There are a couple elements and systems that you will require:

• Consolidated area with all your responsibilities
• Calendar
• Ability to tag or code your responsibilities
• The ability to focus

So I prescribe to a version of the Getting Things Done methodology by David Allen. If you don’t know who or what he is, then check out the video below, or get his book.

Now that you have the basics, what’s next, and how to make it practical?

1. You need to have a system that you go to over and over again that you know you’ll put all of your responsibilities into without fail. When I mean everything, I MEAN EVERYTHING. So if you have to get a haircut, or get dog food, or finish a project, it all needs to go into one consolidated area that you will be responsible for. Why? So you know where your brain is!
2. Get a calendar system. If you don’t have an online one, get it so you can quickly move things around on your schedule. Then create a calendar that is called prioritization
3. Select areas throughout your week, regardless of your work schedule and weekend where you can categorize it by High, Medium, and Low. For myself I choose 50% of my time towards high, 30% towards Medium, and 20% towards Low activities. YES, I have a % of time dedicated to low priority activities. Why? because I want to move forward on projects in my life, but are slower and lower on the totem pole.
4. Then you need to be able to process all your responsibilities. For myself, I tag my mail either Urgent, High, Medium, or Low, then I tag it either Waiting (meaning I’m waiting for someone to get back to me on the issue), Incomplete (meaning it needs my attention to get accomplished), and Complete (which is when it’s filed away from my sight.)
5. If you have consolidated Projects as well, then you should be able to tag it by the project so you can keep track of the flow of the project, but personally I would recommend using a task management system, where you can use these principles. The #1 issue I have with project management systems is their lack of integration with e-mail. So I’ve stuck with using Mail Act-On and Mail Tags for personal stuff, then Zoho Projects for collaboration.
6. If I can accomplish something in 2 minutes or less, I will right then and there.
7. If I get an e-mail and it requires a response from me, but I know that I’m going to take awhile to get to it, I will alert that person within a few seconds.
8. My phone calls also fall into this list, I will dump my messages into e-mail for me to deal with in an appropriate order
9. If you didn’t notice in step 4, I did mention urgent. There are potential emergencies that come up from time to time, but most of the time it is bad planning, so plan appropriately.
10. Hard Due Dates need to be taken into consideration, but you should just schedule appointments based upon prioritization again to get things accomplished ahead of time instead of at the last minute.
11. Even if it’s in e-mail, for tasks & projects that I need to work on, I will schedule it as an appointment on my calendar so I block that time to focus on that one particular activity. If it runs late, I’ll schedule another meeting, but if I’m early, I can relax or get to the next one.

It takes some time getting used to, and you’ll have the tendency to not stay focused, but don’t be a slave to your e-mail or things that distract you, just schedule it in!

It’s 3AM in the morning and I’m wired! The rapidly growing success of the hedge fund I helped start almost 6 years ago has been based in the principles that I’ve been teaching and coaching ventures on for almost 8 years. Several of the largest financial institutions and family offices are knocking on the door to get in, which as been quite exciting. So, why am I up at 3AM?

As you are going down the path of rapid growth you will experience the heartache of making things perfect, but when things are going well and you are growing so fast you will feel the pangs of “is this really happening”. I had been sitting in bed, going over the numbers of strategies, the markets we’re in, and the intricacies of each of our strategies. I am obsessed about the business that I am in and figuring out how to deliver the highest level of value to our clients, but I also want to have peace as I build the fund.

However, lack of sleep is not the way to get peace or grow your venture. In a Harvard Review Article, labeled Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer, it talks about how you get less with less, or less productivity with less sleep. It is statistically shown that for mono phasic sleepers you are doing yourself a huge disservice of not getting any consistent sleep.

Tony Schwarz, the author of Be Excellent at Anything, wrote in a blog post that a tip on increasing the quantity and quality is to:

Write down what’s on your mind — especially unfinished to-do’s and unresolved issues — just before you go to bed. If you leave items in your working memory, they’ll make it harder to fall asleep, and you’ll end up ruminating about them if you should wake up during the night.

So stop staying up all day and night excited about your business, try getting some good solid sleep, and you’ll find out sooner than later that it will help you grow your venture even faster. If you want to find out more ways to increase your energy, watch the video below by Tony Schwarz.

To get to the point here are 3 things you should do to start getting focused and eliminate distractions:

1. Schedule 45 min meetings
2. Do the most important things you need to accomplish, first thing in the morning.
3. Cut off any ability for you to get interrupted.Close all applications, shut down all devices, and just execute.
4. Create a schedule of how you’re going to be working on what and where.

Hopefully this helped, and got you to the point of paying attention for a few seconds today. If you want our help on what things to stay focused on as you develop your business, apply for the coaching program, and get someone that you would be accountable to to help you stay focused and prioritized.

In a recent article in BusinessWeek, idiot Matt Sornson thought that putting direct current into his brain via tDCS, or Transcranial direct-current stimulation, would improve his ability to brain to Flow as in the book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is a great book.

If you want to increase your mental productivity you don’t need tDCS or Matt Sornson, what you need is to understand how you screw yourself over on a daily basis. The failure of a business is not because of the market, financing, or a host of other reasons, it is because of you as the founder. Yes, you are your own worst enemy when it comes to the success of your business. I’m not saying that there are not negative impacts that can happen to your business because of a bad business partner, or the market crash or a host of other reasons, I’m saying that you are able to adjust based to the market conditions, but you are sabotaging your own business if it is failing.

For you to become successful, you need to have such a deep purpose behind what you are trying to do, that you are able to adjust eternally to achieve what it is that you desire. I do not say this lightly, because it can take years, if not decades of focused determination to create the pressure required for your diamond of a company to emerge. However, this deep relationship with your business will create Flow, and will allow you to focus with determination and focus on a day to day basis.

If you don’t have an understanding of why you are doing your business, then it will fail, and it will be because of yourself. If you would like help getting coached on the purpose and meaning of your business, our team would love to sit down with you and talk about why you are doing what you are doing, and putting together a game plan to make it a reality. Drop us a line here.

I’m helping a fast growing venture that is almost 10 years old and they are in the process of hiring a new manager for the business. We have been going through the process of putting together a profile and starting to find potential candidates for the position. Part of the conversation went to compensation structure and what that would look like. Then I stumbled upon a conversation held at TED with Dan Pink. Check it out then keep reading.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Although many may call him controversial, the key is what type of culture do you want to create in your business. Defining your culture at the get go is absolutely critical, because without clarity it can easily shift into an ecosystem of boredom, focus on the pay check, and a lack of innovation and candor.

I met with Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, a few years ago and talked about candor in the business place. When there are incentive structures that are not properly aligned, people are simplely looking to save their own rear, and keep the money rolling in. I talked to a contracts lawyer during the residential boom, and they were making several hundred thousand only a few years out of school, and he didn’t question it, he just focused on churning as much as he could out before the music stopped. He said that he could see the writing on the wall with contracts that were legitimate, but not really what was needed to truly secure the debt that was being underwritten. But, the incentives to speak up were completely the opposite.

As an entrepreneur I need to always make sure that the motivation that my employees and partners have are deeper than the financial incentives involved. For instance, in Libreum, the hedge fund I’m a partner in, we look to the character of the managers and what type of lifestyle they have. Are they buying fancy cars and houses, or are they humble and live a simple middle class life style. It’s a philosophy that I have that you can find the character in your employees by seeing how they are truly motivated and not through the incentives that you give. In my opinion you give incentives / bonuses when they are least expected and for reasons that aren’t predictable. They should be a show of appreciation, not an expectation.

Try experimenting with new hires and see what type of structure works best for you. Incentives or finding employees that are deeply passionate about what they are doing.

• Track hours of virtual employees
• See how those hours are being allocated to projects
• See “twitter like” updates on each of those projects
• Ability to have a manager quickly see what everyone is working on, and follow up with those individuals efficiently
• Have the CEO be able to be quickly involved on any major decisions that are going on with projects
• Get an overall report on what everyone is doing
• Have individuals be able to quickly collaborate on issues virtually
• They do not want to spend the cost remotely of SalesForce.com ($50/month/user)
• Not platform specific
• Had a mobile app

Organizational Psychology would be the place to start with discovering the answer, but I’m going to go a different direction.

Let’s start with back into the number. For optimum balance and building yourself, there is health, education, emotional & spiritual foundation. Parts of this assessment of time is my opinion on how much time should be spent, but I’ve provided some support resources. Let’s see what would go into each category per day:

Health – 10hrs

• 7 hrs uninterrupted sleep according to a study by the Archives of General Psychiatry on mortality and sleep, unless you are doing polyphasic sleep
• 1hr exercise – This time is all inclusive. I’m not saying what needs to go within that time frame, but you need to burn >4200 kcal/week for lowest heart disease risk. It is also recommended to have about 150-300 minutes per week.
• 1hr eating – It surprised me but the average time per day is only 65 minutes total per person
• 1hr hygiene – that includes brushing teeth, getting ready for work, showers, etc.

• 1.5hrs learning – This covers reading, listening, or watching the news, podcasts, books, blogs, etc. (of course if it’s part of your job, it doesn’t count)
• 1hr maintaining life – balancing budget, cleaning house, shopping, groceries, etc.

• 3hrs family time – This covers direct & immediate family & vacations to family, and an assumption you have a child 1
• 1hr Leisure – hanging out with friends 1
• 0.75hr Meditation / Spiritual time - There’s value according to the Cleveland Clinic 2

Screen Sharing – TeamViewer.com

I’m not going to be paying $50 / month for GoToMeeting, so I use TeamViewer. There are many apps on my computer that I might need to run to get specific data from for a presentation, but I just need to see it, not download anything. This is when I need Screen Sharing.

1. Go to TeamViewer.com
2. Install it on your home computer
3. Set it up so you have a password to log on to it remotely
4. Set Preferences to have it turn on when you log on to the computer (So if your computer at home restarts, you can automatically get access.)
5. Go back to TeamViewer.com and Click the Web Login button at the top right of the screen
6. Setup an account
7. Login online
8. Turn on your TeamViewer
9. Click Show TeamViewer
10. Get the ID number from it
11. On the Website, Add a new Partner
12. Click TeamViewer-ID and type in the ID number from your computer
13. Create an Alias
14. Type in the password that you setup initially on step 3
15. Now install TeamViewer on your iPhone or iPad
16. Click PartnerList in your App
17. Login with you details from step 6
18. You should now see your Alias from step 13, If you click it you should now see your desktop
19. Now you can see your desktop from anywhere in the world. That wasn’t so hard!

I was able to sell my first venture at a young age, but it didn’t allow to me to actively invest in every idea I wanted to. So I went and built another 2 firms, which I believe will allow me to build my wealth to that ultimate goal. But let’s look at which makes more sense towards building financial freedom: building a venture or getting a career?

I’ll give you the conclusion first: It could be both, but it mainly depends on you.

The Career Path: Up front you will need a strong collegiate education. The better the school, the better the probability of a better job. You will pile on the debt up front in most cases, and you should probably do your masters so you stand out. Then you’re onto your job hunt. If you’ve got the right education, getting a job isn’t that hard. I only say this because there are tens of thousands of job openings in technical fields. Of course the trick is to get the right education. Let’s say that you do, and you get your entry level job. You start working, and hopefully you start saving and investing immediately. You work your ass of and you keep building your nut, and you are very fiscally conservative and you work for 40 years straight, and let’s assume a steady growth of your investments, which once again in this world is not necessarily impossible, but definitely easy.

Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt that you’ve saved $5MM by the time you retire. It may sound like a lot, but if you’re getting 10% compounding annual growth and adding $500 a month to your pile, in 40 years you’ve got over $5MM. Alright let’s start retiring, and not adding anything to that pile, but reinvesting 50% of the returns, and taking out 50%, so now you’ve got a 5% compounding rate instead of 10%, which means in your first year you’re pulling out around $250k per year, not taking taxes into consideration. Sounds awesome! Right?

Let’s go the venture route. First factor is that you are, or should be doing something you’re 100% passionate about. If not, what’s the point. Of course that’s a first huge bonus over going down a career path in many cases. Now if you do get a job or go to college to purely educate yourself about the industry you want to jump into, this is definitely a road to take as well because you’ll get to meet people in the space, learn about the industry, see how it works, and get paid at the same time. However this could take a lot of years, and if you go to college it could mean piling on the debt to start.

So you jump in, and you quickly find out that unless you’ve got a fast growth venture idea, a small business person will definitely work harder  to make a living, and will not be able to effectively grow the value of their business. Franchises are an exception, because you are building more units of small businesses that are growing the overall value of the company. The fast growth venture idea most likely means that you have to give up equity in your business to key personnel and investors. In the hundreds of ventures we’ve worked with, we try desperately to maintain at least 20% ownership of the company at the end of the day. However this means if you want to get to that same $5MM pile, you need to grow the value of the company to at least $25MM. In a report by SoftwareEquity.com Jan 2010, the median pure play SaaS venture multiple was 26.6 EBITDA, so that means in our scenario you need a company that is generating about $950k EBITDA per annum.

So how long will it take you to get to about $1MM in earnings per year? Well their estimate was 16.3% TTM (Trailing Twelve Month) EBITDA growth as of January 2012. So let’s say in your first year you generate $100k, and then grow at 16.3% EBITDA each year from there, it will take you 14 years to get to over $950k EBITDA. Obviously there are huge assumptions I’m making, but from personal experience, it should be faster than this rate, not less. I’m also being biased towards a very high multiple industry, which personally are the only ones I look at.

So 14 vs 40 years? I’m not saying that it would happen this way perfectly, and I’m not taking into consideration your personal salaries each year and that associated life style. I’m also not factoring in failure rate, but if I was able to try several times and failure and waste even 10 years of my life trying, I’d still be ahead by over a decade.

At the end of the day, you need to focus on the present, mid-term, and long-term future and keep an alignment so you keep true to yourself. If any of those pulls you out of order, then you are not doing the right thing for yourself. It does not matter how much you are getting compensated. Money is only part of the equation. If you are getting compensated for something that is not in alignment with who you are, then you are not being authentic to yourself.

Many may argue against me and say that they need to life at a certain level to maintain their life, and I understand that especially having a family of my own, but even then, it is still more important to stick to your values.

I think the conclusion is obvious. Do what you know is the right thing to do, and don’t compromise your values. It is as simple as that.

Answer: LLC

I recently sat down with a new startup that wanted to get our help to coach them through the growth process of their software company. A friend of theirs mentioned that their lawyers has set them up as an S-Corporation. I asked them why. Not terribly surprisingly they didn’t know exactly other than their lawyers had told them to.

I had obviously wondered myself when starting my first company. For myself, and almost every company that we work with, we needed to raise investment capital and were looking to get acquired in the future. We were not planning on creating a PPM, we were planning on raising capital from private high net worth individuals who had experience in investing and had been in the similar industry, and from VCs.

I’m sure you can do all the research you want about LLCs, C-Corps, and S-Corps and see the comparisons between the two, but there is one main reason that we like LLCs. You can have multiple types of ownership and it is flexible for how profits are distributed.

Although some have stated that an LLC is not as clean as an S-Corp in terms of raising capital, if you’re dealing with seasoned and sophisticated investors, then don’t worry, they’ll understand the value of the structure and why you want to have preferential abilities that you can have with an LLC.

S-Corps only have 1 class of stock. Investors want to have preferred treatment with their shares, and with an LLC you can write it any way that you want.

C-Corps have double taxation, so unless you’re going public, forget it.

If you want to find out more technical details between the two, Wikipedia has a pretty solid article on all of them.

• LLCs
• C-Corporation
• S-Corporation

As a note, we are not lawyers, so use your common sense and get a lawyer to finish the details.