Thoughts about entrepreneurship and life by Brad Allmendinger

The Problems with “User Interest” Targeted Ads

I’ve always had an issue with the validity of internet advertisements targeted to a user’s “interests”. Google’s Adsense platform is a huge perpetrator of this method because they can use your search history to deliver ads you will hypothetically be interested in on third party websites using Adsense content ads. The method may work better or worse depending on the site your on in terms of generating revenue, but I’m definitely not fan.

Working Against Maximum Revenue
When I was creating content websites and using Adsense as my monetization method, I always turned off the “show ads based on user interest categories” option. It made perfect sense for the sites I was building because they were product based. If a visitor was on my site about power inverters, but had a heavy search history in children’s toys, less costly toy ads may have been shown. Not only are the ads irrelevant to the content the user is actively looking for, but they are irrelevant to the theme of the site overall.

Privacy Issues
From a user’s perspective, people are concerned about the privacy issues of user tracking. Companies like Google have a whole data set categorizing each user’s interests and who knows what else. When used in a friendly manner, it’s no big deal…but as we should learn from all the recent corporations getting hacked by various groups, data can be stolen (or manipulated, or sold, or used in countless inappropriate ways).

Combating these privacy issues is the main feature of a new crop of websites that don’t track your activities, like the Duck Duck Go search engine. A cool infographic about these privacy issues can be found at Don’t Track Us, a side campaign of the DuckDuckGo founder, Gabriel Weinberg.

User Interest Changes Over Time
However, my main issue at the moment is not maximizing my profits anywhere, someone collecting my data, or even the feeling of uneasiness that is felt when you know that large untrusted entities know so much about you–it’s that the ads that the big G thinks I’m interested in aren’t appealing to me at all. I really noticed this when I used my dad’s computer for some quick browsing and sites were showing me ads for awesome resorts I could go to (because my father primarily uses his home computer to set up vacations). I’ve never clicked on ads in such a fury of excitement before in my life. Clearly these ads interest me, but the internet overlords don’t realize it and are wasting potential revenue by showing me other categories.

Categories I have no interest in whatsoever. I’m sure they’re drawn from when I moved into my new apartment–I did a lot of searching for furniture and other stuff for my new apartment. Keep in mind that any searching I did for these items was probably contained within a one or two day window. However, the whole internet must now think I’m some sort of carpet dealer. I now see ads for nothing but Budget rental trucks and Overstock.com rugs.

Here’s a hint, Google, I already bought my damn rug.

Applying Game Theory to Real Life

It’s a concept I’ve thought of before, but it hit me again last week. I was working on a project at my new job that tapped into my CSS skills (something I’ve really never gotten to use much at an actual job before) and I immediately had a thought that put a ‘CSS +1’ notice rising from the top of my head…RPG style.

The idea of formal ‘game theory’ is fairly broad and not really what I am getting at. I’m really looking at the aspects of an RPG (Role Playing Game) style game that cause people to continue playing it and how it relates to real life. In any good RPG, the player controls a single character and completes some kind of tasks, goals, or achievements. Upon completion, the character receives some kind of experience points, which unlock new tasks, goal, and possible achievements. During the whole process, the character usually develops by gaining more points toward various traits like strength, endurance, magic, etc. and a whole slew of side skills.

This character building idea keeps a player enthralled as challenges become more and more difficult, but the character is increasingly capable of more difficult tasks.

This is basically how most people go through their lives and careers, but they just don’t realize it because it’s not naturally quantified. You don’t increase your CSS skill by one when you learn a new trick, you just learn the new trick. And generally, we don’t have good enough vision to see what the next progression of our lives will be until we’re standing at the edge, staring it down.

People have tried to create websites that feed into this idea (like MotivationRPG and Fitocracy specifically for fitness), but I think that real life is ultimately far too complicated to be contained in such a concept. However, I think it is why people get enthralled with things like competing in sports and competitions. You can build up your abilities and then see results in a usually logical fashion.

Sports aside, it can still be a good strategy to use to motivate you in just about any aspect of life. The tricky part is quantifying skills and using a goal setting system as your vision for progression.

Maybe this was an incoherent ramble, but that’s okay, because I leveled up in MySQL today.

Career / Lifestyle Design — 2 comments
02
Jun 11

Settling into a New Job (and New City)!

Well, in full recovery from my entrepreneurship experience, I’m back on the list of the gainfully employed. I really like my new job as it seems like a great fit with a lot of interesting things going on. I’m positive that I’ll learn a lot and it’s a great step in the direction I want my corporate career to go.

Where’d I go?

Well, I took a job with a company in Richmond, VA, but I’d rather not disclose the company–who knows what complications could arise if I did, and I really see no need. So far, Richmond is a pretty cool city with a lot going on (despite what the locals might think). I’ve been exploring all the hotspots and have been excited to see so many people near my own age…Blacksburg was getting to be a bit young for me, as crazy as that sounds.

Am I done with entrepreneurship?

No, but definitely for a little while. I’m sure I’ll still tinker with my own side projects (as I have one on my mind even now), but I have no foreseeable plans for full-time entrepreneurship. I’m honestly quite excited to settle back into a ‘normal’ job setting. It provides a lot of stability and will let my mind roam free for awhile.

Entrepreneurship — No comments
02
Feb 11

Lessons Learned From My First Entrepreneurship Encounter

I’ve been attempting to write a post about the things I learned during my recent experience with starting a business, but found I could only get about halfway through a post. So, I decided to take a different angle on it. Below are some lists of things I’ve realized in the last month or so, reflecting on my experience and the things that went right or wrong.

Things to Do Better Next Time
1.   Think bigger
2.   More realistic worst case scenario
3.   Put eggs in different baskets

Things I Learned About Myself
1.   I need forced structure in life
2.   I enjoy being around people
3.   I place more value in financial stability than I realized

Things I’m Good At
1.   Developing and analyzing strategies
2.   Thinking of creative ideas and solutions
3.   Juggling a lot of tasks at the same time

Things I Presently Struggle With
1.   Holding myself accountable
2.   Social anxiety
3.   Focusing on a single task for a long period of time

What does all this add up to? Well, it is certainly good to have some things written out that I need to work on. I can also use it as a guide to help plan out my next big adventure (whenever that may be).

The ultimate lesson learned is that I’m happier when I’m employed. The 8 to 5 job certainly has its negatives (like cubicles….eww), but for me personally, I think a good job would be a better situation. It provides built in structure and accountability while also adding financial stability to your life (usually).

I’m still glad that I gave this a shot early on in my career because these were immense lessons to learn. Hopefully I can find a job in the near future that allows me to put the strengths of my mind to work, but I’ll definitely keep working on business ideas on the side no matter where my career takes me.

Entrepreneurship / Finances — 1 comment
04
Jan 11

What is Failure Anyway?

Unfortunately, I realized last week that I made it to my financial deadline for making something happen with my business. According to my plan, I must now find another source of income, which primarily means that I have to get a job. When I realized what this really meant, I had a few rough days last week while I was still with my family for the holidays. I hurried out of town and headed back to Blacksburg to clear my head and start developing a plan of action.

Does this mean that I failed at my business? Well, that all depends on your definition of failure. In a financial sense, this was a near complete failure as the business fell on its face as quickly as it possibly could have. My opinion is slightly different, but it took me about a week to wrap my head around the entire experience.

I said before I started doing this full time that there was no such thing as failure. I still believe that to be true, but it was tough to comprehend when things went worse than my calculated worst case scenario. There are positives in any situation and I can certainly name a few that I have created…changed my career path to where I really wanted it, realized I have the balls to do whatever I need to in life, learned a ton about my personal productivity, and learned how much work and dedication it takes to really start a business. I could go on and on about all of these things, and maybe I will eventually…

For now, I’m going to step back from what I was doing as I search for a grocery money job. I have a hypothesis that when a business starts failing, owners work harder and harder trying to force the issue. Working harder may achieve more, but what is ultimately wrong is some of the underlying strategy. I’m going to allow my brain to reflect on my strategies to decide what needs correcting before I put much more effort into the business.

The time for reflection is desperately needed as the previous three months have flown by. My current thoughts remove all blame from myself and the methods I was using, which is probably incorrect. I would currently tell you that this ‘failure’ was simply a case of bad timing with the Google penalty. If the penalty hadn’t hit, I’d probably be approaching four digits in income in January. If I had waited to quit my job until the end of October, I would have seen the penalty hit and stuck with my employer for a bit longer. I’m sure these thoughts make me sound loony to anyone not living inside my head. Although they hold some truth, the underlying problem most likely lies with something I’ve been doing incorrectly.

It is difficult to guess at the cause of a rankings penalty (or anything the big G does), but usually these things lift in time. My hope is that I eventually land a wicked internet marketing job somewhere and then the penalty is lifted so I’ll be making a nice side income as well. I was bitter about the situation, but I’ve quickly recovered my attitude to make it forward looking and as positive as I can muster.

Finances — No comments
01
Dec 10

Operation: Make Bank Bro

Google dropped most of my rankings for my sites at the end of October. I’m not sure what the problem is or if there is one at all. G is known to toss their search engine rankings around, but this seems slightly more extreme than a standard shuffle. Either I’m in some sort of Google sandbox (which I don’t really believe in) or some part of my sites qualified for a different part of the ranking algorithm. I’m taking steps to try to figure out the problem, but in the mean time I have a bit of an issue. No rankings mean less traffic, which means less money.

I still believe in the business model and long term I’m sure everything will be fine as I continue to build my sites to be bigger and more authoritative. However, in the short term I’m living primarily on savings, which needs to change. I knew the day would come when I would have to start figuring out how to get some extra cash. I now know that the day is today (I’m not out of money, but the pot just isn’t full anymore).

If anybody is resourceful, I am. I now have a pile of valuable stuff I don’t want or need that I’m going to sell on ebay. I have two old laptops I’m going to part and sell. The combined value of this stuff is probably enough to cover my living expenses for an entire month.

I’m going to start doing some freelance writing. I have accounts with several websites already that allow me to choose the jobs I want to work on and complete them without the hassle of a bidding process at a big freelance board. I may eventually turn to the big freelance sites, but for now they require too much unpaid time to find the jobs.

I will probably also start doing some freelance web work in limited amounts.

As I hinted at above, this is all part of my long term plan. I’m not panicking and running out and applying for jobs on Monster; I’m just going to do a little extra work to make some cash that will allow my savings to last longer.

productivity — 1 comment
30
Nov 10

My Continued Struggles With Productivity – And What I’m Doing about It

Working from home on my own projects is much more difficult than I expected. Not because the work is difficult, but because it is difficult to maintain a high level of motivation without someone else telling you to get to work. I’ve overcome a lot of the problems that I have encountered since my first week of full time entrepreneurship, but I’m still jumping hurdles.

My level of productivity seems to fluctuate rather wildly during the week. On Mondays, I typically get very little done because it is difficult to get started. Strangely Thursdays are by far my most productive day of the week. By then I’ve gotten my momentum ball rolling and am motivated by the upcoming weekend when I won’t have the time to get much done.

This unsteady cycle would be fine if I was accomplishing my goals. However, by the measuring sticks I am able to use, I am really only producing between 30 to 40% of what I should be able to accomplish. I’m not upset with myself, because I’m still figuring out this learning curve. As long as I keep making decisions to help myself in the future, then I know I’m still on the right path. However, this current pace simply won’t work, so I’m implementing more systems to fix it.

The main improvement that I have implemented over the last two weeks is asking a friend to help me out. He’s not helping me with work, but with motivation and productivity. I officially labeled him my CMO, or Chief Motivation Officer. Unfortunately, his new position is unpaid at the moment. What I’m basically doing is holding myself accountable by sending him a report of my measurable output for the week. With the guidelines we laid out together, he can then offer appropriate feedback. I think it is definitely going to help me produce more and solve some of my productivity flaws.

Other than that, I’m trying to even out my productivity more. Rather than do little for the first several days and then produce a lot for a day and half, I want to accomplish more to start the week. This will still allow me to have a big Thursday, but will give me a base level of momentum heading into it.

For example, if my productivity was measured in undefined units, then this is what my weeks have been looking like:

M-0 T-0 W-2 R-6 F-1
Giving a total of 9 productivity units for the week

To better explain, a zero day doesn’t mean I did nothing, but it means I didn’t do the important things that will get results. A 2 unit day is pretty easy to accomplish and I expect that eventually I should be able to bring myself up to 5 unit days every day of the week. However, right now, this is what I’m going for:

M-2 T-2 W-5 R-6 F-4
Giving a total of 19 productivity units for the week

This will give me more than double the output, without adding much extra work at all. By just doing a little bit each day, I would be dramatically improving my weekly productivity.

Entrepreneurship / Lifestyle Design / productivity — No comments
15
Oct 10

Be the Wolf, Not the Rabbit

The rabbit gets eaten; the wolf rules his world.

productivity — No comments
15
Oct 10

Spartans! Prepare for Glory!

Today official marks the beginning of Fall Frenzy. Much like Summer Rush, it is a push for productivity and output through The Keyword Academy. Summer Rush had an awesome effect on my earnings, so I expect Fall Frenzy will accomplish the same. While employed full time, I managed to publish 100,000 words during the 92 day Summer Rush time period. My goal for fall frenzy is to publish 250,000 words in the 78 day period, not including those written as freelancing work.

“This is where we hold them! This is where we fight! This is where they die!”

So, why the reference to 300 in the title? Well, I joined a user group called the 300 Spartans because their initial goal was to publish 300k words each during Summer Rush. The groups did a bit of a shuffle for Fall Frenzy as people set different goals for themselves and I was able to sneak into the group.

I’m pretty excited because it is one of my favorite movies. I think there are some awesome lessons and philosophies portrayed in the movie, so I watched it last night to get inspired. If I can take on some of the characteristics of the Spartans for these 78 days, then my progress should be unstoppable.

“Remember this day, men. For it will be yours for all time.”

In a semi-unrelated note, I figured out what part of my productivity dilemma has been for the past couple weeks. I had primarily been trying to use the Simple Article Rewriter to create articles in groups of five on the same subject. However, this seems to create tasks that are too large and they create levels of anxiety that I couldn’t cope with, which caused procrastination. Wednesday, I decided just to try to write five articles without the tool and I was able to get started quickly and actually wrote the articles faster.

I’m not sure if it is because the tool causes you to have to do a certain amount of work before you can stop or if just the extra forced structure was just intimidating, but I’ve been very productive ever since. I think this was my biggest stumbling block that I’ve had to overcome. I think with my new daily structure and this new knowledge of task anxiety, I should be able to reach the levels of daily output that I was hoping for.

“No retreat, no surrender. That is Spartan law. And by Spartan law, we will stand and fight. A new age has begun: an age of freedom!”

Entrepreneurship / productivity — 2 comments
06
Oct 10

Productivity Problems Working from Home

It is already Wednesday and I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as I wanted to. I have been very easily distracted and clearly have quite a bit to learn about productivity when working from home. It is difficult to balance the freedom that being self employed allows with actually getting work done. Although part of the problem is that I was just burnt out from working and running my business the last couple weeks, I also didn’t really have any structure in place to decide what tasks need to be done and when.

Building Structure
Everyone who has things to accomplish needs a bit of structure. It has become obvious to me that if I don’t have any structure, I will actually do very little work. Going into Monday morning, I didn’t really have a plan as to how I was going to attack the work that needed to get done. I didn’t have specific tasks written down or goals to accomplish for the day. I suppose this is a common noob entrepreneur mistake.

When I only had an hour or two to do work each night after work, I would just pick something to do (more or less out of a randomizer in my brain) and work on it until I couldn’t anymore. I would pick whatever seemed most important, relevant, or exciting at that exact moment. This worked well when it was a just a side project and my sense of satisfaction for the day didn’t really depend on it. The fact that I did something extra at all was usually enough to make me feel overjoyed at my productivity.

However, when you’re trying to work on something full-time, that supports your livelihood, there needs to be a little more thought put into which task you work on next. I needed a system and I failed to recognize that until today. I’m not upset with myself or anything; a learning curve like this was bound to exist and I really had no way to know until I gave it a go.

The Productivity Plan
Since late this afternoon, I’ve been drawing up a plan to put structure in place. The most important aspect I realized is that I need a daily goal that is production focused, not time focused. I mentioned in my last post that I was going to try a 9-5ish schedule. That will probably still work, but I can’t judge my productivity based on that.

Since this article marketing/niche website building idea’s main requisite is writing, I based my daily goal on an average number of words that I want to publish per weekday. Publishing is one thing, but actually writing is something completely different. The publishing goal is simply a measuring stick to figure out how much I need to write each day. Once I had that, I could plan what my particular goal is for which day of the week.

Now I have a schedule drawn up so that I know exactly what I need to accomplish each day of the week to be successful. I’m not saying I won’t slip up one day or need to rearrange it occasionally, but simply waking up and knowing what needs to be done should give me a huge boost in output and efficiency.

Allmendinger EnterprisesChoose Your Own Adventure