Tim Ferris: 3 More Case Studies of Successful Cash-Flow Businesses
fourhourworkweek.com
fourhourworkweek.com
Except that his entire career and success is based on telling people what they want to hear.
First it was "you can be successful and you don't even need to work hard", more recently he's turned his attention to lifestyle advice such as how to lose weight, how to swim faster, how to look better.
Why would anyone take advice from him beats me, but that's another story.
He has personally helped with some aspects of my fundraising process, despite having been right in the middle of his book launch, and taken the time to listen to me and help me through some situations - both with my startup and with health/fitness advice.
This is an ironic endorsement.
One of his enterprises is called 'Brain-Quicken,' and it's the quintessential snake oil operation.
I have no respect for people with the ability of Tim Ferris when they also have the scruples of Tim Ferris.
Still, I respect the guy for maxing out the idea, and he's certainly hugely driven.
I might also add that a lot of what Paul Graham writes could be classified as "telling smart hackers what they want to hear." After all, the message is: you can get rich and be respected, yes, you; there are few downsides to trying and massive upside, and you need never toil for a big, slow company with a big, slow boss. That's all very much what smart hackers want to hear. But it's also, I think, totally true.
It's wise to be skeptical of advice that conforms to the hopes of its audience. But it's equally wise to be skeptical of advice that doesn't so conform. What people want and what happens to be true don't bear any necessary relationship. If what Tim Ferriss is selling are books full of untrue things, then that's a fair criticism; but it's the only criticism that really makes any sense. And it's not one that I tend to hear. Rather, people react to his attitude, which while understandable, isn't actually an argument.
Besides, argueing is fun if you're an alpha-geek.
Paul Graham has points I agree with. He has points I disagree with.
Tim Ferris has 3 good points - automate stuff, get into business, and sieze every oppertunity. He also has a big mass of platitudes. The problem is, he makes it sound as if his points are the only ones that matter. There are lots of other important rules that you have to follow in most businesses.
That being said, "ask for forgiveness, not permission" is great advice. It changes the way you approach problems. Anything that gets you to question the way you think is gold. In that way, the book is awesome.
Not to bring up this old discussion again, but all of these business provide 'value.' This is capitalism; if someone pays for it, they find it valuable. You're creating some sort of secondary game where certain businesses are below you, Tim's just trying to tell everyone to play the real game.
I expect I could make some money selling magic "quantum" stickers that enhance the sound of an audio system, making them for pennies and selling for hundreds of dollars. But that would be wrong.
"Tim Ferriss started by selling people the idea that they could be successful too" -- His career was actually started by starting a supplements company. All of the information he gives in the Four Hour Work Week was pre-4HWW. Which means he had to have some income to travel the world, and outline all the feats he does in the blurb.
"Why would anyone take advice from him beats me, but that's another story." -- Because he has a huge amount of previous experience in the topics he preaches. He backs them up with case studies, data and scientific evidence (especially the 4HBody).
A lot of people see a self-help book and immediately cry snake oil salesman!.
This guy may bother a lot of people, but who cares. I know a lot of people that bother me. Ergh, I'm ranting.
What I see is a guy who got lucky once, in an industry rife with fraudulent or borderline-fraudulent claims and huge markups. I'm sure the oily guy in the infomercials selling "colon cleanse" quackery makes lots of money too.
Now, because he lacks more meaningful entrepreneurial skills, he's leveraging that early experience into the self-help field, a field not known for a high barrier for entry, and where the customers are not particularly demanding.
I just don't see any there there. In the universe of accomplishment, "sold snake oil supplements and self-help books amid rabid self-promotion" just doesn't amount to very much, as profitable as it may be for him.
How appalling.
How hard is it to switch from sole proprietorship to s-corp/llc if you keep your accounting straight and use your personal bank account?
Not hard at all. If you are a sole prop, American citizen, paperwork in order then it is very easy and a law firm could do it in a couple of k. Orrick has Start-up docs on their website for free.
When we closed down that LLC, there was intellectual property we had to entangle, so that it could go back to belonging to various individuals, all of whom were continuing with their careers. This was messy. We had a highly customized partnership agreement for our LLC. That is the great thing about LLCs - that they allow such flexibility (this, too, varies state by state in the USA. Virginia allows a great deal of flexibility). My advice is, if you form an LLC with other people, put in a clause about shutting down. Essentially, negotiate a pre-nup. Divorce goes easier when everyone knows ahead of time exactly how it will be conducted.
Ferriss is certainly invested in the idea of one-person financial power, but in the laptop-stand case study there would seem to be more to the story.
But Jason did pull this off almost entirely on his own.
I also really like seeing improved and successful implementations of existing technology, proven in the story by the example of his dad being perfectly willing to get a punch style timeclock in this day and age. And not only is Clockspot able to leverage the history of timeclocks, it can also be seen to be a kind of "time twitter," so all of the published domain expertise about implementing that can be relied on to provide another huge chunk of the app and mobile clients.
Which is why software patents are bad. ;)
I'm quite intrigued by how he arrived at the current pricing model. It looks like it's been through a few iterations and I'd be really interested to learn more about it.
Does anyone know if this has been discussed anywhere online?
What I think is valuable is the constant reminder that the business/income-building is a means to an end, and there's a wide world of choices out there for what the "end" is.
I think the lesson of the story is that there are so many people and competitors now that running a business/muse as a means to an end is impossible unless you lower your expectations as to what an end is.
You must either lower your expectation by living in 3rd world countries as Ferris suggests, or work 7-days a week like Tim Ferris did on his herbal supplement company. Or be plain lucky and find a niche that no one has found out like the ones shown here. Most niche ideas fail.
I don't understand how anyone can learn anything from someone who has pretty much diluted his work to appeal to the widest possible audience.
I mean the guy has a weight loss book now.
EDIT: Most of his recent posts have been "guest" posts, which I consider the same as "outsourced" since he didn't write it himself.
Here's an example: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/21/bill-clinton...
I think a lot of blatant self promotion comes across as spammy to "people like me" (for lack of any real description of what that might be), but the more I look around, the more I realize that most people eat it up.
He has two books: One sells you on the dream of world travel with minimal work, interspersed with stories about how awesome he is and how you, too, can be just as awesome if you follow his instructions. Nevermind the fact that he clearly states he wrote the book because he became successful by working long hours and working very hard to make his company successful.
His second (upcoming) book is all about how to 'beat the system' when it comes to eating and fitness. He talks about losing body fat while eating anything he wants using little-known secrets, among other things.
Finally, his blog (and this post in particular) tell a lot of feel-good stories that feel just within reach. He's a master at weaving a narrative that makes you feel like you want his lifestyle, and that it's within reach if you just follow his simple advice.
So what do these all have in common? He's a master at selling people on an idea, even when all of the facts don't quite line up. His works all make lofty promises, but they all seem just crazy enough to still be within reach. He even puts reverse-psychology disclaimers throughout his works to trip up your own sense of disbelief. Meanwhile, he has become wealthy and successful not by following his own advice, but by selling his advice to others.
The takeaway: Learn from his techniques and products, not from his advice. And there's a lot to learn if you step back and look at it.
It's worth a quick speed read in the bookstore, but I wouldn't buy it.
There are also a lot of good stories about taking mini-retirements regularly rather than saving up for one large one and ways you can make it happen by convincing your boss to let you work remotely or by quitting, so it's not just about outsourcing.
For US folk, I've got two other copies of his book, one of the original release and then a copy of the updated ones from last year. Claim it here and then send me an email with your address and I'll send them out.
http://www.railsinside.com/events/285-tim-ferriss-railsconf-...
It is like a Multi-Level Market company, except now with time being sold instead of products. Eventually, you will reach a mass of people doing lots of work, for a low cost, just so that someone can outsource the boring parts of his business and tell the world he did it in 4 hours a week, but the true cost, paid by someone else, isn't.
Which if you think about it, is pretty much how the world works. A base of people powering the few at the top.
The one thing that really really irks me, is that people who I've met, and I'm not talking about Tim, who goes with the 4hww philosophy is that they never truly appreciate the work done by the people at the base. They make all the money, but will tell the producers of the work, hey, I can easily outsource this website design to another Indian programmer for half the cost, so you better lower your price or I won't use you.
The base is dispensable.
Instead they chose based upon what other people have chosen. That's why he asks those questions.
I also think his book has a few businesses like Yourmaninindia where he tells the reader to mention his name. He probably gets commission for that too.