Deep Work Streak

[Lochlan]

Hi I've been struggling with reaching my goals recently and commitment so Ive decided to try and build up a streak of hours of work done publicly and decided hefd would be the best place to do so, Heres what I want to accomplish in bold); I want to start a business my idea is to have a subscription based business model where you subscribe and once a month you'll receive instructions, a video tutorial, code and cad files (to 3d print the parts needed for the build) so you make you can create something like a radio, or self watering plant pot (like Mark Rober's crunch labs) my aim to have it 100% digital and for the electronics 'll provide a list of good suppliers (as many people have a lot of stuff to use already and it's expensive) with the option of having everything drop shipped to your house including the 3d printed parts if they don't have a printer. I also want read more, learn more about arduino, electronics, 3d printing these 3 things is what my entire business will be based off and do a few more things. So for every time I spend a hour at something productive like reading or my business (ino) I'll reply to this post with a tick symbol but if I have a day where I was free for one hour and did not get at least 1 hour done of any of the goals in the day then the streak failed and I have to start over, I'll also reply to this post also whenever I reach a milestone and explain what I did / acomplished feel free to join or make your own post like this. Let's see what we can accomplish.

 

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[Lochlan]

Currently at the time of writing the post I've done 2 hours of reading in the past 2 days the bear minimum to keep the streak going

 

[Lochlan]

Currently at the time of writing the post I've done 2 hours of reading in the past 2 days the bear minimum to keep the streak going

Day 1 failed already score going back to 0 to fix this I’m going to work 3 hours today to get back to we’re i was and above

 

[StrikingViper69]

What are you reading about?

Do you know enough to test a trial version of the product, or are you currently filling knowledge gaps with your reading?

 

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[Lochlan]

What are you reading about?

Do you know enough to test a trial version of the product, or are you currently filling knowledge gaps with your reading?

I’m currently reading deep work and I know a bit about electronics and cad but int trying to expand my knowledge a bit more, my plan is to hopefully if I can convince myself to knuckle down on learning and producing is to have some videos up on YouTube about the basics teaching others about the stuff getting them started in my lead funnel then after giving them enough free stuff they’ll bl want to purchase my subscription for about 6-10-15 bucks a month. In terms of testing the idea I definitely know enough to build a few products to test but I don’t know how to go about testing it really I tried reaching out to YouTubers( in the niche) about it and they didn’t reply I have a feeling it will do well though due to the ikea effect and I looked at Ki Wi Cos earnings and to me it looks like a pretty good market

 

[StrikingViper69]

I’m currently reading deep work and I know a bit about electronics and cad but int trying to expand my knowledge a bit more, my plan is to hopefully if I can convince myself to knuckle down on learning and producing is to have some videos up on YouTube about the basics teaching others about the stuff getting them started in my lead funnel then after giving them enough free stuff they’ll bl want to purchase my subscription for about 6-10-15 bucks a month. In terms of testing the idea I definitely know enough to build a few products to test but I don’t know how to go about testing it really I tried reaching out to YouTubers( in the niche) about it and they didn’t reply I have a feeling it will do well though due to the ikea effect and I looked at Ki Wi Cos earnings and to me it looks like a pretty good market

This thread has a guy who has built a prototype and talks about product testing he did: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/building-a-pedalboard-brand-execution.106763/

To test, you can:

• Run ads to a landing page
• Start conversations in Reddit/Facebook groups
• Reach out to local communities

The big creators aren't going to talk to you so don't waste your time with that.

Deep Work means sitting down and working for a couple of hours. Turn off distractions. Read that book when you have some spare time.

If you know enough to get a product made, then make some MVPs and work on finding ways to test the market.

If you want to study in addition to that, work on your skillsets.

Are there people in this space already doing something similar?

 

[Lochlan]

This thread has a guy who has built a prototype and talks about product testing he did: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/building-a-pedalboard-brand-execution.106763/

To test, you can:

• Run ads to a landing page
• Start conversations in Reddit/Facebook groups
• Reach out to local communities

The big creators aren't going to talk to you so don't waste your time with that.

Deep Work means sitting down and working for a couple of hours. Turn off distractions. Read that book when you have some spare time.

If you know enough to get a product made, then make some MVPs and work on finding ways to test the market.

If you want to study in addition to that, work on your skillsets.

Are there people in this space already doing something similar?

Thanks for the help/advice I’m over half way through Deep work so I’ll finish that then quit reading till new year maybe read on train ocassionly. I’m only a teen so I don’t have enough money for ads also if I were to test it I’d do YouTube sponsors but there to expensive, I tried bringing it up in Discord servers and was promptly told to delete the message and no self promotion. Ik Mark Rober has a similar business buts that’s more for kids and I suppose there’s free projects you can make online similar to the ones I’ll be selling but I feel like people don’t value free stuff as much as payed stuff like if someone uploads a Free Course people still buy the payed course just cause. Anyway I’ll start work on a few test products I wanna build an audience first though on YouTube cause the videos there’s pretty mid documentation and ease of learning for the hobby, I don’t want my subscription to teach people about engineering stuff I just want them to have fun building a project

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Thanks for the help/advice I’m over half way through Deep work so I’ll finish that then quit reading till new year maybe read on train ocassionly. I’m only a teen so I don’t have enough money for ads also if I were to test it I’d do YouTube sponsors but there to expensive, I tried bringing it up in Discord servers and was promptly told to delete the message and no self promotion. Ik Mark Rober has a similar business buts that’s more for kids and I suppose there’s free projects you can make online similar to the ones I’ll be selling but I feel like people don’t value free stuff as much as payed stuff like if someone uploads a Free Course people still buy the payed course just cause. Anyway I’ll start work on a few test products I wanna build an audience first though on YouTube cause the videos there’s pretty mid documentation and ease of learning for the hobby, I don’t want my subscription to teach people about engineering stuff I just want them to have fun building a project

This isn't a good basis for building a business/product. What's your value skew - why should someone buy this rather than get some free stuff, or get something form a competitor?

If you are going to get on the content treadmill, that's a whole other thing you have to figure out.

 

[Lochlan]

This isn't a good basis for building a business/product. What's your value skew - why should someone buy this rather than get some free stuff, or get something form a competitor?

If you are going to get on the content treadmill, that's a whole other thing you have to figure out.

It’s gonna be a lot better then free stuff online they’ll be videos walking you through everything, behind the scenes on how the code was written, along with cad files made, they’ll be support with a very good refund policy, it will also be simple and Just Work. That is something I forgot about though thanks for reminding me about the value skew also the free stuff ain’t great and not very polished.

 

[Lochlan]

Made back 2 hours today

 

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[Lochlan]

This isn't a good basis for building a business/product. What's your value skew - why should someone buy this rather than get some free stuff, or get something form a competitor?

If you are going to get on the content treadmill, that's a whole other thing you have to figure out.

Thanks for letting me know all this stuff I’m going rethink the whole business tomorrow and how to turn it into a productocracy I had it up in my head to long with no second opinions I’ll update you tomorrow on what I’ve changed and decided on

 

[Lochlan]

Got an hour down today really happy considering I was at school till 5 but sat down and got a hour of market research done the streak continues now we are at an all time high

 

[Lochlan]

This isn't a good basis for building a business/product. What's your value skew - why should someone buy this rather than get some free stuff, or get something form a competitor?

If you are going to get on the content treadmill, that's a whole other thing you have to figure out.

I took into account what you said and went and watched MJ’s 2 videos on productocracies on his utube channel and then went and looked at things people hate in my niche by going to a arduino discord sever and searching through around 50 things people hate and decided on around 5 unique value skews, and there’s a few other more common ones I can add aswell like customer service and stuff like that, and I’ll do a bit more research in a 3d printing sever later. The only thing I’m not to sure about is if there’s a need for stuff like this I mean there’s stuff similar that sells loads of stuff like ikea and Ki Wi Co but the stuff doesn’t really solve a problem it’s more like buying a project car to work on, or a jigsaw ect… is it ok if it doesn’t solve a need but there’s proven to be a large market for stuff like it. Anyway Heres a picture of of my research from the passed hour

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Have I read that correctly: People that are interested in Arduino hate having to do physics, chemistry and maths? Isn't that like a chef saying they hate eating food?

Can you take all these hates that people have and create a test project? Create great instructions, part lists with no waste, something a child could put together?

The complaints about "not understanding simple stuff" might come from some super geek writing the instructions - things that are obvious to them are not obvious to the average user.

Have you tried engaging with any of these users and having a talk with them about their frustrations? That could give you some valuable insights.

How can you find out if there is a need for something like this? Apparently they are selling a lot of boards: 10M Arduino Uno boards sold worldwide

 

[Lochlan]

Have I read that correctly: People that are interested in Arduino hate having to do physics, chemistry and maths? Isn't that like a chef saying they hate eating food?

Can you take all these hates that people have and create a test project? Create great instructions, part lists with no waste, something a child could put together?

The complaints about "not understanding simple stuff" might come from some super geek writing the instructions - things that are obvious to them are not obvious to the average user.

Have you tried engaging with any of these users and having a talk with them about their frustrations? That could give you some valuable insights.

How can you find out if there is a need for something like this? Apparently they are selling a lot of boards: 10M Arduino Uno boards sold worldwide

Yeah lmao some programmer did said that saying he wasn’t sure if he should study coding at college for robotics, cause he hates all sciences and maths

I’ll start work on a demo project tonight or tomorrow then send in here a pdf and you can tell ‘em what you think, I should be able to keep the writing pretty simple cause I’m a pretty average guy brains wise so should be ok on that front. I’ll send u on a power point I made that I was planning on releasing for free in a series teaching people how to use and arduino to control a led.

I’ll message some people tonight about the problems they encountered I’m in the same niche so I understand most the stuff but there was some stuff I didn’t I’ll message the people about.

Btw thanks so much for all the help wouldn’t have gotten this far without someone telling me what to do it’s hard when u get stuck up in your brain. Also you went to all the effort finding out the amount of unos they sold id say it’s even more as there’s so many clones out that are cheaper and the exact same as the ones they sell!

 

[StrikingViper69]

Yeah lmao some programmer did said that saying he wasn’t sure if he should study coding at college for robotics, cause he hates all sciences and maths

I’ll start work on a demo project tonight or tomorrow then send in here a pdf and you can tell ‘em what you think, I should be able to keep the writing pretty simple cause I’m a pretty average guy brains wise so should be ok on that front. I’ll send u on a power point I made that I was planning on releasing for free in a series teaching people how to use and arduino to control a led.

I’ll message some people tonight about the problems they encountered I’m in the same niche so I understand most the stuff but there was some stuff I didn’t I’ll message the people about.

Btw thanks so much for all the help wouldn’t have gotten this far without someone telling me what to do it’s hard when u get stuck up in your brain. Also you went to all the effort finding out the amount of unos they sold id say it’s even more as there’s so many clones out that are cheaper and the exact same as the ones they sell!

You're welcome, I don't mind helping people who go and actually do something

 

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[Lochlan]

You're welcome, I don't mind helping people who go and actually do something

Here’s a copy of a tutorial I made for complete beginners to teach them how to control a led can u let me know if it makes sense to you or should I make it more simple

 

[StrikingViper69]

Looks pretty cool. One of your graphics obscures the text on one page.

Maybe it could be simpler and more complex. Some bits could be broken down more and some bits could be explained with more depth.

Find a few friends/people you can sit down with, give them the kit and instructions and ask them to follow them and see what problems and questions they have. That’ll tell you how to improve it.

Pretty solid start, I was impressed. If you’re going to sell this be careful that the images are your own and weren’t ripped from the internet.

I can see “10 starter projects for Arduino” that builds up from “control an led” to something exciting (eg make a burglar alarm as the final project or something) being a pretty solid product you can sell

 

[Lochlan]

Maybe it could be simpler and more complex. Some bits could be broken down more and some bits could be explained with more depth.

Find a few friends/people you can sit down with, give them the kit and instructions and ask them to follow them and see what problems and questions they have. That’ll tell you how to improve it.

Pretty solid start, I was impressed. If you’re going to sell this be careful that the images are your own and weren’t ripped from the internet.

I can see “10 starter projects for Arduino” that builds up from “control an led” to something exciting (eg make a burglar alarm as the final project or something) being a pretty solid product you can sell

thanks man yeah see where your coming from on that definitely need to go over the stuff in it and decide on what to explain in more depth and what I need to explain in less dumb down ways.

My plan is to use it in youtube series and then release all the power points for free I’m just having trouble figuring out how to do audio for the videos I don’t wanna use my voice, I was gonna hire people on fiver but then realised the cheap ones were fake text to speech voice overs, so now I’m just considering using text to speech for them any idea . I wanna then make a course similar to it discussing IoT cloud which is basically making your projects wireless and work from an app in your phone.

I’m in a robotics club at school so I could probably run over the instructions with some people there considering most of those people are new to arduino.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Eleven audio is good for text to speech

Why give it away for free? Why not try and sell it.

 

[Lochlan]

i got a hour done on the 14th sorry didn’t post was really tired I started work on demo instructions for the subscription part of my business it’s gonna be on how to make a self watering plant pot on a streak of 4 now. Here’s a few pictures of the instructions so far didn’t get huge amount done cause was trying to figure out google slides

 

[Lochlan]

Eleven audio is good for text to speech

Why give it away for free? Why not try and sell it.

Idk Hormozi said so wanna try get people into hobby first then try sell them stuff for hobby like subscription

 

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[StrikingViper69]

People are already into Arduino, they’ve sold millions of units.

Plus you want to create proof of concept.

Someone downloading something isn’t proof. Someone giving you money, even if it’s one dollar, is proof.

 

[Lochlan]

People are already into Arduino, they’ve sold millions of units.

Plus you want to create proof of concept.

Someone downloading something isn’t proof. Someone giving you money, even if it’s one dollar, is proof.

People already into arduino aren’t gonna be buying tutorials on the basics though I don’t think. I could try make an another thing and see if that sells like a course similar quality to this but on IoT cloud. There’s loads of good free utube videos out there so no will buy even though this is better then every other free tutorial

 

[StrikingViper69]

People already into arduino aren’t gonna be buying tutorials on the basics though I don’t think. I could try make an another thing and see if that sells like a course similar quality to this but on IoT cloud. There’s loads of good free utube videos out there so no will buy even though this is better then every other free tutorial

You might be right. Is there some way you could test that to be certain?

 

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[Lochlan]

You might be right. Is there some way you could test that to be

I could try maybe tweet something to like a fake website and track the traffic, or make a YouTube short promoting it and see if people seem interested. Or I could try find a sample audience get them to go through it and ask them if they’d buy only thing is I might have to buy a few kits for them to go though the thing with or I could get them to use a free simulator only thing is might be slightly less satisfying. Only other thing I can think of is buying a community post/polls off a few utubers but would rather not be honest

I think I’ll try build some sample audiences and then after maybe 2-3 tutorials ask them if they’d pay for something like it but with 10 episodes then see there responses and maybe a tweet or something asking people already into arduino and have knowledge around it and if they’d buy a course on it.

I still think it’s best though to give away this set of tutorials for free then sell IoT Cloud Course which fi the people are anything like me people will buy (maybe $20 for IoT cloud course 10 parts 1 part would be the same length as the thing I just showed u for the basics)

Edit; Ok just had an idea I’ll try sell the demo version of the Subscription by itself maybe for something like $5 as there’s already tutorials out there on it and see if that sells while keeping the basics thing free, do you have any idea how I could promote it without a brand. Let me know if you do I’m gonna get to work on it rk

 

[StrikingViper69]

I could try maybe tweet something to like a fake website and track the traffic, or make a YouTube short promoting it and see if people seem interested. Or I could try find a sample audience get them to go through it and ask them if they’d buy only thing is I might have to buy a few kits for them to go though the thing with or I could get them to use a free simulator only thing is might be slightly less satisfying. Only other thing I can think of is buying a community post/polls off a few utubers but would rather not be honest

I think I’ll try build some sample audiences and then after maybe 2-3 tutorials ask them if they’d pay for something like it but with 10 episodes then see there responses and maybe a tweet or something asking people already into arduino and have knowledge around it and if they’d buy a course on it.

I still think it’s best though to give away this set of tutorials for free then sell IoT Cloud Course which fi the people are anything like me people will buy (maybe $20 for IoT cloud course 10 parts 1 part would be the same length as the thing I just showed u for the basics)

Edit; Ok just had an idea I’ll try sell the demo version of the Subscription by itself maybe for something like $5 as there’s already tutorials out there on it and see if that sells while keeping the basics thing free, do you have any idea how I could promote it without a brand. Let me know if you do I’m gonna get to work on it rk

For your first product, have a one-off product rather than a subscription, everything about it is easier to manage and to sell. Once you have (or don't have!) a few sales, you know if you can think about moving into the subscription or not... and you can use one-off sales to "build your audience", e.g. have your intro to Arduino kit/book/course as a one off, then they subscribe for "cool thing of the month" or whatever.

You don't need a brand to sell something, you need a payment form and someone who is interested in buying it. Your brand will be built from making sales and having happy customers.

Take a few days (at least 3) to think about how you can find a way to sell this. Don't dismiss any ideas you have, write them all down. Think about all the websites and paid ads you can experiment with, even traditional media like magazines. Or even posters or a club at your school. Write down your ideas, then for each idea write:

1. Pros
2. Cons
3. Feasibility (e.g. a super bowl ad might be great, but you don't have the cash for it)
4. Assumptions you have made in steps 1-3

Take a few days to work on this, and while you are doing it keep working on your product. Your LED tutorial was neat, but I think you need more to have a product.

 

[Lochlan]

For your first product, have a one-off product rather than a subscription, everything about it is easier to manage and to sell. Once you have (or don't have!) a few sales, you know if you can think about moving into the subscription or not... and you can use one-off sales to "build your audience", e.g. have your intro to Arduino kit/book/course as a one off, then they subscribe for "cool thing of the month" or whatever.

You don't need a brand to sell something, you need a payment form and someone who is interested in buying it. Your brand will be built from making sales and having happy customers.

Take a few days (at least 3) to think about how you can find a way to sell this. Don't dismiss any ideas you have, write them all down. Think about all the websites and paid ads you can experiment with, even traditional media like magazines. Or even posters or a club at your school. Write down your ideas, then for each idea write:

1. Pros
2. Cons
3. Feasibility (e.g. a super bowl ad might be great, but you don't have the cash for it)
4. Assumptions you have made in steps 1-3

Take a few days to work on this, and while you are doing it keep working on your product. Your LED tutorial was neat, but I think you need more to have a product.

Thanks for the great advice I didn’t mean sell the subscription yet I just meant see if I can sell a project that would be used sold in the subscription by itself as that’s what hat the main core of the business is based around. If that’s sounds confusing basically just sell one of the monthly projects as a standalone product.

If that sells then my original plan is to probably make a full series and n YouTube like 10 episodes or whatever for free then I’ll make a course on the IoT cloud and continue making videos explaining popular components and how to use them I’m also trying to learn cad so that I can make a course or maybe just a free series on FreeCad then maybe after a year of doing stuff like that I’ll release the subscription. Do you think that’s a good plan or what’s your opinion on it ?

 

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[Lochlan]

Got another Hour done today focused on making the cad model for self watering plant project I’m going to sell

 

[Lochlan]

Eleven audio is good for text to speech

Do you think it’s ok to use text to speech I’ve heard eleven audio and it was bearable unlike most tts and compared to all the really confusing Indian but English tutorials out there I’d say it has a chance