🌐 Justin's Blog

Stick To Your Strengths

August 27, 2021

Don't waste your time trying to acquire a new skill. Just amplify what is currently working.

Growing up I was always told that if you're not good at something, and you want to become good at that thing, then you should practice it.

I can't argue with that logic. Makes sense.

It wasn't until I was an early adult that someone told me not to waste time on the things I am not good at, and instead focus on amplifying the areas where I already have skill.

For whatever reason, that resonated with me.

Maybe it's because as a child, you're still developing all kinds of skill-sets, so you have to essentially practice everything.

When entering adulthood, you already have an affinity towards some disciplines, and you get more ROI by putting your energy into those areas.

Focusing on what makes you money and enhancing those skills is far more efficient.

I don't know how to write code.

As someone who has started a software company, you would think that learning how to write some code would be beneficial.

But quite the opposite.

It would be an enormous waste of time. I am good at other things, and my time is best spent on those areas. Things like marketing, competing, networking, researching opportunities, and analyzing market trends.

If I spent $1,000 on a coding course, it'd be a waste of money.

But if I spent $1,000 on a marketing course, I could generate an ROI in a very short amount of time. I would turn that $1,000 into $10,000.

And then I could use some of that $10,000 to hire some developers.

See what I am getting at?

List the top three things that you are good at, and take the necessary steps to improve in those areas.

Whether you work at a company or are an entrepreneur running your own business, you are probably talented in at least three areas.

This is where your focus should be if you are interested in making more money. Zero-in your talent so that in a crowd you are known as the most talented compared to the other talented folks.

That's how you command a higher salary. That's how you make more money for your business.

Now, if you want to learn a new skill as a hobby, then there is no harm in that at all. Always be learning. Keep challenging your mind.

But when it comes to revenue generation, stay focused on strengthening the skills where you already rise above the rest, and keep on rising.

#entrepreneurship

WordCamp Prediction

July 28, 2021

WordCamps will eventually become a thing again. The clock is going to be re-set a few years.Remember when WordCamps were a thing?

It seems like so long ago when people would pack up for a long weekend to attend talks and cruise sponsorship tables.

The idea of a WordCamp now sounds pretty nice. Especially because every conference since COVID has been a virtual event. People are burnt out of those. Virtual events are flat-out boring.

But you know what? Before COVID, I remember people getting burnt out from the WordCamp experience. The same old talks, same old swag, same old travel issues, same old tiredness due to staying out too late.

When we get through the worst of the pandemic, WordCamps will feel special again.

We were at a tipping point for WordCamps before 2020. Something needed to change.

Organizers were struggling to find ways to make their event special, always trying to “one-up” the previous year. Speaker & sponsor dinners, after parties, and free stuff were all starting to lose their appeal.

This is not to imply that they were poorly organized. The folks planning these events put in a lot of their free time and energy to make them happen. Some of my close friends in WordPress were organizers. They wore themselves out in an effort to make the event enjoyable for everyone.

The problem was that the organizers were almost too good. They all leveraged the same winning formula for the event experience and flow. It worked, but it was predictable after the third year.

As a result, WordCamps started to lose their uniqueness. The presentations themselves were going too broad instead of deep.

All that said, in (what looks like) 2022, that slate will be wiped clean!

If there is ever a time to be a WordCamp organizer, it will be in 2022-2023.

People are aching to be back to normal. They want to mingle with others, chat in hallways, attend talks, and network with handshakes (okay… elbow bumps) instead of Zoom. Sponsors will have dollars to spend as well!

The events will be a breath of fresh air! No need to try to “one-up” the previous year. Getting back to basics will be perfectly fine.

Sure, some new health and safety guidelines will be in place, but those will make the experience all that much more enjoyable.

And by 2025, we'll need to start thinking again about innovating the experience. How that looks, I don't know.

One option is to go smaller instead of going bigger. Stop trying to outdo the previous year. Get back to basics and focus on the content.

#WordPress

Profitable Mistakes (#2)

July 23, 2021

That time I forgot to use BCC and blasted an email to over 500 (very angry) people.

I'm going to share with you a story that no one knows.

It's embarrassing.

It has to do with a mistake that I made in the very early days of my business. I laugh about it now (because it was so stupid), and I'm sure you will too. But more importantly, I hope that you learn from my mistake! So, something that I always wanted to give customers of LearnDash was free integrations.

In other words, you buy LearnDash and get all the in-house integrations for free (no upcharge). The thing is, I wanted to avoid listing these free integrations on wordpress.org.

There are a variety of reasons, but mainly because I wanted to avoid having customer support spread out over multiple platforms. Plus, someone could nuke an add-on with a 1-star review and perspective customers may mistake that for a review of LearnDash itself.

In any event, I decided not to list them there. This meant that the add-ons did not have automatic updates.

Instead, when an update was made, I would email customers who downloaded that specific add-on (because there was no need to email all customers).

Well, one day in 2013 an update was made to the WooCommerce add-on for LearnDash. At that time, I was the one responsible for pushing out the updates when they were complete.

So, I did my usually steps of packaging up the download and notifying the individuals who downloaded this add-on. I then fired up regular email... and sent the update notice as I always did.

At the time, to about 500 people. Except I put every email in the “TO” section and not the “BCC”.

Yeah... that happened.

As you would expect, I got many replies. Some people were laughing at me, others were “letting me know” what happened, and of course others were pissed-off and wanted to know what I would do to fix this situation.

I was embarrassed, and angry at myself. Ultimately, the mess settled down. I can't recall exactly how I went about easing the tension, but I was responding to every message that was sent. In the end, it was an honest mistake by a young startup.

It ultimately was forgiven and forgotten (by everyone except me). After that incident, I linked all email to the email service provider I was using at the time (MailChimp) and eventually added auto-updates to add-ons.

I was determined to never make a mistake like that again, and I never did. If you make a mistake in your business, do what you have to do to own up to it and make sure you learn from your mistake. If you make it twice, then shame on you. Mistakes are the greatest teacher.

Oh, and get your privacy policy in order.

The above story highlights another important part of business that isn't talked about enough, and few people understand: privacy policies and terms & conditions.

When entrepreneurs first start out, they end up creating their own privacy policy and terms. This is fine for the experimental stage of a business.

However, once you start getting regular customers, then it's time to “level up” your legal game.

There is no cool trick to this. Hire a lawyer or law firm. Having a lawyer draft these up (or review your draft) won't cost you a fortune, but it won't be cheap. Regardless, it's worth your peace of mind.

#entrepreneurship

Time Under Tension

July 19, 2021

Time under tension builds character, but it can also be dangerous. Here is how I deal with stress.

If you have ever lifted weights, then you probably have heard about “time under tension”. The longer your muscles are under tension in an exercise, the more strength you can gain.

But I’m not talking about weight lifting… I’m talking about life. Similar to the gym, time under tension in our lives is good. Instead of muscle, it builds character and perseverance. We find out who we are when we are living out days under tension.

I usually thrive under pressure. That’s not to say that I like it. I don’t. I prefer things to be going smoothly in life, just like anyone. Yet, there are always stressful times and I seem to find a way to rise above it mentally to get things done – whatever that may be.

But sometimes I start to run out of energy. My mental fortitude weakens. The time under tension is too long. If you’re under tension for a long time, it starts to feel normal. But it’s not normal. It’s dangerous.

The Best Medicine

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get into a routine and don’t even realize it, and this includes existing in a stressful state.

I have found that the most effective self-care tactic is to exercise. For me, it’s Muay Thai.

There is something incredibly therapeutic about punching and kicking the crap out of a heavy bag. Maybe it’s the primal aspect of it… “Me angry! Me hit things!”

You don’t have to buy all kinds of fancy fighting gear or join a smelly boxing gym, either. There are some boutique fitness gyms that specialize in boxing and kickboxing. The energy is great, facilities clean, and the workout will leave you feeling better physically and mentally. TITLE Boxing, Kickboxing.com, and CKO Kickboxing come to mind, but your city may have others.

The body and mind are connected. If they aren’t in sync, then that’s when I start to spiral a bit.

Most of the time my mind is taking care of my body, but every so often my body has to take care of my mind to relieve that time under tension.

#mindfulness

6 Types of Tweets

July 14, 2021

The tweets that make it to my Twitter home screen can be categorized into these six areas.

I am on a plane right now and the internet is broken… so I need to fill my time. That is the real reason behind this post.

Anyway… 😅

So, I have been more active on Twitter for the past six to eight months. In that time, I have noticed a bit of a trend in tweets that I see, be it from people I follow or “viral” tweets.

My totally 💯 super scientific analysis concludes that my Twitter-sphere types 180-240 characters that fall into the following categories (in order of popularity):

Pontificating
Passive Aggressive Complaining
Marketing (self or company)
Aggressive Complaining
Humorous
Life Updates

1. Pontificating Someone knows something, and they are going to tell you what’s up. I’m guilty of writing these tweets and that bothers me. I feel like I want to share things I’ve learned as an entrepreneur, but when I go back to read them, I cringe a bit. I don't know it all, and what worked for me might not work for others.

2. Aggressive Complaining The tweets where someone is “tired of XYZ” and they call it out in a somewhat nonspecific manner. Politics to business, parenting to driving and everything in between. It’s all there. I think people tweet these to reaffirm their position on a subject. It’s nice to see you’re not alone on a worldview. Confirmation bias at its best.

3. Marketing (Self or Business) Thought leaders. You know what I mean. Men and women sharing their thoughts. Building that trust. Growing that personal brand. Rocking those FB pixels when you visit their articles. Eventually, trying to sell you stuff. Nothing inherently bad here. I even find the content enjoyable from time to time.

4. Aggressive Complaining Directly calling someone out. Using profanity at times, but not always. People type out platitudes at one another. Arguments ensue. I mute these if they come up too often from someone. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

5. Humorous Sort of rare now, which is a shame because they are my favorite. I’m a sucker for a perfectly timed meme or snarky remark. Like this one…

6. Life Updates What the FB status feature used to be. I like these too. They are inherently friendly. Sharing pieces of life makes me feel like I get to know someone on a different level. Unfortunately, these are often “humble brags” in disguise.

#personal

Mexico City

July 12, 2021

After over a year of trying to get to Mexico, Lorena and I are finally on our way and I cannot wait!

It has been a long time coming, but I am finally going to Mexico City!

This will be my first time visiting CDMX, and I have to say that I'm pretty excited. As one of the largest cities in the world, I cannot wait to learn more about its culture. It's also where Lorena grew up, so I am just as excited to learn about her childhood and to experience the areas she frequented before she moved to the U.S.

We have a few concrete plans, including seeing Lorena's friends to celebrate her birthday. We will also be taking some time to visit some other cities (a few hours from CDMX).

We'll be there for an extended amount of time, which is perfect because I want to jump right into the culture... not to mention refine my Spanish a bit!

Vamanos!

#personal

ROI on Google Ads

July 7, 2021

I get $10 for every $1 spent on Google Ads. Here is how I do it, and it's not as hard as you may think.

I see many similar questions come up about Google Ads, and the surrounding confusion with implementing them.

I've talked about this before in my old newsletter but figured it would be worthwhile to address it again in a more concise manner. Consider this your “cheat sheet”!

Getting a positive ROI on your Google Ads takes time and attention. You need to be constantly monitoring your ad performance, dropping the dead-weight and increasing ad spend on the winners.

Here are some beginner tips I followed to make Google Ads work for me:

Keep keyword groups small / narrow. Don't “bundle” related keywords to create massive groups. Instead, create many small groups that are more closely related so that you can better analyze the themes that are working.
Test each ad group for one or two weeks. Don't throw a bunch of money at the group right away. Keep daily limit modest before spending a lot. Once you have some winners, ramp up the ad spend.
Implement the Google suggestions. As you create ads, Google will suggest changes to your ads. Do them! Your ad optimization scores will go up. Oh, and just because you do this once doesn't mean you're done. Google will keep making suggestions.
Set up a conversion pixel. This is slightly technical, but I was capable of doing it, and all I did was use Google's help docs. Your ads don't mean anything if you can't track conversions (i.e. money made). This is also a great metric for determining which ad groups to drop and which to keep.
Revisit every week. Google likes to see activity in the account. This doesn't mean you have to change something every time. Monitor what is working, what is not, add some of Google's keyword suggestions (you'll get these as you have ads running). Adjust the times your ads show, configure dynamic ads, create the maximum number of ad variations for each keyword group.
Monitor competitors. Google makes this easy to do with a ton of useful graphs and charts. Use a tool like SpyFu to dig deeper into the specific ads your competition is running and for which keywords. You can't exist in a silo. You need to monitor the activity of other people in your market.
Landing page score must be minimum 7 out of 10. Your landing page score (Google gives you this for your specific URLs that you put for ads) needs to be 7 or above. You're wasting your time and money if it's lower than that. If you're going after competitive keywords, it better be a 9 or a 10 out of 10 for your ad to have a chance at being shown above the fold.

#entrepreneurship

Denver Holiday

July 3, 2021

Lorena and I are off to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nephews in Denver, Colorado.

Profitable Mistakes (#1)

July 1, 2021

When you run a successful business, you start to see opportunities everywhere for making more money. You develop a sense of what will work. It's pretty neat, but that intuition is not always 100% accurate.

I once saw an opportunity in the market for a service that would authenticate (validate) certifications for online courses. There was one major player in the market, and they were still pretty new. The timing was perfect. So, I started building this complementary business. I would integrate it first with LearnDash then extend to other learning management systems.

The market was huge, and I was excited to run a traditional SaaS business! The business was SimplyCertify (I spent $2,000 on that domain name).

I created a few sales pages, early adopter sign-up forms, and then hired someone to start blogging. Some people started to sign-up, which was encouraging. Then I started a Facebook Group. During this time, I hired a well-respected developer to create the initial prototype. I spent around $30,000 for it.

In the end, it never launched.

The project never saw the light of day. Not because it was a bad idea. It was a great idea. I simply did not have the energy to turn that start-up into a successful business.

One reason I knew SimplyCertify would be profitable was because I could leverage the success of one business to feed its early growth. I was going to upsell the existing customers into this new product.

Even create a pricing tier in LearnDash that would include SimplyCertify. I did this once before with a non-SaaS product (ProPanel, a reporting tool for LearnDash).

This would allow current LearnDash customers to help round-out the feature set in SimplyCertify before taking it to other markets. Sujay Pawar is someone who does this incredibly well. His flagship product Astra Theme is the foot-in-the-door for all his other products (such as Starter Templates).

I learned the value of focus.

When you have success, you need to focus on really refining that success so that it is optimal, then you can leverage it to make more money. Avoid the temptation to start something “entirely new” just because you see an opportunity. Find ways to use the work you have done already.

Maybe I was doing too much at the time. In hindsight, I probably should have had someone else take on that project to see it through completion. But you know what? I don't regret that experience.

First, the individual blogging for SimplyCertify (Laura) started to write for LearnDash and the blog took off! She's incredibly talented at what she does, and I'm grateful that she became part of the LearnDash team.

Secondly, I learned a lot about what it takes to get a minimal viable product out the door for a SaaS. I paid for that education. I took these lessons learned and applied it to the LearnDash 3.0 launch — the most successful (and profitable) update done for LearnDash.

The update changed the trajectory of the business entirely with the revenue growth. If you hit a dead-end with a project that you're working on, don't consider it a failure. All of your learnings from the process will make you better.

Experience isn't something that you can buy, and it's incredibly valuable.

#entrepreneurship

Food From Local Farms

June 29, 2021

It's scary how we put things into our bodies yet don't have the slightest clue where it comes from. Source local!

Over the weekend, I tweeted a picture of me on a tractor.

If you missed it, it's the one above.

As natural as I look in that element, there's a reason I am at this farm.

Lorena and I have decided to level-up our health habits. We have always exercised, but lately have started being more regular (as in doing something daily). But as you probably know, food is arguably the most important part of the fitness equation.

Without getting onto a soapbox, let's just say that the food available in grocery stores (even organic options) aren't always the best. The reality is that you really don't know much about the produce and meat you buy unless you know the source.

And that's what we did over the weekend!

The picture of me on the tractor was taken at Urban Roots Farm in Austin, Texas. More than a farm, it's a nonprofit designed to empower the city's youth. From their website:

Urban Roots provides today's young leaders with paid opportunities to grow food, learn new skills, and make a difference in their community.

So, not only are we getting locally sourced vegetables, but by purchasing produce at the farm, we are helping their youth program as well. Double score!

We got our produce bag, which consisted of locally grown carrots, beets, sage, cilantro, eggplant, peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes. The tomatoes were remarkable. I've never tasted a tomato with such a rich, deep flavor.

The farm only has produce, so we have been trying different local farms for products such as beef, chicken, and eggs. We found these at Shirttail Creek Farm.

Super important to me and Lorena is that the chickens and cattle are treated properly according to the Global Animal Partnership's 5-Step Welfare Rating. Shirttail Creek Farm met this requirement. We picked up some grass fed beef (grass is better than grain fed), pasture raised chicken, and pasture raised chicken eggs.

I particularly loved the eggs. Unlike the eggs that you get at the local grocery store, these weren't all the same size. That alone made me feel like it was more authentic. Some were large, others a bit smaller, but all were great!

The only thing we are missing is something for fish. For now, the salmon from Whole Foods will have to do.

I will be the first to admit that all of this is pretty new to me, but I'm enjoying learning more as we go. I love that we have initiatives like Urban Roots Farm nearby to support.

I encourage you to take a minute to do a quick Google search for local produce in your area. Aside from being a great way to support your local farmers and ranchers, you get the piece of mind knowing exactly where the food you put into your body comes from.

#health