Came here to say basically this.

OP - you need to think about this from the customer end of things - how many people go out looking for "a creative mind"? No one I know of, unless they have a follow-on, "for ___". You need to make it clear what you provide and who your target market or markets are.

Sachbl makes a great point about kid-focussed services, so let's start with that.

You decide (in our example) to target the market defined as 'parents with 1 or more children under 7-8yrs of age' to sell a service that could be described as 'decorating/painting children's room and furniture'.

With that starting point you now know you need to make your service visible to that market. So, where do they go, what do they do, who do they communicate with or work with in their day to day lives?

A few answers might be day-care, pediatricians, and other service providers who target the same market. Perhaps even stores that sell second-hand kid supplies (more on that in a second).

Now, knowing that, how do you get information about your service into those areas? Are there day-care providers in your area that would be willing to make flyers available to parents, on a bulletin board, flyer rack in their lobbies or something like that? Same question with pediatricians offices.

If yes, put a flyer together - as professionally done as you can, make it clean, spell-checked, proofed by a friend, and go by businesses willing to let you advertise like that. Bring a portfolio in case they are interested in seeing your work - don't be pushy and do be mindful that they are doing you a huge favor by letting you advertise there. You are at their place of business and they may not have time or interest, but if they are interested, a good impression could lead to verbal referrals.

Now, back to businesses selling secondhand / hand-me-down / twice-loved goods for kids, these are an opportunity for B2B (business to business) rather than B2C (business to customer/consumer) work. How many of them get furniture in that they would be willing to pay to get reconditioned/refurbished? How much could you charge them while still leaving them an ability to make a profit off the final product? Would charging that amount be worth your time? If they can afford to pay $10 to have a chair done and it takes you 2hrs, then you are making $5/hr, out of which you are having to pay your own taxes as a small business owner. You've already had experience with this issue, but I wanted to reinforce that - it's something a lot of businesses lose track of sometimes - you don't just need to make money, you need to have positive cash flow, which you won't have if you spend too much time making too little profit.

What about people selling/renting homes or apartments to parents? Or companies that do home remodeling? Do either of these businesses market themselves to parents specifically? Would they be interested in a partnering arrangement, where they do some sort of construction/remodeling work and you come in and decorate? I have no idea if that's an opportunity, but partnerships where you can represent an additional service someone else can sell is another angle to use.

The above discussion is oriented around the example of decorating for children's spaces, but I think you can see the general ideas in play. Just ask the same questions for whatever market you are aiming for.

Resources

Business Model Generation
If you can track down a copy of Business Model Generation (amazon.com), I think you'll find it very helpful in organizing your thoughts on all of this, especially with the visual approach to modeling. If you can't afford it, check your local public library and see if they have it locally or available via interlibrary loan.

The Business Model Generation website is also useful.


The Small Business Administration (SBA)

You sound very motivated and at the beginning of the entrepreneurial adventure. A good resource for someone in your position, besides your local bookstore/library business section, is your local SBDC.

• The SBA runs local Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) throughout the country, in partnership with colleges and universities. You can which one is nearest you at Wisconsin SBDC Locations and call to set up an appointment. Most of their services are free, some classes and seminars may cost a modest fee. There is usually a lending library, and you can get assigned a counselor who can provide some advice on various matters.
  
  
• For that matter, the SBA website has various learning resources that provide plenty of reading material on the business end of running a business.
  
  
• Lastly, check out your local Chamber of Commerce. They will usually run networking events and may also have classes. Word of mouth and networking are probably going to be your best tools for generating business for a while. The more opportunities for exposure, the better.
  
  
  Last Thoughts
  
  Keep in mind these are also opportunities to make a very bad impression. A key thing you want to do is create the impression that despite your youth and the fact that you are in the early days of your business, you both understand that you have a lot to learn (and are thus seeking out resources, information, business education) and approach your business as a business, not a hobby you hope to make money off of.
  
  I'm not saying that in relation to anything in your post, but I've seen a lot of people who ... basically gave one the sense that they had no idea what they were doing, no idea that they had no idea what they were doing, and were basically just making/doing something for money and throwing it out into the market and hoping for the best. Ugh.
  
  That's about all I've got in me at the moment. I hope you find it helpful. Don't be afraid to take a day / weekend job to keep your head above water. Getting a business started can take time. You need to eat and have a place to live until then. Money helps with this. :)

It's not too late. Although I got a degree, my first few jobs didn't require one and I didn't "use" my education. By my mid-twenties, like you, I felt like I had gone down the wrong path and wasted my career up to that point. At that time, I regretted the jobs I had taken and experience I had gotten because I didn't feel fulfilled by the work and I felt like it was "too late" to make a change...even though I really hated the work I was doing.

Somewhere around 27, I stumbled on a book called Strengthsfinder 2.0 which is about discovering what you're naturally good at, what you're "wired" to do. After I took the assessment and discovered my strengths, I realized that I had been unfulfilled because I had been working jobs that didn't need any of the things I was good at. I realized I could continue flailing in my career, or try to pivot to something that used my strengths.

That year I left a good, comfortable, well-paying job, moved across the country, took a paycut, and got my foot in the door at a well-respected company with future growth and opportunities. It was extremely challenging for a few years, but it's the best decision I made.

Here's what I would say:

—Start with self-awareness: learn everything you can about yourself, what makes you tick, what you love, what you're good at, what makes you different than others. I've recommended Strengthsfinder 2.0 to literally hundreds of people now. Myers-Briggs gets some hate, but I've found it very helpful in understanding my personality style (how I get energized, whether I'm more idealistic or practical, relational or task-oriented, planned out or open-ended. Knowing yourself helps you make better decisions about your career. The job may look great on the outside but if you know you'll be miserable because you know yourself better, you can avoid sucking and getting fired or (worse) being just good enough to keep the job you hate for soul-sucking decades.

—Develop yourself: learn everything you can about anything that interests you. Libraries are free. Most people stop reading after high school. It's pretty dang easy to overtake your peers (even those with a degree) if they've decided to stop learning. It's not about "beating" someone else, it's about becoming the best version of yourself. Books, podcasts, YouTube, Khan Academy, Udemy, Codecademy...there's a thousand free resources. For about five years, I didn't own a TV. I'm ok with "missing out" on the water cooler conversation about the latest awesome TV show because I was reading a book last night.

—Get comfortable with uncomfortable. Most people prioritize comfort over all else. As a result, they inadvertently avoid growth and struggle to do or become anything more than what they had available to them at age 18 or 22 or whatever. They (to paraphrase Robin Sharma) live the same year 75 times and call it a life. Choose growth and you'll almost never regret it—even if you fail in the short-term, you learn long-term.

Looking back over the first ten years of my career, I had no clue what I was doing. I really was lurching from one thing to another, trying to find my way. I think that's a perfectly normal thing to do in your 20s. For most people, by their late 20s-early 30s they've either developed self-awareness and steered their careers to areas of skill and strength...or they've fallen ass-backwards into what they've always done, might not be too good at, but are to afraid to risk it on something new.

If you prioritize personal development and self-awareness, you'll look back as this season as a necessary part of your personal story. You'll actually be thankful for the struggle. You'll be a better version of yourself because of it. You can do this.

Well, sort of.

But also consider: the first company to actually TRY to handle the dynamics of animal walking with any success was Boston Dynamics and they still are only on dogs and primitive human-like physical dynamics/kinematics.

Why did it take so long? The same reason why smart phones and IoT could never have happened sooner than it did or are now: the technology was either not available at all and its cost were not cheap enough or there was a "special" cognitive barrier to the "right solution".

How does Boston Dynamic do what they do? They looked (in many ways for the first time) at how animals actually walk. The key part is "muscle memory" which is strictly called "distributed computing" in a EE/CS sense.

The key part of this: the Cartesian philosophic model of Brain and Body being two separate things is 100% wrong - humans and animals are NOT two binary parts: mind and body. So they got out of the box on that and looked to biological systems which clearly proved it's a distributed system, not a binary system.

BTW is which also why "Singularity/Transhumanism" is also a lie and will be a very long time, if not forever, out of reach. And never even mind Moore's Law's new monkey wrench in that aspiration.

Animal bodies are NOT primarily controlled by the brain but instead use distributed computing of many "small brains" throughout the body. Muscle memory is a local muscle-nerve phenomena where the local nerves sense muscle flexion/position to "know" what the physical positions, forces and loads are doing as part of a "macro" function for achieving things like standing and walking. That's why you can "walk" without having to consciously think about it (except when you are just learning to walk).

You brain does NOT micromanaged the muscles for most movement. It can do so but only clumsily. Notice when you start a new exercise or sport routine: your brain sucks at movement but you eventually train the muscles and distributed nerves themselves with local feedback paths. Then your brain is out of the picture and everything works far better.

Boston Dynamics uses local electronic sensors, actuators and local microcontrollers to mimic this distributed control. Microcontrollers only got cheap enough yet powerful enough in recent years.

This radically reduces the computational load on the "brain" or top level computing in both their robots and in all (biological) animals.

And because this is biomimicry of a 100s-million-year-evolved-and-proven system, it actually works better than anything man has ever hacked together over the last 20-40 years. So we are only seeing this now.

Combined this though with the fact that most robotic applications that actually pay money are industrial applications or "B2B" which have healthy to great profit margins.

Consumer markets (and thus consumer robotics) are "B2C, which are the worst profit margin product classes. The only worse ones are charity which have zero profit.

So you can not build an industry around consumer robots until you already have something mature that someone else has paid the development costs for. There's never been a humanoid robot market demand so they've never been developed because there's never been money in doing so.

Industrial markets simply do NOT NEED and have never needed humanoid robots. They need practical automation that does NOT need to be pretty or aesthetic but does need to be cheap by their standards and do a specific job well. So that's what most robots looks like today: the market with the money doesn't need humanoid robots; they only need minimally practical and effective robots.

Boston Dynamics primary customers are not consumer (and not industrial): their primary customers are military! DARPA funded especially.

Yes, the military literally wants Terminator robots and Star War Clone Warriors. They LOVED the Terminator movies and the Empire's military capabilities in the Star Wars movies because they imagined having them under their command. They simply dismiss the possibility of the negative storyline or of being "the Baddies" because their lust is so strong they can ignore the cognitive dissonance. "It's just a movie; we far smarter than that! It would never happen like that!"

Technophilia a uniquely American quality and military technophilia is off the charts. It's technology for its own religious sake and concerns about actual efficacy, need or side-effects are not important to them.

(I used to work in a military technology think tank so I know the mindset all too well.)

No other market can support the salaries of the engineers required to do what Boston Dynamics does. Certainly NOT consumers (who are cheap as hell because they really don't have money - at the scale of industry markets or military markets).

Always look at the money required and consider who could actually afford such things. That tells you more about if or why a technology has or hasn't been created yet!

The other issue: energy. The amount of energy required for a human is about 90W. However non-biological robots take FAR MORE energy: literally KWs. There are lots of reasons (read this book to grok why - we don't yet know how to design "fractal" though what Boston Dynamics is doing is sort of that with its "nervous system")

In general humanoid robots are energy pigs to the point of being nearly impractical. Batteries with sufficient capacitor to drive mobile computing only arrived in the last 20 years. And even then, your average lithium battery pack has an energy density comparable to a hand grenade! That's why the TSA has restrictions on them in checked luggage.

The robots that Boston Dynamics eventually deploys to military use will likely required either: 1) a small nuclear reactor or 2) gasoline/Jet-A fuel with turbine. These are required to generate the required electricity to operate them (you saw this detail in Avatar - very insightful and technically correct in terms of required energy and likely fuel source).

Your MC is at 10 Pisces, and its ruler, Neptune, is at 16 Capricorn conjunct Uranus at 13 Capricorn. Those planets are in the 7th opposite a Mars-Chiron conjunction. Pisces and Chiron both have to do with healing, and with the added involvement of both Mars (metals and surgery) and Uranus (revolutionary/alternative things, and electricity), the first thing that came to mind is... acupuncturist. Many acupuncturists also practice electroacupuncture, which is what it sounds like (mild electrical currents are run through the needles during the treatment).

That would also sit well with your 9th-house Moon, since the 9th house rules foreign countries and cultures, and if you studied Chinese medicine you would either be exploring a foreign culture (assuming you're not of Chinese origin) or bridging two different cultures (if you're Chinese and living outside of China--I can see from the chart you posted that you were born in Canada). Ninth-house moon folks LOOOOOVE expanding their horizons by learning about foreign cultures and/or foreign or alternative religions.

Psychotherapist also comes to mind, but what fits this chart is an avant garde, mystical or esoteric type of psychology rather than, say, garden-variety cognitive therapy. More like Jungian psychology, Transpersonal psychology or art therapy.

And speaking of art, Neptune is the natural ruler of film, acting, and all forms of illusion. If you're good at acting or photography and interested in the movie industry from either side of the camera, or interested in music (film scores? Neptune and Venus rule music, and I see Venus is trine your Moon), this chart would support that. And by the way, while Mercury is involved with all this in that it's square your Uranus-Neptune on the one hand and your Mars-Chiron on the other, the placement of your North Node at 21 Capricorn, conjunct Neptune and Uranus but square Mercury, suggests to me that things would flow better for you if you focused more on Neptunian things (mysticism, visual, the nonrational/right brain/intuitive side of life, beautiful illusions, things that touch the soul) rather than on Mercurial things (rational, verbal). Or at least, focus on communicating clearly and verbally (Mercury) about Neptunian things.

What are your interests? Astrology is not the be-all end-all, and I say that as someone who has been studying astrology for decades and at times has worked as a professional astrologer. Considering what your chart has to say about career is fascinating, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. Here are the top three books I would recommend reading as you look for the right career:

"So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport
https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124

"Do What You Are" by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron
https://www.amazon.com/Do-What-You-Are-Personality/dp/031623673X

"What Color is My Parachute" by Richard Bolles
https://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2016/dp/1501274643

Lots of good advice hear already but I thought I throw in my 2 cents. I have a friend who is also working on opening a brewery.

There three fairly distinct skill sets needed to start and run a successful brewery:

• brewing beer
  
• raising money to open brewery
  
• running a brewery
  
  > I can brew beer like no one else
  
  I'm assuming you've been brewing beer for your friends. Start charging for your beer. This way you'll learn several things:
  
  
• Is your beer good enough for people willing to pay for it. Free beer generally taste better. The real test is if you're able to sell it.
  
• By selling your beer, you'll figure out your profit margin. Don't forget to include your time. This is important when it comes time to raise money and figuring out how much beer you'll need to sell to break even on a location with $/month lease + other overhead.
  
• You'll learn how to market your beer. No one is going to market your own products as passionate as yourself.
  
• This leads into branding your beer. Do you have a name, logo, style, etc. You'll need all these done correctly to set your beer apart from and compete with the store bought varieties.
  
  All of the above can be done with very little cost. If you're able to sell your beer, that's the first step to funding your brewery.
  
  Create a business plan. This will do two things for you. Nail down and prioritize what you need to do, and show investors/lenders how well you've thought out your business. Start with a simple One Page Business Plan. Include cost, profit margin, etc when you get them.
  
  Analyze your market. Is there a reason why there are only 2 breweries in your city?
  
  Read up on what you need to do to sell to beer emporiums. A good place to start is contacting your local government. This part can be very frustrating and time consuming. You'll probably have to make a dozen calls to talk to the right person to get the right information.
  
  You can also start by selling to local bars and restaurants. Make sure you have the branding in place before talking to them. Again, you have to find out what's the law and regulation in your locality in order to do this. The business owners may be able to help with this. Remember, business owners don't know how big of an outfit you are. Figure out how you want to sell yourself. You have only a few minutes for your sells pitch before they brush you off so nail down your spiel. It could be a good idea to bring some beer samples. Start with a smaller bar/restaurant for practice.

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

Articles from reputable sources are a decent source of knowledge, but some quality business books will get you an infinitely better understanding of concepts. Here is my personal business book list if you want to get a "universal generalist" understanding of business:

• Business Creation - The Lean Start-up
  
• Value Creation - How to Make Millions With Your Ideas
  
• Marketing - Getting Everything You Can Out Of Everything You Got / All Marketers Are Liars
  
• Sales - Pitch Anything
  
• Value Delivery - Indispensable
  
• Accounting/Finances - Financial Intelligence / Accounting Made Simple
  
• Understanding the Human Mind - Making Sense of Behavior
  
• Productivity - Getting Things Done
  
• Problem Solving - The 80/20 Principle
  
• Decision Making - Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions
  
• Negotiation - 3-D Negotiation
  
• Management - Growing Great Employees
  
• Project Management - Making Things Happen
  
• Statistics - Marketing Metrics
  
• Corporate Knowledge - The Effective Executive
  
• Corporate Strategy - Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies
  
• Creativity - The Creative Habit
  
• Personal Finance - Your Money or Your Life
  
  I am graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce Honors degree in May and I can easily say that one of these books (average price ~25$) has significantly more content than most individual classes I have taken (~600$). However, keep in mind that business knowledge and business acumen are two entirely different things. Knowledge is easily obtainable through books like these, and acumen is the result of applied experience with decision making. In short, it is one thing to be book smart, but it is another to get out there and actually apply it. No one can give you that in the form of an article or book - you have to do that yourself.
  
  edit: added links to amazon

I've been running my own businesses since 2005, first with Inkling and now with Draft.

No matter what you do you'll encounter competition. There will always be someone bigger than you who has more money and who customers already use. How are you going to deal with that? How are you going to out innovate? How are you going to get them to switch?

The best books on this subject that have influenced what I've done are:

• Something Really New
  
• The Pumpkin Plan
  
• Blue Ocean Strategy
  
  These books address how you can look at the current products and processes your potential customers have so you can begin innovating.
  
  In a nutshell, start looking at process you or your customer is involved with. What steps are in that process? Now how can your product or service combine or eliminate those steps. There is where you're going to find innovation and a way to help people save money or time.
  
  But, more importantly than these books, start making something this week that will help you. Take one of those ideas and figure out the quickest thing that will possibly help you or your customer. I recommend starting with yourself as the customer. It's so much easier.
  
  Start with a spreadsheet or Wufoo form if you have to. Once you have the smallest thing that actually makes your life easier, now go try and sell it. Try and sell it to your friends. Email some people. Take out a Facebook/Google ad. Start teaching people on a blog and forming an audience. Get them to try and buy your thing.
  
  I've been building Ruby on Rails applications for over 7 years. I'm very good with it. But I'll still try and start a new business by taking the smallest step possible. I'll start by selling a manual service before I build stuff, because the process helps me learn so much.
  
  Before Draft, I was trying to see if I could create a tool to help people collect Beta users better. But instead of selling a tool, I sold a service: "Let me collect Beta users for you." And I sent people to a Wufoo form to pay me and add their info. And I got sales. With those initial customers I figured out what works and doesn't work when trying to get Beta users. And that data led me figure out I didn't want to be in the business after all. And I moved onto another project.
  
  You need data about your ideas as fast as you can get it, so you don't waste your life on the junk.

You might find some of these resources helpful to get a sense of some of the moving parts for the "lean" / "customer development" approach:

Steve Blank's free Udemy course: https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245

And his protege Eric Ries' Lean Startup book:
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

And Blanks'
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

A rough, top-level, possible roadmap for a bootstrapped solo product:

1. Talk with a bunch of potential customers to validate whether the problem you will be solving for is in fact an acute problem.
   
   
2. Validate that your solution is a good one to solve that problem. Again, you can start with customer interviews with a prototype of your product. Validation can also be pre-sales, one pager landing page "coming soon" sign ups and other things.
   
   
3. Product development and customer development happening in tandem. Customer feedback informing the product. Yeah minimum viable product: what's the minimum version of your product that proves your assumption that people will find this valuable?
   
   
4. Participating / building an audience / community around folks who value solving this problem can happen during development too. Some like to do this BEFORE building the product -- and having an audience to pitch different variations of products to.
   
   
5. Get early adopters in the door, helping you improve the product. "Doing things that don't scale" while you are still in learning mode.
   
   
6. Try different experiments to improve A) the product and B) different ways/channels to find customers.
   
   
7. McClure's Pirate Metrics: measuring the customer journey of acquisition, activation, retention, referrals, revenue. At this stage retention is probably #1: am I building a product people are finding valuable enough to stick around and continue to use?
   
   
8. "Product/market fit" means your product and the particular type of people you are helping are a happy fit. Time to make those "things that don't scale" more scalable. Time to hit the gas pedal on the marketing side. More experiments to find growth...

When I find myself in this position (which I'm currently in after burning 18 months and a big chunk of cash on my last startup only to have it fail), I usually slink off, lick my wounds, do a lot fo reading and then approach my next project feeling a little more educated, refreshed, and ready.

Some suggestions if I may:

• The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful-Strategies/dp/0976470705
  
  
• Founders at Work: http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/1430210788/
  
  
• Business Model Generation: http://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/
  
  Founders At Work is an easy, fun and somewhat inspirational read. The concept behind 4 Steps to an Epiphany is pretty simple, so odds are you won't need to read the whole book as its a little dry. It is authored by Steve Blank and I highly recommend watching his lectures on youtube. Business Model Generation was a mind bender and I've read it about 6 times. I've run all my past businesses and current business through it plus a couple non-profits. It is fantastic and I love it.
  

Yeah, some of the wording was a bit awkward.

for example: "We want to provide you that place where you can share and access any file, when you want and for free"

Say something along the lines of "Access your files from anywhere in the world at any time"

Example 2 "Fufox is not using your personal data for commercial purposes"

Instead say "Fufox(or we) respect(s) our users' privacy and we pledge not to sell your personal information to third parties.

Avoid using "you" and complete sentences. You're trying to get a point across and not make someone understand a legal contract. It's ok to be a little vague.


The web design is nice. A bit cliche but nice.
Best of luck! Just remember that in order to be successful, your product has to be a heck of lot better than the competition or a heck of a lot cheaper. Being slightly better than the competition (dropbox) isn't enough to succeed. I sadly have had to drop ideas myself because of this.

You can learn a lot from this book. It's easy to read. http://amzn.com/0470876417

I don't really understand the economics of these stores but I see it like this:

They need to either charge full retail and hope they can make enough sales that way for it to be profitable OR come up with an alternate solution.

Here is a suggestion for one kind of alternate solution. Retail sales is no longer the business model. Instead you move to a membership model. You sell games at prices that are competitive with online stores but only to people who have a paid membership. So, random people that come in to buy one thing that would have paid retail anyways can still pay retail. Regulars that would rather just buy all their games from CSI can but them locally instead now. It doesn't have to be an exact price match - there is some value in being able to just drive somewhere and get a game immediately, but it needs to be much closer than it is now. What else do they get for that membership? Maybe they can reserve seating, get in an hour earlier than everyone else, discounts on tournament entry fees, members only tournaments, etc. Preferably think of free or very low cost benefits you could throw in.

How much money do they need to make in board games annually? How many people would pony up $XX for an annual membership?

What is the expected profit from full retail sales vs membership dues + profit from reduced price sales + profit from full retail sales to non members?

Volume of sales should be higher with a low price, will that help them get a price break or some other kind of advantage with distributors?

This is a question of coming up with a good business plan. The traditional plan is getting crushed by online retailers so you have to come up with a new way to approach the problem. Check out Business Model Generation if you're serious about wanting to come up with a new business plan to focus on this.

Mesa seems like a pretty decent city. I was looking for safer cities of that size and couldn't find any. Austin, Tx. is larger and safer and richer, though, so I don't think we can use that one data point to make any broad conclusions.

There are many variables that play into it, I completely agree. We are just beginning to take a more scientific approach to analyzing what the best way to network a bunch of humans together is to get the results we want.

Scale takes an interesting run at the issue. As far as I know, it is not partisan. It does reduce individuality quite a bit in its analysis but from what I hear, some white nationalists are into that.

But you bring up a good point, what all of us want is safe, prosperous cities. The rest is largely decoration.

One thing suggested in Scale is that politics is largely incidental to crime and economic growth. Stacking up a bunch of people tends to generate wealth.

Hmmm, so where does that leave our evaluations?

Great list! I have read all the above and totally agree that their value is worthwhile to anyone seeking to improve their life -- regardless of financial status, relationships, profession, etc. A couple others that I've found useful along the road:

6. The Six Pillars of Self Esteem by N. Branden. During the reawakening stage and after a particularly painful breakup, I found this book helpful. Learning the concept of "alone-ness" versus "loneliness" continues to drive many motivations.

7. Games People Play by Eric Berne. Want to understand why your plate/gf/wife went batshit insane over the stupidest thing, and how to counteract it in the future? Read this book. Want to understand why your coworker was making those strange comments to your boss? Read this book - a must for anyone wanting to learn more about game theory and its application to everyday life. (Next on my list is The Art of Strategy ).

8. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. In many ways this is an antithesis to Freudian thought -- whereas Freud argued man is happy when seeking and obtaining pleasure, Frankl postulates that finding meaning and understanding is what makes us happy. In the context of TRP theory, meditating on, if not fully understanding, these concepts is absolutely necessary.

9. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. The seminal work on the concept and application of persuasion. From negotiations to dating/relationships to job performance, I would rank this book at the top of many lists.

A few other authors/books I've seen mentioned elsewhere that are worth checking out: anything by Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of War by Sun Tzu (which goes hand in hand with The Prince for a great East/West study), and Rollo Tomassi. I've also found some of Oscar Wilde's writing to be both amusing and insightful.

[edit: formatting.]

I had similar thoughts when I left the Corps.

Hard to give advice on what to study, because at some point it has to interest you, or you have be ok learning a lot about it.

The easier thing to say is don't study business/management as an undergrad. It's pointless. There's a reason why the fancy schools don't even offer those degrees. Learn skills.

Start taking classes and then chase where you excel. If you like numbers, go into math or some science program. Or if you're good at writing/talking, chase that.

The key is to keep thinking about how what you're learning becomes a useful skill set for someone who needs to hire people.

Let me suggest two books, both are likely in your public library.

The first book makes the great point that you shouldn't worry about long term goals. Get better at things, take opportunities when they come up, and put your effort into the work. My life got so much better when I finally started living that advice.

https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124

https://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2016/dp/1501274643

I had the same problem in business school. I'm went back mid-career and sometimes it felt like I was taking classes from the 90's.

If you're interested in a more recent approach to business models, check out Business Model Generation. It provides a canvas that helps you visualize how different components of a business model interact and influence each other. It's also filled with great examples of how businesses you know would be modeled through their framework.

Can you be more specific about your advertising ask? Google & Facebook are both anchored in ads to generate revenue. Many "freemium" products supplement subscriptions with ad revenue. If a digital experience feels like you're "getting it for free" it's likely either supported by ads or IS an ad for something else.

While it's not digital business model exclusive, I'm a big fan of Andrew Chen. His once a week newsletter is a must read for me (I'm a consultant in digital strategy/digital product). He talks a lot about the underlying economics of companies and why certain technologies win in certain circumstances and other don't. https://andrewchen.co

Definitely look into bussiness management books as well. if you are going down this road, there is a chance you will want to start doing it on your own and having proper business skills will help tremendously in securing work, and balancing costs, and making money doing it! I am sure some people on this sub can recommend some great books on this topic as well.

Here are a couple books,

https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5MLrBRClARIsAPG0WGxuwhyo-18J3-xPOVP8bXeTJ4zbGZHkpO4GqIGKlz-WCRxt3aUroqQaApECEALw_wcB&hvadid=229992601126&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000745&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4412519744533501821&hvtargid=aud-748919244907%3Akwd-297504215686&hydadcr=16960_10238137&keywords=business+model+generation&qid=1567691052&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0307887898&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=PEqJa&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=a62e2918-d998-4bbb-8337-35aac776e851&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

https://www.amazon.ca/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_sbs_14_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0984999302&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-You-One-Page-Reinventing/dp/1118156315/ref=pd_sbs_14_4/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1118156315&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

Say no more, fam.

You don't need a degree to run a business. Having your own business allows you to experiment with these books first hand instead of taking some professor's word for it. Professor's usually just read what the book says. If they were actually good at running a business they'd probably be doing that.

• Business Creation - The Lean Start-up
  
  
  
• Value Creation - How to Make Millions With Your Ideas
  
  
  
• Marketing - Getting Everything You Can Out Of Everything You Got / All Marketers Are Liars
  
  
  
• Sales - Pitch Anything
  
  
  
• Value Delivery - Indispensable
  
  
  
• Accounting/Finances - Financial Intelligence / Accounting Made Simple
  
• Understanding the Human Mind - Making Sense of Behavior
  
  
  
• Productivity - Getting Things Done
  
  
  
• Problem Solving - The 80/20 Principle
  
  
  
• Decision Making - Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions
  
  
  
• Negotiation - 3-D Negotiation
  
  
  
• Management - Growing Great Employees
  
  
  
• Project Management - Making Things Happen
  
  
  
• Statistics - Marketing Metrics
  
  
  
• Corporate Knowledge - The Effective Executive
  
  
  
• Corporate Strategy - Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies
  
  
  
• Creativity - The Creative Habit
  
  
  
• Personal Finance - Your Money or Your Life

I have written about game theory for 7 years at an introductory level and tried to make it interesting: http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/category/game-theory/

I'm also currently reading through all of the classics and popular books on the topic. I am working on a guide to resources: books, websites, videos, courses. Suggestions welcome.

I do recommend Game Theory 101 like others here. I've also written a short ebook with one reviewer saying "Possibly the best of the short introductions to game theory." (The Joy of Game Theory) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H69CQ4Q/

Interesting article by the author of The Inevitable who posits that only narrow AI is the more likely candidate for AI in the future and not AGI. I would disagree with many of his premises e.g. his 'strawmanish' argument of exponential intelligence growth, that human intelligence must be substrate-dependent, and he doesn't quite seem to engage in the argument of thinking of intelligence as a focused optimisation-process that can more likely achieve the outcomes its values are set to.
But point 5 did make me think: how much can a superintelligence infer from existing data alone? "Can you know the universe from a single pebble?" And if it requires more data, then the scientific method for accumulating data takes time. What does that mean for thoughts on intelligence explosions and "singularity"-type events? Or is there an assumption I have made in that train of thought, that isn't correct?

I understand your point. Thank you. I agree. Being put on the spot is tough and ideally it can be avoided with some prep. Or diverted with well placed snipers.... I kid. I kid.

May I recommend a book that was valuable for me? This is the best book I've read that discusses these (and other) types of things. It's a fascinating read both from a history perspective and a psychology perspective.

The virus that is flipping zero-sum games to nonzero is called The Love Bug. In case you haven't noticed, nonzero is love, nonzero is life. For there to be true liberation would require an end of hate. There is now contagious peace and love spreading through the whole world.

[This man has the warmest soul and the deepest humanity of any person I have known (through his books and recordings of him.) His advice is timeless.] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYEI6jWT244) Here's the love bug, this is literally it. Now go spam it everywhere.

This needs to go global BEFORE Thursday. GET TO WORK.

1. Make sure that you know your competitor(s): http://www.thredup.com/
   
   
2. Try to describe your idea/vision in 1 sentence.
   
   
3. I assume you wrote your business plan. A bit outdate but still a great idea: http://www.amazon.com/Page-Business-Plan-Creative-Entrepreneur/dp/1891315099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299763535&sr=8-1
   
   Good Luck and please update this thread.
   
   

I have an eccentric obsession with the oil/energy industry. Some of these books were mentioned already, but below are my absolute favorites:

• The Prize
  
• The Frackers
  
• Oil 101
  
• The Big Rich
  
• The King of Oil
  
• Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas
  
• The Smartest Guys in the Room
  
• The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
  
  If you're looking for a history of oil and gas check out The Prize, and The Frackers covers the more recent energy revolution. Oil 101 and Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas deal more with the technical side.

Sometimes it makes a huge amount of difference to go through a proper exercise in understanding the business model. Use this: http://6w2x.com/mm-devel/mmc-canvasv01explained.html to fill out all the sections so you understand your business model. Ideally, you should get your hands on the book itself: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Traffic, fan base, etc come later, once you've decided on things like your value proposition, customer segments, distribution channels, etc. Then you execute on the plan, targeting the segments and measuring the responses. Be data orientated from day 1 so learn about customer acquisition and retention. It may be that assumptions that have gone into the model are not correct and you have to make changes. Investing your time now on this will pay dividends later.

Good luck.

This guest post on Forbes should be helpful: What's The Secret To A Successful Coffee Shop?

Don't forget to build a well thought-out Business Model before starting up.

Best of luck

The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing. It's kind of a textbook, but we read it in one of my pricing classes for my MBA, and it was awesome.

I've also heard this is a good one: Power Pricing

I would try out some consumer behavior books also. I don't have any recommendations there, but since pricing involves a lot of psychology it's a good path to walk down :)

A good book: http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941

I don't think there's an "equilibrium" - I think there's chaotic directionality. I think equilibrium is just a human concept that attempts to circumscribe "action-reaction".

I'm not sure how I can elaborate really; I just don't agree with the premise. That equilibrium exists outside of anything but physical systems in regards to things like air pressure. IMO, this is really sort of mental detritus from Zoroastrian/Judeo-Christian concepts of Good/Evil. The desire for cosmic justice is strong, but I don't think it exists outside of the context of human consciousness.

The short version might be that you ask:

>Do you think humans are out of equilibrium?

And to begin a serious conversation, the question is simply: out of equilibrium with what? Why? How?

That's a good list, BUT they should be secondary reading, sure you can get insights from them that can relate to any type of investing but you want to be RE specific right? Here is a list I would look into.

Private Real Estate Investment: Data Analysis and Decision Making

Real Estate Finance & Investments

Multifamily Housing Development Handbook

Real Estate Market Analysis: Methods and Case Studies, Second Edition

The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings

How to Pay Little or No Taxes on Your Real Estate Investments: What Smart Investors Need to Know

Investing in Real Estate

Real Estate Investing, Cash Flows, and Due Diligence: Making Better Investment Decisions (Volume 2)

What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow... And 36 Other Key Financial Measures

That's a lot, also info in those books may over lap so pick which ones you would want to answer your specific questions. Hope this helps.

aspen has always been a resort town, not a major urban center with natural gifts like a port and geographically close to cali and China, 2 of the biggest sources of global growth in the past 5 decades. OP, If you want some real info thats not some op-ed written to confirm popular opinions please veer away from this sub. please try /r/Economics

if you want to understand real estate pricing theories, here are two pretty comprehensive books for case studies on various types of real estate. You need an ok understanding of probabilities, stochastic calc, and basic finance instruments

• Mortgage Valuation Models by Davidson and Levin
  
• Real estate market analysis by Brett and Schmitz
  
  there is also an consensus in academia on the harms of rent control
  
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/the-perverse-effects-of-rent-regulation.html?mcubz=3
  
  https://economics.mit.edu/files/9760
  
  http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html
  
  https://www.richmondfed.org/~/media/richmondfedorg/publications/research/working_papers/1985/pdf/wp85-5.pdf
  
  http://users.nber.org/~luttmer/rentcontrol.pdf
  
  Economic mobility work both ways. Some people got poorer without noticing, and are now fighting through political means to hold on to their privilege

There’s also a book that covers this the topic of common patterns in nature, and goes into depth on how it applies to organisms of all sizes. Extremely interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582

The answer seems to be “when working in 3 dimensions, there’s efficient ways to do things, so natural selection will tend towards them over time.“

For example, if there’s two ways to construct a circulatory system, moving the same amount of blood, but one moves blood with less energy, this frees up energy for reproductive activities, providing an advantage to that organism.

But these “laws of 3D construction” apply not just to veins/arteries, but to your brain, trees, and even cities’ sewers and power cables.

It’s all about efficient networks co-living in a single “organism”

Yes. The size of "invariant components" like cells set a limit on how small things can be. But cells are not the only component for which that is true. When it comes to mammals, the more important limiting factor is the circulatory system - mainly the size of the capillaries. The smallest mammal is the Etruscan shrew. And this is basically the smallest a mammal can be in theory. When you shrink a mammalian circulatory system smaller than a shrew's it becomes wildly inefficient. So mammals have never evolved to be smaller, even when it could have provided other advantages.

The circulatory system is also the reason why the blue whale is pretty much the biggest possible mammal. If they get any bigger, the space between capillaries becomes too large, and cells start to starve of oxygen.

There is an interesting book called Scale that goes into this topic is detail.

I have actually read that book! It's great!

I actually agree with you... 50 years was a little much haha but it gets you thinking...

Also, a book I recommend is Inevitable: Understanding Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly (founder of Wired Magazine)...It basically is this thought experiment that I described. He outlines 12 forces that he believes are 'inevitable' (which I mostly agree with). Supurb read.

https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0143110373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522298524&sr=8-1&keywords=the+inevitable+kevin+kelly

If you are going for a internet business or any product-oriented business here a are the best books



BEST ONES

"The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" (Eric Reis) - 2011

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/

"Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works" (Ash Maurya) - 2010

https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172

"Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days" (Jake Knapp - Google Ventures) - 2016

https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1550802301&s=gateway&sr=8-1

​

ALSO GO FOR (these are the ones that started organizing the Startup world)

"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" (Steve Blank) - 2005

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989200507/

"Business Model Generation" (Alexander Osterwalder) - 2008

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/

My favorite is Business Model Generation. To me, it really lays the foundation about before starting your business. In my opinion, a business makes or breaks during the initial planning stages. There are exceptions, but this book helps guide the thinking and really helps with understanding why a business will be successful or not.

I believe that there are objectively good tricks for getting along well in communities.

This is, in part, what Game Theory studies. There are win-win ways of interacting that are mathematically, provably, better — at least in the long run — than zero-sum or negative-sum interactions.

In the book Nonzero, the author Robert Wright talks about how civilizations become more successful as they figure out how to implement more and more positive-sum (win-win) ways of interacting.

Holly Mother of God. :-)

"Dancing with the Stars and The Voice" ? Yipes!

How about Silicon Valley, Dark Mirror, and a dash of Dark Matter?

I bounce between Greenpoint and Manhattan. There is not a soul here that has "Network" TV anywhere in their world. Not a soul. It's gone. We use cable for only one thing. Just internet. Google is putting up 1gb/s access points all over the city. Totally free. Like to ditch my cable when they get one closer to my apt.

But what is back, BIG TIME? Books and paper. Everywhere. :-) And Voice (Alexa on Echo) is the craze.

You might really enjoy this book. We're all devouring it now (well 2 here for u).

Rushkoff
https://www.amazon.com/Throwing-Rocks-Google-Bus-Prosperity/dp/1617230170

Kelly
https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0525428089

> That's nothing new. If you knew the industry you know that almost everyone is freelance and they moved on to new gigs the moment they wrapped the season finale of Vinyl.

Yes, but a few years back for sure, it would have been "you're stealing my show!", now it's "totally cool dude." Big change there.

• The Lean Startup
  
• Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
  
• Lean Analytics
  
• The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets
  
  If you want to get started sooner:
  
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company
  
• Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works

you don't need a business school to experience the core of this class ...

Here's a link to Steve Blank's HBR article on The Lean Startup. Also a series of free lectures that Steve Blank put up on  Udacity, called "How to Build a Startup" a course that over 500,000 people have viewed.    These lectures are supported by a book that Steve Blank wrote with Bob Dorf called The Startup Owners Manual, as well as a best selling business book by Alexander Osterwalder called  Business Model Generation. You may also want to see Alexander's other book, Value Proposition Design for more input/insight.

I really enjoyed Godel's Proof by Nagel + Newman. It's a layman's guide to Godel incompleteness theorem. It avoids some of the more finnicky details, while still giving the overall impression.

https://www.amazon.com/Gödels-Proof-Ernest-Nagel/dp/0814758371/

If you like that, it's edited by Hofstadter, who wrote Godel-Escher-Bach, a famous book about recurrence.

Finally, I would recommend Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright. It's a life-changing book that dives into the relevance of game theory, evolutionary biology and information technology. (Warning that the first 80 pages are very dry.)

https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941/

When I took Game Theory the professor used Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics, which I really liked.

Evolutionary Dynamics is just amazing, but a bit on the biological side.

If you are studying on your own I would suggest Game Theory Evolving, which has a lot of exercises and examples to keep you going.

And for added bursts of motivation read The Art of Strategy, which is not really technical but explains the concepts incredibly well.

Upwork is a great place to start to sell your CAD skills as a freelancer, either to get cash flow to support your future plans or to be your primary source of income.

As far as resources goes on the how to start something. I found "The Startup Owner's Manual" (https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Step-Step-Building-Company/dp/0984999302/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518503563&sr=8-2&keywords=startup+handbook) and "Business Model Generation" (https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417) both have very boring titles, but great content and guided both myself and my co-founder down the road of finding our business idea and launching it. We are now a $5M a year business.

The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing is a classic book on pricing. Dry reading, but really good stuff. (Get an older, used edition to save some dough)

NTA In the kindest way possible, perhaps you could suggest she read a book on how to be a conversationalist. My first boss out of college suggested I do this, since I worked in a field that required a lot of socializing and networking. I forget which book I read, but it was something like How To Talk to Anyone or The Art of Talking to Anyone. I hope she doesn’t take offense because everyone needs to work on something, no one is perfect. It’s understandable that she would be nervous meeting her bf’s parents. But there are simple rules in talking to people that she could easily learn and practice from reading a book.

Here’s a good website to walk you through creating a business model canvas.

https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas

It’s based on this book which is a great resource

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=nodl_

Business Model Generation is a great start https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Also, the Lean Startup also great https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

/r/askhistorians recommended this fucking fantastic book about the Tang dynasty and all of its badassery. I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

This book is pretty solid. Elementary but is a great foundation.

Another book by the same authors that's worth considering is The Art of Strategy. I can't recommend it personally, since I haven't read it yet, but it's the one I purchased when I decided I wanted to get a popular account of game theory. It's supposed to be good.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

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That is precisely it. The laws of scaling work that way. It's also the case that as population increases, average wealth increases.

There is a great book about this phenomenon:
https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582

There's a book on this called "Scale" written by a theoretical physicist that explains why phenomenon like arteries and capillaries are all governed by physical constraints and shows you all the different ways those constraints manifest. If you liked this comment you should probably check it out. The high seas might be able to help.

https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582

ad hominem comment - directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

I never said that I am more versed than Musk (though we don't know if I am or not - it isn't relevant).

I'm just not going to agree with Musk because he is Musk. UBI is a favorite term of futurology. . .

I find someone like Kevin Kelley as a better resource/explanation of what will happen in the future (https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0525428089).

I don't know if this has been posted yet or not but this book is a good read for anyone, but especially someone feeling the way you are feeling.

Boas, vou tentar dar-te uma resposta abrangente mas directa. Googla tudo o que precisares de perceber melhor - uma pesquisa que irias precisar de fazer de qualquer as formas.

• Idealmente precisarias de um co-founder técnico na equipa visto que neste momento não tens como executar. Mas tens um ponto a teu favor: domain expertise. Além disso, o teu ponto de partida é resolver um problema real, o que é bom (vs. "tive uma ideia de negócio"). Melhor ainda por estares a construir para ti mesmo ("scratch your own itch"). Que mais valias tens nesse teu grupo de colegas? Coisas como sales ou marketing digital são úteis.
  
  
• Por falar em "colegas de trabalho". Quantos são? Historicamente equipas com 2-3 co-founders têm melhor performance. (uma das maiores causas de insucesso em startups são cofounder issues)
  
  
• Não penses "tenho uma ideia para uma app", pensa em termos de modelo de negócio. Responde a questões fundamentais como "quem vai usar esta app?", "como faço dinheiro com isto?", "que recursos preciso para montar este negócio?", "como faço isto chegar ao utilizador?", etc. Saca este canvas como ponto de partida.
  
  
• Neste momento falta-te capacidade de execução. Só há duas maneiras de a adquirires: ou arranjas um co-founder técnico (muito difícil) ou pagas por ela.
  
  
• Pagar pela execução não é assim tão caro como estás a antecipar. Só tens de redesenhar o produto. Qual é a versão mais primitiva e básica do produto que te permite provar que o negócio é viável, ie, que a consegues vender a users? Se calhar não precisas de uma app pronta. Se calhar bastam-te mockups do UI. Reúne o pessoal à volta de um quadro branco e risca todos os features da app que não são essenciais. Depois de fazerem isso, continuem a riscar. Pega nesses features e pede orçamentos a developers. Com 2.000€ já é possível fazer um MVP decente. (Googla Minimum Viable Product).
  
  
• Com o MVP que valide a tua ideia (prove que tens pessoas dispostas a dar-te dinheiro pelo teu produto) é mais fácil recrutar um co-founder técnico a troco de equity e/ou angariar investimento para pagar mais desenvolvimento (nota: o desenvolvimento nunca acaba).
  
  
• Lê o máximo que puderes sobre o assunto. Três livros bons: 1, 2, 3.
  
  
• Rodeia-te de pessoas que já o tenham feito.
  
  EDIT: Não te metas nisso porque "fazer startups é cool" ou porque "dá dinheiro". É difícil para crl e há muitas maneiras mais fáceis de fazer dinheiro. A probabilidade é falhares.
  
  EDIT 2: Uma startup não é uma versão miniatura de uma empresa grande. Maior parte dos princípios de gestão que se aprende numa business school não se aplicam.

This exactly.

Also, I recommend In the Line of Fire, a great book that will teach you how to prepare and then handle 'gotcha' questions.

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I highly recommend The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life.

Although I agree with you and not so much the OP, I want to toss in an idea for pondering. Do you believe in consciousness? I believe I'm self-aware but its a metaphysical belief science can't prove. Science tells me I'm an electrochemical state machine, which I fully believe. In theory, a world could exist identical to ours with evolved two-legged creatures, TVs, even the internet but completely lacking consciousness. How would we explain this concept to such foreign creatures? I'm not setting out to prove the existence of God but trying to highlight most of us have beliefs without absolute proof.

I didn't cook this up on my own, I just read Rober Wright's Nonzero. It wasn't as good as The Moral Animal but makes an intereseting case for deism.

Here's a few I recommend:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing/dp/1861976100

The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Thomas-Nagle/dp/0136106811

[This one isn't technically a marketing book I guess, but it's a very (very!) good way to think about packaging and pricing. And I think marketing is one large component of that process and think it is a must-read.]

Purple Cow: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Purple-Cow-Transform-Business-Remarkable/dp/014101640X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

[This one is a lighter read but still a goodie]

How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships helped me quite a bit and I think it'll help you too.

I had seen "The Art of Strategy" by Dixit and Nalebuff recommended here before, and thought it was a great place to start.

Trump's 'Mental Impairment Means He Cannot Think Strategically or in Abstract Terms,' Claims Professor of Psychiatry

Daily reminder that game theory is the abstract science of strategy. The Right plays checkers (King me KING ME KING ME KING ME!) while the left plays trans-dimensional Go. That's just Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny which can be read by someone who cannot hear.

However your problem has made me consider adding subtitles to my videos to increase accessibility. Thanks <3

We can all see the sky is blue - that's not special. And it doesn't carry the implication that "the system is not that complicated" - think about what lies beyond all that blue.

Your first sentence is pretty interesting. i read a book, Nonzero that basically asserts that this has been the teleology of all of human existence. That this is, indeed, an almost necessary condition for the growth of human society.

Here are some of my suggestions

1. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
   
2. Gates Notes - collection of reviews by Bill Gates himself. All of them aren't of Business nature, nevertheless interesting point of view. Look at book Capitalism without Capital
   
3. Mind your decisions - nice blog about Game Theory and its application in day to day life
   

I read an interesting book that discusses and answers all of your questions called The Inevitable. Highly recommend. https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0525428089

You could try getting the book StrengthsFinder 2.0. It is a remarkable look at what your top giftings are and what to do with them. Comes with a unique code for the assessment.

A good place to start for fundamental principles is Geoffrey West and biological scaling laws, which generalize to other systems as well, such as cities.

Check out his book.

He's also done a podcast with Sean Carroll.

Currently reading a book about this subject (https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0525428089) and apparently instant-access is going to replace ownership in the long term. It's happening now with entertainment media (Spotify, Netflix, EA Access), cars (Uber, Lyft) and may happen with much bigger things like shelter, food etc.

I assume you don't want a college textbook on game theory? I might be able to dig up some old PDF notes from Rush's (the long time professor of Microeconomics, if you didn't attend UF) class on intro game theory stuff. Here are a couple books that looked accessible:

Introducing Game Theory: A Graphic Guide

The Joy of Game Theory

Disclaimer, I have not read either of these.

Rework

Traction

Web Startup Success Guide

Hi, I would like to suggest two books as following. I'm interested in some business field, so theses are my recommendations, enjoy~

1)the inevitable- kevin kelly
http://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0525428089

2)Why Nudge?- Cass R. Sunstein
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Nudge-Politics-Libertarian-Paternalism/dp/0300212690

Granted I've never had to develop a business model, but I liked Business Model Generation.

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

https://smile.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582

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Honestly, I don't think there's a lot of good books written on pricing and bundling yet. Power Pricing is good Nagel, Hogan, Zale is also good, but neither are too technical because... you know... marketing.

On the stats side, depending on what kind of shop you're with and what data you have, you'll be estimating demand curves, and doing conjoint analysis. Those are still state of the art afaik.

Unfortunately I don't really know anything that specifically focuses on this aspect of Chinese history. Since it's most prominent during the Tang Dynasty (though you see it happening sometimes during other periods - for instance, an Emperor during the five dynasties and ten kingdoms period was notorious for supposedly having a thing for Iranian women and had many of them in his harem, among other apparently kinky scandalous things he did), so that's probably a good place to start. The main book on the Tang Dynasty that I've read is the one that's part of the History of Imperial China Series, which I've found overall to be a great introductory but academically rigorous introduction to the history of China in general - Amazon link to that here. I read the kindle version and there's one chapter on foreigners and foreign relations if I remember correctly. Right now I'm starting to read China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty so we'll see how that goes.

The other place to look for would be books on the Silk Road. Susan Whitfield's Life Along the Silk Road was the first book I read in my recent binge on Chinese/Chinese-related history books, and it basically covers several centuries of Silk Road history through the eyes of 12 fictional individuals of different ethnicities and classes. Though fictional, their lives are drawn heavily from available sources. One of these individuals is a light-haired courtesan of Central Asian origin (or light eyed, kinda forgot but point is she'd be foreign in China), who lives much of her life in Chang'an, so the chapter on her might be of interest. The other Silk Road book I'm about to read right now is The Silk Road: A New History, so we'll see how that one goes.

I'd probably recommend getting Whitfield's book and then looking up the sources she uses. Unfortunately, these sources I mentioned above don't really go into much detail about the dynamics of these potential inter-"racial" sexual/romantic relations (I use racial in quotation marks of course because our modern conceptions of race would not be useful in analyzing this historical context) other than the fact that it happened and some Chinese guys wrote some "dood dem blonde grills r hawt" literature, but maybe there might be some shorter articles or research papers available that do focus more on them.

Hi Jawilson2, here's a few books I've read in the past that helped prime me. I guess at the minimum these books helped me understand who was a bullshitter and who wasn't when they claimed they "knew the business side."

Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur - Fund raising basics. Key if you ever plan to raise money. You'd be stupid to try without reading this first.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071496025/

Business Model Generation - This book helps you think through the business model issues most "hacker" type entrepreneurs skip. Makes you think more holistically.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470876417/

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law - Basics about legal issues you should be aware exist. I haven't read through it all at once, but it's a good guide when I run up against areas I'm murky on.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Entrepreneurs-Guide-Business-Law/dp/0324204930/

My advice to you is to read What Color Is Your Parachute. Go through the chapter of the Flower Exercise and it should provide you with a step in the right direction to finding the ideal career for you.

Sort of a tough question since it depends tremendously on the type of work you're doing, the audience you're targeting, their purchase and research patterns, etc. Have you developed any kind of a business plan to help define those variables?

The Business Model Generation handbook (https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417) is a solid reference for laying out a framework to help answer those questions and start narrowing down toward a GTM strategy. I've used it working with a number of startups and still reference it in a lot of my work with Fortune 500 companies.

"The Art of Strategy" by Dixit and Nalebuff presents a very accessible approach to game theory. (http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Strategy-Theorists-Business/dp/0393337170)

"Economic Fables" by Rubinstein is a combined memoir and text on game theory methodology that's a fun read. (http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Fables-Ariel-Rubinstein/dp/1906924775/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412805443&sr=1-1&keywords=economic+fables)

Linky for anyone else who is interested: http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941

Again, that's your subjective and unsourced opinion about language, and I disagree with it. Like I said in my previous comment, it's actually kind of important that people understand exponential growth includes exponents less than two, even in everyday/layman language use. You can read a whole book about why it's important here.

Like it says in the screen grab you get about one billion, like all mammals.

• The Startup Owner's Manual by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf
  
• [Business Model Generation by A. Osterwalder] (http://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453755761&sr=8-1&keywords=business+model+generation)
  
• [Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want] (http://www.amazon.com/Value-Proposition-Design-Customers-Strategyzer/dp/1118968050/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453755761&sr=8-2&keywords=business+model+generation)

I got a lot from Business Model Generation.

Business Model Generation

the moral animal and non-zero by robin wright.

Geoffrey West talks about this kind of thing in “Scale”

https://www.amazon.com/What-Color-Your-Parachute-2016/dp/1501274643

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Strategy-Theorists-Success-Business/dp/0393337170

I read this. Haven't read much into Game Theory besides this book, but it's probably a more general overview of Game Theory with real life examples.

The Inevitable is mostly about technology but has plenty economic and financial implications described for the coming decade.

Check this out. I was given it when completing a leadership program for work. I learned so much about myself:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CDZZI6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Some light reading to broaden your perspective

I found the book nonzero to be similar in scope to Guns, Germs, and Steel, meaning the whole of human history, but a very different way of looking at things.

Read them both.

Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries- Book on Amazon

The Moral Animal by Robert Wright

Nonzero by Robert Wright

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano

...just my opinions.

See also Robert Wright's books The Moral Animal and Nonzero. I can't recommend that guy's stuff enough.

>Evolution is the essential manifestation of war.

I think there are those who would dispute that claim, here's one:

https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941

​

>In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright's narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism.

​

What an odd coincidence... I just started reading this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582

No it isn't, it's senseless insanity. Find out why the Christian Illuminati death cultists are such ignorant assholes.

Christians are the most retarded people on the planet. They could all be exterminated with no net loss, but in fact a net gain.

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Not exactly what you want, but this book talks about complex systems and how we are really bad at trying to replicate them. It talks about cities, the economy and biology. Kinda why I find it hard to think any planned economy would work as well as letting it mostly handle itself and fixing it when required.

https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Innovation-Sustainability-Organisms/dp/1594205582

I actually read this book a while back, so I understood the concept of a Nash Equilibrium in general, just not the example you gave. I'll admit that most of it didn't stick since I skimmed over much of the math. I think it was just the way you worded it. I thought you meant steal wasn't a dominant strategy at all, but you meant it was weakly dominant.

I don't assume everything will be gone forever, but many will be, at least, very uncomfortable (water, food, shelter, safety, will be difficult) for months or longer. That's enough for me to give post collapse consideration.

Regarding the continuation of ideas, however, I'm currently reading a heady book, NonZero by Robert Wright. Its about how ideas survive collapse, and more on history/philosophy than survival skills for postcollapse.

Hmm I look at it this way. Indeed morality is simply a product of the human mind, and this is exactly what makes it objective. And I don't mean like "I think this is right, therefore it is". It is bigger than that. Morality is real, natural and objective the same way water is wet and planets are things. There isn't anything wet individual H2O molecules. Yet through their interaction a property we call 'wet' is presented. The same goes for planets. They are really just big balls of elementary particles. But it doesn’t help anyone to think of it this way. There are still laws like Newton’s law of gravitation that describe how planets work. This is the idea behind reductionism. While things are really made out of ever smaller parts (until you hit quantum mechanics), it is still useful to describe reality at higher levels of generalization.

For morality the same works in two steps (ending the line of reduction down at the human individual). Imagine two strangers meeting each other. They both need medical attention due to a civil war. Now the other could provide the medical attention but also pose a threat. When these people interact one of two things can happen. Either they cooperate or they oppose each other (cooperate/defect in the Prisoners Dilemma as it is called in game theory and economics). Now when people oppose each other nothing really changes compared to when they didn't interact with each other. All participants are still selfishly trying to achieve their own goals regardless of anything or anyone else. But when they cooperate something new is created. A unit of several individuals that works together towards a common goal. This unit of people is similar to water being wet. But this is not morality yet. This is more like selfish cooperation.

The difference lies in the fact that humans can do one thing that water molecules can't. And that is reproduce, both sexually and intellectually (by changing other people’s minds they in effect let you copy a part of you, namely your thoughts, into them). This gives rise to a second level of effects due to evolutionary theory. We find that there is another more general way to look at human behaviour that can be described using scientific laws just like planets can. Not only do people sometimes cooperate, but whenever they do they also generate profit. In fact they generate more profit compared to when they had worked alone. The only additional route to this is in a perfectly competitive market, but as anyone who has taken econ 101 may remember there are at least 12 separate conditions that need to be fulfilled in order for this to work. Making cooperation the dominant mechanism by which people become rich.* Because cooperation=profit there is a force acting towards individuals, small groups of people and societies to cooperate more with each other. There is ample evidence for this (see for example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Morality is therefore (at least in my mind) the tendency for more cooperative societies* to grow and flourish while societies which exploit, oppress, oppose each other and their members are retarded, stagnant or collapse.

From this follows what I think of as objective morality. In societies where no cooperation at all takes place society is destroyed, civilization collapses, and humanity is reduced to a collection of wandering individuals constantly trying to survive and kill each other (basically an unending version of the Purge but more extreme). In society where everyone cooperates to rationally find the best solution to bring everyone happiness, individuals live longer and the amount of suffering, pain and death is minimized/eliminated. I would call the first Evil and the second Good but really I don't have to because humanity as a whole has already done this by. Words are defined by the majority of opinions after all (Luckily regardless of what name we give this phenomenon the effect remains real).

Incidentally these 12 conditions basically never occur so whenever someone says “the market will solve everything” I recommend to take a very very close look at what they are actually proposing.

**In the sense of the prisoners dilemma not the communistic/socialistic sense. The communists didn't in fact base their society on the community but on the communist party. And everyone else got kicked into the dirt.