Let’s face it. Even successful entrepreneurs hate life sometimes. Illusions of grandeur about sitting on a beach tapping away happily on your cute macbook with travel stickers plastered all over it are not common.

The typical small business entrepreneur works long hours, spends a good amount of time making well below market rate before they see some success, and deal with emotional roller-coasters that would put most romantic comedies to shame.

I wouldn’t change it for the world, and I’m not saying that with the level of sincerity that unexpected parents feel. I do not want to be anything other…

Of all the things that can boost inner work life, the most important is making progress in meaningful work.

A marathon is the sum of over 55,000 steps. Anyone with the ability to walk can run one singular step, but less than 1% of people will ever complete a marathon.

Of course when it comes to running businesses, the same rules hold true. Over 5mm business actually get started each year, but 80% of them are non-employer firms, and only 20% of non-employer firms ever hit more than 50k in revenue annually.

Note that I didn’t mention profits.

Another sad…

A few months ago, an old friend and former coworker reached out to me, wanting to grab coffee.

Matt was working at a small company and feeling entrepreneurial. Worth noting, and the inspiration for this post, was when we delved into the frustrations he had with his current bosses at his young, small company.

Matt’s company was good at a particular thing, and they got to a moderate level of success providing services related to that. But his company was at a temporary plateau. …

As the social space evolves, so do the platforms. There has never been a good way for chat to happen in an organized way, in a way that everyone can participate in and engage visibly before slack.

Slack was created for business teams to communicate effectively, in an organized way.

And they are killing it.

With the rise of the slack platform, there was an obvious and growing need for them to offer a way for people in the same space to communicate more effectively than on a forum, in a facebook group, or in some crazy google hangout.

Slack…

I can’t remember what book it was I read, but there was a statement that blew my f*cking mind the first time I read it.

Every client you have is an additional source of income.

What I realized with that statement was a concept that was nagging at me, pushing me in the direction of entrepreneurship from a young age, but I couldn’t put my finger on the rationale behind it.

It was bigger than “not wanting to work for someone else.”

What I realized was that if you want to have enough money to retire, getting there with a…

As a “bootstrapping entrepreneur” there are only two things that I consider myself on the road to being an expert at.

1. Business Strategy
2. Resource Management

These are the two things that I have been forced to do regardless of what I’m working on. These are the two constants in my life, so I’m pretty darn good at them.

Outside of that, I know a little bit about a LOT of stuff, and my knowledge of a certain aspect of business goes up or down depending on what I’m working on. You might call me “well rounded” or “versatile.” …

There are many things in life that seem counterintuitive, and for many, firing clients is one of them.

Not many businesses have more clients than they know what to do with, so if you’re like most small business owners, you find it hard to justify intentionally ending the relationship with a paying client that you spent a lot of time and marketing dollars to get.

But like many things, demanding clients follow the 80/20 rule; 20% of clients account for 80% of the customer service work.

This example was magnified in the case of Timothy Ferris, author of the 4…

“I wake up at 5am and I’m in the shower by 515 or so. I have a light breakfast, then go for a run or do some type of exercise for an hour. I’m back home by 7am, I get ready, show up at my desk at 830am ready to work.”

So yea, I’ve never been like that. My actual day consists of me waking up at around 8ish, sort of, plopping down onto my couch, checking some emails and reading The Skimm for the day. …