Internet's fantastic, right?

We've never had a better way to share our creativity.

I can now draw on my iPad and tweet or Instagram it to thousands. I may get some likes.

With such a great, free tool, you're not alone.

Millions more bright-eyed artists are sharing their work online.

The issue is getting innovative work noticed, not sharing it.

In a world where creators want attention, attention is valuable.

We build for attention.

Attention helps us establish a following, make money, get notoriety, and make a difference.

Most of us require attention to stay sane while creating wonderful things.

I know how hard it is to work hard and receive little views.

How do we receive more attention, more often, in a sea of talent?

Advertising and celebrity endorsements are options. These may work temporarily.

To attract true, organic, and long-term attention, you must create in high quality, high volume, and consistency.

Adapting Steve Martin's Be so amazing, they can't ignore you (with a mention to Dan Norris in his great book Create or Hate for the reminder)

Create a lot.

Eventually, your effort will gain traction.

Traction shows your work's influence.

Traction is when your product sells more. Traction is exponential user growth. Your work is shared more.

No matter how good your work is, it will always have minimal impact on the world.

Your work can eventually dent or puncture. Daily, people work to dent.

To achieve this tipping point, you must consistently produce exceptional work.

Expect traction after hundreds of outputs.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams says repetition persuades. If you don't stop, you can persuade practically anyone with anything.

Volume lends believability. So make more.

I worked as an illustrator for at least a year and a half without any recognition. After 150 illustrations on iStockphoto, my work started selling.

With 350 illustrations on iStock, I started getting decent client commissions.

Producing often will improve your craft and draw attention.

It's the only way to succeed. More creation means better results and greater attention.

Austin Kleon says you can improve your skill in relative anonymity before you become famous. Before obtaining traction, generate a lot and become excellent.

Most artists, even excellent ones, don't create consistently enough to get traction.

It may hurt. For makers who don't love and flow with their work, it's extremely difficult.

Your work must bring you to life.

To generate so much that others can't ignore you, decide what you'll accomplish every day (or most days).

Commit and be patient.

Prepare for zero-traction.

Anticipating this will help you persevere and create.

My online guru Grant Cardone says: Anything worth doing is worth doing every day.

Do.

40 years pass. After 14 years of retirement, you die. Am I the only one who sees the problem?

I’m the Jedi master of escaping the rat race.

Not to impress. I know this works since I've tried it. Quitting a job to make money online is worse than Kim Kardashian's internet-burning advice.

Let me help you rethink the move from a career to online income to f*ck you money.

To understand why a job is a joke, do some life math.

Without a solid why, nothing makes sense.

The retirement age is 65. Our processed food consumption could shorten our 79-year average lifespan.

You spend 40 years working.

After 14 years of retirement, you die.

Am I alone in seeing the problem?

Life is too short to work a job forever, especially since most people hate theirs. After-hours skills are vital.

Money equals unrestricted power, f*ck you.

F*ck you money is the answer.

Jack Raines said it first. He says we can do anything with the money. Jack, a young rebel straight out of college, can travel and try new foods.

F*ck you money signifies not checking your bank account before buying.

F*ck you” money is pure, unadulterated freedom with no strings attached.

Jack claims you're rich when you rarely think about money.

Avoid confusion.

This doesn't imply you can buy a Lamborghini. It indicates your costs, income, lifestyle, and bank account are balanced.

Jack established an online portfolio while working for UPS in Atlanta, Georgia. So he gained boundless power.

The portion that many erroneously believe

Yes, you need internet abilities to make money, but they're not different from 9-5 talents.

Sahil Lavingia, Gumroad's creator, explains.

A job is a way to get paid to learn.

Mistreat your boss 9-5. Drain his skills. Defuse him. Love and leave him (eventually).

Find another employment if yours is hazardous. Pick an easy job. Make sure nothing sneaks into your 6-12 time slot.

The dumb game that makes you a sheep

A 9-5 job requires many job interviews throughout life.

You email your résumé to employers and apply for jobs through advertisements. This game makes you a sheep.

You're competing globally. Work-from-home makes the competition tougher. If you're not the cheapest, employers won't hire you.

After-hours online talents (say, 6 pm-12 pm) change the game. This graphic explains it better:

Online talents boost after-hours opportunities.

You go from wanting to be picked to picking yourself. More chances equal more money. Your f*ck you fund gets the extra cash.

A novel method of learning is essential.

College costs six figures and takes a lifetime to repay.

Informal learning is distinct. 6-12pm:

• Observe the carefully controlled Twitter newsfeed.

• Make use of Teachable and Gumroad's online courses.

• Watch instructional YouTube videos

• Look through the top Substack newsletters.

Informal learning is more effective because it's not obvious. It's fun to follow your curiosity and hobbies.

The majority of people lack one attitude. It's simple to learn.

One big impediment stands in the way of f*ck you money and time independence. So often.

Too many people plan after 6-12 hours. Dreaming. Big-thinkers. Strategically. They fill their calendar with meetings.

This is after-hours masturb*tion.

Sahil Bloom reminded me that a bias towards action will determine if this approach works for you.

The key isn't knowing what to do from 6-12 a.m. Trust yourself and develop abilities as you go. It's for building the parachute after you jump.

Sounds risky. We've eliminated the risk by finishing this process after hours while you work 9-5.

With no risk, you can have an I-don't-care attitude and still be successful.

When you choose to move forward, this occurs.

Once you try 9-5/6-12, you'll tell someone.

It's bad.

Few of us hang out with problem-solvers.

It's how much of society operates. So they make reasons so they can feel better about not giving you money.

Matthew Kobach told me chasing f*ck you money is easier with like-minded folks.

Without f*ck you money friends, loneliness will take over and you'll think you've messed up when you just need to keep going.

Steal this easy guideline

Let's act. No more fluffing and caressing.

1. Learn

If you detest your 9-5 talents or don't think they'll work online, get new ones. If you're skilled enough, continue.

Easlo recommends these skills:

• Designer for Figma

• Designer Canva

• bubble creators

• editor in Photoshop

• Automation consultant for Zapier

• Designer of Webflow

• video editor Adobe

• Ghostwriter for Twitter

• Idea consultant

• Artist in Blender Studio

2. Develop the ability

Every night from 6-12, apply the skill.

Practicing ghostwriting? Write someone's tweets for free. Do someone's website copy to learn copywriting. Get a website to the top of Google for a keyword to understand SEO.

Free practice is crucial. Your 9-5 pays the money, so work for free.

3. Take off stealthily like a badass

Another mistake. Sell to few. Don't be the best. Don't claim expertise.

Sell your new expertise to others behind you.

Two ways:

• Using a digital good

• By providing a service,

Point 1 also includes digital service examples. Digital products include eBooks, communities, courses, ad-supported podcasts, and templates. It's easy. Your 9-5 job involves one of these.

Take ideas from work.

Why? They'll steal your time for profit.

4. Iterate while feeling awful

First-time launches always fail. You'll feel terrible. Okay. Remember your 9-5?

Find improvements. Ask free and paying consumers what worked.

Multiple relaunches, each 1% better.

5. Discover more

Never stop learning. Improve your skill. Add a relevant skill. Learn copywriting if you write online.

After-hours students earn the most.

6. Continue

Repetition is key.

7. Make this one small change.

Consistently. The 6-12 momentum won't make you rich in 30 days; that's success p*rn.

Consistency helps wage slaves become f*ck you money. Most people can't switch between the two.

Putting everything together

It's easy. You're probably already doing some.

This formula explains why, how, and what to do. It's a 5th-grade-friendly blueprint. Good.

Reduce financial risk with your 9-to-5. Replace Netflix with 6-12 money-making talents.

Life is short; do whatever you want. Today.

Could this happen?

Medium isn't like other social media giants. It wasn't a dot-com startup that became a multi-trillion-dollar social media firm. It launched in 2012 but didn't gain popularity until later. Now, it's one of the largest sites by web traffic, but it's still little compared to most. Most of Medium's traffic is external, but they don't run advertisements, so it's all about memberships.

Medium isn't profitable, but they don't disclose how terrible the problem is. Most of the $163 million they raised has been spent or used for acquisitions. If the money turns off, Medium can't stop paying its writers since the site dies. Writers must be paid, but they can't substantially slash payment without hurting the platform. The existing model needs scale to be viable and has a low ceiling. Facebook and other free social media platforms are struggling to retain users. Here, you must pay to appreciate it, and it's bad for writers AND readers. If I had the same Medium stats on YouTube, I'd make thousands of dollars a month.

Then what? Medium has tried to monetize by offering writers a cut of new members, but that's unsustainable. People-based growth is limited. Imagine recruiting non-Facebook users and getting them to pay to join. Some may, but I'd rather write.

Alternatives:

• Donation buttons

• Tiered subscriptions ($5, $10, $25, etc.)

• Expanding content

and these may be short-term fixes, but they're not as profitable as allowing ads. Advertisements can pay several dollars per click and cents every view. If you get 40,000 views a month like me, that's several thousand instead of a few hundred. Also, Medium would have enough money to split ad revenue with writers, who would make more. I'm among the top 6% of Medium writers. Only 6% of Medium writers make more than $100, and I made $500 with 35,000 views last month. Compared to YouTube, the top 1% of Medium authors make a lot. Mr. Beast and PewDiePie make MILLIONS a month, yet top Medium writers make tens of thousands. Sure, paying 3 or 4 people a few grand, or perhaps tens of thousands, will keep them around. What if great authors leveraged their following to go huge on YouTube and abandoned Medium? If people use Medium to get successful on other platforms, Medium will be continuously cycling through authors and paying them to stay.

Ads might make writing on Medium more profitable than making videos on YouTube because they could preserve the present freemium model and pay users based on internal views. The $5 might be ad-free.

Consider: Would you accept Medium ads? A $5 ad-free version + pay-as-you-go, etc. What are your thoughts on this?

Original post available here

New standards help NFTs reach their full potential.

NFTs lack interoperability and functionality. They have great potential but are mostly speculative. To maximize NFTs, we need flexible smart contracts.

Current requirements are too restrictive.

Most NFTs are based on ERC-721, which makes exchanging them easy. CryptoKitties, a popular online game, used the 2017 standard to demonstrate NFTs' potential.

This simple standard includes a base URI and incremental IDs for tokens. Add the tokenID to the base URI to get the token's metadata.

This let creators collect NFTs. Many NFT projects store metadata on IPFS, a distributed storage network, but others use Google Drive. NFT buyers often don't realize that if the creators delete or move the files, their NFT is just a pointer.

This isn't the standard's biggest issue. There's no way to validate NFT projects.

Creators are one of the most important aspects of art, but nothing is stored on-chain.

ERC-721 contracts only have a name and symbol.

Most of the data on OpenSea's collection pages isn't from the NFT's smart contract. It was added through a platform input field, so it's in the marketplace's database. Other websites may have different NFT information.

In five years, your NFT will be just a name, symbol, and ID.

Your NFT doesn't mention its creators. Although the smart contract has a public key, it doesn't reveal who created it.

The NFT's creators and their reputation are crucial to its value. Think digital fashion and big brands working with well-known designers when more professionals use NFTs. Don't you want them in your NFT?

Would paintings be as valuable if their artists were unknown? Would you believe it's real?

Buying directly from an on-chain artist would reduce scams. Current standards don't allow this data.

Most creator profiles live on centralized marketplaces and could disappear. Current platforms have outpaced underlying standards. The industry's standards are lagging.

For NFTs to grow beyond pointers to a monkey picture file, we may need to use new Web3-based standards.

Introducing NFTs 2.0

Fabian Vogelsteller, creator of ERC-20, developed new web3 standards. He proposed LSP7 Digital Asset and LSP8 Identifiable Digital Asset, also called NFT 2.0.

NFT and token metadata inputs are extendable. Changes to on-chain metadata inputs allow NFTs to evolve. Instead of public keys, the contract can have Universal Profile addresses attached. These profiles show creators' faces and reputations. NFTs can notify asset receivers, automating smart contracts.

LSP7 and LSP8 use ERC725Y. Using a generic data key-value store gives contracts much-needed features:

• The asset can be customized and made to stand out more by allowing for unlimited data attachment.

• Recognizing changes to the metadata

• using a hash reference for metadata rather than a URL reference

This base will allow more metadata customization and upgradeability. These guidelines are:

• Genuine and Verifiable Now, the creation of an NFT by a specific Universal Profile can be confirmed by smart contracts.

• Dynamic NFTs can update Flexible & Updatable Metadata, allowing certain things to evolve over time.

• Protected metadata Now, secure metadata that is readable by smart contracts can be added indefinitely.

• Better NFTS prevent the locking of NFTs by only being sent to Universal Profiles or a smart contract that can interact with them.

Summary

NFTS standards lack standardization and powering features, limiting the industry.

ERC-721 is the most popular NFT standard, but it only represents incremental tokenIDs without metadata or asset representation. No standard sender-receiver interaction or security measures ensure safe asset transfers.

NFT 2.0 refers to the new LSP7-DigitalAsset and LSP8-IdentifiableDigitalAsset standards.

They have new standards for flexible metadata, secure transfers, asset representation, and interactive transfer.

With NFTs 2.0 and Universal Profiles, creators could build on-chain reputations.

NFTs 2.0 could bring the industry's needed innovation if it wants to move beyond trading profile pictures for speculation.

Product management wizardry.

Early adopters buy a product even if it hasn't hit the market or has flaws.

Who are the early adopters?

Early adopters try a new technology or product first. Early adopters are interested in trying or buying new technologies and products before others. They're risk-tolerant and can provide initial cash flow and product reviews. They help a company's new product or technology gain social proof.

Early adopters are most common in the technology industry, but they're in every industry. They don't follow the crowd. They seek innovation and report product flaws before mass production. If the product works well, the first users become loyal customers, and colleagues value their opinion.

What to do with early adopters?

They can be used to collect feedback and initial product promotion, first sales, and product value validation.

How to find early followers?

Start with your immediate environment and target audience. Communicate with them to see if they're interested in your value proposition.

1) Innovators (2.5% of the population) are risk-takers seeking novelty. These people are the first to buy new and trendy items and drive social innovation. However, these people are usually elite;

Early adopters (13.5%) are inclined to accept innovations but are more cautious than innovators; they start using novelties when innovators or famous people do;

3) The early majority (34%) is conservative; they start using new products when many people have mastered them. When the early majority accepted the innovation, it became ingrained in people's minds.

4) Attracting 34% of the population later means the novelty has become a mass-market product. Innovators are using newer products;

5) Laggards (16%) are the most conservative, usually elderly people who use the same products.

Stages of new information acceptance

1. The information is strange and rejected by most. Accepted only by innovators;

2. When early adopters join, more people believe it's not so bad; when a critical mass is reached, the novelty becomes fashionable and most people use it.

3. Fascination with a novelty peaks, then declines; the majority and laggards start using it later; novelty becomes obsolete; innovators master something new.

Problems with early implementation

Early adopter sales have disadvantages.

Higher risk of defects

Selling to first-time users increases the risk of defects. Early adopters are often influential, so this can affect the brand's and its products' long-term perception.

Not what was expected

First-time buyers may be disappointed by the product. Marketing messages can mislead consumers, and if the first users believe the company misrepresented the product, this will affect future sales.

Compatibility issues

Some technological advances cause compatibility issues. Consumers may be disappointed if new technology is incompatible with their electronics.

Method 5 WHY

Let's talk about 5 why, a good tool for finding project problems' root causes. This method is also known as the five why rule, method, or questions.

The 5 why technique came from Toyota's lean manufacturing and helps quickly determine a problem's root cause.

On one, two, and three, you simply do this:

1. We identify and frame the issue for which a solution is sought.

2. We frequently ponder this question. The first 2-3 responses are frequently very dull, making you want to give up on this pointless exercise. However, after that, things get interesting. And occasionally it's so fascinating that you question whether you really needed to know.

3. We consider the final response, ponder it, and choose a course of action.

Always do the 5 whys with the customer or team to have a reasonable discussion and better understand what's happening.

And the “five whys” is a wonderful and simplest tool for introspection. With the accumulated practice, it is used almost automatically in any situation like “I can’t force myself to work, the mood is bad in the morning” or “why did I decide that I have no life without this food processor for 20,000 rubles, which will take half of my rather big kitchen.”

An illustration of the five whys

A simple, but real example from my work practice that I think is very indicative, given the participants' low IT skills.  Anonymized, of course.

Users spend too long looking for tender documents.

Why? Because they must search through many company tender documents.

Why? Because the system can't filter department-specific bids.

Why? Because our contract management system requirements didn't include a department-tender link. That's it, right? We'll add a filter and be happy. but still…

why? Because we based the system's requirements on regulations for working with paper tender documents (when they still had envelopes and autopsies), not electronic ones, and there was no search mechanism.

Why? We didn't consider how our work would change when switching from paper to electronic tenders when drafting the requirements.

Now I know what to do in the future. We add a filter, enter department data, and teach users to use it. This is tactical, but strategically we review the same forgotten requirements to make all the necessary changes in a package, plus we include it in the checklist for the acceptance of final requirements for the future.

Errors when using 5 why

Five whys seems simple, but it can be misused.

Popular ones:

1. The accusation of everyone and everything is then introduced. After all, the 5 why method focuses on identifying the underlying causes rather than criticizing others. As a result, at the third step, it is not a good idea to conclude that the system is ineffective because users are stupid and that we can therefore do nothing about it.

2. to fight with all my might so that the outcome would be exactly 5 reasons, neither more nor less. 5 questions is a typical number (it sounds nice, yes), but there could be 3 or 7 in actuality.

3. Do not capture in-between responses. It is difficult to overestimate the power of the written or printed word, so the result is so-so when the focus is lost. That's it, I suppose. Simple, quick, and brilliant, like other project management tools.

Conclusion

Today we analyzed important study elements:

Early adopters and 5 WHY We've analyzed cases and live examples of how these methods help with product research and growth point identification. Next, consider the HADI cycle.