Bootstrapping a $15m/yr lifestyle business

> Business people do it for the dollars.

> But real entrepreneurs push the human race forward.

And Mindvalley is doing that by selling, ugh, stuff like Chakra7? http://www.chakrahealing.com/products/academy ? I got that from the link on the blog post page.

Even a highschool wannabe philosopher couldn't output such pretentious bullshit without feeling a bit shaken by the cognitive disonance. You, sir, are a true businessman!

Here are some of the products this company sells (they own the products, they are not just affiliates--- they create or license personalities such as "Burt Goldman" and it LOOKS like that this person/character is behind the site, not the company Mindvalley):

http://www.quantumjumping.com "Interdimensional quest for a better you"

http://www.silvalifesystem.com "Silva Method of Mind Control"

http://www.chakrahealing.com/products "Is a weakness in your 7 Chakras sabotaging your reality?"

http://www.loveorabove.com "ARE YOUR VIBRATIONS HELPING OR HURTING YOU?"

http://www.modernqigong.com/ "“HOW A DISASTROUS FALL PUT ME ON THE PATH TO A MIRACULOUS HEALING THAT SCIENCE COULD NOT EXPLAIN… ”"

These products cost hundreds of dollars. Essentially, they are a serious bastardization of Eastern concepts (I wonder what kind of karma that is creating for you, Vishen?), which in all reality, are available for free, and certainly not dressed up in this way... this is spiritual fraud at worst, misleading useless bullshit at best.

I find it insulting they think they are moving the "human race forward", when it's obvious the exact opposite is happening here. You are exploiting gullible "New Age" people who think anything out of the ordinary can fix their problems, especially when it's Eastern™ AND backed by Science™!

Seriously, this is an abuse of the "mysteriousness" of the East, and the "authority" of Western Science.

"Never go 50/50. Always make a list of what each partner is bringing to the table and split accordingly. 50/50 partnerships are done by amateurs."

I don't agree. 50/50 deals are done by two people that trust each other. Just because the guy got burnt by a partner, going it with someone else that you can work with, communicate with, double check key decisions, etc, is still way better.

As for the concept of splitting non 50/50, if you're close to 50/50, say 45/55, you need to just make it 50/50, come on. But also, the idea that you can sit and that accurately apply a worth to "what you bring to the table" at the outset I find unlikely, especially pre-revenue.

It sounds like he likes to be fully in control, no partners, no investors. Don't get me wrong, great achievement, best of luck to him. But I think the business structure and evolution happens to specifically suit his personality, I think it's unsuitable in the majority of situations elsewhere.

My WOT plugin screamed when I tried to visit their main site, seems they don't have a good reputation http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/mindvalley.com

"1. Your College Degree is Meaningless (and sometimes a liability)"

"6. No other Skill is as Important as Sales & Marketing"

"7. Don’t Build Crap for the Sake of Making a Buck."

These last two partly conflict with each other. Sales and marketing dominated businesses tend to view the engineering as a necessary evil. It's true that better sales will shift a shittier product better than a poorly marketed average product, but only up to a certain delta in technical quality.

Poorer quality engineering, certainly in the area of software, not only means more bugs in the short term, but the accumulation of piles of technical debt is virtually always ignored in such organisations, that's much more serious.

Yes, it's true that some of these companies grow so fast that they have enough money for a rewrite when the code become unmaintainable, but I still believe that distinctly higher quality code has a cumulative effect and can offset the need for large amounts of sales people (although this depends on the price point), and I've seen that strategy work.

Such companies will claim high levels of quality and as long as from the outside it looks OK, who cares. But I'll bet 98% of these organisations are fire-fighting from dawn till dusk, sapping the morale of the engineering with endless deadlines while the all-important sales staff work towards that 7 figure annual sales bonus.

I don't like points 1 or 6 at all. Engineering is more intellectually demanding academically than the vast majority of non science/engineering subjects, and many engineers are rightfully proud of their academic achievements. You wouldn't get away with being this dis-respectful to them in an engineering focused company, which his clearly isn't.

I don't believe the "I was too busy to do my course" line, either. Frankly, I think he just found it too hard.

It's really sad to see how the role of Mike Reining is being diminished here. He was one of the founding partners and quite important to the company, especially on the business (making money) side.

He dropped a really successful career to team up with Vishen to build the company up, so it's not very fair to leave him out of the picture, or suggest that he was a "mistake".

Knowing quite a lot of people from the company, I can also say their turnover rates are crazy - most of the best guys are gone, and not many people stay in the company more than 1-2 years. That's quite weird for a company boasting about a great corporate culture, don't you think?

It's funny to see Yanik Silver mentioned there at the top of Vishen's networks. Perhaps this very thorough article on The Verge, will shed some light on how people like Yanik work: http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/10/2984893/scamworld-get-rich...

Most of the advice is pretty basic, solid stuff. It seems they don't have a product that is all that 'interesting' for people here, but then again, how many of us care about bingo cards, either?

I think that's an important message: there are tons of 'boring' things that people will pay good money for if you can sell/market them well, and the product is reasonably good.

I feel distrustful seeing the photo where the founder is the central figure of the shot, and the only one wearing shoes, but I might be reading too much into this..

It's not clear whether the products that are being sold here are Mindvalley's or someone else's, and if the latter, what the margins are for reselling someone else's products. Is it $15M in total sales, but MindValley gets 10-20% of that (still not bad), or something else? It would be more helpful to say what the profits are rather than the top line here. I know folks that sell "millions" online, but only keep a small fraction of what is sold, with the majority going to the original producer.

That being said, this is doing a LOT better than most of the SaaS products out there, and it looks like the OP is having a great time doing what he's doing.

Its an interesting story, but if you dig a bit deeper into their business practices you will find stuff that is not so pretty. Thats pretty normal still, many successful businesses have some amount of upset customers, its the way things are but please stop claiming stuff like

> Business people do it for the dollars.

> But real entrepreneurs push the human race forward.

Seriously ?

This site looks so spammy. Filled with affiliate links.

Spammy. But under no conditions could a 100 employee business be defined as a LIFESTYLE business!

Wiki: In conventional business terms, lifestyle businesses typically have limited scalability and potential for growth because such growth would destroy the lifestyle for which their owner-managers set them up.

Am I the only one who can't read through the happy-go-far text on the page and figure out what the company actually does to get to the $15m/yr revenue?

There are certain clues, including prominent language use, that shows that this company isn't being guided by someone or people who would be practicing these philosophies - they are just wrapping them up in a marketing package to try to make money off of people. I won't give specific examples of the language as to tip them off to change it.

$15m/yr revenue with 100 employees. Doesn't say what the founder is taking home, or what he still does at the business (does he film these educational infoproducts all day? Does he constantly fly out to different places to deliver seminars to rainmake?) so it's hard to translate it to an actual dollars-per-hour-of-effort figure.

As with most "lifestyle business" guides, there are only real lessons here for people inasmuch as what this guy's lifestyle is, is a lifestyle you're willing to accept. Working 100hr weeks in finance is a "lifestyle" for some people.

"If I ran a company like Pepsi or McDonalds, I’d be depressed. Exactly what benefit would I be providing to the world other than a marketing machine that is making high-fructose corn syrup and junk food seem cool and tasty?"

Pepsi tastes great and is a cheap coffee subsitute and McDonalds is the cheapest food you can buy fast - a decent couple of sandwiches + a salad & dressing go for $3 from their dollar menu. Those were useful to me many times when I was bootstrapping.

Multicolored bean bags for everyone! We are an internet business!

This is hilarious, I actually had to check to see if this was an Onion post when I saw the photos of their office. Classic!