Get feedback on the idea.

Ask your friends. Ask your parents. Ask basically anyone you know. The real money makers are hard to reproduce, especially if you don't have the full idea of what it is. If someone can knock off your product after hearing about it from you, either they have the resources to do that (in which case they probably did a decent job) or you're so far out of it that you would have had a real hard time producing it.

That said, don't be stupid and talk to a huge company about your idea with no plan or substance when they can say "Oh hey, thanks" and leave you high and dry.

Figure out what your market is

Who's going to need this? Why is your product special? Why do they care?

I just did a survey of my market for an idea I'm working on. I expected about one in ten people to answer, but more than half of those I asked took a minute or two to talk to me. If you're streamlined, not tripping over words and know what you need to ask, people will likely help you. Once you know who is going to use this widget, you can make it for them and market it towards them.

Get support

I'm assuming you're just a regular Redditor. You likely don't know how to run a business. I mean, shit, you're asking people on a website how to do it.

Get someone with business sense to support you. There are entrepreneurial organizations that will help budding businesses. They can use their contacts to get you resources and help you with the marketing and organization of your business.

You might also try to secure an angel investor, but you need to have your product pretty well prepared (proven feasible, market research done, etc.) before you do that. Read Guy Kawasaki's book Reality Check for advice on starting your business and talking to angel investors and venture capitalists.

Show that there's traction on your idea

Even if you only make one little improvement once a week, you're moving. Moving is going somewhere. Going somewhere is making things happen.

When you're moving, people are going to get interested in helping you. Even if you're just moving a little bit. I had people say they liked the idea, but weren't interested in helping until I had some support and was making progress. Now that I've got some traction in what I'm doing, I have a small team organized, I've got a supporting organization and I'm making good progress on my deliverable items. Speaking of which...

Deliverable items

Set small goals. Teeny tiny things that you know you can shoot to death with automatic machine guns and then stomp on their smoldering remains.

When you have a few small things you can do and show that you did them really really well it helps you move along in your larger goals. Keeping things small and manageable for a while will help you impress supporters, keep your team (who are likely quite busy) happy that they're making progress and not depress you because you set a goal too high. Screwing up a small thing is okay, you can always try again. Choosing goals that are too big is going to hurt when you mess it up, especially if you only have one shot.

Getting people to notice

So you think you're going to build this golden contraption and everyone's going to ooh and ahh at it when you pull back your velvet curtain?

Let me ask you this: How do you get the people there to watch you pull back the curtain? Are you just going to send out invitations when it's all done and expect them to come? It might work, but at the same time you're taking a huge risk that it won't.

This goes back to the points about support and telling people about your idea. We're not just talking about financial support or help getting your widget made. We're talking about having people on your side who are going to tell their friends about what you're working on. We're talking about having champions who are going to tell their bosses that they need your product. We're talking about having contacts who will look at something, give you a modicum of assistance and be there to jump up and down with you when it gets done.

If you can get people to be excited about your idea, even a little bit, before it comes out, you're in really good shape for other people to find out about it. "I know the guy who made that golden widget" is the kind of stuff people talk about at parties, on the phone with their moms and on their blogs.

tl;dr: As you make little improvements in your project, continue to tell everyone you have ever met about it so that they can tell you if they want to buy it, what you could be doing better and then tell all their friends how cool it is when you finally finish it.

I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:

Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:

Job Interview Prep

1. Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
   
2. Programming Interviews Exposed: Coding Your Way Through the Interview
   
3. Introduction to Algorithms
   
4. The Algorithm Design Manual
   
5. Effective Java
   
6. Concurrent Programming in Java™: Design Principles and Pattern
   
7. Modern Operating Systems
   
8. Programming Pearls
   
9. Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists
   
   

   Junior Software Engineer Reading List
   

   
   

   Read This First
   

   
   

10. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

11. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
    
12. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
    
13. Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
    
14. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
    
15. Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
    
16. Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing
    
17. Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application
    
    

    Understanding Professional Software Environments
    

    
    

18. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
    
19. Software Project Survival Guide
    
20. The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky
    
21. Debugging the Development Process: Practical Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams
    
22. Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
    
23. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

24. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
    
25. Against Method
    
26. The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
    
    

    History
    

    
    

27. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
    
28. Computing Calamities: Lessons Learned from Products, Projects, and Companies That Failed
    
29. The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
    
    

    Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
    

    
    

    Read This First
    

    
    

30. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

31. The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
    
32. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
    
33. Solid Code
    
34. Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code
    
35. Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative
    
36. Writing Solid Code
    
    

    Software Design
    

    
    

37. Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
    
38. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
    
39. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
    
40. Domain-Driven Design Distilled
    
41. Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
    
42. Design Patterns in C# - Even though this is specific to C# the pattern can be used in any OO language.
    
43. Refactoring to Patterns
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

44. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
    
45. Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools
    
46. NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating
    
47. Object-Oriented Software Construction
    
48. The Art of Software Testing
    
49. Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
    
50. Working Effectively with Legacy Code
    
51. Test Driven Development: By Example
    
    

    Databases
    

    
    

52. Database System Concepts
    
53. Database Management Systems
    
54. Foundation for Object / Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto
    
55. Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
    
56. Data Access Patterns: Database Interactions in Object-Oriented Applications
    
    

    User Experience
    

    
    

57. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
    
58. The Design of Everyday Things
    
59. Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
    
60. User Interface Design for Programmers
    
61. GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Don'ts and Dos
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

62. The Productive Programmer
    
63. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
64. Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
    
65. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
    
    

    History
    

    
    

66. Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
    
67. New Turning Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science
    
68. Hacker's Delight
    
69. The Alchemist
    
70. Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages
    
71. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
    
    

72. Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC
    
73. Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
    
74. Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: Rules for C and C++ Programming
    
75. The C++ Programming Language
    
76. Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
77. More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
78. More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#
    
79. CLR via C#
    
80. Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java
    
81. Thinking in Java
    
82. JUnit in Action
    
83. Functional Programming in Scala
    
84. The Art of Prolog: Advanced Programming Techniques
    
85. The Craft of Prolog
    
86. Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting
    
87. Dive into Python 3
    
88. why's (poignant) guide to Ruby

There's a lot of free digital opportunities available to you, you just have to know how to leverage them. First off, you need a responsive website and a free Google Analytics account. If you don't know how to get that, it's easy enough to look up and learn yourself. Google has lots of learning videos on how to use Analytics. https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/

Things that are nice to have: event tracking on buttons or call to actions, a dedicated phone number to track conversions on (you can set this up through Google for free). A CMS that allows you to easily make changes to your website based on the information you see in Analytics.

What else? Monthly email campaigns, Mail Chimp is free and has templates. Get people to sign up for your newsletter on your website by offering an incentive like "20% off when you sign up" and include a phrase they have to mention in their welcome email.

Do extensive profiling on your target demographic. Where do they live, how much do they make, what are they interested in, do they have generally have kids, do they own a house, do they have pets, do they shop at whole foods or at a cheap store, are they value shoppers or are they brand whores, what other services are they likely to use?

Save that info.

Optimize the assets you have to be better found online. Use the H1 title tag for page titles and H2 for section headers. Simple yes, widely done by SMBs? NO. Make sure you have meta tags filled out for every page that are relevant.

Write one blog a week on a topic related to what you do. Write on Medium, submit articles to y-combinator, do thought leadership exercises and posts on forums (don't be sales-y, try and help people, it goes a long way).

Offer a free download in an email (of a PDF, something to get someone to click).

Use whatever website traffic you get to analyze the behavior flow and click events on your website. Keep track of your conversion rates on buttons. If some are low performing, make changes to your website.

Offer "free training" or whatever else is included in what you do.

PPC: If you really know your demographic, PPC can be very powerful, even on a limited budget. Make sure you are using the right keyword groupings, if something isn't working well right away, kill it. I see ads on instagram for software and it has a dog in the picture as the main focus. I use instagram for dog stuff. Clever. Very clever. Be that clever.

Facebook ads are great because its SO easy to see if something is working well. I have never had a mediocre ad. It's either wildly successful or it instantly sucks and I take it down. Use the canvas ads, they are VERY interactive and you can tell a story.

Keep producing content. Make a buzzfeed list of something somewhat related to your industry that people can relate to. Share that on all your social media accounts. I got LOTS of followers that way. Lists are great. Lists with the current year in the title as a blog post are even better.

I have been a Marketing Director for years, and recently started my own business. I have a $400 monthly budget (for my own business) and am currently using that successfully to build brand awareness, gain traction and get referrals. Let me know if you have any questions.

I also recommend reading this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5G89YEVQ59YTNM41FSTK

I realized a few years into my business that:
-I was not able to grow the business because it seemed I was always dealing with emergencies.
-I was not able to fix things right first time because there was another emergency
-I was spending lots of my time doing entry-level tasks
-I was getting older and my marriage was suffering because I was doing 100% of everything in the business.
-I was not performing preventative maintenance because I was swamped with "real work" to do.

I was 40 - still crawling around under desks, still doing 100% of the work, on call 24/7, not able to go after better business and not expanding margin. I was EXACTLY what I swore I'd never become.

Here's what I did:

I started by documenting and defining several easy-to-replicate procedures - software installation/update, new PC setup, disk usage clearing, backup troubleshooting, You should have ticketing, admin, and billing systems that work reasonably well. It can help to track your time accurately in a PSA tool so you have some idea how much time these tasks take.

I hired a good, trustworthy local kid with interest but no experience in IT. Started him part time "we'll try this for 30 days and see if it's a good fit - either of us can walk away with no hard feelings if it's not working out" - on some CompTIA training videos and working through the documentation I had made up. At first he was doing a lot of software installs, new PC setup, and very basic troubleshooting. Kind of like a doctor/resident relationship, I would explain my process and talk through every step I was taking and why...and I'd ask him to talk through his through process when fixing issues and guide him to the way I'd do it.

I also grabbed many of Karl Palachuk's SOP guides as a foundation, and the Best IT Service Delivery Book Ever by Simpson for him to go through.

He picked it up very quickly, and started spending some time fixing our automation and integrations - making us both far more effective. He started working with our backup vendor on fixing backup alerts, then patch management, etc.

A couple years later, he's had a couple raises, we're looking at hiring another 1-2 techs this year and an office admin. Cash flow is better, I've been able to land bigger clients than I could as a Single Point of Failure consultant.
Took a vacation last year for the first time in forever. The business continued to operate.

It hasn't been painless, but it's been pretty smooth and a great opportunity for both of us - I get part of my life back, he now has a career doing work he enjoys, and I have time for some of the higher-level work, like security architecture discussions with our bigger clients, and determining our path for more security consulting work.

What would I do differently?
I would have started sooner. I would have hired this guy back when I was working with Continuum and taught him to manage our interactions with their NOC. I would have had more processes documented and emphasized his role in maintaining and expanding those docs.

I did try working with a couple outsourced helpdesks but my clients wanted me or someone directly under my supervision - the outsourced helpdesks had too many exceptions and limitations for us to go forward.

I highly recommend David Finkel's "Build a Business, Not a Job"
https://www.amazon.com/Build-Business-Not-David-Finkel/dp/1450709842

and Chris Ducker's "Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business" - most of his concepts also work with an outsourced NOC, SOC, or helpdesk.
https://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Freedom-Become-Productive-Business/dp/1939529743/ref=sr_1_5_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519146561&sr=1-5&keywords=virtual+assistant

Books on project management, software development lifecycle, history of computing/programming, and other books on management/theory. It's hard to read about actual programming if you can't practice it.

Some of my favorites:

• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software - GREAT choice I notice you already have listed. Possibly one of my favorite, and this should be on everyone's reading list who is involved in IT somehow. It basically how computers and programming evolved and gets you in a great way of thinking.
  
  
• The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography - Another great history book on code and how things came to be. It's more about crypto, but realistically computing's history is deeply rooted into security and crypto and ways to pass hidden messages.
  
  
• Software Project Survival Guide - It's a project management book that specifically explains it in terms of software development.
  
  
• The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers - A fun collection of short hacking stories compiled and narrated by Kevin Mitnick, one of the most infamous hackers. Actually, any of Mitnick's books are great. Theres a story in there about a guy who was in jail and learned to hack while in there and get all kind of special privileges with his skills.
  
  
• Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions - Most of the books in the "Beautiful" series are great and insightful. This is one of my more favorite ones.
  
  
• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK(R) Guide - THE guide to project management from the group that certifies PMP... boring, dry, and great to help you get to sleep. But if you're committed enough, reading it inside and out can help you get a grasp or project management and potentially line you up to get certified (if you can get the sponsors and some experience to sit for the test). This is one of the only real certifications worth a damn, and it actually can be very valuable.
  
  You can't exactly learn to program without doing, but hopefully these books will give you good ideas on the theories and management to give you the best understanding when you get out. They should give you an approach many here don't have to realize that programming is just a tool to get to the end, and you can really know before you even touch any code how to best organize things.
  
  IF you have access to a computer and the internet, look into taking courses on Udacity, Coursera, and EDX. Don't go to or pay for any for-profit technical school no matter how enticing their marketing may tell you you'll be a CEO out of their program.

Before killing yourself to try to promote a company that's paying you less than minimum wage you should make sure you have a clear path to success mapped out. If you double the listeners of this radio station by breaking your back for a pittance -- who's say that the owner/manager decides to hire someone with a more marketing-focused background once they have additional revenue coming in?

A good plan would be to do this: Schedule a meeting with your superior and tell him that you're interested in expanding your roles and responsibility with the organization. Make sure to stress that you're not trying to shirk your current duties and responsibilities but rather you have an interest in helping the company to grow. Ask him, politely but plainly, if company growth could somehow benefit your wages / salary; for example, if you do well and show that you're improving the company over the next 30-60 days, if that could translate directly to another £1. Then another £1. And so on.

Be careful about this because it could backfire and you could lose your job entirely, but it's worth the effort because then at least you know where things stand. Once you know where things stand - go wild. Buy some basic marketing books such as Zag: The Number One Strategy of High Performance Brands and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. These don't necessarily have immediate strategies/tactics, rather they'll help your mind start working properly in terms of what type of marketing strategies can be successful. Then, for immediate strategies, start reading sites like Entrepreneur's Marketing section every day. You'd be surprised at many growth efforts are simply logical. The formula is simple: knowledge + time = growth -> success.

Good luck!

EDIT: Source - I build companies.

If he was initially resistant to going to school, it sounds like the sweatshirt was an excuse, not the actual reason. You may want to explore that further with him; as others have said, your counselors should be able to help with the situation.

But to address the part of your post about your response to him: You allowed him to shift the focus of what was bothering him. If you can step back and be objective about the situation, you'll see him trying to push your buttons (rudeness and disrespect) and can counteract that by not responding to it.

This may sound far-fetched, but there's an old business management book, designed to be a quick and easy read (although it takes a long time to figure out how to implement the ideas, like any other good system) that might help you get a handle on your own reactions: "The One Minute Manager".

What I noticed about it when I was learning to manage employees, years ago, is that many of the techniques are also good parenting techniques, particularly for adolescents. Kids are particularly good at shifting responsibility back to the parents, simply by acting out or pushing hot buttons. My SAH mother was an excellent 'kid' manager, and I recognized some of her techniques!

A later book which built on the principles in the One Minute Manger was called "The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey"](http://www.amazon.com/The-Minute-Manager-Meets-Monkey/dp/0688103804) which is even more appropos of your situation, since it highlights all the ways in which lazy employees try to con their managers.

Assigned tasks are the 'monkeys' which employees try to get the manager to do for them; the book highlights the ways in which managers fall for the ploys, and provides counters. But step one is recognizing what's happening at the time.

Take the sweatshirt issue (ignoring that there may be something else at the heart of this behavior, but just assuming there wasn't). He stood in the rain and got it wet and dirty, right? Why wasn't it his responsibility to wash and dry it, if he wanted to wear it the next day? He had a problem, his solution was to turn it into your problem--and you let him. But he's just being a kid and doing what adolescent kids do, which is see-sawing between growing up too fast and not growing up at all.

Your parenting job right now is to manage him past this behavior, and maybe treating him like an "employee"--someone capable of responsibility--is part of the answer. Of course, hugs and love are an acceptable part of this workplace!

Good luck to you!

The Who: You have to recruit mainly from referrals from your own co-workers + strong outside recruiters. Most of what makes a good hire is clearly defining the role.

1. The mission for the position - What is the "essence" of the role. A broad stroke of what the job description is.
   
2. Outcomes that need to be accomplished - Specific quantitative outcomes that must be achieved by this individual.
   
3. Competencies for the role - Defines HOW you expect your new hire to operate.
   
   Example:
   
   Mission:
   
   To strengthen our online marketing presence and sales funnel in order to generate more revenue.
   
   Outcome:
   
   Create 3-8 outcomes by order of importance. For example, for a Director of Marketing:
   
   • Get to first page of Google by end of year for specific keywords
   
   • Optimize a top-down sales funnel strategy within 90 days of employment
   
   • Increase our email list by 300% with a 15% open rate within 12 months
   
   • Increase page views from 50k/mo to 150k/mo.
   
   • Etc.
   
   

• Notice how the outcomes are quantifiable. You will know whether these outcomes are achieved or not
  
  Competencies:
  
  Does this person have the skills to pull this off? You list them in order of importance.
  
  

1. Efficiency: Able to product significant output with minimal effort
   
   
2. Honesty/Integrity: Does not cut corners ethically, earns trust, does what is right, speaks plainly and truthfully
   
   
3. Organization and Planning: Plans, organizes, schedules, and budgets in an efficient manner. Focuses on key priorities.
   
   
4. Aggressiveness: Moves quickly and take a forceful stand without being overly abrasive. Follow through on commitments. Lives up to written and verbal agreements regardless of personal cost.
   
   
5. Intelligence: Learns quickly, absorbs new information
   
   
6. Analytical Skills: Take data and draw insightful conclusions from it. A probing mind and achieves penetrating insights. Attention to Detail: Does not let important details fall through the cracks or derail a project.
   
   
7. Persistence: Tenacity to get the job done. Willing to go the distance.
   
   
8. Proactivity: Acts without being told what to do. Brings new ideas to the company.
   
   
   Also, evaluating for cultural fit is a major process outside of core competencies.
   
   • Leadership team in room. What adjectives would you use to describe our culture.
   
   • When picture emerges. “Analytical, focused, fast moving, etc.”
   
   • Chemistry has to be there. Like an organ donor, must be a match otherwise body will reject the new organ.
   
   Then you create a scorecard with each candidates score. The key is that you clearly define the role and know exactly what you are looking for. This is also just an overview, the exact specifics have not yet been added in my notes.
   
   You can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Geoff-Smart/dp/0345504194
   It's actually a really good read.
   
   If you are looking for an outside IT Recruiter to help, I am one professionally and have been doing it for over 4 years. Please PM if you'd like to talk - I'm based in Washington, D.C.
   
   
   

Hi guys!

It's me Zoran (zoka) from Fragrantica. Well as you know with 11 million visits globally on 17 Fragrantica language websites understand that fragrance enthusiasts get a lot of input from community. Mainly they would love us to stock all discontinued, rare and hard to find fragrances, allow easy sampling of fragrances and many want us to run retail business and be 'the cheapest of all'.

As you can see people want 'impossible things'. Most of discontinued fragrances do not exist and because of changes in regulations are not eve allowed to sell legally. Rare-hard-to-find fragrances are another bone not so easy to crack basically it is expensive and most of brand owners would not love to see their fragrances decanted so you could expect bunch of trademark violation lawsuits for selling your vial with their trademark name.

And lastly let's say what about service for "common fragrances" like mainstream and niche. If you plan to do what Scentbird did... buy some higher volume of atomizers from Alibaba or some direct deal from China (aka Silicon Valley for production) and let's be clear quality of merchandise can be high no negative illusions there and Scentbird stuff is very good quality. I am subscriber myself mostly to test and experience the service. OK let's say you do not have to spend 5-7 USD on good atomizer you got it in volume for less then US $2. Still you have shipping cost of something like US $5. It alone gets you to $7 plus fragrance plus filling etc.

How to calculate filling for 30,000 subscribers list. First they need warehouse to store boxes with vials for each fragrance they stock. Somebody has to do it manually at first because each subscriber has different preference even if you streamline it it is a lot of labor. Once I had to put 500 winners vials on cards into bubbly mailer, close it, stick shipping labels and we had about 4-5 hours of labor that is extremely boring. In nutshell if you are not going to automate it and do not plan to use prisoners or illegal immigrants to do your filling (This is irony of course but unfortunately many companies do use it) and if you have to comply to all state regulations like dangerous goods warehousing, insurance, etc you are in deep trouble and not much profit is left out of your $15 subscription.

There are some good things many people do not customize their orders but simply get 'fragrance of the month' so they can use that as a marketing channel where brands would give them fragrance for free and even pay to be in that spot and get their samples out quickly and get people talk about them. There is less risk of lawsuits regarding trademark violations if brands want to be there and for that they need volume to dictate rules of the game.

I see Scentbird now as is more like Napster and they have long way but they are moving to become Spotify of fragrance. Yes they are facing competition and their subscription service does not make much money but bottom line is how subscribers are happy how fast they can grow and how long people stay on their list. They have fair shot we will see are they going to make it.

If somebody thinks that they can compete starting from their living room or bathroom with few hundreds of vials that makes little hobby that makes few thousands just because they do not count their labor as expense and they would be much better off renting that room on airbnb then filling it with boxes... but people do not have perspective. They think it is business and they have no capacity to double it and they do not even have idea how it would look like if they would have to fulfill 100,000 orders or 1M of orders.

Every here or there I get email from somebody who offers 'perfume sampling service white-lable for Fragrantica'. They say something like this... you just need to put sample this fragrance button and payment sales funnel and we will send samples to customers you pay us once per month in batch etc. Sounds good? Yes but when I was doing diligence it was exactly what I described above. Somebody's wife/sister/brother/kids is splitting/decanting making vials and selling them on our forum and now they want to take business to the next level.

Well for all of them I would recommend reading the book http://amzn.to/1V1NE3t Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Collins Business Essentials)

If you mean books, then yes, these ones will help you a lot. They are the ones I always recommend:

Rework - This is from the 37 Signals guys. They invented Rails and have a great company. You could finish the whole thing in a couple hours. Simple, but very good lessons, and it gets you pumped and thinking.

Reality Check - Written by a very experienced VC. 94 very short(2-3 pages) chapters on everything. Reads good front to back, but is also structured like a reference. This talks about marketing, hiring, how to do a compelling presentation, common lies told by lawyers and VC’s, etc... This is the guide you wish you always had.

Blue Ocean Strategy - I found this one really kicks ass. It is a very popular book about how to forge new markets, and some tools to measure if you actually are. Lots of case studies and a really interesting read. It will teach that successful businesses have a lot in common across very diverse industries such as defence, wine making, entertainment, etc...

Another good piece of advice is stop living in a programming bubble. Get to know other people in other departments, learn from them, partner with them, get mentors, etc...

I have been a maintenance engineer for nearly 3 years now, ever since graduation from university, however I grew up around mechanics and rednecks so I felt like I had a good feel for basic equipment when I accepted this position. My current professional experience is all in the oil and gas sector, so I am for sure not the subject matter expert on rotating equipment or really anything for that matter, however ill chime in my two cents and hopefully it'll help you out in some manner.

For the couple of maintenance engineers with less experience and knowledge of basic equipment that I have mentored or helped in some sort of way, I have really pushed for them to search youtube and google to see how similar systems work when they have questions on how the equipment we use works. Generally there is always some detailed video online which shows a similar comparable system to what we use, the difference for us is generally just how we use or apply it. I am sure the same applies in some manner for chemical/manufacturing plants as well.

One of the websites I use sometimes for reference is http://barringer1.com/. On this site there is an excellent pdf of Reliability Centered Maintenance and how the airlines developed their programs back in the 1970's (http://www.barringer1.com/mil_files/AD-A066579.pdf) its a long read but well worth it, as it gives in my opinion a good look into maintenance/reliability engineering and the theories behind it, which is applicable whether you are in the oil and gas industry or the chemical/manufacturing/airline industry. There are ton of old military reliability documents here as well, which should also provide plenty of reading material (http://www.barringer1.com/mil.htm) however they do tend to be pretty dry reads, and in all honesty I have only attempted to read portions here and there.

Another website which may be helpful and reads a bit more like a magazine is (http://www.reliableplant.com/), just found this one recently! Here is also a relatively cheap book which should be helpful to you in your role as a maintenance engineer (https://www.amazon.com/Maintenance-Best-Practices-Ramesh-Gulati/dp/0831134348).

Lastly in my opinion, if you don't have a lot of experience with the equipment that is in use at a chemical or manufacturing plant, don't worry. Learning the ins and outs of the equipment and how it works takes time around it, monitoring it, getting dirty with it, wrenching on it, operating it, and performing failure analysis on it. Spend this time that you have now to learn the basic theories of maintenance engineering such as reliability centered maintenance, that way when you get your shot at an interview it'll be smooth sailing!

I would like to recommend an incredibly short book that could completely change your work life. If you have kids it will help there also, but it is about work.

You can read it in an hour.

The title is silly. The concept is simple but powerful if you are being asked to do more than can be handled, especially if you are the type of person that people come to solve problems.

50% of people that were drowning and to whom I have recommended this book never read it.

Every person that did read it thanked me vigorously.

It's been around for almost 20 years, it was a giant best seller for many years. I am not connected to the book, just a fan.

It is already so short, I can't summarize. Search for summaries on line if you wish, they are out there. There are also lecture videos by the author on line. But it is best if you just read it.

It is for managers but works for anybody working on teams. You owe it to yourself.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Minute-Manager-Meets-Monkey/dp/0688103804

I welcome the Deaton report into inequality. I especially like its emphasis (pdf)upon the causes of inequality:

>To understand whether inequality is a problem, we need to understand the sources of inequality, views of what is fair and the implications of inequality as well as the levels of inequality. Are present levels of inequalities due to well-deserved rewards or to unfair bargaining power, regulatory failure or political capture?

I fear, however, that there might be something missing here – the impact that inequality has upon economic performance.

My chart shows the point. It shows the 20-year annualized rate of growth in GDP per worker-hour. It’s clear that this was much stronger during the relatively egalitarian period from 1945 to the mid-70s than it was before or since, when inequality was higher. 

This might, of course, be coincidence: maybe WWII caused both a backlog of investment and innovation which allowed a subsequent growth spurt and a desire for greater equality.

Or it might not. This is not the only evidence for the possibility that inequality is bad for growth. Roland Benabou gave the example (pdf) of how egalitarian South Korea has done much better than the unequal Philippines. And IMF researchers have found (pdf) a “strong negative relation” between inequality and the rate and duration of subsequent growth spells across 153 countries between 1960 and 2010.

Correlations, of course, are only suggestive. They pose the question: what is the mechanism whereby inequality might reduce growth? Here are eight possibilities:

1. Inequality encourages the rich to invest not innovation but in what Sam Bowles calls “guard labour” (pdf) – means of entrenching their privilege and power. This might involve restrictive copyright laws, ways of overseeing and controlling workers, or the corporate rent-seeking and lobbying that has led to what Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles call the “captured economy.” An especially costly form of this rent-seeking was banks’ lobbying for a “too big to fail” subsidy. This encouraged over-expansion of the banking system and the subsequent crisis, which has had a massively adverse effect upon economic growth.
   
   
2. Unequal corporate hierarchies – what Jeffrey Nielsen calls rank-based organizations - can demotivate junior employees. One study of Italian football teams, for example, has found that “high pay dispersion has a detrimental impact on team performance.” That’s consistent with a study of Bundesliga and NBA teams by Benno Torgler and colleagues which found that “positional concerns and envy reduce individual performance.”
   
   
3. “Economic inequality leads to less trust” say (pdf) Eric Uslaner and Mitchell Brown. And we’ve good evidence that less trust means less growth. One reason for this is simply that if people don’t trust each other they’ll not enter into transactions where there’s a risk of them being ripped off.
   
   
4. Inequality can prevent productivity-enhancing changes, as Sam Bowles has described. We have good evidence that coops can be more efficient than hierarchical ones, but the spread of them is prevented by credit constraints. Poverty reduces education levels by making it impossible to afford books, or encouraging bright but poor students to leave earlier than they should, and women and BAME people might avoid careers for which they are otherwise well-suited because of a lack of role models.
   
   
5. Inequality can cause the rich to be fearful of future redistribution or nationalization, which will make them loath to invest. National Grid is belly-aching, maybe rightly, that Labour’s plan to nationalize it will delay investment. But it should instead ask: why is Labour proposing such a thing, and why is it popular?
   
   
6. Inequalities of power – in the sense of workers’ voices being less heard than they were in the post-war period and trades unions becoming less powerful – have allowed governments to abandon the aim of truly full employment and given firms more ability to boost profits by suppressing wages and conditions. That has disincentivized investments in labour-saving technologies.

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Recently Read: Witch Rising and The Ferryman. The Ferryman was fantastic, I really encourage people interested in dark, philosophical or Halloween-ish topics to read it.

Reading Now: Grimm's Fairy Tales and Make Your Speech More Impactful, they're both really enjoyable so far - descriptive, thoughtful and still easy enough to digest.

Reading Next: Persuasive Advertising and The Scarlett Letter. I'm cheating since I've already started both of these but need to finish my current books first.

I mostly read free Kindle books and have a book review blog if anyone's interested.

I've been a landlord for a few years, and a few months ago a friend suggested the bigger pocket's book on renting, and I found it to be a great primer on what to do: many of them are things I had already figured out by trial and error, but others that were new to me but great ideas.


If you do get it, I'd recommend a hard copy, not a kindle version, since there are sample forms and things that are useful to have in a physical, printed format.

Here are some of the metrics producing formulas a maintenance/reliability engineer can benefit from being familiar with.

http://www.six-sigma-material.com/TPM.html

There are also some good books here are three that I use:
Uptime: Strategies for Excellence in Maintenance Management, Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1482252376/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_hQdEDbJED1HVW

Reliability-Centered Maintenance Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0831131462/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_UQdEDbZMFWPZT

Maintenance Best Practices https://www.amazon.com/dp/0831134348/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dRdEDbZ4QH9YH

Not odd at all, you are just affected by marketing like a good little sheep. If the majority weren't affected by it, marketing wouldn't exist (or would at least be different).

If you have a couple extra bucks to spend on amazon, I would highly recommend this book, it's pretty interesting.

That was a wall of text. But good for you! You seem to have figured out The Ultimate Question on your own. Bravo. I can say without hesitation you are on the right track. But you do need to charge for your time. Your attention and individualized approach must translate to annuity income for each and every customer.

I have several copies of that book. One is in a bathroom. Another on my nightstand. And another on a coffee table. I'm pretty confident that reading it and applying the principles therein will illuminate the proverbial light bulb above your head. You're clearly smart. And you'll connect the dots. No one can tell you how.

Huzzah!

Just uploaded "The Retail Leader" which is 175 pages of retail specific leadership training and real life examples from almost 2 decades of retail leadership in big box stores. The book is geared to training those who want to become a leader or improve their leadership skills but also focuses on sales skills and dealing with people etc... I hope you check it out, read it on Kindle Unlimited, or buy a copy if you feel so inclined ;) At $6.99 for kindle and $14.99 for paperback. Hopefully this fits the guidelines, if not I would be happy to adjust as needed. This is my first time writing and publishing so take it easy on me Reddit.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TY9KN2Q

Marketing: Ask them about how they're measuring their efficacy. What are the KPIs that their organization uses to indicate that their ad dollars went the right place, and why.

Economics: After they're done snickering at whatever the marketer said, ask the economist how they would establish value contribution on a marketing campaign.

HR: Ask how they would help to settle or prevent the resultant fight between Marketing and Analytics/Economics departments.

Also, because I care about you and I want you to succeed, here's a quick and powerful read on time management skills.

Consumer Behavior Solomon, Tested Advertising Methods Caples, Scaling Up for the businesses processes to support growth from good marketing :)

We use this book: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Managing-Rental-Properties-Screening-ebook/dp/B018W8HSP6

I don't have a specific recommendation; you might just start at the beginning. The production quality goes up over time, but most of the content is always valid. I think the main takeaway is there are so many styles of investing - you need to find what works for you and your goals. We own and rent nice condos because we have capital and are mainly concerned with creating passive cashflow. We're also committed to managing the properties ourselves. Part of that is for cost savings, but also a way to force the skills acquisition we need to be real estate investors.

I highly recommend this book: Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business https://www.amazon.com/dp/1939529743/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7mIXDbX7VDN3N.

It’s a few years old so the pay rates may have changed, but the process and guidance are wonderful.

I agree with much of your assessment, they were arguments that I not long ago was arguing, but I now think much of it is misinformed. ( I do not have time for the emotional energy to argue against all of your assertions, you win by attrition)

Why is there so much unemployment (for the record I am in Australia that has an comparatively low unemployment rate to the US and Europe), you are right that automation has eliminated many jobs, although there is a massive shortage of skilled labour in the US and to many people getting the wrong skills at university. 25% of male high schoolers do not graduate in the US. Those that go on to college enter into the wrong major from a economic perspective, there are more people graduating in the visual arts and performing arts then there are in the STEM fields. And there are far to many people completing a Liberal Arts degree. There are also not enough people entering the trade fields, plumbers, electricians etc... The rate of apprenticeships is extremely low when compared with Germany. Which has a high rate of automation and low unemployment(compare with other highly developed state). It is easy to think that in the next 20 years everything will be automated, but the practicableness and cost of having a robotic unit come into a persons house and fix something is not anywhere close.

I would explore you to not dismiss "demands of making money" as something that is irrelevant. I am an economist and engineer (mostly software) and there are reasons why the profit motive is important, why there is an entire field dedicated to the studies of economic exchange, organization and human collaboration. I love open source, and I love the maker movement and the grinders. But to say that these groups will handle everything innovation and scientific breakthrough is wishful thinking.

In the end you are advocating a socialist system of confiscating and redistribution. Which is inherently immoral and will lead to stagnation.

I understand how tempting it is to think that this is all round the corner but there is a lull in technological innovation that need to be accounted for before we can say that this is all coming in the next decade

Some of the statistics and evidence I have gotten from here

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


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Churn can be manipulated in the short term by opening the tap on winback credits and other loyalty credits such as handset-related subsidies. The only number that speaks the truth about customer experience is net promoter score, which is why this metric is a big part of Sprint's management compensation criteria. Watch it and you'll know what Sprint's REAL underlying performance is.

Read Fred Reichheld about Net Promoter Score: https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Question-Driving-Profits-Growth/dp/1591397839

These two books discuss growth and the issues that go along with it: Scaling Up (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O5RR7QO/) and Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DI8XV2/).

I highly recommend you read them.

>I assume the reason it isn't so widespread is because of the reduced managerial wages

The true reason is simply cultural, huge segments of the overall population dont even think Cooperatives are even "possible" let alone be more efficient than regular top down companies as the workers in the same company earn competitive wages and have direct action in their own collective well being and company success.

https://www.thenation.com/article/worker-cooperatives-are-more-productive-than-normal-companies/

Cooperatives for the longest time all through the cold war were lambasted for being "communist rat nests", then you have got the Status Quo Bias, or the Myth of Leadership Bias, which mean that the general population is not only risk averse to alternatives, it doesnt matter if said alternatives are better or not, it is simply neophobia but at large scales.

Also, other thing important to mention, is that Cooperatives arent even that "rare", there are some very, very big ones in London for example, in the finance sector specifically, same with others in Latin America, and Switzerland, Spain, Aragon, etc, etc, etc

And a last thing to mention, they generally are pretty chill places to work in, in the sense that because they are almost democratic in a sense, bad bosses there or people whom are lazy or dont care for work generally get the boot pretty quickly.

Buy her some type of Scott Adam's book.

Help her look for other job opportunities and keep reminding her that she won't have to spend her entire life there. People can tolerate things better when they know it won't be forever.

Nope sorry. I paid for the meal, you get paid to clean it up. NOW, there's a difference between being a slob and making a huge mess and just leaving everything there. I suggest everyone read George Ritzer's - The McDonaldization of Society especially this bit:

>Consumer Workers - One of the sneakiest things about McDonaldization is how consumers get tricked into becoming unpaid employees. They do the work that was traditionally performed by the company. The prime example of this is diners who bus their own tables at the fast food restaurant. They dutifully carry their trash to friendly receptacles marked "thank you." (The extreme rationalization of this is the drive-thru; consumers take their trash with them!) Other examples are many and include: ATM's, salad bars, automated telephone menus, and pumping gas.

I recommend reading this book - http://www.amazon.com/The-Minute-Manager-Meets-Monkey/dp/0688103804

Relatively short and has lots of great insight.

Its really not hard. honestly, read scott adams books. yes he write the dilbert stripes, but his actual books this one and this one will change your cube life. trust me.

I have to say I was disappointed by this book--I really enjoyed Making Ideas Happen, even it was a little one-note, because Belsky's consistency made sure his singular message was hammered home. This (and the forthcoming followup looks no better) was just a bunch of 3-4 page pieces with largely unoriginal or underexplored approaches.

If you need a business productivity book that has big picture approaches without micromanaging your task tracking (cough GTD cough) I really like older-school stuff like HBR's On Managing Yourself.

The title essay, by Peter Drucker (pdf) is a must read for anybody trying to be more productive in a business context.

The FDA's intransigence in the face of new medicines is well known and best describe in Tabarrok's book Launching the Innovation Renaissance. We need a more nimble and adaptive FDA in order to bring more medications to market and reduce the burden imposed by disease.

I'd recommend reading all the scientific research that's been done on advertising over the last 100 years. Or save yourself a bit of time and read Persuasive Advertising: Evidence-based Principles.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0345504194/

This is worth reading for anyone that is looking for "A Players" as a hiring manager. It's an easier to digest version of Top Grading.

I have some thoughts I want to reply with but I'm busy for a bit; stay tuned.

In the meantime, another good book: https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Yourself-Measure-Clayton-Christensen/dp/1422157997

If you've never read the book, go read the book. Absolutely fantastic.

http://www.amazon.com/Dilbert-Principle-Cubicles-Eye-Management-Afflictions/dp/0887308589

Get her two books by Marty Neumeier: The Brand Gap and Zag. They're about branding and give very clear insights. These books changed my whole outlook on design and they're great reads. I'm easily bored with reading but these are written in informal language and illustrated, and the chapters are bite-sized chunks. Every graphic designer should read them. Here's the brand gap: http://www.amazon.com/The-Brand-Gap-Distance-Business/dp/0321348109 and here's zag: http://www.amazon.com/Zag-Number-Strategy-High-Performance-Brands/dp/0321426770/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348675026&sr=1-1&keywords=zag

If someone wants to know what this is about, check out Marty Neumeier's slideshow from The Brand Gap: http://www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap

Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brandsby Amazon.comLearn more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321426770/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_z5T3DbMG90GKZ

​

1. Buy
   
2. Read
   
3. Report back
   
   This book came out before insta gram, that's why I like it. You need to have a defined brand and then all post should be supporting your brand. That's my personal opinion and what do I know, my insta sucks.

Can I suggest Deadline by Tom DeMarco?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633390

From my point of view, this book has all of the basics and the format of the book makes reading very interesting and enjoyable.

Though this is mostly about software development and it was written in 1997 - some of the things could be a little out of date - but the basics are still here.

This looks good. Is it by Geoffery A Moore?

Check out his book, Launching The Innovation Renaissance.

Copywriter's Handbook

Ogilvy on Advertising

My Life in Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins


Pick Me: Breaking into Advertising and Staying there - By Nancy Vonk Invaluable to me when I was in school. Read it more than my textbooks

Zag: The Number one strategy for high performance brands

Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell

this book costs $10 and teaches you more than that garbage course

There is a management principle based on this. There's even a book about it.

Read Crossing the Chasm.

Also, read his Dilbert Principle book. Read the last chapter. It's all about the The Secret theory. It was the first place I heard of it.

He's a cook.

Did you also know he believes in 'The Secret' ? Read the last chapter of this book.

The Dilbert Principle.

Gronk

Si ça se trouve y'a des versions pdf qui circulent...

Tabarrok presents evidence at some length in his book.

Impossible to name one. Books only had significance for me when they addressed a particular lifecycle that the business was in.

• Zero to One, when I needed the extra push to quit my job and focus on my new business full time.
  
  
• Walt Disney’s biography, when I was in the grind, feeling sorry for myself.
  
  
• Crossing the Chasm, when we needed to operationalize the business to scale.
  
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things, when I needed to fire our first VP.
  
  
• Only the Paranoid Survive, when I needed to learn how to disrupt myself.
  
  EDIT: Lots of requests for more books as they relate to 'business lifecycle'. Also, linked all of these on Amazon. Here ya go:
  
  
• Blue Ocean Strategy, when we realized positioning ourselves as a competitor to others was the wrong approach
  
  
• Your Strategy Needs a Strategy, when planning things out years in advance kept us committed to the wrong plan for too long.
  
  
• Accounting for Non-Accountants, when I was just getting started and needed to learn how to read a financial statement :)
  
  
• The Art of Acting, when I needed to give a convincing presentation for the first time.
  
  
• Co-Active Coaching, when I needed to learn how to actively listen to employees (this lead to me becoming an executive coach).
  
  
• Understanding Michael Porter, a master class on business strategy.

I've ordered the book and will check it out.

Not sure what you mean by "where things started to go wrong". Are you saying Agile is a bad choice?