I first became self-employed in the spring of 2013, after quitting a promising consulting job that I could no longer tolerate (that’s a story for another time). I had no plan and no savings, and for quite a while my only goal was to pay the next month’s rent. Since I didn’t have a clear…
When you decide to share what you know with others, your own learning takes off like a four-stage rocket. What are those four stages? I once learned of a framework for the evolution of a teacher’s identity over time from Brendon Burchard, an influential online marketer and teacher. It gave me tremendous clarity about my…
When I started my professional career, I had only the most vague sense of how visual aesthetics related to business. I knew there were brands that I was inherently attracted to, such as Apple. And I had a fairly good sense for what was beautiful, from a childhood spent in museums and art galleries with…
These are our 7 operating principles at Forte Labs. #1 – We are in business to serve We are in business to serve, and our financial success comes as a side effect of the positive impact we make on people’s lives. We overdeliver on our promises and respect the time and attention that our customers…
I recently joined David Duncan to discuss his new book The Secret Lives of Customers which teaches the Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) framework using the intriguing format of a detective story. The basic premise is that consumers “hire” a product (or service) to perform a certain “job” for them. I’ve used JTBD in my own business to figure…
I’m proud to announce my investment in Maven, the first platform to specifically enable creators to deliver live, online, community-driven educational programs to people all over the world. Online education is exploding. Udemy reported a 260% increase in its annual recurring revenue in the first six months of 2020. Coursera raised $130 million in new…
When I created my first online course in 2013, online learning was a lonely affair. Platforms like Skillshare and Udemy were exploding in popularity. But the vast majority of courses at that time were one-way: information flowed only from the instructor to the students. There was no expectation that a student would get to know…
We are in the midst of the fourth wave of online education. Known as “Cohort-Based Courses,” or CBCs, this is the first truly Internet-native form of learning. It is the first to tap into the essential nature of the Internet: that it is open-ended and interactive. To truly understand why this is such a big…
In 2017 I published an article about my quest to be a “full-stack freelancer.” Instead of having only one highly specialized skill to offer – such as copywriting, coding, graphic design, or photography – I wanted to build a portfolio of income streams. In order to do that, I knew that I needed to invest…
In this interview, I spoke with Brad Costanzo, the host of the Bacon-Wrapped Business podcast. This was a two-way interview. We spent the first 35 minutes talking about Building a Second Brain, the methodology I teach for personal knowledge management. I summarized some of the main ideas and shared some good ways of getting started…
I’ve decided to invest in a startup that I believe has enormous potential to shape the future of education. But to do that, we’re going to need your help. It’s called SchoolHouse, founded and led by Brian Tobal, who has a long history of working in educational innovation, most recently as Head of Academics at…
I was very happy to receive an invitation to join Noah Kagan, influential online marketer and founder of Sumo Group, on his podcast. I’m officially on hiatus from interviews this year while I write my book, but I couldn’t say no. I remember back in 2012 when I first arrived in San Francisco to start…