Auto Dismantling, Entrepreneur, Life, Life Rants, Startup, Uncategorized, What I Know About

automobile dismantling, Entrepreneur, Life, work hard play hard

February Progress Update

February 27, 2015

February Progress Update

Howdy folks! So I have to kick myself for saying I’ll update every Wednesdays. THIS time I mean it, I’m going to keep it up.

I just want to pop in and give you guys a quick update on the two projects I have going on thus far + life stuff [do you even care?]. So seriously, if you don’t care.. you can skip this whole post. =) No hard feelings.

Automobile Dismantling company – sales are steadily climbing. It’s not where I really want to be since I just cruised it for the first half of the month (I focused on dismantling the 7 engines we already have versus buying another car).

So far for February 2015.

Separate credit card sales.

This is what happens when you cruise.. you think you will push sales to $15-$20K and you might be lucky if it breaks $13K this month. There are still FOUR days left!

So in the spirit of NOT cruising/coasting along.. I went and bought another car because it’s ABOUT TIME to keep on gettin’ it:

My 22nd car is a 2003 Range Rover. Vroom vroom.

I’m also working on a software company. Software company sales comparison of all of last year to the almost three months in of this year:

Last Year’s Sales when we launched in August 2014. Total sales for last year.

This is this year’s sales. My projection is.. at this rate… our sales will be maybe $4-$5K IF there is no progress whatsoever. But I am going to try and create a community with the software company. Wish me luck. & Provide input if you can!

Total sales from January 2015 to now (February 26 2015)

Still made time for rock climbing:

Climbed at Fairview Mountain in Apple Valley with old friends and new friends!

Still pushing myself to lead ’em routes!

Still made time for Valentine fun in Vegas.

Climbed at Red Rocks

Saw the O Show at the Bellagio. Awesome show. $197 buckeroos/ticket. It wasn’t cheap, folks.

Oh! And I’m starting to eat healthy again. SMOOTHIES EVERY MORNING with a touch of virgin coconut oil. Yum.

Where I’m going next:

This meetup event. It is for High Desert Entrepreneurs. This is where I’ll be on Saturday 2/28/15.

http://www.meetup.com/High-Desert-Entrepreneurs/

In MARCH 14th, 2015 I will be teaching a group of writers how to set up their wordpress websites. I’ll begin filming the tutorial videos for that class this upcoming week. I’ll update this post to have the link for that event soon. << I AM DAMN EXCITED ABOUT THIS EVENT BECAUSE IT IS ONE STEP CLOSER TO WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO … HELP PEOPLE DO SOMETHING WITH WEBSITES! (AND EVENTUALLY EARN THEM $$.. OR SOMETHING ELSE… RECOGNITION? SELF LOVE? ENLIGHTENMENT?)

Giving inspiration is going to feel great. It’s one step closer to feeling less selfish about this life.

What I should be doing next:

1) Creating a good email response system of the 700+ emails for the automobile dismantling company & the 70+ subscribers for the software company (including a 3 part launch).

2) Focus focus focus.

I’m so not focused. I get easily distracted and I’m easily influenced by my environment. It’s a trait I’m not proud to have but I am what I am and it is what it is. OH WELL! The main thing is I don’t quit. Most importantly I’m not quitting on not being so distracted so in the end I’m constantly trying to re-focus myself and it works (sometimes).

I really don’t know how people who have a billion things going on .. do it all. They say the average millionaire has seven streams of income. I have… less than four. Hence, the non-millionaire status. They must have a personal assistant at their beck and call because frankly… trying to run 2 businesses + have other nagging businesses snipping at my feet because I’ve started them & have yet to do anything with them, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, maintaining a relationship, blah blah blah.. whine whine whine… HOW DO YOU DO IT?

It’s amazing everything hasn’t gone to shit.

This has been an extremely selfish post. The next post you’ll get is a video series (maybe part 1) of how to go from NOTHING to a wordpress website.

Until next time.

Toodles.

Auto Dismantling, Challenges ACCEPTED, Entrepreneur, Life, Startup, Uncategorized

9-to-5, entrepreneurship, jumping in, leading the life you want, quitting, Startup, why quit, work

How To Get Over Your Fear Of Quitting Your Job

November 13, 2014

There was less fear than there was pure unadulterated outrage at my disposition with a 9 to 5. This might not just be me, but before I quit I was on a nonstop binge of podcasts or blog posts by Pat Flynn, Tim Ferris, Ramit Sheti, etc. It was to hype myself up and it took a whole year to hype myself before D day. It also took over a year because I needed to save up money before I quit (I am not THAT reckless).

Startup, Technology, Thoughts, Uncategorized, What I Know About

adventure, authorize.net, corrugation corner, lover's leap, rock climbing, start-ups, whoistubian, whoistubian.com, youtube, youtube celebrities, youtubian

How To Take Orders Using Authorize.net

July 18, 2014

How To Take Orders Using Authorize.net

I am continuing my How To Start And Run An Ecommerce Company Step by Step series… How to take orders using authorize.net.

Okay, so you opened your business. And you are getting payments through Paypal because that is the only thing you know. You can do the lame thing and send yourself an invoice with paypal… then take down their credit card numbers… then pay your own invoice with their credit card information…

And let paypal rape you with their 2.9% + $.30 per transaction fees. NOW WHAT?

You can use authorize.net.

A customer randomly wants to pay you with his card… and you have no reader… now what?

You can go online and log into authorize.net.

1) Buy your authorize.net account through a reseller. You cannot buy it directly from them. Why do companies do this? They don’t want to deal with customer service any longer and they know they have a product everyone wants. They would rather let their trusted resellers deal with all the customer service. This is a smart move. Here is a list.

Call everyone and haggle for the best prices. Resellers get a percentage cut off of market value so it will be a good situation for you if you can get a large portion of the discount authorize.net gives them.

2) Log into Authorize.net

3 ) Click on Tools

It should look like the below:

Authorize.net

4) Authorize.net is a payment gateway that won’t rape you with high fees. Card readers like Square …does. Or any other type of “Free” card readers that gets mailed to you. But hey, if you really don’t care – they offer a great convenience. And if you have a store-front where you are getting orders face to face every single day – use a reader because then you can get more money in and keep the lines short.

Here is something I learned later on… which you will learn NOW. You can take payments from people who have cards with international billing addresses. You would have to change some settings… view the screenshot below:

Go to settings –> Address verification service –> uncheck the G, U, S. UNCHECK GUS! Now, viola, you can take an order from anyone living on an international island..for example.

settings

address

Uncheck GUS

5) Authorize.net can also integrate with your own website. You can create separate log-ins for different people. I created a developer log-in and he goes in and uses the API code Authorize.net provides. Suddenly you can take payments online. You can also do re-occurring billing. Not every customer in the world will have a paypal account so might as well know how to receive payments in other forms!

I hope that helps you guys!

Thanks for the increase in traffic! My worth of web for this website has shot from $215 to…$1493. My goal is to reach $2000. YES, THAT’S ALL I’M WORTH.. ISN’T IT?!??!

My worth of web 7 17 14

In other news… a company I co-launched with a fellow named Ron over a month ago has TWO ACTIVE PAYING subscribers now. WEEEEEEE! TWO SUBSCRIBERS!!!!!!!! Hey, that’s better then no subscribers. It gotta start SOMEWHERE.

AND… because I feel like it might be a good idea to write about youtube celebrities, I am co-launching an online Magazine-like/Wiki mutation featuring just biographies about Youtube Celebrities. The site looks like there is nothing on there.. which … there really is nothing on there right now. But I am taking it ONE DAY AT A TIME. My co-founder is Lynn.

Below are a few pictures of my rock climbing trip. The top one involves climbing a 3 pitch, 300′ wall of rock in South Lake Tahoe. GOTTA LIVE MAS!

Tackling Corrugation Corner with my PINK HAT!

Corrugation Corner climb at Lover's Leap

CLIMBING AT PHANTOM SPIRES!

Phantom Spires at South Lake Tahoe

Auto Dismantling, Projects, Startup, Technology, Uncategorized, What I Know About

2.5GB limit, bitTorrent, bitTorrent Sync, dropbox, file syncing, free

Tech Hack: For Free – How to Get Unlimited Sharing Space via Dropbox and BitTorrent Sync

June 28, 2014 /

Tech Hack: For Free – How to Get Unlimited Sharing Space via Dropbox and BitTorrent Sync

Yes, another life hack for ya.

This one I discovered by experimenting around.

So, I know you guys have heard of BitTorrent… (Let’s face it, WHO HASN’T?!?!).

But there is another company called BitTorrent Sync and it lets you share UNLIMITED FILES between devices FOR FREE. You heard me folks. FREE UNLIMITED SHARING BETWEEN DEVICES!

Wait wait, hold on a minute, I forgot to mention the caveat… you need to keep that computer on or the device has to be turned on for the sharing to commence. The shared files are not going to be uploaded into “THE CLOUD”. Instead your device will be the actual place where the files are stored.

Why is this useful?

Because now you don’t need to remotely sign into your other computer any longer to grab that file. It acts just like dropbox but without the cloud.

THEN IT GETS INTERESTING…

I was thinking, hmmm, I do have several computers I keep on within the warehouse (just because there is no point turning them off and on everyday). I have people who do NOT have a dropbox with unlimited space given to them so when I share my files (My dropbox is at 56 GB), they usually can’t see all my files because their dropbox is limited to 2.5GB as the free version.

What I do is I download BitTorrent Sync and designate the Syncing folders to be my DROPBOX FOLDER. ANY changes I make via dropbox is synced automatically into the cloud and then consequently updated on the computers that remain powered ON. ANY changes my friends/workers make in regards to any sync’d files are automatically updated on all MY devices with dropbox.

Is this getting confusing for you? I hope not.

Here is a simple EXPLANATION:

Limited to 2.5 GB Free Version

bitTorrentSync Unlimited File Sync

Files that can be Dropbox Files (For syncing to the cloud) AND can also be SIMULTANEOUSLY BitTorrent Sync Files (For FREE syncing between devices)

Computer 2 (Receives unlimited syncing) <—–> BitTorrent Sync’d NON-CLOUD Files (Unlimited Syncing) <—> Dropbox’s CLOUD Files (Limited to Your Dropbox’s Account) on your computer ==EQUALS== Make any changes to any dropbox files, Computer #2 will receive those changes and those files WITHOUT having a dropbox account.

Because most of people I share with on dropbox aren’t so ballin’ as to have 59.9 GBs (Free from friends accepting invitations and other promotional offers dropbox let me utilize), whenever I share with them any dropbox folder theirs automatically run out of space.

This is a very useful work-around. They can get your files whenever any computer containing the files is turned ON. As if it’s like a folder on their desktop that automatically updates everytime they turn on their desktop/whatever else device they use.

There is no need to do a work-around if you have the money to invest in Dropbox’s Business Accounts. $9/month for 100 GB sounds great when you want the luxury of getting access to files whether or not the computer these files are on are powered on or off. However, with BitTorrent Sync you can keep your computer on and have others get UNLIMITED/ NO SIZE LIMIT access to only those designed files. If you follow my hack and you combine the two, if the computer is not on, you still have access to these files. The only downside is your worker/friend might not have access if they have a limited dropbox account.

Even though I wrote about this work-around.. I really have to pay homage to Dropbox. Because of them, many businesses simply EXIST on a BETTER more PRODUCTIVE level. They are awesome!

What have I been up to? I went climbing in Big Bear. AAAAnd had quite a blast celebrating a friend’s bday!:

Climbing in Big Bear

Ecommerce, Entrepreneur, Startup, Technology, Uncategorized, What I Know About

amazon, camstudio, elance, fivrr, freelancer.com, jing, mechanical turks, odesk, redbooth, talentlms, teamviewer

How To Outsource Using Odesk or Elance

June 17, 2014

How To Outsource Using Odesk or Elance

First of all.. everyone and their outsourced MOMS communicate through Skype.

So download Skype and set up an account.

THEN….

1) Create a job on Odesk or Elance… you don’t need to fuss so much over who to choose. They’ve since merged… so you are just dealing with the same company anyway.

2) Make sure you’ve set up some training videos for your workers. You can download Camstudio or Jing for free. Jing lets you upload 5 minute videos for free.

3) Connect these videos directly to Youtube or go a step further and make training tests/exercises on talentlms.com.

4) Test them out with a few scenarios first and then .. hire!

5) Create a separate email account for them through your hosting company, maybe bluehost.com. Remotely go into their computer using teamviewer.com in order to set up whatever software you feel they might need. Create their own mailing signature. Create separate permissions restricted accounts for them across the board that links to their company email account you create.

5) Manage them with Redbooth.com while they manage your clients with insightly.com & mailchimp.com.

Virtual assistants or any type of assistant online is a great way to alleviate your workload. They are incredibly valuable people and it’s amazing companies such as Odesk, Elance, Fivrr, Freelancer.com, and Mechanical Turks from Amazon are able to bring it all together for us.

There are probably better softwares to use online and a better way to go about this but this is what I use and how I go about it on a bootstrapping level. I hope it helps!

Simple, eh?

Yep.

Anywho – what have I been doing? I have been rock climbing.. a whole bunch. I am doing more leading and bouldering as well. I launched a separate company called http://superfastlistings.com with my co-founder Ron. A franchise is in the works and…. life so far is busy/exhausting/good.

Hanger18

Auto Dismantling, Ecommerce, Entrepreneur, Life, Startup, Uncategorized

chris francy, Entrepreneur, investor, las vegas, YOLO

A Conversation With An Investor

May 13, 2014

A Conversation With An Investor

During the weekend I had the honor to go along rock climbing with Chris Francy (Owner of Edge Fitness and a registered investor). He actually pushed me to do my first lead at Red Rocks Canyon.

Below is a list of what investors are NOT looking for when it comes to pitching an idea:

1) Asking for too much money for broadly described purposes.

2) Asking for a salary.

What investors are more open to:

1) Asking for about enough or even less than what you really need. This perks their ears up.

2) If you get the attention of even one investor, you might get more from the same group. If you don’t have anyone on your side to begin with, you are basically out of luck.

This may be common sense to some but investors are still pitched ideas where these points are vastly ignored and it is unfortunate that the presenters will miss out on their chances of getting funded.

Life? Life is hectic because I purchased 3 cars within the span of 1 week (for the business). 2 of which were not intended to be purchased in such a short time frame. I am in the middle of training another worker. Life is also enjoyable because it is filled with doing whatever I want whenever I want. I am lucky to have my health, my family, and a boyfriend who understands me.

Climbing in Red Rocks Canyon, Nevada.

Startup, Technology, Uncategorized, What I Know About

how to, productivity, project management, redbooth, Start-up, teambox

How to Manage Your Team Using Redbooth

April 25, 2014

How to Manage Your Team Using Redbooth

This is part of my How To Start And Run An Ecommerce Company Step By Step blueprint. The first part.

Sooooooooo…… Redbooth is free up to 5 users. There are other team management programs you can use.

If you are managing a coding team and you are coder yourself – try gitlab.com

If you are a person who isn’t a coder but wants to manage a team larger than 5 people AND you have money – try basecamp.com

If you are a person who isn’t a coder but wants to manage a team of 5 people or less BECAUSE you have less money (ie. broke) – I would go with redbooth.com HANDS DOWN, YO.

I know, I know, you are probably wondering, “WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT REDBOOTH?!”

To which I will say… calm down. Yo. Let me thoroughly explain:

1) Redbooth is WONDERFUL to manage tasks because you can reference your team with an “@” sign, just like twitter, within a task, and it will not only update the message with a time stamp within redbooth BUT it will also send a notification email to your team mate you are referencing. And THIS is where it is valuable. Email notifications simply gets NOTICED! Having the cumbersome duty of visiting the actual website is no longer necessary. The trick is…you can reply to the email notification within your own email and it will update on redbooth as well. Crazy, eh? This saves tons and tons of time.

Below is a screen shot from a project I am working on:

Nifty, eh?

2) Everyone in the project can see EVERYTHING and can see who is referencing who. You can also privatize tasks as well to a few viewers or only yourself. This allows for privacy as well as the ability for everyone to have an overall look at the project in one glance. I highly recommend switching the view to COLUMNS from LIST view because it makes everything more absorb-able (like osmosis!).

How to BEST use this feature is to have tasks with the big picture in mind:
Customer Support, Sales, Website Design, Website Coding, Content, Admin Username and Passwords, Finance.

Redbooth

3) Since the search function is incredibly fast it will be better than wading through your email. You can assign a task. Connected to a task are essential things:

Privacy – you can assign who can see the task.
Integrations – you can connect google documents, dropbox, box, or upload a document from your computer.(To use all integrations you need to upgrade… but attachments are accessible with the free membership).
Time tracking – you can put in how many hours the task took you to finish or how long it took for you to assign the task.
Assigning the task – you can assign it to a team member and they will get an email notification of the due date as well as all the details within the task AND the attachments IN THEIR EMAIL as well as on Redbooth. THIS IS SO USEFUL.

Things are blacked out for privacy.

So why is it good to use over others?

It makes the experience of managing a team, keeping up with deadlines, knowing a task is associated to what project and there is a cookie crumb trail for you CLEARLY DISPLAYED so you can backtrack a task to its origin quite easily, knowing who said what and where and WHEN (everything is time stamped), and being able to see the big picture by a mere GLANCE with the task view.

I am a fan of Redbooth because it makes sense. A lot of thought went into creating this software that is user friendly and intuitively makes sense for me – their consumer.

If you have any questions about Redbooth do not hesitate to ask.

On a personal update:

Went to King King in Hollywood to celebrate my friend Brandon’s bday!

King King, YO! It looks like I might need to get my fingers checked.

Entrepreneur, Life, Projects, Startup, Thoughts, Uncategorized, What I Know About

boyfriend, company email, Entrepreneur, R, Start-up, subscriptions, welcome email

My Boyfriend’s Internet Company Email

March 20, 2014

My Boyfriend’s Internet Company Email

I got this test email the other day after telling him he needs to have a good welcome email set up once someone signs in and subscribes.

This is what he sent me.

————————————————————————————————

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 7:53 PM, R <> wrote:

Hi Penguin,

I made your profile on CENSORED COMPANY NAME, which you can view here:
http://testotestothere‘sreallynourl.com

You will be able to access your admin page from the managers cabinet sign in (from the sign in page, click managers cabinet and then enter your login info there), which you can find here:

http://www.CENSOREDCOMPANYNAME.com/manager/sign_in

On the managers sign in page, enter your login credentials:

username: penguin@butt.com
password: peng234

Please enter a detailed profile, with a full menu, and some photos. We find that the more information you provide will highlight your business better, and it will also make the customer feel more comfortable with choosing your store.

Thank you for joining CENSORED COMPANY NAME!

Your 90-day free trial will end on March 29th, Latuda! After the 90 days, if you are happy with our service and do not wish to cancel, your credit card ending in 45penguinbutt67 will be charged $59 on a monthly basis.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need any help setting up your account.

Sincerely,

CENSORED COMPANY NAME CEO, Co-Founder

——————————————————————————

Apparently R needs to learn how to call me by my birthright name sometimes. Because being called an animal can get tiring. And on top of that, Latuda is a made up word.

Productivity, Startup, Technology, Uncategorized, What I Know About

Gmail, Gmail hack, Google Labs, Undo Google Email

How To Undo Sending An Email In Gmail

March 5, 2014

How To Undo Sending An Email In Gmail

Yes, I know you probably have sent one or two emails you regret and you were in Gmail while you were doing it.

Well, I am here to tell you…. you can UNSEND it. It is a short window of opportunity but better to have a window than to have a closed “You Messed Up, Yo!” door slammed in your face.

Step One. (Redundant, eh?) Anyway, Sign into Gmail OBVIOUSLY.

Click on the icon that looks like a peg at the right hand corner of the screen. Then left click SETTINGS.

Then go to the LABS tab –> Within LABS search for “Undo”.

Then after that click the radio button “Enable” and click “Save”.

Test it out by sending an email and clicking “undo” at the very top when you don’t mean to send it.

YOU ARE DONE!

It has been awhile since I wrote a “How-To” post instead of ramblings.

Updates:

I might be developing a website creation addiction.

After working with my developers for over a month, my commerce website just launched! Sales (non new website related) are going great and it is now tax time again. I am currently working to develop two more websites, both of which are totally unrelated in every sense. One is selling one single product (Funded). One is selling a web service (30K+ project, Funded). I am also taking an automotive class, exercising every week, and I recently moved to a house with 1 other roommate who looks like he loves health. I will reveal these websites in due time – probably won’t be for another 6 months or so.

Being so busy makes me horny… all the time. Does that happen to you? Then you are all like, “Oh shit…” and you have to plow through the feelings by working harder and ignoring your natural urges? Like smothering your groin while it is yelling at you, “Pay attention to me!!”

Auto Dismantling, Entrepreneur, Life, Life Rants, Startup, Thoughts, Uncategorized

When I Stretch Myself Too Thin, This Is What Ends Up Happening.

February 14, 2014 /

When I Stretch Myself Too Thin, This Is What Ends Up Happening:

I don’t give a fuck about my socks matching anymore. Not that they ever consistently matched anyway. In either texture or brand or color. Mis-matching can be a three way. But not that kind of three way.

It almost looks like I have the case of a phantom foot.

Stretching thin means thinking I can take on everything, dipping my feet (LOOK ABOVE) into everything and fooling myself into believing I have enough energy to take it ALL on.

My personal trainer Casey, whom I hired to make me become healthier, unfortunately does not have a cell phone. He calls me every other morning from the fitness gym in a soft friendly voice, “Are you awake yet? You still coming at 7AM?” to which I groggily answer back “Yessss” with half a bit of drool dangling from the corner of my chapped mouth.

I am in better shape than ever but that fooled me into believing I can take on running the automobile dismantling business AND AND…

Coordinating a website developing team from a third world country.

Embarking on creating a possible SaaS company with a fellow who I happened to message on Youtube and who happened to be local enough to meet up with me and agree on trying this shit out.

Having a boyfriend who goes rock climbing four days out of the week. Learning how to cook better.

Taking auto classes at a nearby college (I got an A+ on my first test… which proves… I care way too much when grades don’t even matter anymore at this point.)

Meeting up with a blogging group on Saturdays to spurn myself to blog more.

Hiking/Rock climbing/Running/ETCETCETC. ETC.

Then I realize….

my socks are no longer matching.

I have to admit to myself I haven’t been showering daily. I know, gross.

I wake up at 6AM going FUCK IT ALL!!!!

I wake up at 3AM and read tons and tons of random wiki-trivia about movies only to fall back to sleep again till 6AM.

I am in the middle of conversations with 6 different people at the office while I am hold on the phone, skyping with someone, on gchat with others, on my cell, remotely controlling two other computers, talking to a person in front of my face, and jotting down notes onto a calendar behind my back in which I would have to swivel my chair and WHY DON’T I PUT THE CALENDAR IN FRONT OF ME INSTEAD? WHY DID I PIN IT TO THE WALL SO I WOULD HAVE TO DO A SPIN EVERYTIME I NEED TO REMIND MYSELF OF SOMETHING?

And there’s EPA compliance, and hoses I need to buy, and Schedule C forms, and we ran out of plastic bags, and three different people needing important answers, and 5 customers want to return something, and Fedex broke a package to which I would have to resolve with a claim, and a computer needs to be rebooted and completely reconfigured….and… I find myself waking up curled into a fetal position each morning dreading the long LONG day ahead.

Stumbling back home at night, my roommate makes some quesadillas which normally I would not eat but being stretched too thin I forget I am lactose intolerant and I gobble up some with glee only to regret it later while I am in the bathroom –

STARING AT MY MISMATCHED SOCKS.

So this post was pointless. It is realizing sometimes stretching yourself so damn thin could mean wanting to re-evaluate everything. I end up promising everyone everything, fulfilling what they need with LENGTHY DELAYS, and just taking care of shit while I am flying on my tippy toes.

I envy those who can keep everything altogether in a neat and tidy pink bow of life.

Obviously I have my priorities all straightened out.

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