way that you handled that situation, to look at it as an opportunity. And yeah, it’s never fun to lose a job. And I can remember shortly after September 11^th, I was fortunate not to lose my job because I had enough seniority. But watching a lot of my friends lose their jobs, and it was a difficult time.

But some of those people, I was able to see them seize it as an opportunity and be like okay, you know what? This is maybe just giving me the chance to maybe seize something new by the reigns, and maybe something I’ve always wanted to do. And you’re forced out of a comfort zone. Often that is the time to reevaluate, so I think that’s very cool.

Think back to how you felt a few months back then, but to see where you are now, and where your decisions have led you. That’s just very cool, and very motivating to hear about. So, congratulations on that.

Patrick: Thank you, I appreciate that. There’s actually a quote that someone from my LEED website told me after…I was having an email conversation with him, and I told him I just got laid off. And he messaged me with this, and this is really what changed me and got me really focused. He said, “You better thank your former employer for releasing your ball and chain, just for allowing me to get away from that and do my own thing.” So I was really appreciative of that.

Sterling: Yeah definitely with that work lifestyle you can very much get comfortable in just going wow, I don’t really…like I want to go do this other thing, but this money makes me comfortable, or whatever it is. So yeah, that’s definitely to be thrust into the world of being an entrepreneur.

Patrick: So lucky, and I’m really enjoying my lifestyle now. I haven’t had one day of stress since being laid off.

Sterling: Well speaking of lifestyle, what do you see as your ideal lifestyle, and in what ways is your current business already providing for that? Lack of stress, that’s one…

Patrick: Lack of stress, definitely. Well, I’m actually getting married in February. I was actually having this conversation with my fiancée about what we wanted to do, about where we wanted to be, and how we wanted to live. We’re not looking to live in a huge mansion in Fiji with five Ferraris and stuff like that.

We just want a house with a family, and to be financially independent. And honestly, with the amount I’m making right now I can do that. I can go get a house right now if I wanted to, and just live freely from financial stresses and just be at home with the family. When I have kids and stuff, I can do that as well.

And she doesn’t even have to work because the website’s doing that well. I mean I’m also working on other stuff just to diversify a little bit, but I could do what I want right now which is really awesome.

Sterling: Well and the great thing about it too is, I know obviously from us talking, some of your plans for the future. But, you’re doing really well right now with just one little thing, right? There’s all these big plans of things of things I know that you’ve got to come and what other things you want.

So that’s the great thing actually that Jay and I were just talking about this week, is how when we want a raise, we just come up with a new plan; a new product, a new part to a membership site, a new website or whatever. And our raise isn’t 6%, it could be $5,000 more a month, which is just crazy. And that’s the awesome aspect of this whole internet lifestyle thing. But yeah, I’m so glad that’s going on for you.

Patrick: Thank you, actually I’m in the middle of creating an audio guide of my ebook, and it could possibly double my income, and then I could have my house even sooner.

Jay: And that’s amazing in a time of when some people are hoping to just maybe get a 1% raise, or just to…

Sterling: …not get fired!

Jay: …here in the next month you could launch this new version of your product, and potentially double your pay. That’s just amazing to think about that.

Patrick: It’s unbelievable, it’s really unbelievable.

Jay: Well that’s awesome. I know I’ve gotten really excited just listening to your story here. It’s always a lot of fun to hear about the success of others, and their bold actions, and the things that have turned out…so thank you very much for spending time to share that with us. And I think definitely listeners are going to get a lot out of this as well.

And keep us in the loop as to how things progress for you; we’re excited to see where it goes for you from here. So thanks, Patrick.

Patrick: Thank you guys for having me, I really appreciate it.

Jay: Alright, thanks Patrick for that great interview. And now we’re going into dive into the second interview which is just as good. It’s about the same length, and like we said we wanted to include them both here – lots of good stuff.

This one is with Matt who is doing some very interesting stuff for the iPhone, and with iPhone apps. And you can find his website at App-Shop.com, and again, we’ll have links in the show notes on the blog for you to go and check out their site, and see what they’re doing. So let’s dive into the interview here with Matt.

Jay: Alright so on the phone we’ve got Matt here, who’s been a member of the Academy for a little while, and we’ve been watching what he’s been up to for the last while. He jumped on a very interesting opportunity, a new industry – very relatively new industry, provided by the illustrious Apple with the iPhone that came out.

This iPhone app industry has become quite the deal and that was something he saw as a great opportunity and jumped right into. So that’s definitely been very interesting to watch as he’s moved along in this. But we’re going to talk to him more about that, and get a feel for his story and his cubicle escape so to speak, and get a few insights about how he did that. So thanks Matt for being willing to share your story with us, and people don’t just have to take our word for it. That’s kind of nice.

Matt: Well great, and thank you for having me.

Jay: Yeah, not a problem. So let’s start out by having you give a brief background on what you’re doing now, but also what led you into doing internet business, and kind of where you’re at right now.

Matt: Okay, so right now what I’m doing is writing and selling software for the iPhone and the iPod touch. And the reason I started doing that was because about this time last year I started to feel really unhappy at work. I was basically a data analyst at Princeton, and I just finished graduate school, not really sure what do next.

I had this idea and feeling I needed to move on from my job, but I didn’t really know what I should do. But then in March, Apple announced they were opening up the iPhone to developers, and they were going to provide a marketplace to developers to sell their work.

So since I was already a really big iPhone fan, and I was excited because I figured I could have my own phone, I got really excited about the whole idea of doing that. This announcement was in March, but eventually it occurred to me that I could probably actually start writing software and maybe even selling it.

And sort of at that point a friend of mine actually kind of turned me on to your podcast, and I started listening, and I really started changing my ideas about working and money. So you guys were a pretty big inspiration on that.

But after a few weeks of doing that, I kind of got this idea that not only could I maybe make my own iPhone software, but I feeling a little inspired that I could actually develop an entire company around it, and maybe even change what  I did for a living. So, I really just got that idea in my head and started taking a lot of bold actions.

And basically where I was at, after five months or so after that announcement, I was selling my first product. So I was pretty excited about that.

Sterling: And how long ago was that altogether from when you decided oh my gosh, I’m going to do this iPhone apps thing until now?

Matt: That is about nine months now I think total. It was in March, so I think it was about none months or so.

Sterling: Okay so you’re making money off your site by selling your iPhone apps?

Matt: Yeah, really it’s the iPhone apps themselves that are making money, and the site is kind of there to drive traffic to iTunes. The main focus of my website is to support the software products.

Jay: So are you also teaching people how to make iPhone apps or are you simply making your own apps and selling them right now?

Matt: Right now, I’m making my own apps and selling them, although teaching is something I’m thinking of doing at some point. Although right now, it’s only been the third week full time at this. I actually went back and forth, and in a period actually thought I might try to teach another kind of programming.

But I’m actually thinking about maybe in a year or so, trying to expand things and doing something like that – teaching, or maybe talking about the iPhone business in particular, or even just the mobile software business in particular. But that’s one of the things I kind of want to develop the iPhone business part first, as kind of a way to maybe jump off from there.

Jay: I can see a lot of angles you can go in this, but that’s important to have focus. I mean I think that’s great you evaluated that and decided well, I can go these two or three different ways now that I’ve quit my job, but I’m going to focus on this. And so yeah, clearly there’s some great places for you to sidestep and expand as you move forward, so that’s very cool.

Sterling: Alright, so one of the things we wanted to know is, what the biggest obstacle for you was in launching your site, and how did you overcome it?

Matt: Well the biggest obstacle for this was I didn’t really know how to write programs for the iPhone….

Sterling: That’s a big one.

Matt: I knew about programming, although I wasn’t really doing programming in the normal software developer sense, I was more of a data analyst. So I had to learn how to do all that, and I never even really used an Apple computer before, which is required to write programs for the phone.

Even better, at the time there is a non-disclosure agreement, so it was impossible to actually ask anyone online for help or to get training. That was a little bit difficult, and also the way that the Apple iPhone is programmed, it’s just a lot different than the other technologies that I’ve ever really been exposed to.

It’s very unique, it’s interesting, it’s really fun to work with but it’s also very different than what I’m used to. So what I ended up having to do is fly to San Francisco to attend the Apple developer conference. So what it really was, was a general conference, but it was also five days of training and presentations, and at the time it was the only place to really get any of that.

So I went out there to basically turbo charge my speed at learning that programming. So on the plane trip home actually I ended up working on my first product, which is Wine Pad. So I think it really paid off, I spent about $2,000 really on the total trip. I’m pretty sure that within the first month I made at least three times that.

So I was actually pretty happy with the whole thing. And I don’t really think without that training I would have been able to release that first product in the same time frame as I did. That one week really sped up my learning really fast. So that’s really how I overcame that problem.

Jay: Well this is a great story, I didn’t know all this. And this is really fascinating, because I mean clearly you had two or three pretty “good reasons” to maybe just go, “Oh no, I can’t do this,” because it’s like there’s no information online, and it’s going to be too hard. But you made a big step there by going ahead and throwing down money enough to fly across the country to San Francisco and attend a conference which I’m assuming had a sizable fee to it as well.

But that was a serious big action, a massive action, a bold action that took you a big step towards what you’re wanting to accomplish, and clearly it paid off for you. So it’s very cool to hear all about that. Now had you programmed some before just in some other senses, in other areas? Did you have some background in programming?

Matt: I don’t have an academic background in programming, but my last job I did a lot of programming. And in my last job, I really decided a few years ago I really wanted to go in the direction of being a programmer; I wasn’t a professional programmer.

I really sort of tried to leverage, and angle myself in my job, and tried to get as many programming oriented projects as possible. So I have spent a few years doing like Windows programming, and statistical programming. It’s not really like the iPhone, but it definitely is the same kind of work really.

Jay: Yeah, okay. Well one thing I’m fascinated by is that fact you weren’t even…you said you hadn’t even really used an Apple computer, so it’s not like you were this typical Apple fan boy who wanted to jump all over this. And so I’m kind of fascinated as to why…you said that you had found an iPhone, and you were just really interested in making things work for it.

So I don’t know, was there something in particular that really you found fulfilling in this whole idea that really attracted you to go ahead and dive in? Not actually being a previous Apple user?

Matt: Well I have to tell you, it’s actually very disorienting trying to use an Apple computer as a programmer without even knowing the little details and how they work. I’m interested in general technology, so for me it’s sort of fun to learn a new kind of operating environment.

Even though I wasn’t an Apple user, I was a huge fan of the iPhone. And it was properly the first mobile phone I ever had, which I really, really enjoy, and actually I brought with me everywhere, and actually used, and the text messaging. I was really getting frustrated with the fact that you couldn’t do any programming for, or even buy any kind of apps without actually opening up your phone and hacking it in an inappropriate way I guess you could say.

I thought it was worth…because I always had this phone with me, I was such a big fan of the phone, I thought it was worth learning the new technology for a chance to get it to work, and maybe to do little projects here and there at the time I thought it would be neat. A part of it is just I always find myself with at least the technology I’m always interested in learning the next new thing.

And I’m not usually satisfied with learning one kind of operating system or technology, or programming language. So, for me it wasn’t a huge deal to do, and also Steve Jobs sort of made a really hard sell in March, and really made people interested in the entire platform.

And the fact that they had this entire marketplace developed for people and individuals and small groups of people who would be able to develop for a phone like this, and sell it directly to customers. And I think an interesting way for software to go that’s not just the huge monolithic companies that has a thousand people working on a project, and can never really interact with the people who actually develop the software.

I’ve already talked to most of the different people who write apps for the iPhone, I’m able to talk to personally, because it’s only one person or a very small company working on it, and I thought that was pretty exciting. So I thought it was worth it whoever wants to get involved with it.

Jay: So it sounds like you’re a techie guy, you’re a tinkerer, and the newness and freshness of this new operating system, this new idea was very attractive to you.

Well another thing I’m curious about is so you decided to do iPhone apps, but that meant creating…well and another thing I loved about your story is that you said on the way home from the conference you’re already writing your first thing. And I found that’s a very common characteristic with people that we’ve seen succeed.

They go to these conferences to learn about these things, and it’s like in their hotel room at night, they’re already implementing them to see the results happen. And so that’s something that stuck out in your story as well.

But the other thing I’m curious about is how did you go about choosing…I mean the niche was in the niche, but how did you go about choosing what your first iPhone app was going to be as far as feeling good about it, ‘this is something I want to do, this is the app I want to develop, I will like this will have a demand and people will buy this,’ was there a process of thinking that went on in there as far as choosing your first app?

Matt: Well my process of thinking wasn’t particularly sophisticated at the time. It was something I knew I wanted for myself; it’s something I attempted to write when I had a Windows mobile phone. And it was a wine journal, and the reason I did it was mostly because I had the idea of the problems faced involved with writing that kind of app.

And I thought I could probably make it through the project, that the main purpose of that was really to learn how to do the programming, and also just to make something for myself. And I guess I kind of figured for maybe trying to pick up on that Tim Ferriss book, if you make a product for yourself, at least you know you have one customer.

I did sort of look around, and I saw there were some websites that provide this kind of wine journal functionality that is typical of a website user experience. And I didn’t really find anything on either mobile phones, but the other mobile phone app’s platform isn’t really all that great. So I figured that it was good enough, it was worth a shot.

And if it wasn’t the most successful program, then there’s a lot of other programs that could be written. And the way the iPhone software is, it’s kind of simple to write. I mean the one person can write it, and he can do it in a relatively short period of time. And so if one product doesn’t really hit big, you can always try another idea and see how that works.

Jay: Absolutely, and again some great points there in your story, because I think a lot of people get hung up on that thinking about, “Oh what’s my first niche going to be?” “Okay, what’s my first product going to be?” And they’re looking for this definite big answer out there that’s like going to confirm this is absolutely the one that’s going to be successful, you’ve got to do this one.

And it sounds like you just went with a gut feel; you’re like this is one I’d like to see. Yeah there’s a little competition, but I can do it better. If this one doesn’t hit big, well at least I’ve learned in the process of making it, and there’s plenty of other products out there I can continue to make out there anyway. And so that kind of just forward momentum always pays off.

And so again, I think that’s a great lesson learned from listening to your story there. So what do you think is one of the biggest tips that you could share for others still trying to work towards making money online? I know of other Internet Business Mastery listeners and community members who are in the beginning stages or still trying to make that first dollar, trying to choose their niche maybe, or whatever the case may be.

And they’re hearing your story, and they’re wondering, “Okay, well what’s one of the biggest things you can share for me to help me kind of arrive to the success that you’ve had so far?” What would that tip be that you’d want to share with them?

Matt: Well that tip would probably be the tip that I got from you guys first. And that is really honestly taking those really, really bold actions every single day, at least in the beginning. So you come up with a plan, and you find you have to do these things. And they seem really, really huge and stuff in the beginning, but they’re really not as big as you think they are once you actually get through them.

But each day you just take one more step, and eventually you’re going to get there, or you’re going to find out that what you’re doing needs to be adjusted in some way. But I think if you just take that action every day, and always moving forward, then I think it’s probably the best thing to do.

Sterling: That’s really awesome, and speaking of bold actions, you recently escaped the ‘9 to 5,’ and I was going to ask you to tell us a little bit about how that process that went for you, and what challenges did you face, and how did you come to make that decision to do that?

Matt: Well, um, that decision kind of evolved over a period of like six months or so. And I kind of really eased out of that job. And the thing about my job it wasn’t really a difficult or bad job in the first place. I kind of liked where I worked, and I was kind of one of those people who sort of…I guess you can that the Golden Handcuffs, I had a nice job and everything else.
But once I started doing this in July, I actually had to reduce my hours to 60% of my normal time just to get the Wine Pad app out. And I got to this point where for about three or four months I was going back and forth two days at my day job, and three days doing my iPhone stuff.

And it really got to this point that I just couldn’t really focus on my day job at all, and when I did in the middle of the week switch back to my iPhone job, it was very difficult to change gears. And I kind of felt there really wasn’t much point in sticking to the day job anymore.

And I think too during that time I was listening to your podcast, and after you start making money at the business and stuff, it gets very, very difficult to stay in the regular job. I had actually two difficult challenges though for actually leaving.

At first it’s just having that sit down with my boss trying to tell them that I wanted to quit, and the reasons why and everything. After all those years of sort of being invested in a pretty small team, it’s just a difficult thing to do. Because I kind of felt like I was letting them down, but I had to obviously take care of myself.

But the other issue was that my wife also works in the same company, and some of the systems only I have knowledge of actually affects her work. And that becomes a little difficult, because there’s always that possibility that she’ll drag me back into that work. It’s kind of hard.

I actually gave them the option of hiring me as a consultant if it ever really comes to that point, if the systems they have need to be fixed. So we’ll see where that goes, but that’s kind of how I sort of dealt with that. For me, it was a pretty long process.

Sterling: Well I can only imagine that you’re there doing something and your mind is somewhere else, and you’re making money at the other thing that you would rather be doing. It’s so just a matter of time at that point. I can’t even imagine.

Matt: It really is, I mean my boss should have known that something was going to happen eventually. It was fairly obvious towards the end where my head really was. And unfortunately my job before wasn’t the kind of job I could really just phone in, it demanded a lot of my attention.

Jay: Well the interesting thing is you were almost in a more dangerous spot because if you had hated your job, you would have had that extra motivation. But like you said, ‘Well I kind of enjoyed my job and it paid well, and it’s not like I hated the people I worked with.’ So it was just easy to nestle into this comfort zone, and kind of just chug along.

But that’s pretty cool that you were still able to come to…I mean clearly the ‘unemployability’ was working its way in. So eventually you made the hard decision, so that’s great.

Well one last thing I want to ask you about is we talk a lot about the lifestyle design thing, so maybe just give us a little picture of your ideal lifestyle, and what it would look like. And maybe tell us in what ways your current business is already providing for some of that ideal lifestyle.

Matt: Well this is actually one of the more difficult things to actually deal with. It’s actually one of the things I went back in the Academy to go through from the beginning because I really wasn’t thinking of lifestyle choices when I started the business.

It was really just that I was aglamoured with the whole iPhone in the first place I think, but I had actually gone through it. I think one of the things that really struck me when I was dealing with this back in March was that they had this huge great opportunity suddenly pop into my lap that I had absolutely no way to actually work on it.

And I realized in the future, if something like that happens, I want to be able to actually choose the sort of project I work on. So my mind wasn’t really on the vacations and tropical islands. I really, really wanted to be able to choose the kinds of interesting things to actually work on.

I didn’t want to be stuck doing this thing I’d been doing for seven years when this great new shiny thing is out there, which could make a million dollars or no money, but it would be very interesting to work on. That’s probably the main thing; my main thing was really flexible time. I want to be able to choose my direction.

Sterling: Well and it’s funny because I think that a lot of people when you talk about lifestyle, they think of tropical islands and such, but what we talk a lot about I think in the Academy more is all the specifics. Like for me and Jay, we like what we do so we do it each day.

It’s not like we just go out and sit on the beach all day or anything like that, but yeah like you said, it’s a matter of choosing and we both have moved where we want to live exactly. And that kind of stuff and what you’re actually doing on a day-to-day basis, not just a couple of cool vacations during the year or whatever. And that’s a huge difference.

Matt: Oh definitely. Although I wouldn’t mind living in San Diego I have to say.

Sterling: Oh yeah, it’s nice.

Jay: Actually there seems to be cold fronts across the nation as we speak.

Sterling: Yeah normally it’s 64 right now and sunny.

Matt: Wow, I think it’s 40 here and we’re covered in ice.

Sterling: I’m going to the beach right after this, so there you go…

Jay: Well and I like asking that lifestyle question because it can vary for many people. And I think the freedom and time is a very common denominator, but yeah, it can look very different for lots of people. And so I think that’s fun to hear what different people’s ideal lifestyle looks like.

And we like to use the quintessential laptop on the beach picture, because that chimes a certain idea of that freedom of time, and not a care in the world. But yeah, it’s very cool to hear what it is for everybody, and everybody’s got a little bit of a different flavor what they like to achieve with their business.
But it sounds like you’re well on that road, and so we’re very excited for you, and definitely excited to hear your story. I know whenever I hear these processes someone else has gone through, even though I’ve been through some of it, still it just gets me pumped up and excited. It makes me want to go do something.

So I’m hoping that other people listening to this, I think definitely will have learned some things and gotten that motivation as well. So we absolutely want to congratulate you on your bold moves and the success you’ve had so far. And we look forward to where you will be going in the future, and thank you for sharing your story with us Matt.

Matt: Well thank you guys.

Sterling: And before you go, give us your website URL.

Matt: Okay, my website URL, the main website is App-Shop.com. And each product has it’s own sub-site which you can get from that main site. And also all my products are on iTunes, so it would probably be the easiest place to look for any of our stuff is iTunes.

Jay: Well I think I’m going to be getting an iPod touch soon, so I will definitely be checking your site out. Thank you very much for your time, and have a great new year as we go into 2009.

Matt: Okay, you too!

Jay: Thanks again to both Patrick and Matt for sharing their inspirational success stories with us. We just love hearing that kind of stuff, so you don’t have to take our work for it, but the stuff really works. And it’s just really exciting to see people making their lifestyles happen, making their internet business dreams come together. So I know I’m all jazzed, and ready to go.
And I’m probably going to frantically be taking some actions this afternoon and trying to use this great energy to good use. So I know I enjoyed going through those and we are hoping to do more of these interviews in the future.

Sterling: Well and this is exactly what we wanted to hear, and the type of fulfillment we wanted from doing this. Although as kind of a joking part of my mind, I was like hey guys, how come they made so much money so fast? It took me a long time to get it going!

Of course that was the entire point of the Academy for us was, so people didn’t have to take as long as we did and go through every single mistake that we did. But at the same time I’m like, Oh Pat, making $10,000 a month that fast! It took me so long to get to that. But like I said, that’s why we did the Academy; throw everything we learned in there.

Jay: But I guess we were expecting to shortcut it for hearujhd

them, and that’s exactly what happened.

Sterling: Yeah good job. Okay anyway, so here’s the question for this episode: if you’ve quit your job or you’ve taken massive action in 2008, we want to hear about it. Please visit the blog and post for episode 55, and share your story in the comments.

And really please take the time to share your story, because it really helps to inspire others in the Internet Business Mastery community.

Jay: Alright, we just have one quick announcement for you. It’s a little ‘Coming Soon’ teaser, something to look forward to in 2009. I just got so excited about these stories that were shared today in the interviews, and also just some of the other success stories we’ve been hearing throughout the Academy – people starting to quit their jobs, and plans to quit their jobs in early 2009 that we thought, we want to have the Wall of Independence.

We want to hear about people’s Independence Day stories when they break free and escape the ‘9 to 5.’ So, we’re just dropping that out there, be watching for that. And stay tuned for the Wall of Independence, we’re going to be putting a little something special together, and we’ll be wanting to hear your Independence Day story. So definitely get ready for that.

It’s time for the Internet Business Quick Tip…

Jay: Alright, on this episode’s Internet Business Quick Tip, we’ve got a new kind of metric that gives valuable insight on how user friendly your site is. In fact, this Quick Tip comes thanks to one of the people we interviewed for this episode – Patrick, who’s a member of the Academy.

And inside the Academy, we’ve got an area where in the mastermind community where they share new tools, and tips, and new sites they’ve come across, new services they’re using, and they can ask and share those kinds of things in this resource area.

And this is one that he shared recently in there, and immediately it was like, whoa I’ve got to implement this on our site. And whenever a big company like Amazon or someone designs or creates a new piece of their design, or changes their interface a bit, one of the things that these companies do is they’ll pull a focus group and they might have them sit down and use their site or some other sites, and just watch how they interact with the site, and take notes, and have them maybe talk out loud of what is going on in their minds as they go through…to give that insight.

Because it’s just easy to throw up a design and go, “Oh, this is perfect,” and you have no idea some of the thoughts or hang-ups people might have when they come and use your site. Well it’s not always easy for a small business such as us to do something like that.

However, this particular new metric, this new service online makes it easy for you to kind of look over the shoulder of people using your site and get a little bit of an idea of what do they click on, where do they go? Where is their attention right away? Do they get hung up on something? Do they have a hard time finding something?

And so today’s Quick Tip is for a service, a website called ClickTale.com. And we’ll have a link to that in the show notes on the blog. But what Click Tale does is it gives you a little piece of code that you can install on your site, and what it does is it will record when people show up to your site, it will actually on the page that you specify, it will record their actions.

And it makes a little video that you can watch and see where their cursor goes, and what they click on. And it gets some very interesting and invaluable insights. Now the free version is limited; there’s only a certain number of recordings that you get. But even that to try out and get a feel is good, and you can always pay to have the more recordings and more metrics.

And if you’re doing a new campaign, you can pay for a month or two and see how that works for you. So highly recommend checking this out, or trying this out on some of our sites to see what insights we get. And it just allows you to tweak the site, and make it more valuable for people. Now of course this is an anonymous thing, you can’t grab any of the person’s information, but that’s fine. It’s just watching the cursor of an anonymous user and seeing where they go, and then you’ve got several of these that you can look at.

So check out ClickTale.com and give that a try on your site and see if it doesn’t give you some interesting input as to how user friendly your site is. And thanks Patrick, for sharing that one with us.

Sterling: Now if you’d like dozens of other resources such as this one, you can find them in the Internet Business Mastery Academy, along with video tutorials showing you exactly how we use them. To get your 30 day no risk trial membership to the Internet Business Mastery Academy, visit FreeAudioGift.com.

Sterling: Now if you’ve like dozen of other resources such as this one, you can find them in the Internet Business Mastery Academy along with video tutorials of us showing you exactly how we use them. And to get a 30 day no risk trial membership to the Internet Business Mastery Academy, visit freeaudiogift.com.

That’s it for this episode of Internet Business Mastery, until next time we wish you ultimate success in your internet business.

You’ve been listening to the Iconiclass of the 9 to 5, and the purveyors of freedom and fulfillment – Sterling and Jay! Sterling and Jay invite you to discover one of their most popular audio programs ever, the free builders of designing your ultimate internet lifestyle! Visit freeaudiogift.com now and sign up for the free weekly Internet Business Mastery email newsletter! And you’ll get instant access to the life changing audio presentations, pulled directly from the content of the acclaimed Internet Business Mastery Academy membership community. Go now to freeaudiogift.com! Internet Business Mastery – free your mind!