While Casey Keller was in school, he took my course and jumped on an idea I've been throwing out for years: since no one is selling such detailed trade analysis as I demonstrate in my course that individuals can do, someone ought to open a business offering the world trade data analysis.
Casey did just that while in school, with a handsome website but no promotion or time. He writes:
Now let me say something else. That is pretty impressive, as far as I am concerned. I can appreciate the technical challenges just looking at that shoe. Two things: look at his website, and his designer is prominently featured. Casey has the passion, but works with a designer to get to what best serves the customers.
Second, Casey is too nice crediting me with anything. All I do is show people how to save time and money getting to the point they would anyway (and that is no small thing). It is Casey who created that shoe, and any success that will follow.
Casey goes on:
Capitalism in USA has failed as badly as Communism did in the Soviet Union. The USA is as over in this day of Fukushima, the epitome of Capitalism, and the Soviet Union was over in the day of Chernobyl, the epitome of Communism. All that is left is for those with the keys to the vaults to steal what is not nailed down. That process continues unabated, while people debate ferociously what some cracker named Phil said about homosexuals.
And while the chaotic destruction of our economy continues unabated, people such as Casey are already building a new economy. Crowdfunding is nothing new, when printing a run of books was a very costly proposition 400 years ago, an author would walk around with a copy of his outline or manuscript and people would sign it under the title page ("underwrite" "subscribe") assuring a printer that he would sell the copies that got printed. Kickstarter is simply an online version of what always was a workable method.
Now that our system is at the point where the banks make more money not lending, and corporations falsify their value by keeping massive amounts of "equity" in the form of borrowed asset-less fiat tallies at near zero interest, and write off the "loss", small business is now going back to the old form of finance. Out of the ashes...
The State is viciously attacking crowdfunding on behalf of Wall Street, and Casey will need to work closely with a CPA to make sure he does not end up with a cataclysmic tax bill for the temerity of making the world a better place.
I am delighted to see Casey is journaling his progress on his facebook page. This is good.
Let me summarize the principles I learned, what I teach, in essence: In business, the customer is the most important thing. Getting the product (or service) right is the hardest thing. Seems obvious. But that double principle is the most commonly and consistently violated. Test your ideas against those principles.
Update: Here is an all-day intensive seminar I am teaching in the SF Bay Area 22 Feb 2014, and here is an online version starting next week.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Casey did just that while in school, with a handsome website but no promotion or time. He writes:
We've been in contact since around 2007 or so after I read your book and took your online class. I started Usxnow.com a while back but throughout the whole time pursued my shoe start-up KcLacs and ended up shutting down the website in order to keep pursuing the shoes which are my passion.Upon graduation, he went after his first dream, a sport shoe. He checks in:
Just wanted to shoot you an update which you can definitely let your students know that I followed the class and book to reach where I'm currently at.Now that is very nice to hear, but as I never tire of saying, what I teach I learned from others and tested myself. For whatever reason I have enjoyed putting it down and spreading it around. I built the sales network of schools to spread around the ideas. I published the books myself, all following what I learned originally from others. Any prospering small business international trader would tell you what I teach, because it is no secret, but they have other interests besides teaching. So it is left to me.
My new website http://www.KcLacs.com is almost complete and my facebook ad that I started mid-November has already reached 2,000 likes. https://www.facebook.com/pages/KcLacs/150082098343823Casey has a bit of history of his progress on that facebook page. Check it out and "like" it if you will.
Now let me say something else. That is pretty impressive, as far as I am concerned. I can appreciate the technical challenges just looking at that shoe. Two things: look at his website, and his designer is prominently featured. Casey has the passion, but works with a designer to get to what best serves the customers.
Second, Casey is too nice crediting me with anything. All I do is show people how to save time and money getting to the point they would anyway (and that is no small thing). It is Casey who created that shoe, and any success that will follow.
Casey goes on:
Around March I will have a targeted audience of around 3,000 people plus the additional advertising I will be doing in order to gain traffic to my kickstarter campaign. I will have to sell 1,500 pair to meet min order requirements and to fund start-up costs. Everything is looking to be on track to achieve that goal and I will definitely keep you up to date.Now this is where the student has outrun the teacher, to the teacher's delight. I have been watching the crowdfunding phenomenon with interest, as an example of the order out of chaos, the escape to anarchy which we see every time in history that a system fails.
Capitalism in USA has failed as badly as Communism did in the Soviet Union. The USA is as over in this day of Fukushima, the epitome of Capitalism, and the Soviet Union was over in the day of Chernobyl, the epitome of Communism. All that is left is for those with the keys to the vaults to steal what is not nailed down. That process continues unabated, while people debate ferociously what some cracker named Phil said about homosexuals.
And while the chaotic destruction of our economy continues unabated, people such as Casey are already building a new economy. Crowdfunding is nothing new, when printing a run of books was a very costly proposition 400 years ago, an author would walk around with a copy of his outline or manuscript and people would sign it under the title page ("underwrite" "subscribe") assuring a printer that he would sell the copies that got printed. Kickstarter is simply an online version of what always was a workable method.
Now that our system is at the point where the banks make more money not lending, and corporations falsify their value by keeping massive amounts of "equity" in the form of borrowed asset-less fiat tallies at near zero interest, and write off the "loss", small business is now going back to the old form of finance. Out of the ashes...
The State is viciously attacking crowdfunding on behalf of Wall Street, and Casey will need to work closely with a CPA to make sure he does not end up with a cataclysmic tax bill for the temerity of making the world a better place.
I am delighted to see Casey is journaling his progress on his facebook page. This is good.
Thanks for the book and online class! Without those tools none of this would be where it is today!!Hegelian dialectic: Thesis, Antithesis; Synthesis. I can see where Casey followed my advice, but far more where Casey did his own thing, and came up with something even better, for Casey and his customers.
Let me summarize the principles I learned, what I teach, in essence: In business, the customer is the most important thing. Getting the product (or service) right is the hardest thing. Seems obvious. But that double principle is the most commonly and consistently violated. Test your ideas against those principles.
Update: Here is an all-day intensive seminar I am teaching in the SF Bay Area 22 Feb 2014, and here is an online version starting next week.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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