Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship pdfdrive com

I hate…
This sucks…
I’m tired…
I wish…
How frustrating…
I don’t like…
Why do I have to…?
Why is this…[dangerous, unhealthy, hard, etc.]?
This bickering should sound familiar because it’s everywhere. Search Twitter,
Facebook, or Topsy for these key phrases and you’ll find a treasure trove of
potential ideas. Anytime I run this search, I find several potential opportunities
within seconds. On Instagram, I see fitness people complaining about people
stealing their machine during supersets. On Twitter, one person complained that
they hated packing, obviously for an upcoming move. Another person wished
that drive-in theaters were as popular as they once were. Another wisher wished
baby monitors had detailed data analytics. I found four potential ideas in thirty-

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five seconds. What could you find if you were really serious and spent an hour
looking?
My friend takes this a step further. He searches Amazon for products that sell
well but have poor reviews. He then dives into the complaints and determines if
he can solve those complaints at the manufacturing level. If so, he develops his
own products.
Complaints and pains are also opportunities. Seriously, just an hour ago I
cleaned a goopy pan of dried-up bacon grease and muttered, “I hate this….” Pay
attention to what you hate, no matter how nuanced or stupid it might sound.
What do you wish was easier? More convenient? Less painful?
#2: INCONVENIENCE
Anything inconvenient is an opportunity. The inconvenience can be the
product itself or the process surrounding the product. For example, in our
“money company,” one sales process involved snail mail while the other
processed orders online. The same product delivered conveniently beats it
delivered inconveniently.
The other option is taking inconvenience and making it convenient.
Theranos, the controversial (and questionable) blood-testing company, is a
notable attempt at making blood tests convenient. In the past, blood tests usually
involved a doctor and an appointment. Whenever inconvenience is solved
through a better process or a newer technology, or by improving the gadget, you
skew value.
#3: SIMPLIFICATION AND/OR EASIFICATION
Anything complicated which needs simplification is an opportunity. For
example, when I published my first book, ePub creation was extremely difficult. I
knew this complication was an opportunity.
In fact, one would say that the oil and gas industry is the biggest industry on
the planet. I’d argue it isn’t; the industry of easy is the biggest. People love easy.
Remember the shortcut scam? It fuels a multitude of industries: pharmaceuticals,
supplements, sundries, self-development, entrepreneurship, and more.
Easy is also an easy sell. Turn-key business opportunities, network
marketing, and anything “sign up and you’re in business” are selling simple.
Instead of fighting the hard work that a real business demands (product creation,
distribution, operations, etc.) someone does it for you.

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#4: WANTS
The most ambiguous type of need is a want. A want is something desired but
not necessarily needed. Utility and functionality are secondary. My past
ownership history of Lamborghinis, Corvettes, and Vipers are all wants; I didn’t
need them. I spent money on these cars to symbolize ego, achievement, and an
exhilarating experience. Functionality, going from point A to B (the need), is a
junior consideration.
Similarly, the latest iPhone, the newest video game, and a pair of Louboutins
are all wants—anything that constitutes a desire or an urge. Most wants fall into
the vanity, entertainment, and fashion fields, where utility is secondary. Want
opportunities are plentiful because demand can be influenced by marketing.
#5: SERVICE GAPS
Crappy customer service is an opportunity.
No one wants to be treated like shit, and yet this is standard from the average
corporation. Step in, provide the exact same product or service, but treat your
customers like gold, and you skew value. Exceptional customer service is one of
the value skews that helped me outgrow my competition. Even today, I use this
technique. My forum grows every year because I am there every single day,
contributing and interacting with my readers. Good luck getting that kind of
attention from any author who has sold millions of anything.
#6: GEOGRAPHICAL ARBITRAGE (CHANGING THE POND)
Geographical arbitrage, or changing the pond, is taking something common
in your area and repositioning it to an area where there is an inadequate supply.
On his show, Jay Leno once lampooned the ridiculous things sold on eBay. One
of those things was a tumbleweed. A Utah man thought the idea was interesting
since tumbleweeds were common in his area. So he created his own website and
started selling them. His first perplexing thought was why would anyone buy
one? Especially since they rolled around free in the Utah desert? His opinion was
irrelevant, and the market answered: People bought them—so much so that he
and his wife quit their jobs. And now his operation is a full-fledged business
including a warehouse.
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Another example could be found in the Pacific Northwest. What goodness
could you find strolling through the forest? How about pine cones? Did you

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know they’re sold on the Internet? If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you could
too—and your inventory would be entirely free.
Geographic arbitrage can also involve anything sourced in your area and
presented globally for sale via any online marketplace: eBay, Amazon, or Etsy.
For example, a rare, limited-edition book might not be particularly valuable in
Topeka, Kansas, but it might hold significant value in Boston, Massachusetts.
Likewise, a 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl ring purchased at an estate sale in
Sun City, Arizona, would be worth more presented for sale in Chicago.
Of course geographical arbitrage usually isn’t sustainable, but it demonstrates
how relative value can be manipulated by the presentation economy.
Geographical arbitrage is also a powerful bootstrapping method if you need both
experience and capital. 
Any value-adding experience is good experience
.
#7: CROWDFEEDING ENTRY VIOLATIONS
Feed the crowd and you shall never starve.
“Crowdfeeding” emerges from the Commandment of Entry. Wherever entry
is violated, opportunity arises. Why? Because the unlocked doors to an enterprise
are always crowded, and crowds need to be fed, housed, and served. When the
gold rush is in full bore, sell shovels.
For example, consider our hypothetical town overrun with government-
subsidized restaurants. In our fictional town, assume Jimmy is an aspiring
entrepreneur. Jimmy has read 
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and knows a restaurant business is
a bad idea, despite the subsidized cost. However, Jimmy astutely embraces
empiricism and notices something interesting. Bill, Bob, and Belinda are the
richest people in the town, and none of them owns restaurants. Bill owns the real
estate where the restaurants operate. Bob imports spices, fruits, and vegetables.
And Belinda, who is the town’s empress entrepreneur, tops them all: she owns a
restaurant supply company, supplying everything a restaurant needs other than
the food itself. The best opportunities rarely come from joining the crowd, but
serving it.
When I started self-publishing, I was overcome with opportunity overload—
opportunities to serve aspiring authors and publishers were everywhere. The
pattern translates to all industries and past trends and continues into the future.
For example, here’s a historical chart of trends and the opportunities they
presented:

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BANDWAGON TREND
CROWDFED OPPORTUNITY
Websites (1997–2001)
Web developers, website hosting, advertising
Blogging (2004–2010)
Blog platforms, WordPress, templates, plugins
eCommerce (2008–2011)
Shopify, Bigcommerce
Apps (2010–2013)
Affiliations or Associations
Social Media (2009–2014)
Ad serving, data analytics, metrics
Self-Publishing (2010–2015)
Editing services, cover services, books
Podcasting (2013–2016)
Podcasting courses, tools, books
Amazon (2014–201?)
Amazon courses, management tools
Today's most prolific companies have risen from crowdfed opportunities.
Google, Rackspace, and GoDaddy are just a few that launched the modern
Internet age.
A good story about crowdfeeding comes from a forum friend who fell ass-
backwards into his business. Like many before him, he began self-publishing,
hoping to grab a piece of the gold rush. After suffering marginal success (being
kind), he sought to improve his book covers. When he looked to test different
covers with various audiences, he couldn’t find a solution. And then it hit him.
OMG, is this the 
need
MJ always talks about? It was. And so he built a website
addressing the problem. Within a matter of weeks, his cover-rating service blew
up—without advertising. The crowd demanded exactly what he needed.
Obviously, he stopped writing to pursue the venture, which screamed for grease.
And compliments of massive traffic and a positive feedback loop, he suddenly
now 
loves
his service more so than writing.
#8: VALUE ARBITRAGE
Value arbitrage (VI), the direct, straightforward approach to value creation,
is another path to needfulness. With value arbitrage, 1+1+1+1 does not equal
four but five. The incremental missing unit is your profit. The value arbitrageur
is banking on the axiom, the sum of the parts does not equal the whole.
The mechanism behind value arbitrage is simply adding value. For example,
when a home investor purchases and remodels a fixer-upper—adding new

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carpets, kitchen cabinets, paint, fresh landscaping—the value-added parts will
exceed the sum.
Similarly, I have a friend who buys poorly marketed and designed websites.
Once he acquires the websites, he retools and redesigns them and grows the
bottom line. Once the bottom line picks up, he resells them at a tidy profit.
Of course, VI can be anything where value is added incrementally. Any thrift
store, particularly ones in affluent neighborhoods, is a treasure-packed
opportunity for anyone willing to work and use their brain. That old, ratty
dresser with peeling paint and a broken leg? Fix the leg, strip the paint, refinish,
and suddenly a five-dollar dresser is worth fifty dollars. The same thing can be
said for used cars. Some people on my forum use automobile bootstrapping for
extra cash. Old, dirty cars are refurbished and resold for hundreds in profit.
#9: REPURPOSING
As I cleaned my garage, I came across a pile of scrap lumber and unused
carpet. Although I was moving and had no need for this stuff, it pained me to
throw it away. The average person sees junk; I see potential value. When you
combine wood and carpet, you have the makings of an expensive cat condo. The
last one I bought cost me a few C-notes. These spare materials were probably
enough for four cat trees. The worthless pile of junk wasn’t worthless.
While this story’s lesson isn’t about making fortunes in feline condos, it’s
seeing repurposing opportunities. If I was young and broke, I would have spent a
few days and repurposed these raw materials into something valuable. So instead
of trashing it, I listed it on Craigslist for FREE and gave it away.
Repurposing is taking various raw materials and reusing them for some other
purpose not easily recognized. For example, did you know old, unwanted denim
jeans have an industrial purpose? The Blue-to-Green (BtG) Initiative has
collected over 200 tons of unwanted denim and turned it into environmentally
friendly housing insulation. Instead of fiberglass keeping your house warm, it
could be old Levis!
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In a similar vein, Lucrecia Lovera, an entrepreneur in
Berlin, Germany, turns old VHS tapes into purses and sells them on her website,
retape.de
.
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You never know when or where repurposing ideas might appear. Aside from
drinking copious amounts of vodka, long road trips cause my mind to creatively
wander. While driving Interstate 10 on a ride home from a California summer, I
spotted two repurposing opportunities. The roads were littered with “gators”—

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the truckers’ word for shredded tire treads. Every few feet, a tire tread or other
road debris—some incredibly hazardous—littered the road.
I thought, of course, this is a problem. And problems are opportunities.
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Traffic Safety
Facts, over 25,000 accidents are caused by road debris, including over 800
fatalities.
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I wondered, why isn’t anyone cleaning this up? Could the federal
government or the State of California hire someone to keep our highways clean,
while reducing costly accidents? While these government entities are virtually
broke, both spend like drunken sailors with real Lustig machines.
However, the road debris idea soon gave way to another vision. As I sped
along the interstate (of course obeying the speed limit), while hundreds of road
gators flew by, I actually saw money. Just weeks earlier, I decorated my backyard
with rubber landscape mulch and spent a fortune doing so. Guess what the
mulch was made of? Repurposed, old shredded tires.
And at fifty cents a pound, those shredded tires littering the highway are
dirty cash drifting in the wind.
One entrepreneur who sees the problem and overcomes its challenges will
have a great little business with an incredible value proposition: reclaim, recycle,
and repurpose. Hey, maybe both opportunities could be combined.
#10: MARKETING ARBITRAGE
If I ever sold my forum, the new owner would get a steal of a deal. From a
marketing standpoint, my forum is not optimized to make money. Instead, I use
my forum as a platform to spread my message. My number-one mission isn’t to
squeeze out every dollar from my users but to simply educate, non-intrusively.
Despite thousands of visitors and users, I rarely email updates, newsletters, or
anything interruptive. I don’t optimize, split-test, or trial-run advertisers. In
marketing speak, I’ve left thousands of dollars on the table. If I sold my forum,
the opportunity for marketing arbitrage exists.
Marketing arbitrage is simply taking an underexposed or under-leveraged
asset and using it more effectively. For example, marketing arbitrage was a tool
in the toolbox for my friend who bought and sold websites. For him, he’d
examine the advertising channels (if any existed) and determine if it was the
most effective audience channel. If it wasn’t, marketing arbitrage occurred when
advertising was retargeted to the appropriate channel. For example, here's a story
posted at the forum:

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I read a story about a small physical products business, which made a few hundred
dollars per month and later was sold for $5,000 to someone else. This new owner
changed the website, added extra products, got better photography, better
packaging, better fulfillment, changed prices, and was up to $50,000–$100,000
per month in revenue within six months.
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There are thousands of products out there that have the potential for profit
but aren’t marketed properly. Would you believe apartments fall into this realm?
Jon Wheatley bought a Vegas condo for the sole purpose of renting it out on
Airbnb. While his reported $13,000-a-year business profit won’t make him a
fortune overnight, Mr. Wheatley is a great arbitrage example as well as a great
example for building an 
UNSCRIPTED
future. He estimates he will have his
condo paid off in just under four years.
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In another example, a clever marketer took a little-known household gadget
and 
humorously 
advertised 
it 
to 
the 
masses. 
The 
Handjob!
(
INeedAHandJob.com
) is a rubber disc that helps people unscrew those tight
stubborn jar lids. I’ve owned one of these for years and always thought it was the
most ingenious thing ever—but it was never marketed and presented to the
public. The folks at Handjob! renamed it in a double entendre, repackaged and
remarketed it via viral video, and wham bam, a scalable asset was created.
The truth is, the world is full of shitty marketers, bad salesmen, and poor
communicators. You can create the greatest product on the planet and no one
will know about it with poor marketing. If you can’t persuade or motivate
someone to buy and try, you’ll fail. And that’s when a marketing arbitrageur
spots opportunity, swooping in and washing that dirty dog into a Westminster
show winner.
#11: OVERCAPITALISM
Make no mistake, I’m a capitalist.
However, don’t confuse “capitalism” with “taking advantage of whomever I
can” and destroying the environment in the process. As 
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entrepreneurs, we’re fiduciaries first and capitalists second. Put your customers’
best interests in front of your own. Deliver the value you promise. Make the
world a better place, and money shall follow.
Unfortunately, thanks to modern media and its 
M.O.D.E.L Citizen
push for
politically mandated victimology, “capitalism” has become a naughty word. After
all, rich capitalists get rich because they carry Glocks and force people at

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gunpoint to buy their stuff. It’s as if the “money is evil” crowd would rather shop
at an empty store than give credit to producers. Capitalism is the best economic
system on the planet, and GDP numbers and advancements in technology,
medicine, and social mobility have proven it.
Yet, it has many flaws.
Outside lobbyists, crony capitalists, and politicians for hire, 
overcapitalism
is
one of those flaws—and it’s a great opportunity for you and me.
Overcapitalism is when any business organization abandons its original value-
creating mission and instead prioritizes profit—so much so that it’s disgustingly
obvious
. Yeah, ignore that honeyed mission statement on the wall, the one
preaching honesty, integrity, and quality, because it’s all bullshit.
Overcapitalism isn’t fiduciary, and its best analogy is a wet towel.
The towel represents the product and its intrinsic value, while the water
soaked within the towel represents the potential profit that could be “squeezed”
out of it. Instead of focusing on the towel and how to improve it, the profit-
centered corporation focuses on the “squeeze”—a systematic and measured
extraction of money from its customers through cost cutting, reduced product
quality, and increased prices without increased value.
Think food, cable, insurance, and electric companies.
When a corporation performs its “squeeze,” it usually appears in the mail as
an apologetic letter that begins, “Dear valued customer….” Or your sixteen-
ounce box of cereal is suddenly thirteen ounces, but it’s still the same price. Now,
if you’re thinking, hell, that’s every corporation on the planet! Well, not exactly,
but yeah, it is a meaty percentage.
Take for example the agriculture and food business, an industry rife with
overcapitalism. Through its use of GMOs, artificial sweeteners/colors, fillers,
super-sugars, and various other questionable ingredients, the industry has slowly
turned our pudgy bodies into sugar-addicted zombies fed an unrecognizable
frankenfood filled with God knows what. Does the name Monsanto give you a
warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart? How about that granola bar labeled 
healthy,
the one with an ingredient list as long as 
War and Peace?
Some of my favorite natural-food companies have arisen and grown because
of overcapitalism. For example, I pay a fortune for free-range eggs hatched from
humanely raised chickens. Regular, mass-produced eggs are overcapitalism
closeted by cry-your-eyes-out inhumanity. And don’t get me started on the
“cage-free” scam. Stuffing one hundred chickens in one hundred square feet
might qualify for your pithy “cage-free” designation, but it doesn’t fool me. If

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you enjoy eggs for breakfast, I dare you to visually compare a free-range egg to a
mass-produced one. The happy eggs are clear and silky; the overcapitalized egg is
milky and gooey. Anyhow, the point is, opportunity and demand exist because
others don’t have eyes on what’s best for you; they have eyes on your wallet.
The billion-dollar organic-and natural-food business is a direct consequence
of the corporate squeeze. Consumers are fed up with garbage ingredients and
have demanded healthy, natural alternatives. Of course, overcapitalism isn’t
found in just food and agriculture; it’s anywhere entrenched corporations have
lost sight of their purpose. Overcapitalism’s downward spiral spins the minute a
corporation’s primary customer and stakeholder is demoted from the king of the
castle to the servant mopping the floors.
#12: STAKEHOLDER DEMOTIONS
The perilous road to overcapitalism and its opportunities begins with
stakeholder demotions. 
A stakeholder is any person or group who holds a
beneficial interest in another entity.
If you own an Apple computer, you’re
Apple’s stakeholder. Likewise, if you’re an Apple stockholder or employee, you’re
also a stakeholder. All businesses have multiple stakeholders, and the order in
which they’re prioritized determines if overcapitalism, new opportunities, and
new competitors can grow.
For example, you, my reader, are my king stakeholder. I wrote this book for
you, first and foremost. My primary stakeholder isn’t appeasing some publisher,
kowtowing to the financial industry, or even placating my selfish desire for a new
Lamborghini—you are my stakeholder chain’s top dog. As an 
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entrepreneur upholding the fiduciary mindset, your primary stakeholder at all
times should be your customer. And in most cases for young, growth companies,
this is true.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true for mature companies.
Public companies are the worst. When an organization changes its primary
stakeholder from you, the customer, to another entity—investors, venture
capitalists, shareholders—opportunities arise because customers are no longer
the priority. And overcapitalism becomes a risk. Think about the early days when
eBay and Facebook were small and growing. People loved them. How about now,
with millions of shares spread out among thousands of investors?
You can’t serve two masters at once. You’re either a servant to your customer
or you’re squeezing the towel and appeasing investors, shareholders, or Wall
Street analysts. Capitalism's unfortunate consequence is that Wall Street expects

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perpetually improved margins and earnings per share (EPS), which requires
strangling the life out of the towel, alienating once-happy customers.
Public companies have a difficult tightrope to walk: being a servant to
customers while still appeasing financial stakeholders with profitability. Some
companies walk the line the best they can—for example, Costco and Apple.
However, once new stakeholders are added, things typically change, and not for
the better.
For example, I know a friend who makes a modest living on Etsy, the popular
marketplace for arts and crafts, similar to eBay. In 2015, Etsy went public. Rut-
roh. I told my friend she should be prepared—and so should the thousands of
others who rely on Etsy to put roofs over their heads and food in their mouths.
My pessimistic caution is simply history repeating: Once a servant company
becomes public, they no longer cater to customers first; they cater to profit,
return on investment, shareholder value, and anything ensuring every last drop
of cash is extracted from the towel. Namely, expect fees to increase while value
stagnates or lessens.
But all is not lost.
Any company who serves shareholders first is vulnerable to you—the
entrepreneur who elevates his customer onto the marble pedestal. And in the
global marketplace, that means any publicly traded or heavily funded company
exhibiting stakeholder demotion is ripe to have market share stolen by a smaller,
nimble company.
This amounts to thousands of opportunities and under-served needs. If you
enter a $100 billion industry and take one one-hundredth of 1 percent (.0001),
you just built yourself a nice little $1 million company. Hopefully, you now see
how ridiculous it is for an entrepreneur to say, “There are no good ideas.” Any
such person, I’d argue, is no entrepreneur.