“If I’m gonna have a hobby, why not do something that I have potential to do it professionally.”
In today’s show, we have a living . . . breathing image of Inspiring Innovation. He’s a full-time software engineer who followed his instincts and created simple a solution to an everyday problem. Now, backed by Kickstarter, Frank Cho has created his eCommerce business — going within weeks from idea to over $22,000 already pledged to his Kickstarter campaign!
The Inspiration
The idea came to him while listening to a podcast on his way to work. When it was time to get out of the car and pause the episode, he was left with the dilemma of where to put his earbuds.
Refusing to put them in his pocket where they would get all tangled up, unwilling to let it hang and risking it snagging onto something — Frank realized there’s just no good place to put your earbuds on-the-go. Why can’t you just have them hang without disturbing, tangling, or snatching onto things??
That’s when the concept of Zipi came to his mind.
Zipi Magnetic Earbud Strap (Image 1)
Taking Action
Frank didn’t indulge too much on how great his idea seemed to him. He asked his friends to validate some interest, and then set to create a prototype. He researched online and found the pieces he wanted, then super-glued it himself on the kitchen table.
If there was one true overnight success, it’s Frank’s Kickstarter campaign. The media monster TechCrunch picked up on his campaign and featured it while he was sleeping. By the time he woke up — his phone was going off the hook. He also already surpassed his fundraising goal of $6,000 — the cost of creating the initial injection mold, and has already raised over $22,000 to-date.
Zipi Magnetic Earbud Strap Image 3
Tune in to this week’s episode for the full story of Frank, the full-time engineer that created his first eCommerce business with no money down and no manufacturing experience.
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people! Leave a review for Meron’s podcast! Thank you again for your ongoing support.
Stay awesome,
Meron
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This week, my show has been hijacked by Alex Barker of Leadership Dojo, and boy, has he certainly turned the tables on me!
Being on the receiving end of this interview certainly brought out the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of my journey, including the reasons and inspirations that led to the creation of Inspiring Innovation Magazine and — of course — Inspiring Innovation Podcast!
A Journey To The Past
With a bit of retrospect and a touch of nostalgia, discover how a kid from a kibbutz in Israel went out of the norm and set to create a life free of restrictions and filled endless opportunities. I myself never realized until Alex asked me, what made my younger self search so obsessively for other ways to live life. What was the trigger? What could I not stand imagining myself doing? You’ll have to tune in to find out 🙂
My entrepreneurial journey started early on in my life. At a young age, I developed an affinity for computers and technology. Gifted with anything to do with mathematics and considered to be a genius by some, I moved on to acquire more knowledge to equip myself with what (I thought) I needed for my better future. That included leaving high-school at 10th grade and moving straight on to my undergrad degree, with a master plan to become the youngest person to get a Ph.D ever! (Yeah.. that didn’t happen..).
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
However, in life, you have to expect the unexpected.
With numerous opportunities already on my way, the universe gave me a trial — in shape of a pretty bad car accident. As Alex points out in the interview – while it might have defeated someone else, I never let that blow put me down.
As I lay recovering, I’ve never kept an idle mind. Even incapacitated and with my injuries keeping me awake for long hours, I listened to audiobooks that inevitably inspired me to look for alternate ways to generate income. I started a business from bed – and it did fine for a while – until I took one bad, bad, piece of advice that ended up crumbling my business (we discuss everything in detail in today’s episode!).
So I moved on.
Going Corporate
Needing to make ends meet, I took a corporate job. While managing hundreds of thousands to sometimes multi-million dollars projects, being a technical lead, and managing employees with the freedom to hire and fire them at will — all at the age of 22 — was a dream of many of my fellow undergrads. Yet, I was unfulfilled.
Searching for a better way, I stumbled upon podcasts. People like Pat Flynn and Leslie Samuel were making it big in the world of online business, and right then I knew that’s how I want to design my own life.
I left my job a few months later and was back to entrepreneurship. But I had no clue what my next move would be. I just knew it was the only way for me.
Entrepreneur, Again!
For the second half of today’s interview, I’ll take you from that moment of realization that I am, and always have been, an entrepreneur, to the HOW and the WHY of Inspiring Innovation as you know it today.
Tune in to this week’s episode and you’ll discover the nitty gritty details of my entrepreneurial journey and more – and please, leave me a review so I know what you think of this episode. 🙂
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people! Leave a review for Meron’s podcast! Thank you again for your ongoing support.
Stay awesome,
Meron
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
What makes anyone walk away from the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect income, all the things they worked so hard to achieve… and reboot their lives?
How did our guest handle the journey from rock bottom to conquering the peaks of corporate and material success, just to realize she still hasn’t fulfilled her life’s purpose?
This episode is going to be in-your-faze and brutally honest — just like our remarkable guest: Chief kicker of shins and an amazing entrepreneur, professional coach, speaker, business strategy consultant, author, half of The Shut Up Show (a podcast and blog with Phil Gerbyshak), and the founder and president of Xiong Consulting LLC – Berni Xiong.
Berni Xiong
Married With A Baby At 16, To a 6-Figure Monthly Salary?!
Yes, that’s the first part of today’s amazing story: The ultimate misfit, making it big in the corporate. There’s no doubt that leaving high-school at the age of 16 to have a baby is not exactly the run-of-the-mill beginning to an inspirational story of success, definitely not in corporate America.
Still (listen to the interview to find out how), Berni reached an enterprising career that went on for 12 years, working as a corporate sales executive and managing a multi-million territory for Fortune 500 companies. She wore designer clothes, lived in a penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan, earned a six-figure monthly salary and spent a lot of time in airports and luxury hotels.
It might sound like an amazing life (well, actually, if you follow my podcast, I doubt if you’ll think that living in airports for the sake of your company is that amazing), but underneath it all, she felt unfulfilled. Growing sick and tired of having a job that sucked the life out of her – finally, in 2008, she had enough. Waving goodbye to her corporate job and lifestyle, she embarked on a different and scary path – a solo coaching business led by a fulfilled misfit.
Today, Berni works with small business owners and solopreneurs, helping them work out their fears and help them become leaders in their chosen industries. Apart from that, after finding her life’s purpose and her voice, she set off to do good sh*t by joining forces with other inspiring entrepreneurs, making a difference in this world through charitable and philanthropic deeds.
To reinforce her voice of inspiration, she writes on her blog and newsletter (Your Life Spark Weekly) about love, life, relationships, career, how to brave through the other side of fear, how to talk out the fears out loud in a safe place like writing, how to make sense of what you’re going through so you can do something about it and more. And by 2013, she co-founded and launched a successful podcast “The Shut Up Show” with Phil Gerbyshak to share more and inspire more.
Shut Up and Make Things Happen!
Berni has finally arrived.
With many things in store for 2014, including her podcast, her online community and an upcoming book, Berni is on a winning streak. But as she shares in today’s interview, the more important thing is that Berni finally found WHO she is, and in that, her purpose in this world.
This episode is truly jam-packed, brimming and over-flowing with life-altering revelations, practical advice, unconventional wisdom and stuff you are surely going to take into your own lives. Click play, and tune in to the latest Inspiring Innovation episode.
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people! Leave a review for Meron’s podcast! Thank you again for your ongoing support.
Stay awesome,
Meron
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
“If you don’t take that step, you’re never going to be able to do it.”
In the 42nd episode of the Inspiring Innovation Podcast, we are joined by Cahill Puil, an entrepreneur and a fitness buff, who shares with us his eCommerce success story — from the initial idea, to making it a life changing reality that’s making an approximate $250,000 in annual revenue.
But before anything else, what’s the product?
LapDawg is a mini laptop table that is adjustable and can be used on a couch, on your bed or when you are lying down somewhere. It is designed to keep your laptop in a specific angle that will help you use it even when you’re forced to lie down while you’re sick and have to check your emails or even watch a movie.
“We came up with an idea from a situation. I think that’s the way most ideas happen.”
Cahill Puil
Cahill talks about how they did the research online through various websites, looking for a product similar to what they had in mind, finding none with all the specifics they wanted and eventually going to the Canton Fair in China, the biggest trade fair in the world, to find a manufacturer that can make their idea for LapDawg into a reality.
During the interview, he shares the process of creating a product from the ground up. He talks about how long LapDawg had been running, how long it took from an idea to become a tangible product, and the meticulous process it goes through before the product is ready to hit the market.
He also went on to share what he learned regarding manufacturing and how finally putting the product out in the market actually scared him.
“It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be a little bit scared and nervous about it”
Just like most entrepreneurs that are beset with fears, Cahill shares his experience in overcoming his fears in launching a new product into the market, as well as the pains and efforts he took in making sure the product is as he and his partners thought it would be.
He pointed out the importance of knowing your product from the inside out and testing it, which will help market it with confidence. He also added that it’s alright to diversify and not to limit yourself to just one niche once you’ve already figured out the process of going from idea to manufacturing it.
Overestimate. Diversify. Reassess. Test.
By travelling numerous times to China and the South East, outsourcing and importing products for his e-commerce project and small businesses, Cahill and his partners have accumulated quite an extensive knowledge in manufacturing and project management. They learned how to create safe and realistic expectations — expecting 4-12 months in order to break-even before profiting — and having a very conservative estimate to alleviate disappointments and frustrations.
Listen to today’s episode for the full story – only on Inspiring Innovation; your backstage pass to success.
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
Just a year ago I met Jared at Pat Flynn’s meetup in Vegas. A year later – he hosts the podcasting sensation, ‘Starve The Doubts‘, where he already featured amazing guests (like Seth Godin) and now – he’s an NMX speaker!
The Answers!
What are the must-read books for entrepreneurs in 2014?
Srini: I recommend Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims. It’s all about how doing small things can lead to bigger things; taking affordable loses (things that won’t bankrupt you or leave you destitute) approach to the risk and innovation. Anybody who does creative work should have this book in their arsenal.
Meron: I recommend The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business In Any Field of Mike Michalowicz, which tells the concept of kicking out the ‘best practice’ – of trying to get tons of customers, and realizing that you don’t need tons; you just need the right customers that are like you. You want only the customers that you understand, and understand you. That’s how you make a business that makes you happy and not just makes you money.
What podcasts should an entrepreneur follow in 2014?
Srini: I recommend Off Camera by Sam Jones; Jones interviews comedians, musicians, filmmakers and people like Tony Hawk and Stacy Peralta — a bizarre mix of people you don’t typically find in the online world.
Meron: Mixergy, a must-listen podcast for any entrepreneur.
What’s one thing that really worked for you in 2013, that entrepreneurs should try in order to make 2014 work for them?
Jared: First is the simple act of doing. Go ahead and take that step because no one wins by sitting on the sidelines; you have to get in the game. You may not have all the answers but just thinking about your current job or business, you didn’t have the answers when you first started that. You were either mentored or asked questions to people who knew and you learned. As you learned, you get to be competent; you’ll figure things out and you shift and pivot along the way.
Second, Consider being the “noticer“. If you can first notice other people, there’s a likelihood that those people will begin to notice what you’re doing, and the law of reciprocity will eventually kick in. So, for people who are trying to build an audience or trying to grow their brand, consider ways that you can notice your prospect first and that will have a powerful opportunity to build up into a rapport-building relationship which can then grow to be a client or customer.
David: Get a business coach or get someone to mentor you, especially if you feel a bit stuck, not quite sure, you’ve been trying and been going at it for awhile, but things haven’t been quite fallen into place, I think sometimes you need a bit of outside perspective that can help get you on track.
Srini: Write a thousand words a day. It’s done wonders for me. Don’t think of it as a task or a to-do, think of it as a habit. To learn how to form this habit – check out The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg [we go through Srini’s habit cue, routine and reward loop in the episode – MB].
The thousand words don’t have to be good. By creating all these crap, you’ll be able to find gold.
Meron: Figuring out who’s your avatar, who are you really talking to. This helped me immensely realize what I can offer them and what do they really need. Once I did that, the resonance multiplied by a huge factor.
What’s the one thing you’ll focus on in 2014?
Srini: The Instigator Experience, the conference we’re doing that will make a lasting impact and complete other things.
Meron: Shipping. I need to stop worrying about if things will do well or not – just ship and find out. The focus is going to be to get things out the door.
Jared: Shipping, too. I have a product launch coming out and I wanted to do more meet-ups. I see the power of meeting face-to-face and at this point in the game for me — I’m just new and don’t have a massive audience yet — that just makes sense to continue to do that: Strategic alignment with key people just like Inspiring Innovation — bringing people together and learning from them, he’s going to do that as well.
David: The plan is to focus on the App market, create bigger apps and games, and also pre-empt some adjacent services which will be offered to app developers.
Final words…
Srini: Really, at the end of the day, it just boils down to your tolerance for risk. The more you keep upping the ante and the more you keep trying bigger things, the more interesting outcomes you’ll get. The other thing you have to realize is it’s not just about winning, but also learning. If you do something and it doesn’t work and you learn and develop a skill that you can lead on to something else, that can be tremendously useful.
Jared: Read ‘Little Bets’, read ‘Flourish’ and listen to ‘Mixergy’!
David: A lot of people are focused on finding their passion and can be paralyzing sometimes. It’s great to find something you are passionate about – if you manage to.
I think it’s better to focus on doing and seizing opportunities that you see. Sometimes passion comes later; you can find passion in what you’re doing. If you really want to leave your job and start a business, then just start even if it’s not perfect. That might give you the opportunity to leave your job and later down the track, do something that you’re really passionate about once you already have the funds and can do that more easily.
Meron: This quote: “I won’t let anybody walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” –Gandhi
Look, you hear these podcasts, read these books and blogs, have all these inspiration and then someone close to you — friends or family or whatever — somebody just crushes your confidence. If you want 2014 to be amazing, you really need to resist that.
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
