023 : An entity’s warm blanket with Matthew Moisan

Matthew Moisan LegalWhen I was talking to my friend Andrew about joining him to help co-found TripExpert, I was handed a big stack of legal papers to trudge through and eventually sign. As I was reading them, my eyes began to cross. I thought I understood most of it, but I had no idea whether anything in there was good or bad, or if anything should be added or removed.

I knew I needed to get some help from someone who was better versed in founders’ agreements than me. On the recommendation of a friend, I got in touch with a lawyer specializing in startups and had him take a look. With just a 30-minute phone call and a few emails back in forth, he potentially saved me thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars. And I now had full understanding of the document I was signing.

Law can be an intimidating field, and first-time entrepreneurs often have so many unanswered questions: when should you talk to a lawyer? What type of lawyer should you hire? Where can you even find a lawyer?

My guest today is Matthew Moisan of Moisan Legal. We discuss exactly what you need to know about law as you’re delving into entrepreneurship, and how to best set yourself up for success.

In just 50 minutes, he’ll raise you out of law novice-dom, and there’s honestly not a dull moment.

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022 : Why you should have started a blog yesterday

Dann Berg by Michael ShaneIn this week’s podcast episode, I share how I escaped the retail world and got into tech journalism. It’s all because of a little personal website I started. I also explain how you, too, can benefit from starting your own website — even if you don’t want to get int journalism — and how to do it.

This is a special edition of the podcast because there’s no guest, it’s just me! I ended up getting so much feedback and so many questions about last week’s podcast that I wanted to tell my story in more depth.

If you don’t yet have your own website, you need to listen to this episode. When you’re ready to get going, I’ve embedded the first tutorial in my video course.

If you found this helpful, please use my Bluehost affiliate link to get your hosting and domain!

Check out the rest of the videos here!

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020 : Gotta keep hustling with Laura and Sara of DigitalFlash

Laura Sarah DigitalFlashHave you ever gone to an event and thought it was just “meh”? Maybe you signed up because of the awesome lineup of panelists, but the questions posed by the moderator were just boring and there wasn’t any opportunity to ask questions. Or maybe the food sucked and all you wanted was a drink.

Laura and Sara met at a networking event that just didn’t suit their tastes. But they didn’t let it bother them — they turned their experiences into opportunity. Both Sara and Laura knew that together, they could throw amazing events, and they did just that.

DigitalFlash grew out of a desire for the types of events that the cofounders wanted to attend, and people responded. In this podcast, the two co-founders share how their events grew and how they started creating digital experiences for larger companies. If you visited the Samsung booth at the 2014 SXSW, you were a part of their work.

These two women are the very definition of the word hustle — they even left a convention floor in Vegas to appear on this podcast! They never stop.

If you need some motivation to keep on keeping on, this is the episode for you.

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How to quickly make GIFs and become an outsourcing master

Using GIF Brewery to make a GIF

I still have the chat logs from my endless hours spent on AOL Instant Messenger back in high school (2000 – 2004). I rediscovered them recently and spent about ten minutes reading before I couldn’t go on any further. Every other word made me cringe.

There’s a very specific reason why I was cringing: I remembered exactly what I was thinking as I had those conversations, but that is not at all how it came across as I looked back at things. I thought I was properly communicating my thoughts, but everything was actually coming out all wrong. I wasn’t being witty, I was just being a jerk.

I’ve become slightly better with words since then (I hope!) but there’s only so far that text chats can get you. When you’re trying to explain something to someone, there are times when words aren’t enough. You need to show them.

But when you’re not sitting right next to that person, showing can be difficult. There are a few different ways to solve this problem. Chris Ducker, of Virtual Freedom, crafted what he calls the VA Training Trifecta, in which an entrepreneur can either text, audio, video, or some combination therein to communicate tasks with virtual staff.

But there’s another powerful tool that I use nearly everyday to quickly show people exactly what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about GIFs.

A GIF is the perfect communication tool for describing small bits of dynamic information, like how a button animation should work or the way something is working on your computer. You can guarantee that whoever you’re talking to can see exactly what you’re seeing, and it’s much easier to show rather than trying to describe the problem with words or going through the hassle of creating a huge screencast.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a GIF is worth over 9,000!

I’ve perfected a system that lets me make GIFs on my Mac in about 30 seconds. I’m going to show you exactly how I do it. Continue reading

019 : Passive income through YouTube and Kindle with Brian Yang

Brian YangMost people think securing passive income is all about releasing a killer online product that generates a boatload of income and will continue to sell itself in perpetuity.

With this mindset, people will often sit around doing nothing, waiting for the “perfect idea” to strike. Or they’ll spend years tweaking their product, making small changes with every new article or tutorial they read, but never actually release the finished version.

But passive income isn’t about creating and releasing a perfect product that nets thousands of dollars. It’s about setting up lots of smaller imperfect products, testing the market, and perfecting the most effective income generators.

Once your goal become diversifying your offerings, instead is creating a perfect single product, you’ll start seeing the money start rolling in. And that money will only snowball larger as it’s reinvested.

My guest today is Brian Yang, an online entrepreneur and the most popular dance teacher for men on YouTube. He shares exactly how he built his YouTube business, as well as what he’s doing in the Kindle Marketplace.

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