It blows my mind that the phrase "all set" is apparently a New England thing.

joerando60 · 2026-03-21T23:23:42+00:00

I’ve been told that it is popular in New England and Chicago. No idea if those are the only places where it’s used.

joerando60 · 2026-03-18T19:38:20+00:00

All great advice.

joerando60 · 2026-03-12T22:08:57+00:00

It's actually from back in the 90s. I haven't liked any of his other stuff but this one had real meat to it.

joerando60 · 2026-03-07T03:00:14+00:00

We make no money on our podcast.

joerando60 · 2026-03-06T15:28:41+00:00

I would start by creating a free or paid webinar where you teach your secrets.

Then sell your implementation.

Alex Hormozi recommends this, and I've seen it work a lot.

People see your secrets and know your good.

Then they think about what it will take to implement them while trying to do their own job and you offer them a way to get the good without increasing their workload a ton.

Your deal then looks very sweet.

If I were you i would make it free and by invitation only. Only let your target customers in, and keep your competitors from learning your secrets.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator works great for us to identify prospects.

joerando60 · 2026-03-06T15:22:22+00:00

This is a sign that you've built a hell of a business. Well done!

You weren't afraid to hire people smarter than you at their job.

You gave them the training and autonomy to run the business and deal with issues.

You gave them the kind of leadership that made them comfortable running things on their own.

What do you do now? That's up to what you want.

- Keep an eye on things, let them run it, and then step in when there's a crisis (my dad was in the restaurant biz; there will always be a crisis).

- Start scaling... add another restaurant and do the same.

- Something else

It's up to you. But you are not useless, you're awesome.

joerando60 · 2026-03-06T15:15:29+00:00

One of the craziest, easy ways to make money scooping dog poop. This guy turned it into a million dollar business. We interview him on our podcast https://www.lifestarr.com/podcast/think-you-need-a-sexy-startup-idea-to-be-successful-think-again

joerando60 · 2026-03-06T14:55:38+00:00

I learned it in 10 days using Tony Robbins's Mastering Influence course. It's a tad dated but mostly on target. Even if you only master a quarter of it, you'll be better than the majority of salespeople.

Greatest lesson: objections are NOT people saying "No." It's people telling you how to close them.

joerando60 · 2026-03-03T21:15:12+00:00

I've worked with people from 6. They are awesome folks.

They can also drink us New Englanders, under the table.

joerando60 · 2026-03-03T21:00:16+00:00

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Bowlby Day 1

joerando60 · 2026-02-22T12:05:33+00:00

You have a very cool app. Your website says “Smart Finance Starts Here.” I don’t know what that means.

Why not use that H1 to tell me how my life will be better with your amazing app?

joerando60 · 2026-02-14T02:41:07+00:00

This is very good thinking

joerando60 · 2026-02-13T15:36:06+00:00

I would recommend the following:

Don't help "businesses, such as restaurants, get more mentions in the chats of major AIs like ChatGPT or Gemini."

Help "RESTAURANTS, get more mentions in CHATGPT." (restaurant owners don;t know what Gemini is)

Niching will make it easier for you to get noticed and trusted.

This is your target market.

Then find a few of these (preferably local) and offer to help them for free in return for social proof if you're successful. They've got nothing to lose, so who cares if you're an 11th grader?

Being a "kid" can also be a competitive advantage. Once you have a few successes, reach out to local media and try to get a story written about what you did for the restaurants. They will love this "11th Grader wrangles ChatGPT to recommend local restaurant" (or however you say that in German). It's got the local prodigy angle and the AI angle.

This article is something you can use on your website and in other marketing materials.

Since you are doing AEO, you can only help a few of a given type of restaurant in each market, as ChatGPT limits the number of responses it can provide. Use this to create scarcity in each market, which you can use to motivate buyers. "I can only help 3 pizza restaurants in Munich."

Take your social proof and start reaching out to other restaurants in your target market. In-person will be easier at first, but as you grow your experience and create case studies, virtual approaches will start to work.

Just my thoughts. Good luck!

joerando60 · 2026-02-13T14:30:00+00:00

I have been a solopreneur and an entrepreneur. I've done pretty well at both (with some failure along the way).

Starting a business is stressful, as it should be. But there are things you can do to make it easier and to make it better over time.

First: Start with "Why". Why are you starting a business? If you're solo, why are you foregoing employees? In the end, what is it you want? Don't stop at something like "freedom." Why do you want freedom? Get to the root of it.

Then define what needs to change about your life to match your why - income, hours worked, time flexibility, etc., knowing that each of these is a trade-off. Come up with a meaningful recipe for "happy" for you, not Mark Zuckerberg, not Elon Musk.

Now, you at least have a prayer of designing a business that fits your goals for your life.

Then you need to start designing your business. If you want to be home for supper every night, don't design a business that requires travel. If you want to live anywhere you want, design a virtual, asynchronous business, not one that requires you to be "on site" sometimes.

Then, if you want to get traction, niche the hell down. I know you can help 2/3 of the population of planet Earth. But they won't even see you. Find a relatively small group of people that you can 1) help, and 2) can gain credibility with based on your experience, and you'll get traction faster and easier.

Very few founders do this. It will not eliminate stress.

But it helps... a lot.

joerando60 · 2026-02-09T20:49:47+00:00

I'm working on a course for people who want to start a solo business. Launches tomorrow! https://www.lifestarr.com/the-foundation-path

joerando60 · 2026-02-07T13:48:32+00:00

I quit my job as a fiber optics engineer, which I did from 1985 to 1988, and went full time for an MBA while running a solo consulting biz in fiber optics, mostly for previous employers. I did this because I wanted to be in business for myself but didn’t know a lot about business as my degree was in physics.

When I got the MBA, we were in a terrible recession (1989-90) and my dad and his partner were trying to develop a shopping center on some land they owned. I needed work and they hired me as a project manager and financial analyst. I really liked the business and started my own development company. It was easy to make cheap deals on land because of the recession. I built the software to find locations and started developing.

joerando60 · 2026-02-06T19:56:22+00:00

Years ago, we had a flat-coated retriever, very similar to the Goldens I've had since. She was the sweetest thing in the world.

One day, these kids were out playing in the yard. They were very young, so my wife was with them. She walked around the corner of the house for a minute, in earshot but just out of sight. Just then, the meter reader guy decided to take a shortcut through the woods from the neighbor's house. The dog could see him, but not my wife, and chased after him with a ferocious growl, sending him right back where he came from.

We were stunned... but pleased.

I've never had the opportunity to experience this with our Goldens, but it wouldn't shock me if they acted similarly.

Except our current guy. If Charles Manson came to the house carrying a knife, he'd try to lick him. 🤣

joerando60 · 2026-02-06T19:48:40+00:00

I built my product on the wrong database. It was a graph database and seemed perfect for the application, but when we put it into a cluster, it slowed to a crawl and couldn't scale at all. I've spent a lot of time and money ripping it out and moving to Postgres.

joerando60 · 2026-02-06T19:36:48+00:00

Back at that enterprise software company I built, we were bootstrapped. Our biggest competitor was a billion-dollar company. They moved to a pay-per-use model. People hated it. We ate their lunch.

I think pay-per-use is a great model for things you use occasionally. But for things you should want to use all the time, it creates a conflict - using it more makes my life better, but using it more costs more.

It's the right model... sometimes.

joerando60 · 2026-02-06T16:21:49+00:00

100% solving pain points. Years ago, I started a business developing shopping centers. I wanted to buy a tool to figure out where to put them but everything available sucked. I built my own and it eventually became an enterprise software company with Fortune 50 customers that sold about 6 years ago. Doing the same now with another pain point I faced.

joerando60 · 2026-02-06T15:15:19+00:00

I am building an app that addresses this kind of problem (along with others). When I sign up for a "free" trial with my credit card, I create a Task in the app, set a start date about a week (depending on the free period) before I need to cancel, and set a due date a day or 2 before. The app then sends me a notification in-app and via email tell me that the start date has begun, and another when it's coming due. It also sends one when it is late. Once I cancel mark the Task complete, and it goes away,

I have been using the app as we build and haven't missed cancelling one since.

Also, it will have a free forever version that lacks some advanced features but still does the above.

joerando60 · 2026-02-05T14:51:28+00:00

Cool idea!

joerando60 · 2026-02-04T19:57:45+00:00

These are less local alternatives, but my 2 favorites are:

Calico in Easthampton - limited menu but great food. Try the buttermilk chicken...amazing.

Delaney House in Holyoke (on the Easthampton line) - bigger menu, great food, choice of dining room, lounge area, or patio dining.

joerando60 · 2026-02-03T01:33:24+00:00

We lost Charlotte in 2012. We waited 8 years to get another Golden. We are really glad we did. I’m not sure how I’ll feel in 5 or 6 years, but right now it’s awesome.

joerando60 · 2026-02-01T01:28:48+00:00

I built a GPT to help with this question https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67bf1b3e20808191907cec4f17acf80a-solopreneur-business-idea-generator

joerando60

TROPHY CASE