Bizzare Blog Of Wayne Harrel

Man, I’ve been working on some insanely cool shit for almost 2 years now. 

And lemme tell ya, software - it is fucking hard. 

Specially when you bring AI into the picture. 

Andrej over at medium wrote an amazing article on software 2.0

you should check it out, its fucking awesome and exciting. 

The way we’ll develop software is gonna change in an year or so with AI and deep learning. 

Which is why I long for AMD and Nvidia. I’ve been preaching this for the past 2 years if you follow me on my social media. 

Might have gotten rich if you would’ve taken my advice on AMD when it was $2 a share...

Anyway, getting a bit off-topic here.

So yeah, we built a cool promotion platform and a software suite.

Specially for email marketing and I think we’re gonna put a lot of these “marketing gurus” out of business.

We might be able to do the same to a lot of ESPs as well. Unless they hyper adapt and copy us (paging my lawyer)

Just like what Uber is doing to cabbies all over the world.

Just like what iPhone did to those phone with buttons and shit. (but muh tactile feedback!)

Fuck me, I’m super excited. 

- Wayne

BTW if you’re wondering about all the swearing, its because this is not my official blog or social media. 

You know it's not super crazy idea if you think about the not so far future where car ownership might be just a hobby. 

At least that's the future, according to ‪#‎Uber‬'s co-founder.

I agree with him, sorta.

Here is why:

=> Because with driverless cars, and uber's system, you can rent a car, for cheap, anytime, anywhere.

=> The demand of this service will grow and that will bring more big competitors with robust technologies to make it convenient for you.

=> People would rather invest in something else than a car, because cars won't be convenient enough to put that much money into it.

=> Safety would be maximum given its an autonomous vehicle (possibly electric)

=> It might be cheap because a). No driver. b). More demand.

Car ownership in my opinion, would just be a hobby in a VERY near future.

Which is exactly why #Uber has been valued for a crap load of Gazillion Godzilla dollars.

How to go broke with a web-app: Come up with a "genius" idea that you believe is totally dope.

Tell it to others and get them to say this is pretty freaking dope.

Try preselling it, which is freaking hard but let's say you got 1 client and now legal responsibility to fulfil regardless of the cost required...

Start its development and realize the development of the kinda shit you wanted is gonna cost you your left kidney.

Start a media buying campaign

Start spending money on ads and now realize that your front end is not breaking even but you don't have decent upsell cause its a web-app (hard to make it work there, though possible in my experience)

Well, realize you're in depression caused by chronic anxiety...

Your world is falling apart...

What you're gonna do at this point will either make you go into exile from entrepreneurship or you'll recover and prosper.

If you wanna succeed in business, then reduce risk to the minimum and you can do it by just watching others, gather intel and move on with it,

Otherwise, you’ll go broke

See what others are doing, what's working and let them take the risk, just watch and test if you can even afford to convert that traffic.

Don't trust anyone's opinions, don’t trust what people say, trust what they do.

Just because someone said it was a great idea DOESN’T means that it actually is one...

There is no substitute for cold hard data, analytics, numbers and charts.

It's time you take matters into your own hands...

P.S. - sorry for shitty grammar.

Here is why game launches are important: approximately two weeks are all that stands between you and App Store oblivion phenomenon.

So in this case, every minute counts and you better have a post launch strategy, remember, launches are bonus not business model.

 US users spend 2 hours and 42 minutes per day on their mobile devices; 86% of which is spent in apps.

Of that time, 32% is spent in ‪#‎gaming‬ apps; in comparison, social and messaging apps take up 28%.

I think that while user acquisition is of course the key to gaining a fan base, don’t forget that retention is crucial to monetization (and survival).

However, I've still seen clients getting higher ROI on desktop games, but they do require more resources and cash to ship.

Here are a few important points before you start your research:

1. Focus on a big initial launch that helps you boost your organic reach

2. Work on an advertising strategy and optimize your ideal reach

3. Work on revenue optimization and use behavioral analytics to optimize the gameplay to maximize monetization opportunities

4. Make sure what you are doing isn't killing the average time users are spending in your app/game. Like showing too many annoying popup based ads that are more of a boner killer than experience enhancer.

5. Make your marketing process fun and enjoyable for your users to increase engagement. Users hate marketing and advertising because most advertizers don't know how to make their process valuable and worth the user's attention.

6. Take a sheet of paper, write down similar games or game that you've model and use ad spy tools to see their landing pages, where they are running ads and for how long. 

7. Retargeting: are you doing it? If not then you're losing a crap ton of money on table. Its different than the one you do to sell physical products cause platform changes radically along with audience.

A lot of people are confused about Persado and saying it can't beat humans in copy or human touch is human touch etc...

Well a few things:

1. The A.I technology we have right now has seriously advanced.

2. It doesn't "create" new copy, it uses data to see what worked from as many possible angles and reconstruct a new copy from that. It models and improves/tests.

3. Copy is simply arrangement of data in a meaningful way that enforces and induce an action from a human reader, its almost like hacking. Like for example, coding to make the system react in a desired way.

4. Like everything in the world there are laws of psychology derived from the roots of biological evolution process. Nothing just "happens" in biology, it goes through a process to make things more efficient for the subject, most of the stuff are genetically coded, for example: when we see a red box, what makes us realize that its a red box? We don't actively think about it, it would be irrational to do that, the light waves strike the box, and bounce back and hit our retina, we then use a part of the brain with that memory to recall it as a specific object. And how did we developed that perception? Well, the learning process is genetic and some of it - we start developing from experience + modeling as we grow.

5. These laws have been reversed engineered and coded in an AI based system to mimic, develop, analyze various perceptions, experiences etc and with some use of controls in the copy, we can break down a copy psychologically. Then introduce more powerful re-inforcers in there to induce action.

6. Think of how psychologists works, they analyze things, via a methods/processes and then draw conclusion leading to a solution for the subject.

7. Mathematics is the language of nature, everything that exists can be expressed in form of data and values.

Yo so I recorded a new video, more stuff coming on the official blog. 

Resources:

 Here is why: the items have start times but no end times.

All my stuff and tasks etc have an end time.

A flight has a take off time and an arrival time. I ain't getting on board if the arrival time is: whenever.

If you're making a web-app or a SaaS app, and thinking about stuffing a ton of features in it, its only gonna increase the budget and 80% of people will only use 20% of your features.

Instead, nail down 1 big problem that your web-app can solves, and focus on improving that 1 problem's solution, then scale from there based on user behaviour. Ask a bunch of your users to participate in "elite tester" program where you collect a ton of data from them (using some tools) and in return give them free account for life, use that data to come up with features that they are most likely to use. Also those people who ask their users about their problems and troubles won't get the right data because people will say something and do something, so always track action instead of trusting their word.

Remember, less is more. Do 1 thing properly instead of doing too many things improperly.

You'll build a better SaaS app like this without screwing up your budget, I know this because I've blown up a lot when I was getting started.

Its people who you’re comfortable with that prevents you from getting out of your comfort zone.

They don’t want you to jump on the other side of the crack on the earth.

Because they are afraid that you might fall under, but if you don’t go to the other side you won’t move forward because its the other side that has all the good stuff.

And there is the reason they don't have that, because they're not on that side. 

So may need to build yourself up, learn and get all geared up, and take that leap, jump and get to your destiny. Like Bruce Wayne in TDKR, climbing out of the pit.

_________________________________________________________

I note things like this daily on my new journal, I started journaling and what I basically started doing is noting down everything thing I do, any exciting thoughts I may have and stuff like that.

It also helps me out to see what I'm doing mostly, track stuff down and tweak it, eliminate and delegate some tasks that I do often on daily, bi weekly or weekly basis. 

Life is like running in circle if you don't take a step to break the cycle and the daily pattern. 

You are wired to live in circle, because its easier for both your brain and your body. Primal part of us is wired to go on this way and it prevents us from moving obstacles and making way.

-- Wayne

P.S. - I got those cool leather roll journals and have different one for stuff like travel, ideas, work etc. They roll up like a scroll and are super cool, see if you can find some of them.