Insider Update
Launching a New Business & Keeping it to Myself?
An update with a slightly embarrassing story about what I've been up to and why I haven't told anyone about it.
Summary with timestamps:
- 00:00 - the new business I've been building. You can give it a look here.
- 01:19 - the new focus & action, why the course is no longer for sale & what happens for existing customers. As a customer you can still log in here and access the course, as before.
- 03:13 - why I kept my new business under wraps until now. Plus, the new marketing and business building experiments I've been doing.
- 05:30 - what my work on the new business means for Thrive Themes, ActiveGrowth, previous products and courses.
- 06:35 - what I want to share with ActiveGrowth insiders, from the experience I'm gaining (see question of the update, below).
- 08:05 - clarifications about the new focus & action Live class.
If you want to stay up to date with ikario, here are your links:
Check out the website & see what we've posted so far:
Get notified about new content & the upcoming podcast:
Watch our videos & subscribe to the new channel:
Question of the update:
What would you like to know about how I'm building a new business from scratch? What behind-the-scenes information would benefit you the most?
Humbling how much you get done. Here I am picking away at my first course after having written 740 posts over 11 years of blogging. Good luck w/ this Shane.
That’s still quite a lot of content! I recently read that most podcasters give up before they reach episode number 10. I bet it’s similar for blogs. Writing 740 blog posts puts you in the top 95% of bloggers, I bet…
Fantastic, looking forward to the class. Thank you :)
Thank you, Toya!
I’ve never subscribed faster to a new YouTube channel and without even watching a single video on the channel first. Pretty sure those videos are going to be fantastic, good luck with the new changes Shane!
Thank you for your support!
Me too! ;-)
Hi Shane,
Great to hear about your new project and brand! :D
I’d love a “behind-the-scenes” presentation on how you went from original concept to your “Road Map’ for the new business, to actual implementation… Primarily I’m interested in what your strategy was for implementing the new business… What did you do “first” & why? The why is very important of course, as then we can learn to replicate your process…possibly!
As a customer of all of your recent courses, including focus & action, I’m very relieved to know that we will still have access to that! I refer to lessons again over time and it has been very helpful! Of course, I’m also interested in the new “F & A 2.0” so will subscribe on your new website!
Very exciting to see what you’ve been up to! <3
Thank you, Karen!
Great questions!
In this case, there was less strategy and planning than I would like to do. When the lockdowns started happening because of COVID, almost everything I had planned for this year was forcibly changed. So I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants, trying to make things happen, for most of the year. Interesting times. But what you do under pressure when all the plans go bust can be just as informative as what you do in an ideal scenario.
Yes, 2020 has been a year of upheavals and adjustments. Your early videos were a great source of help for me (in many ways)!
Flexibility and resilience are probably two of the most underestimated and under-explored traits of an entrepreneur!
You set a great example — and a very high bar — for those of us who follow you! <3
Thank you for your kind words!
The bar doesn’t need to be too high for me. :)
Yes, +1 for Karen’s comment Shane; I’d love to know your road-map from idea to implementation and the stages to implementation. Do you outsource anything or do it all yourself?
That would also interest me. Plans are one thing, but concrete implementation under changing circumstances is another. The wings of Ikario on the way to freedom were simply built from existing and, as far as necessary, resources to take off. And yet, if you fly too high there is danger. How can I handle that?
You’re touching on one of the central challenges of productivity (and building a life of freedom, in general). There’s always this tug of war between stability and chaos.
Let’s take routines and habits as an example. For the longest time, I was looking for and trying to construct the “perfect” morning routine for myself. It never lasted. What I realized is that the perfect morning routine is static/stable when you look closely, but ever-changing when you zoom out. What I did this morning is the same as what I did yesterday morning and that’s almost the same as I did a week ago. But it’s a bit different from what I did 2 months ago. And 6 months from now, it will certainly be significantly different.
Finding that combination of flexibility and discipline is tricky, but I think it’s essential. Because the world is ever changing, our circumstances are ever changing. Taking each day anew, at random, floating on the stream won’t lead to the results you want. But trying to impose a strict, 100% stable system onto the world is also doomed to fail.
So, my advice here is: accept that things are always moving and shifting. And learn to make small adjustments without loosening your grip entirely. It’s one thing to say “I’ll modify my morning routine a bit, because X” and it’s another to say “I’m giving up on this entirely, because X!”
A lot of this was done as a team effort, with double purpose: using the work to train the people on the team and also using the team to come up with a better plan than I could on my own.
This is great news Shane, so glad to be hearing about it.
In terms of content I’d like covered, my achilles heel is delegation and that’s some you’ve clearly mastered so whatever you can teach on that, I’m all ears.
And in terms of taking part in the focus and action 2.0 experience, that’s definitely of interest to me. There’s so much of f&a that I haven’t actioned yet, in fact I doubt I’ve viewed all the content yet, so having a facilitated version would accelerate progress for sure.
Thanks for your comment, Brett!
I wish I could claim to have “mastered” delegation. :D
But what I can say is that I went from stuck in solopreneur mode to getting much better at getting a team involved in the work I do. Far from mastery, but there are a few takeaways I could share. :)
Congrats on the new chapter beginning to unfold. Sounds like it’s more aligned with who you are now. I’ll definitely be following along!
Thank you, Dave!
It does feel more aligned with my core values than anything I’ve done before, yes.
As you’ve been preaching the value of content marketing for many years, it would be great to get an insight into why and how you’ve used paid advertising this time, with a view to building a mixed system of both. There are many “gurus” that say that if you’re good at one you don’t need the other, but I guess this applies only if you have either a LOT of time or a LOT of money. Your usual lucid, no-nonsense view on this would be much appreciated I’m sure.
Hi Alexander,
There are 2 reasons I started with paid traffic on this one: one is that I like learning new things and it seemed like a worthy challenge. The other is that I’m on a tight timeline because of how all my plans were wrecked this year (long story, but I can get into that in a future update).
So far, my experience with paid ads confirms that organic traffic is the way to go. :D
I’m half joking. I still want to learn it, but damn, organic traffic is so much easier and more pleasant than this…
In general, I think specialization is efficient and I recommend it, to a degree. Personally, I’ve always sought variety – to a degree that isn’t entirely useful.
I am hugely excited about this. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted to email you just for clarification and guidance as I try to build a side business. I’m really interested to know more about the structure of the 9 weeks. How much access will we have to you and your team?
Hello Anthony,
Thanks for your comment! There will be weekly live calls with a relatively small group size. There’s also a private forum where myself and my team will be answering questions and you can get even more direct help and coaching by following the tasks and challenges we set (it’s an extra incentive to follow through).
Focus & Action student and die-hard Shane fan here. Definitely interested in the upgraded version.
Thank you for your support, Don!
Hey Shane, tnx much for the update, excited with you!
For me – I’d get the most value by you sharing two main aspects of your journey:
1. How to you handle the emotional and personal growth aspects of being a multi- biz-owner entrepreneur? I own 2 businesses myself and at times it feels like a lot to handle, which requires some serious growth on my part. Your advice and insights about this will be priceless.
2. Your business journey – as the marketing landscape is ever changing – what are you noticing working/no longer working as you build your new brand? For example – are you noticing email to be as strong as before, or is traffic more spread out and coming from other sources? Where do you mainly put your focus? Etc.
Thanks much. Love your content and delivery.
Thank you for your comment, Nataliya.
These are great questions! Would love to discuss these in greater detail in a future update, but let me give you a brief answer here:
1. Thrive Themes was my main gig for a long time and had anywhere from 90-100% of my focus during that time. It’s only more recently that I have stepped out of many of the roles I used to play there to free up my time for other things. It was a long journey to being able to do this, but for me, it was necessary. I had made the mistake earlier of spreading my focus too thinly. Having said that, you can still make a side project (like ActiveGrowth) happen with 10-15% of time alotted for it.
2. Email is definitely weakening. But it has been weakening since day 1, pretty much. All channels end up getting crowded and the initial gold rush dies down. It’s the same for social channels, where organic reach keeps dropping over time. My focus is always on the interaction with and relation to actual people in my audience, regardless of the channel. My goal is to create something that people really want to be a part of, so they will seek it out, regardless of channel.
Shane, all I can say is wow! How in the world do you everything you do!?! Honestly, I can’t keep up. I’m a F&A subscriber, but I’d be very interested in any kind of offer to upgrade, if you can do that. I totally understand your overhead with being live. Please let us know if you do some kind of offer for the course subscribers. Loved your video!
Yes… +1 to Garrett’s comment about some kind of offer for existing “f & a” customers… :-)
Thank you, Garrett!
Since there have been many questions about this, I will see what I can do. And thank you for your support!
The question of “how do you do it all” is why I started teaching productivity in the first place. :)
I think for me, a big part of the reason is my thirst for variety. I want to do and learn and experience many different things. Even when I’m working on “only” one project at a time, I do a variety of things within that project. And to satisfy this thirst for variety, I had to learn to be very efficient.
I’ve had this discussion with my team before as well: I think one reason I can produce a video or blog post or even sales page in a matter of hours is because I’ve never had the luxury of time to spend days or weeks on something like that. I always have some other urgent thing to get to, as well.
Great update, Shane – thanks as ever for your insights.
Ikario sounds like a great move, and I really appreciate your integrity around this, which is one key reason I’ve followed you via Thrive Themes and Active Growth since 2014.
I also would love a webinar or similar on how you’re building Ikario, as we’re planning our next business and I’m sure we would gain valuable insights from your approach to Ikario. Thanks very much.
Thank you for your support, Matthew!
I’d love to do a webinar like that. I’ll have some news on this soon. :)
Wow, I just checked the Youtube channel, and I wonder why these videos are from 3 days ago and I didn’t know anything about it?
In any case, it’s great to be on the road again as I need to confess I was lost for a while and now it’s time to retake the road and make things happened as planned
There are no words to qualify what you do Shane, you have got our trust and we, your fans, are ready to support your initiatives.
I look forward to seeing the next steps
Thank you very much for your support, Pablo! :)
Hi Shane, good luck with your new business! You’re a personal development guy to the core, so it really seems that your new brand is the right thing to do for you.
Some thoughts about building a business from scratch:
What’s on my mind lately is what to do about all the regulations and red tape for online businesses. I see that ikario is a business in the EU (Estonia), so you guys have to also follow the GDPR and other EU laws (me too).
So, for example, let’s talk about the invalidated EU-US Privacy Shield (and it looks like soon the Swiss-US Privacy Shield will stop working, too):
Right now it’s technically illegal to use US services like ActiveCampaign (I just looked at their website) or AWeber if you’re a business in the EU. That’s a bummer because a mailing list is like the heart of an online business, right?
What’s your take on this for us solopreneurs? Should we ignore the majority of these things and hope that the authorities go after the big guys like Facebook and Google?
Or should we plaster our websites with cookie notices and checkboxes and change to EU online services? Are there even suitable EU online services?
How well can you even implement these things if you have other things to do like copywriting and selling things?
A lot of online business advice is US-focused and I feel like we EU businesses have a competitive disadvantage because it probably will become more and more difficult to use US services (probably especially targeted advertising) because of all the EU (privacy) laws.
So if you could write more about these things, that would be really helpful for me.
I see you’re using Drip for the ikario email list (I just subscribed): Drip didn’t even use the EU-US Privacy Shield before and now they also don’t use a lawful basis to transfer EU resident data to the US (I just checked their site for a minute but that seems to be the case).
So technically you just transferred my data in an illegal way to the US. I don’t mind, but If I were a malicious human being (which I’m not, far from it) I could go to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate and you’d probably get in trouble, and maybe you’d have to at least change your email marketing provider and/or even get a fine…
Yeah, it’s definitely a possible liability. For the moment, I’ll live with it and hope for the best.
ikario is a business that simply cannot afford to try and comply with all the red tape…
Thanks for your comment, Peter!
Regarding the red tape, I absolutely feel your pain. And it always annoys me when regulations are passed that are almost impossible for small businesses to comply with, while already overly powerful big businesses can just throw some money and lawyers at it.
Anyway, my take on it – and this is obviously not legal advice and for entertainment purposes only – is to ignore it within reason, as a small business owner. EU VAT is a good example of this. When this regulation was passed, in my business, we scrambled to comply. It cost us a fortune and unbelievable amounts of time to create compliance with these rules.
In the meantime, most of the world just moved on as if nothing had happened. Including medium and large businesses, in some cases!
And after years, some of the regulations were relaxed and it’s now easier to comply.
So my take now is to comply only within reason, only to a degree that doesn’t obviously compromise your business. If you have a legit business that doesn’t do anything obviously shady, I think that’s defensible.
Of course, you could still get in trouble and the only advice I can officially give is to always comply to the letter of the law, no matter what…
Thank you, Shane, that’s really helpful!
I’d be thrilled to join the live experience as a focus & action customer. I oscillate between great, productive phases and other phases where I suddenly don’t follow the system anymore. I think the live experience would help a lot with strengthening the foundation and deepening the practice.
My wishlist for a sneak peak of launching your new business:
1. In which order do you set up everything (team, funnels, audience, product, website, legal stuff, etc.) and how have you mapped this out?
2. How do you make sure your core business (Thrive Themes) doesn’t suffer?
3. How the hell do you maintain a healthy social life (family, friends, relationships?) while increasing your “life difficulty level” to yet another extreme? I know that you don’t really talk about this a lot in public (and I totally respect that, of course) but I’m sure a lot of your core followers would love to simply understand how this is even possible.
Best wishes from Berlin & thanks for your honesty in the video, as always :)
Philip
Thank you for your comment, Philip!
Great questions! Let me also give you a quick-and-dirty answer to these, although I’d love to dive deeper on a future call or update.
1. Pretty much in order of necessity. My focus is always to move things forward as quickly as possible, test and get results as quickly as possible. So I start with the most bare-bones setup I need to, say, run the first add. And then start adding additional pages and stuff as the first experiment is running.
2. I spent a lot of time stepping out of most of my roles at Thrive Themes and handing over the reins before starting something new.
3. Right now, I don’t maintain that much of a social life. I mentioned this in one of my COVID related videos: I realized that this year was going to suck, no matter what I’d do. I can’t visit my family, I can’t travel, I can’t go to any events with groups of people… so I might as well go into “cave troll” mode and work like crazy.
There’s still a balance, of course. But I’ve shifted the balance more towards work than I usually do, because of the circumstances.
Haha, “cave troll” mode made my day. Thanks for the quick reply!
I came back here, just to say this: PLEASE write THAT book. ;)
Thank you so much, Andrea!
I really appreciate that.
Can I ask: what do you think the book I write should be about? :)
Compelling video – as always to present Ikario. Is this as a pilot course to develop a stand-alone/downloadable product; or is Ikario developing a collaborative coaching methodology?
It’s an experiment, but the current plan is to do group classes/coaching, going forward. I think we can deliver more value in this way than with a “normal” course.
Hi Shane
Was also wondering how new product will work. Will each class be recorded for later reference? And will attendees get access to the paid course if they were not previously F&A customers?
Yes, it’s a hybrid between an online course, live classes and group coaching.
There’s a lot of material that is best delivered in short, succinct lessons that you can access any time, just like with a course. But in addition to that, we’ll do live classes and community challenges etc.
Love to hear about the new f&a course (2.0) as well. As a customer of all your products I know of (Thrive, all courses so far – would you call that a fanboy??) I assume the quality is – once again – setting a new standard.
That’s certainly the reason I changed from a course model to a live class model. I want to take this further and hopefully raise the bar once again. :)
Wow. Sounds great. On a much smaller scale, I run a course for people with type 2 diabetes since November 2019, sort of “blended learning” with groups and online coaching for 12 weeks, with focus on healthy food, exercise, mindulfness and stress reduction, and medication – taking all 4 equally serious. So it is about personal growth for diabetics. I have never seen such big changes, improvements in diabetes therapy and personal wellbeing before! I will continue with a membership thing.
Until now, the course is paid for by insurance for people living in Vienna, and knowing how good the whole thing is, I want to sell it online too. So I am interested in building a community, and – yes simply in how to sell a course for personal growth.
And of course, Shane, your fan club (include me) is eager to be part of your new live class! I have done your new de-procastination units. I knew it would be to the point, and yes, this is powerful stuff… there are a few hints in it about what your new class will be about – a quite considerate, educated, somehow groundbraking approach to things. Looking forward to it!
Thank you for your comment (and for the testimonial you submitted earlier), Susanne!
I’m happy to see that your class is going so well. It must be amazingly gratifying to see your students are getting such good results. :)
Okayyyyy…. tell you what: during the last week or so I was so busy and overworked that I forgot to be happy about it every day as I used to be in summer! Seems I need a class.
And there is this still foggy idea of creating a supportive environment for people with diabetes with encouragement, guidance, fun, knowledge, stress reduction….my next “big thing”…
It’s me again, Susanne. I friend to whom I forwarded Ikario just told me that you featured my testimonial at the end of the “90 heroic minutes“. Cool!
We did, yes! I loved your story about using what you learnt in the course to tackle a new project. :)
I always enjoy hearing from you; you sound like a real person. I have benefitted so much from Thrive Themes and I have found many of your lifestyle videos to be wise and helpful.
I’ve got too many irons in the fire right now. I’m working on redoing my older websites as I create a new one for our new family venture. I wouldn’t really want do it without Thrive Themes.
All the best to you. May you come through this challenge you have set for yourself with new lessons and benefits. Looking forward to hearing more about your journey.
After using Thrive Architect for a long time and really valuing how you think and do things, this is the first time you have managed to actually get me to post a comment. Well done :-)
The reason why I felt the need to chip in is that I wanted to let you know that I actually get why you feel you need to “prove yourself” by starting a new company and not telling anybody else about it.
Although I absolutely do not question whether you could build a business (again) totally from scratch, I do believe that it would not only take a lot of time but that it may also be a lot less successful than you would have liked it to be.
Why, you may ask?
Well, because you currently own a brilliant product company (thrivethemes) which you can “unfairly leverage off” for whatever next business venture you choose to embark on (as long, of course, it is somewhat aligned to your audience) AND the fact that you are actually a “marketing guy” at heart.
I have neither of these “unfair advantages” … and I suspect that many who frequent your comments section are in a similar boat.
Don’t get me wrong: Of course I am not saying you shouldn’t leverage off the success of thrivethemes, but the fact that you do, makes it a lot more difficult for me to not continuously ask myself “would this still work if Shane was in my position”?
Take Xuviate, for example, a group-coaching business a good friend and I founded in 2015 after selling a successful IT Services company, which we founded and grew to one of the most successful SMB IT services companies in South Africa.
When we sold this company (at a time when we had close to 70 staff members), we also lost our access to market and had to start building a completely new business and client base from scratch.
And without lots of “potential customers” to experiment on, any form of experimentation from then on became incredibly difficult as we never knew whether our marketing or our product was failing us.
In the last 2 years alone I have gone through 7 iterations of our website (about to start my 8th with a migration to Theme Builder) as we are trying to figure out how we can best reach our target customers AND what products we actually need to develop.
Things started changing for us when, about a year ago, we entered into a fairly strategic partnership with a product company and found a way to leverage off their immense marketing and sales capabilities.
What pure magic :-)
For the last year we could thus seriously scale down our own marketing efforts and focus almost exclusively on developing our product (our current website is testament to this) … and finally, things were moving in a good direction and we could rapidly iterate on our new product (“Kanban Bootcamps”).
With our livelihood now secure, the next step is of course to build our own marketing capability, which is why I not only bought your “Audience from Scratch” (nothing new really for me there) but also your revised “SEO Sprint” course.
The latter one I found a lot more relevant to where we are and we have just committed to give SEO a try (again). Since we previously invested heavily in Inbound Marketing (at a time when Hubspot started pushing the term), however, I cannot help to yet again be sceptical and ask myself “why will things be different this time around? … just because we have now learned about Silo pages”?
After a thorough keyword analysis of our industry (Kanban Coaching and Training), it seems fairly clear to me that coaches are not found when users accidentally discover a website through searching. Even the big coaching authorities have rather “shocking” web presences … and the competition for the few relevant terms is immense (and dominated by many product companies, one of which is the company we partner with).
So, circling back to your original question of what would I like to know? Well, honestly, I don’t know because you cannot make me the owner of a successful software product company (which I could leverage for my coaching business) ;-) The best I can hope for is that through this new offering of yours, you would somehow be able to “stoop down to our level” and really “see” how it actually is to build an information business from scratch … and, you know, perhaps by then applying your brilliant marketing mind, you will come up with a workable strategy for all of us…
Apart from this, thank you for allowing me to “vent” a little bit. I already feel better as I have now said what I have been thinking for many years.
Hi Mark,
Glad to see you take the leap and comment. :)
Yeah, your thought process aligns with mine. It would definitely be a more valuable (dare I say, more marketable) case study if I did indeed build a new company without telling anyone about it.
One of the reasons I decided against it is because ikario is not a case study. It’s not there to serve as an example of how to use Thrive Themes products or how to do the kind of marketing I teach or anything like that.
ikario is an entirely purpose driven business. It exists because I wanted to create a platform for myself to do the kind of work with which I think I can make the greatest contribution.
And as such, it’s also not a profit-driven business. I’m doing many things with this business (and will do many more) that I would not consider best practices and would not recommend as a general strategy to anyone else. And I don’t want to change what I do to make it fit the mold of a Thrive Themes or ActiveGrowth case study.
For my contribution in the entrepreneurship space, I think this means we’ll just have to settle for what I can offer without “undoing” my history as an entrepreneur.
But also, ikario is unlikely to be the last thing I ever do, so maybe that case study will come later on. ;)
Shane, I think you have hit the nail on the head with your statement “ikario is an entirely purpose driven business”. It would be downright foolish, in my opinion, not to leverage any and all of your existing assets to turn it into a success.
Having said this, I do believe that many of your “loyal followers” are trying to run an “entirely purpose driven businesses” as their one and only business … which, of course, is highly challenging and can easily end in failure.
The way I have answered this challenge for myself is to initially mostly forget about the “purpose driven part” of our business and focus on something that will actually generate income and growth. Once this foundation is in place (the customer-driven “Growth Engine”), it should at some later stage become viable to circle back to what we are really passionate about … in a way like you are showing us to do! :-)
I think that is the right approach. Ironically, it’s often the purpose driven businesses that need to be a bit more greedy, especially early on. Founders of purpose driven businesses are often too timid about this. Go after high paying clients, sell something expensive, be aggressive in creating a financial foundation for the purpose-driven work you want to do. This is why we’re launching ikario with a product.
I am quite curious to see how this product will look like!
From what little I know, it sounds like you are layering “group-coaching as a product” on top of the foundational courses you have built, whereas we ourselves are adding more and more foundational course materials to what are mostly group-coaching products.
For both of us the core challenge seems to be “how can we encourage people to lead change and be the best they can be”. Whereas our “target customer” is (only) leaders in traditional businesses, your ambition appears a bit grander and more all-encompassing :-)
I will follow your journey with interest and wish you great success! It is a noble cause!
Shane,
First, congratulations on your new project!
You see when someone moves to a new place and friends come over for the first time? They open the cabinets, flash the toilet just to see if there’s good water pressure and lean over the balcony to figure out the view and if you can sunbathe in the summer? Well, I’ve done all that in your new website and I can gladly report that all your faucets work just fine :)
I love your message exchange with Liam. Powerful way to call out your ICA and with that beautiful Paulo Coelho style. Brilliant.
I just would’ve liked for the site to be shanemelaugh.com — don’t be afraid to fly too near the sun, you’re sensible enough to handle it.
Good luck with your new digital property!
Marisa
PS: I’d love to hear how your plans changed in 2020
Thank you, Marisa!
Just one little problem with your suggestion: if I say “go to shanemelaugh.com…” on a podcast, how will anyone ever find the site?
I should have been clever enough to come up with a catchy pen name years ago, but I think that ship has sailed. Making my brand name = my name would be a great way to keep the website a secret. :D
Congratulations for launching ikario and the new Focus & Action, Shane!
I would be interested in knowing how you approach finding talent, hiring and delegation. This is the area I’m currently struggling the most with my business, and it’s really impressive to see how you are able to create a new team from scratch and get it running at full speed in record time.
Thank you!
I’d love to talk about that! I’ve been using very unconventional hiring methods for a long time, now. Not that it’s a magic solution to hiring problems, but I think I’m dialling in to the right combination of hiring method and work culture that leads to good results. :)
Hi Shane,
It’s looking very interesting, a big upgrade to F&A 1.0
My biggest challenge is how to live a life and be an entrepreneur after +30 years working in the different companies with bosses, co-workers, employees ….
Hopefully I will find a guidance in your new course :)
Regards,
Igor
Hello Igor,
Hm, yeah, the “having a life” part can be difficult. It’s easy to get lost in and overwhelmed by the work.
My approach here is what I think of as “athletic productivity”, where you get your best performance when you actually work for 3-5 hours intensely + 1-2 hours of busywork per day. Any more than that is diminishing returns and you actually get more done by leaving work and living a life in your off hours.
Hi Shane,
thanks for answer.
Enrolment for focus & action Live Class 2020 is close.
When you will reopen it and will you consider giving lower price for old F&A members?
Regards,
Igor
Check your inbox, I sent out an email about the offer. :)
Hi Shane. The Focus & Action course was excellent. I’m looking forward to seeing your new brand. Let me know if you have an upgrade deal. Also, was there a launch deal for the the Audience From Scratch course? I’m on your active growth newsletter, but I never heard about the audience course at all until just now.
Hi Jason,
The Audience course was released under the Thrive Themes brand… Maybe that’s why you didn’t hear about it?…
I see. That’s a little frustrating, because if there was a special price for the launch, existing customers who are on the ActiveGrowth brand will miss out on it and have to pay more because nobody told us it was being released.
Hi Jason,
My last Insider Update was about the Audience from Scratch launch. But I think you’re right, if you missed that one, there was no other messaging about the launch to the ActiveGrowth list.
If that was something you really wanted to get in, let me know and we can work something out.
Hi Shane,
Nice to hear about your new ideas and projects. I am really interested in ikario and will follow you on Youtube. I’m not sure I can or should commit to enroll in the ikario process, but it could happen, depending among other on the offer.
A very specific question is: are you adopting Notion as a central productivity tool instead of Google Drive + Trello which were so central in Focus&Action?
And a subsidiary question: Any chance to access your new Notion templates?
Thanks
+1 on that question, I’d also love to know (as I’m building out my Notion workflow currently).
Thank you for your support, Alfonso!
In the next 2 months, as I run the new f&a class, I will be updating some of the lessons to match my new workflow and I will make those available in the old f&a course as well.
Including Notion templates, yes. :)
Thank you. I’m going to love that, for sure!
On your point about proving yourself by starting from scratch – I feel like that is not that important. The biggest proof should be with your students and the success they have. This proves the system and that the material you teach and the way you teach can get your students there. I would be interested to get some case studies from your students and the success they have had following your course. Thats all the proof you need.
What would be interesting for me from Ikario – is what some others have said above – whats the roadmap you followed, what did you prioritise and why.
Something missing for me from your courses (I have joined SEO sprint, Course craft and audience from Scratch) – is how all these fit together + where to start and what to prioritise.
I am in the middle of my first launch following course craft (to a small list of 1800), now looking at where to next and what to prioritise. I know there is no one size fits all approach – but it would be good to get your take on how these courses fit together and how you would approach what to tackle first.
Perhaps this could lead to a bundle product with some extra content that ties all the parts together.
Thanks for all that you do – over time you have become my primary ‘mentor’ for starting an online business.
I followed your launch over on ikario and I have a question, what platform are you using for the community? I am launching my own course and love to have a forum/community without having to create a Facebook group.
Hi Conny,
I considered Flarum, BuddyBoss, MightyNetworks and a few other solutions. I ended up going with a self-hosted Discourse forum. I didn’t want to use a WordPress based solution because I’ve done that in the past (with bbpress) and had a really bad experience with it. So I was looking for something that would be hosted separately from, but integrated with the WordPress site. Discourse seems like a good solution. However, without developer help, Discourse would be difficult. It’s not an easy tool for sure.
I’m a previous Focus and action customer. Love to know about any special deal. Thanks Shane.