Creation Alley

Vidit Gandhi owns Flashy Video, a business creating explainer videos for companies. He's been running it for 5 years, and had some great lessons to teach about how to maximize your efforts to not be wasted, and how to build the perfect team so you can work with whatever skill set you have. LESSON 1: DON'T BE STUPID WITH MONEY Bootstrapping is not a new concept. It's the process of starting a company with only your own investment, letting it pay for itself as it grows. But here's the twist that Vidit gave: If you don't have good enough personal finance skills, you DEFINITELY won't have good enough business finance skills. BOOM. DONE. Wisdom in personal finance is a MUST before even CONSIDERING starting your own business. If you have bad finance skills, not only will be be exponentially harder to keep track of the business profits and losses (you know, the whole point of having a business?) But if you are bad at finance now, what makes you think that having more money will magically make you better at finances?? LESSON 2: LEARNING IS EARNING I love the simple quote from Warren Buffet: "The more you learn, the more you'll learn." A wee bit gimmicky, but we didn't get into the business game to be poets. Take programming for example. If you learn Python (which takes a month and a free 4 hour course on YouTube), here's what you can do to make money USE the skillFreelance Regular job (gross, I know, but it pays the bills) Make software to sell to companies (Saas is all about this) TEACH the skillMake a course of your own Create events for people who want to get into python programming Become a specialized programming tutor Not bad for 1 month of work. And with a few online certifications, you will have the same on-paper mastery as someone with a 4 year degree. That's a 97% decrease in time. 😎 LESSON 3: BE A MANAGER This is where the true genius of Vidit comes through. He doesn't have the knowledge of a full-fledged video editor, or script-writer, but what makes him extremely successful is that he uses people who do. This is where a lot of people trip up. They think they have to start off doing everything on their own. "I don't have the networking skills" Vidit found most of his people on Facebook groups, so he leveraged the online community. Now THAT'S online business as it should be "That would cost too much in the beginning" NO IT ISN'T Slap upside the head Freelance work is all about getting paid per project, not being on retainer. There are PLENTY of people that are willing to grow with the company. You just gotta ask. Silly Willy. Vidit used this to make a killer team that makes incredibly professional videos. And as they expand their repertoire, they hire people who are skilled in that area. For example, they wanted to get into 3D animation, so they hired a 3D animator. EASY. At the end of the day, it's what you DO that matters. Leverage yourself and you can find yourself in a scary-good situation. It did for Vidit.

David is a jacked-up-on-life dude who owns 3 businesses, and he's a great example of how to make a win-win-win situation. Check out the interview! For show notes, check out the blog post:  -David Clay is a super jacked-up-on-life dude -He's the founder of the Starving Student Card -He's the founder of Racing TraX -He's a great guy to talk to, and I hope you enjoy the interview. If you want to get in touch with David, here's how to contact him: Instagram: @davidrclay

Copywriting is making articles with a specific purpose in mind: selling. And no one does as good a job as Ian Nelson. Is he energetic? Yes. Does he share all of his secrets with us? Absolutely. His Kickstarter project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/willterry/what-they-dont-teach-in-art-school Check out the website for more info! https://josephpoole.com/creationalley

Dan Bennett started off doing a normal job, but made something amazing. He made a business around empowering people to make their own videos sharing their story. He's also a no-BS kind of guy, wanting to cut through the crap to make something worth pursuing.

On today's episode, our guest has a thriving business surrounding AirBNB and short term rentals, and is KILLING it, even during the pandemic! Aaron Kirkham shares his story, his strategy (which is really more of a life skill), and how he keeps everything in order. It's a FANTASTIC episode, and I hope you all enjoy it! --- Enjoying the podcast? You can leave us a review! It helps us reach other people just like you who want to make cool stuff. Keep up to date and follow @creationalley on Instagram. My DM is always open I want to hear your story! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/creationalley to leave me a message Want to be a guest on the podcast or have a topic you think we should discuss? Send us an email to [email protected]

Bill Kairo started an instagram page a few years ago showcasing Engineering. He has built up a MASSIVE following, and he is continuously growing. On today's episode, Bill teaches us how to get started engineering, shares his own personal story, and the path he took to become the engineer he is today. --- Enjoying the podcast? You can leave us a review! It helps us reach other people just like you who want to make cool stuff. Keep up to date and follow @creationalley on Instagram. My DMs are always open I want to hear your story! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/creationalley to leave me a message Want to be a guest on the podcast or have a topic you think we should discuss? Send me an email! [email protected]

How cool would it feel to be one of the main leaders in a sport? Well, today we're hearing about the story of a man who managed to do just that. Taylor Sanford is one of the leading hosts of the sport roundnet, more commonly known as spike ball. It is taking the world by storm, and he's in the middle of it! We learn in this episode about his path to becoming a leader in the sport, and balancing life and work on top of it while creating a second stream of income. --- Enjoying the podcast? You can leave us a review! It helps us reach other people just like you who want to make cool stuff. Keep up to date and follow @creationalley on Instagram. My DM is always open I want to hear your story! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/creationalley to leave me a message Want to be a guest on the podcast or have a topic you think we should discuss? Send me an email! [email protected]

SO! You want to be a efficient person who doesn't waste their time on things that don't matter, right?...right? There is a LOT of stuff out there that doesn't really help us that much. In fact, it turns out that only 20% of what we do leads to 80% of our results. In this episode, you'll hear about how to make yourself more efficient, giving you more time, more satisfying work, and improve your personal life. The 4 Hour Work Week - https://amzn.to/3nnpLtb Tools of Titans - https://amzn.to/36xfgwG Graham Stephan on the 80/20 principle - https://youtu.be/Zk1ZBLKjXs0 Josh Kaufman on TEDx about the first 20 hours - https://youtu.be/5MgBikgcWnY Better Than Yesterday on the 80/20 rule - https://youtu.be/EAynHZE-lK4 --- Enjoying the podcast? You can leave us a review! It helps us reach other people just like you who want to make cool stuff. Keep up to date and follow @creationalley on Instagram. My DM is always open I want to hear your story! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/creationalley to leave me a message Want to be a guest on the podcast or have a topic you think we should discuss? Send us an email to [email protected]

On todays episode we listen form Courtney Hoopii, who has started her own Virtual Assistant business to help small businesses get more done in less amount of time. The great thing about this episode is her dedication to her customers. She decided to move across the country in order to be closer to her clients. A lot of good things to learn from this one. - Enjoying the podcast? You can leave us a review! It helps us reach other people just like you who want to make cool stuff. Keep up to date and follow @creationalley on Instagram. Our DMs are always open We want to hear your story! Go to anchor.fm/creationalley to leave us a message Want to be a guest on the podcast or have a topic you think we should discuss? Send us an email to [email protected]

Okay, here's the thing. Now that you've gotten a great idea (I KNOW you have one) it is time to start planning how you are going to make that idea happen. It is easy to just let the ideas wash over you and go about your day thinking "Yeah, if I tried, I would be GREAT at this" but then do NOTHING. Instead, you gotta get out and MAKE. IT. HAPPEN. This episode is all about how you can do that, from figuring out WHY you're doing it to WHO you're helping and HOW you're going to do it. Running Lean by Ash Maurya: https://amzn.to/2TxpneX Lean Canvas Website: https://leanstack.com Lean Canvas PDF: https://www.canvasgeneration.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/lean-canvas.pdf - Enjoying the podcast? You can leave us a review! It helps us reach other people just like you who want to make cool stuff. Keep up to date and follow @creationalley on Instagram. Our DMs are always open I'd LOVE to hear your story! Go to speakpipe.com/creationalley to leave me a message Want to be a guest on the podcast or have a topic you think we should discuss? Send us an email to [email protected]