Hey fellows,
you get a short version of my journey so far here. If you think I can help you with any field of my expertise (especially habit building), I'm glad to help.
I'm German and 30 years old.
Current Projects: Develop habit building app; write research paper for doctoral thesis
When some slowlaner or sidewalker asks, I always just say "I'm a psychologist.". End of story - they would not understand my real approach to life. When an entrepreneurial minded person asks, I tell the full story. The one you will get here.
PSYCHOLOGY AND APP DEVELOPMENT
Now for a decade I do quantitative psychological research. I have a MSc. in Economic Psychology and am working on my doctoral thesis in motivational psychology for two years.
I just finished my first big study in habit building research. In a longitudinal study, I helped 91 students build new study habits, which resulted in less motivational conflicts (e.g. not feeling the urge to watch netflix while studying) and better results (great marks in tests and finishing term papers 2 months(!) before deadline). When I got feedback like this from my participants, I really understood the power of the feedback loop - I was so fired up because I was able to deliver them huge value. I will probably create a separate post to show you guys the - still unpublished - results of my study, if you are interested.
I coded a little app that helped defining a habit and that tracked all the relevant research data. Since learning to code or not learning to code seems to be a matter of interest: I did not know how to code when I started to plan the study. I learned Swift (iOS coding language) within 2 weeks and were able to code my first functioning app (that is able to store data in a realtime database) within 3 months time. I'm working on a official version of my habit building app for the Appstore now, but I have a much more experienced freelance coder on my side for counseling. That's how I go about it and it works for me.
POKER
I never had a real job, yet. I'm proud of that, but probably only you fastlane-minded peeps are going to understand that. When I started to study psychology 10 years ago, I found an interesting field: A competitive meritocratic system that gives money to rational decision makers. Hm. Sounded like me. Online poker was on the rise and I rose with it. I financed myself over the last 10 years with poker essentially, but switched to live poker 5 yeas ago when online poker dried up. The problem with this approach however: You have little control (even though you have some control when playing live as you can pick your casino, but online you have much less control, as MJ correctly described in unscripted ) and you constantly trade time for money. It was a great thing for me as a student, but for this phase in my live, I know I need to make a transition to build some lasting, automated system that cuts the time for money deal.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
After my MSc. in Psychology, I started my first real world company with two partners. Both older than me (50 and 70 years old). One of my partners, the 50 yr. old, is a typical fastlaner. The millionaire next door. Its funny, how mindset can pay. We met at the poker table and quickly got into a philosophical discussion on time for money trades, mainstream traps, work ethic, freedom, entrepreneurship etc. Two fastlane mindsets met. We exchanged numbers, he called next day to tell me about a business idea. We met a day later, got the third partner in and founded a week later. That was 3 years ago.
We rent out ad space on supermarkets. It never really took off in a way that I would quit poker, but on the other hand, I still had time for my doctoral thesis and we created a working system with customers that have automatically renewing contracts. So we have created a valuable company that is relatively easy to sell - which is what we are doing now. This will give me the capital for the upcoming business - psychological app development as described above. Furthermore, I found a very valuable friend and mentor in this process and learned SO much that I am not afraid anymore to build my second business now. Was it a failure? Well, it did not turn out how I planned, which was 5-10k recurring, automated income monthly, but we can exit and get some money on top for our efforts in the last 3 years. You can frame it however you like, I guess.
If you want to get an idea of my company, you can google "parkplatzwerbung frontal". Its a German site and you can't buy anything there or get on some list or something. Its just for informational purposes.
So while the work for my doctoral thesis is a constant in my life, two significant other things will change in the near future: My company will be sold and I will stop playing poker for a living. The thing I'm going all-in for is my habit building app, that I plan to monetize with a freemium/subscription based strategy. I will post an analysis of this business in which I show where the value skew is and how I plan to get traffic separately.
If you got any questions, recommendations or if you have monetized a psycho-product yourself or have built an app, I would love to hear from you. I also like to share experiences with fellow (ex-) poker regs or psychologists.
Keep up the good work.
Marco
you get a short version of my journey so far here. If you think I can help you with any field of my expertise (especially habit building), I'm glad to help.
I'm German and 30 years old.
Current Projects: Develop habit building app; write research paper for doctoral thesis
When some slowlaner or sidewalker asks, I always just say "I'm a psychologist.". End of story - they would not understand my real approach to life. When an entrepreneurial minded person asks, I tell the full story. The one you will get here.
PSYCHOLOGY AND APP DEVELOPMENT
Now for a decade I do quantitative psychological research. I have a MSc. in Economic Psychology and am working on my doctoral thesis in motivational psychology for two years.
I just finished my first big study in habit building research. In a longitudinal study, I helped 91 students build new study habits, which resulted in less motivational conflicts (e.g. not feeling the urge to watch netflix while studying) and better results (great marks in tests and finishing term papers 2 months(!) before deadline). When I got feedback like this from my participants, I really understood the power of the feedback loop - I was so fired up because I was able to deliver them huge value. I will probably create a separate post to show you guys the - still unpublished - results of my study, if you are interested.
I coded a little app that helped defining a habit and that tracked all the relevant research data. Since learning to code or not learning to code seems to be a matter of interest: I did not know how to code when I started to plan the study. I learned Swift (iOS coding language) within 2 weeks and were able to code my first functioning app (that is able to store data in a realtime database) within 3 months time. I'm working on a official version of my habit building app for the Appstore now, but I have a much more experienced freelance coder on my side for counseling. That's how I go about it and it works for me.
POKER
I never had a real job, yet. I'm proud of that, but probably only you fastlane-minded peeps are going to understand that. When I started to study psychology 10 years ago, I found an interesting field: A competitive meritocratic system that gives money to rational decision makers. Hm. Sounded like me. Online poker was on the rise and I rose with it. I financed myself over the last 10 years with poker essentially, but switched to live poker 5 yeas ago when online poker dried up. The problem with this approach however: You have little control (even though you have some control when playing live as you can pick your casino, but online you have much less control, as MJ correctly described in unscripted ) and you constantly trade time for money. It was a great thing for me as a student, but for this phase in my live, I know I need to make a transition to build some lasting, automated system that cuts the time for money deal.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
After my MSc. in Psychology, I started my first real world company with two partners. Both older than me (50 and 70 years old). One of my partners, the 50 yr. old, is a typical fastlaner. The millionaire next door. Its funny, how mindset can pay. We met at the poker table and quickly got into a philosophical discussion on time for money trades, mainstream traps, work ethic, freedom, entrepreneurship etc. Two fastlane mindsets met. We exchanged numbers, he called next day to tell me about a business idea. We met a day later, got the third partner in and founded a week later. That was 3 years ago.
We rent out ad space on supermarkets. It never really took off in a way that I would quit poker, but on the other hand, I still had time for my doctoral thesis and we created a working system with customers that have automatically renewing contracts. So we have created a valuable company that is relatively easy to sell - which is what we are doing now. This will give me the capital for the upcoming business - psychological app development as described above. Furthermore, I found a very valuable friend and mentor in this process and learned SO much that I am not afraid anymore to build my second business now. Was it a failure? Well, it did not turn out how I planned, which was 5-10k recurring, automated income monthly, but we can exit and get some money on top for our efforts in the last 3 years. You can frame it however you like, I guess.
If you want to get an idea of my company, you can google "parkplatzwerbung frontal". Its a German site and you can't buy anything there or get on some list or something. Its just for informational purposes.
So while the work for my doctoral thesis is a constant in my life, two significant other things will change in the near future: My company will be sold and I will stop playing poker for a living. The thing I'm going all-in for is my habit building app, that I plan to monetize with a freemium/subscription based strategy. I will post an analysis of this business in which I show where the value skew is and how I plan to get traffic separately.
If you got any questions, recommendations or if you have monetized a psycho-product yourself or have built an app, I would love to hear from you. I also like to share experiences with fellow (ex-) poker regs or psychologists.
Keep up the good work.
Marco
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