If you want to become an entrepreneur but are not sure what kind of business you would like to start, what framework can you use to help you decide? There are two things to consider that will provide you with a strong advantage: 1. Starting a business to create a solution that you will be a customer for This is sometimes called "eating your own dog-food". To be successful, all businesses have to deliver value to customers: they have to make something that people want. If you use the product or s...
May 09, 2013•11 min•Ep. 107
This episode is about the pros and cons of being self-employed vs being a business owner. Both options have advantages and disadvantages, but mixing the two does not work well. In the self-employed/freelancer model, you sell your time, cover your own expenses and keep all profit. This works best when you have a valuable skill and lots of industry contacts, as you are able to undercut bigger companies on price but keep your overheads low. If it works, you get the advantage of a lot of flexibility...
May 03, 2013•15 min•Ep. 106
This episode is about how to diversify your investments for lower risk and higher return. The issues covered include: The problems with a simple "buy and hold" approach, whereby you invest all your money in your one favorite asset (be that stocks, gold or anything else). The problems with the "market timing" approach to investing and why it doesn't work. The benefits of diversifying your portfolio How to properly diversify your portfolio by using different asset classes, rather than just differe...
Apr 19, 2013•16 min•Ep. 104
It has never been easier to live and work abroad. If you are self-employed and work online there is nothing to stop you. Why nor sublet your apartment for a few months and live abroad in a fascinating (and potentially cheap) destination? Here is a list of all the things that make long term travel super easy: Have your home post rerouted to friend (or commercial service) who scans it into a Dropbox account for you. If a friend does it, buy them a multi-page scanner for this. Get a professional ag...
Apr 10, 2013•13 min•Ep. 103
An episode about how to use goals and visions to move forward in creating the life you want. Show Notes: Previous Episode on GTD Getting Things Done by David Allen
Mar 30, 2013•19 min•Ep. 101
This episode is about the concept of limited liability and it's role in entrepreneurship. The purpose of the limited liability principle is not to protect the entrepreneur as director or manager of a business, it is for the protection of investors. There is a big difference between this principle and how the actual law of limited liability works in practice. The law is messy and confusing, with strange concepts such as "corporate personhood" granted by the State. I argue that the principle of li...
Mar 20, 2013•16 min•Ep. 100
This episode discusses the question of risk in investment, speculation and entrepreneurship. When is it a good idea to take risk and when isn't it? I share my own personal opinion. Podcast Episode
Mar 09, 2013•14 min
An episode on how to scale and optimise your business to make more profit and enhance your competitive advantage. The issues covered include: Standardisation: making one version of what you do Proceduralisation: making one version of how you do it Optimisation: speeding up and automating your procedures Knowledge Capture: maintaining and growing your operation within the context of staff coming and going Optimising at the level of the whole business: only doing the things that it makes sense to ...
Feb 25, 2013•18 min•Ep. 98
This episode is about employing people as an entrepreneur. Topics covered include: The destructive legacy of the reward and punishment paradigm from school Why pay isn't as important as you think The importance purpose, mastery and autonomy in motivation The problem with relying on interviews for hiring and alternative ways of finding great people The value of freelancers or independent contractors What employing people teaches you about taking responsibility for your side of a relationship and ...
Feb 18, 2013•31 min•Ep. 97
An episode about the problems with Intellectual Property, from the perspective of an entrepreneur. I started off thinking that IP is an integral and necessary part of entrepreneurship. I thought that it would be very important for my business. I have now come to see IP law as something that: prevents innovation, is immoral, promotes conflict, diverts resources to unproductive uses and is ultimately unnecessary for making money from ideas. Show Notes: Against Intellectual Monopoly by Boldrin and ...
Feb 11, 2013•24 min•Ep. 96
Part 2 of an interview with entrepreneur Judd Weiss , talking about business relationships. In this episode Judd talks about: The pitfalls of employing people The benefits of partnering or affiliate relationships How to create awesome relationships with clients
Feb 04, 2013•26 min•Ep. 95
Part 1 of an interview with entrepreneur Judd Weiss , talking about business relationships. In this episode Judd shares his thoughts and experiences about how to approach working relationships in general and the question of going into business with others. Should friends go into business together? What makes a good business partnership? Why do so many business partnerships go so badly wrong? Find out in this episode....
Feb 03, 2013•20 min•Ep. 94
Part 2 in the short series of podcasts about The Voluntary Life. This episode is all about the podcast itself. The podcast comes out once per week and is a mix of solo-casts and interviews. Some topics are covered in more detail as a series, like the entrepreneurship series. The aim of the podcast is personal freedom empowerment: providing ideas for finding the maximum freedom in your own life, within an unfree world. The podcast always takes a constructive approach: the angle on any topic is- w...
Jan 23, 2013•15 min•Ep. 93
The first in a series of podcasts introducing The Voluntary Life , both as a concept and as a podcast. This episode explains the concept of living a 'voluntary life', which is a life lived according to the principle of free choice. The extent to which we have the freedom to make our own choices about our lives (and to respect the free choices of others) is the extent to which we are leading the voluntary life. This concept applies across aspects of life, as diverse as freedom at work, financial ...
Jan 18, 2013•14 min•Ep. 92
A podcast about how to overcome indecision, paralysis and procrastination about entrepreneurship and JFDI (Just F-ing Do It). There are some objective hinderances to creating and running a business, especially if you have other major commitments in your life that you need to focus on first. However, often the battle is really an internal psychological one. How do you get into the mindset of being able to JFDI? This episode contains some suggestions about giving yourself permission: Permission to...
Jan 10, 2013•19 min•Ep. 91
A message of optimism. Happy New Year! Show Notes: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley Article on the recent massive decline in poverty
Dec 31, 2012•17 min•Ep. 90
Some thoughts on what it is that frightens people about the free market, based on my own experience. The fear of the market is often expressed in very abstract arguments about whether free markets would really work (if we had them) and what their relationship is to poverty etc. However, at an individual level, I believe people fear markets because of how vulnerable you can feel when taking part in voluntary exchange: Trade on the free market involves selling to others. This opens you up to the p...
Dec 23, 2012•18 min•Ep. 88
This episode is an interview with Edwin, an expat entrepreneur in Chile. Edwin talks about his experience on an entrepreneurship visa in Chile and shares his thoughts about the pros and cons of Chile as a place to live and to create a startup in. He discusses other things to consider regarding coming to Chile as an entrepreneur, including his views on the Start-up Chile grant, some comparisons of cost of living and considerations on quality of life in Chile as an expat. You can contact Edwin at ...
Dec 13, 2012•36 min•Ep. 87
An interview with Eduardo Marty, who founded Junior Achievement in Argentina and in many other Latin American countries. Junior Achievement is a charity that teaches entrepreneurship to children and young adults. Eduardo has also held academic posts as professor at the University Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala, and the University of Buenos Aires. He is one of the few academics who is truly passionate about the need for young people to learn the practical skills of entrepreneurship. As he says in...
Dec 03, 2012•34 min•Ep. 86
This episode is about gaining freedom from intellectual heroes. I share some thoughts about how to extract the best ideas from thinkers that you admire, without relying on someone else to think for you. I talk about some ways I have found for gaining intellectual independence, including: Taking apart the "package deal" of a set of new ideas to use the ones that work and discard the ones that don't. Learning to trust your own judgement: if an idea doesn't make sense to you, it's probably because ...
Nov 27, 2012•24 min•Ep. 85
This episode is an interview with Joel Bowman, the managing editor of The Daily Reckoning e-newsletter email and former managing editor of the Rude Awakening. After completing his degree in media communications and journalism in his home country of Australia, Joel moved to Baltimore to join the Agora Financial team. His keen interest in travel and macroeconomics first took him to New York where he regularly reported from Wall Street, and he now writes from and lives all over the world. Joel curr...
Nov 20, 2012•27 min•Ep. 84
This episode covers a lot of questions I faced getting started in investing as a private investor and my own experience in tackling these questions: Why invest (i.e. why not just leave your money in a bank)? Who is going to manage your investments, an external manager or yourself? Are you going to be an active investor (e.g. analysing individual securities for value and trading more often) or a passive investor (e.g. using index funds and trading less often)? Which asset classes are you going to...
Nov 11, 2012•19 min•Ep. 83
This episode is about saving money and it's relationship with freedom. Many people are trapped in a "wage slavery" lifestyle, living from month to month. Although their income rises during their career, their expenses scale correspondingly (or even lead ahead, creating debt). There are two approaches to developing the savings that allow get you out of this trap: One route is to increase earnings without increasing expenses, creating savings. The difficulty with this approach is that the higher t...
Oct 31, 2012•16 min•Ep. 82
This episode is about the freedom that comes from getting out of debt. We live in a time when being in debt is the norm in our society. The basis of the debt culture lies in government policies (such as inflating the money supply and artificially lowering interest rates) that actively incentivise individuals to get into debt. These government policies filter through into opportunities for debt everywhere that are encouraged by mainstream culture. For example: student loans for college, credit fo...
Oct 22, 2012•20 min•Ep. 81
This episode is a about the significant milestones along the way towards achieving financial freedom. In my opinion, reaching each of these milestones brings you closer to being financially free and it is useful to take a step back and consider what the steps along the way of your journey will be. Some milestones to consider are suggested: Financial independence or "paying your own way", whereby you are sustaining yourself from your job or work income on a month to month basis. You are not livin...
Oct 16, 2012•18 min•Ep. 80
This episode is about the entrepreneurial mindset. What kind of thinking do you need to be an entrepreneur? More importantly, how will doing entrepreneurship change the way that you think? Jake talks about some key aspects of the entrepreneurial mentality including: cultivating optimism and perseverance using the trial and error method acceptance of failure and the possibility of failure a deep rooted focus on sales a results-oriented outlook thrift and developing a reluctance to spend time or m...
Oct 15, 2012•22 min•Ep. 79
This episode is about the issue of shared ownership in business. It covers key questions that anyone considering going into business with others will face, including: Should you go into business with others or be a sole owner-entrepreneur? If you do go into business with others, how will you split ownership? How will you ensure that the owners are all incentivised to add value to the business? In other words, how will you avoid the free-rider problem? How are you going to make decisions together...
Oct 15, 2012•24 min•Ep. 78
This episode is an interview with Craig Rowland, who is the co-author of a new book called The Permanent Portfolio: Harry Browne's Long-Term Investment Strategy . In the episode we discuss the Permanent Portfolio strategy and many of the insights from Craig's new book. We talk about the way in which the Permanent Portfolio approach differs from other investment strategies including: The choice of being an independent investor as opposed to entrusting your money to someone else Achieving diversif...
Sep 24, 2012•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 76
This episode discusses ways in which you can overcome the limitations of the country in which you happen to have been born and, as much as possible, live with the whole of planet earth as your homeland. The topics covered include: Travelling and seeing the world, to help you make conscious choices about where you want to spend your life Taking the opportunity to live abroad for extended periods of time so that you can experience life in different parts of the world Learning another language and ...
Sep 24, 2012•16 min•Ep. 77
This episode is about the most advanced democracy on earth. It is about the most effective system we have for letting everyone have their say, working together to change society in a non-violent way.... Oh and it's probably not what you think. Show Notes: Ludwig Von Mises' "The Anti-capitalistic Mentality " Churchill's quote on democracy Karl Popper 's views on democracy can be found in The Open Society and Its Enemies...
Sep 10, 2012•16 min•Ep. 75
