Gennaro Cuofano's Blog, page 272

Solopreneurship 101: Finding Your Muse a La Tim Ferris

In the previous post on Solopreneurship, we saw how the entrepreneurial panorama is evolving and what we can expect from the future.

In the last century, the “Conglomerate Myth” grew exponentially. If you asked any entrepreneur how a business looked like, the answer would have been something along those lines:

“You raise a million dollar of capital. Employee a hundred people. Have your company grow until your reach thousands of employees and billions of revenues, only to see a slim profit margin!”

Yet this was the old world. Entrepreneurs and Solopreneurs have increasingly focused on solving problems, rather than growing. On the other hand, while solving someone else’s problem, you also want to make sure to have fun along the way and build the lifestyle of your dreams.

Tim Ferris is the emblem of this paradigm shift. The author of the revolutionary book “The 4-Hour Workweek,” entrepreneur and consultant in the early stage of companies like Twitter, Uber, and Evernote; Like him or not, Tim Ferris is a game-changer. From drunk dialing to psychedelic research he made the world his playground. In fact, he likes to define himself “a Human Guinea Pig!“

If I had to translate Ferris’ vision about entrepreneurship it would be something along those lines:

“Start small. Find your muse. Experiment and if it works make it yours!“

What Is a Muse?

Tell me, Muse, of that man of many resources, who wandered far and wide, after sacking the holy citadel of Troy

That is how Homer, started his masterpiece, the Odyssey. Other poets, from Vergil to Dante Alighieri used the same invocation. In fact, the Muses were Greek goddesses that inspired the work of poets, literates, and scientists.

Finding a Muse is nothing mystical, metaphysical or mysterious but rather a way to connect to your creative self. From the entrepreneurial standpoint, a muse is something more specific. As Tim Ferris puts it a muse is:

A low-maintenance business that generates significant income. Such a muse is leveraged to finance your ideal lifestyle

In other words, the muse is not only a way to find a venture that fits yourself but also a business that is intended to finance your ideal lifestyle. Let’s see how to create your muse in few steps.

Step One: Set Your Ideal Lifestyle

According to Tim Ferris, the first step toward finding a Muse is setting up in detail the TMI or target monthly income. In fact, the biggest problem for those who are employed but aspire to become solopreneurs is a change in mindset in the way they think about revenues and expenses. We are often used to think regarding annual salary and expenditures. But our estimates are often so inaccurate that we always miss our targets.

Therefore Tim Ferris suggests thinking in detail about your monthly cash-flows. In short, all the expenses that you are going to incur. Imagine, for instance, that you always dreamed of traveling the world. What does that mean? How many countries are you going to travel while setting-up your Muse? For how long will you stay in each country? How much would you pay off rent, travel and living expenses?

It might sound complicated at first, but once you set this up, your goals will be much clearer. In fact, Tim Ferris makes your life easier by making a great tool available: The Monthy Expense Calculator. In short, this tool tells you line by line what expenses to take into account. After you have to divide by 30 (to get the daily budget) and add a 30% buffer (you must be ready for any emergency).

The objective is to come up with a daily budget. Why? Because once you zoom in into the detail of your project, you realize that it is possible. For instance, I computed the monthly expenses that would finance my ideal lifestyle, and they turned out to be $3,350. Once we add the monthly buffer (an additional 30%) my TMI becomes $4,355. It seems a lof of money, doesn’t it? If we zoom in and divide this amount by 30 (to get the daily budget), it becomes $145. That’s it!

In other words, I know that my muse must be a low-maintenance business that generates about $150 on a daily basis. Although, I am simplifying things up because we are going to focus more on some practical examples of muses you can consult the whole step by step process of setting up your ideal lifestyle here.

Great, so how do you find a Muse?

Step Two: Few Basic Principles to Follow

Even though Homer needed the Greek goddess to find his muses, you don’t need any deity but only to follow few core principles.

Frist, make it automatic. Remember that the Muse must be a business that generates cash flow but also the lifestyle of your dreams. Therefore, you want to ensure the business will (at least in the long run) go automatically. In fact, EarPeace’s creator Jay Clark when asked by Ferris what idea he considered before starting his muse. He replied to be about to start a yoga studio but realized that was not going to make him happy in the long run. Why? The yoga studio was a “business trap,” with no way out. In other words, you will be better off in picking up a business that will run on its own and leave you untied.
Second, find a niche. For instance, in another case study showed on Ferris’ blog Dan Bradley explains how he started “Hewley L-Carnitine Shampoo” which generates #2,500-$5,000 per month. When about to consider the idea to sell fish oil, he gave it up because there was too much competition. Instead, he focused on a product where there was less competition but more potential customers. In short, he narrowed his market until he found the right niche. It may sound counterintuitive, but it is not. Why? When you pick a huge market, you also end up swimming in a red ocean, plenty of sharks ready to fight for a little piece of meat (profit). Instead, by niching down, you can find a part of the ocean that the shark cannot  reach. Thus, although smaller, you will have an amazingly higher conversion.
Third, keep it simple. Bob Maydonik of “Square 36,” a muse that generates $10,000 to $25,000 per month, by selling oversized yoga mat, explains how he left the idea of making a free-standing pull-up bar because the manufacturing process was too complicated. Keep in mind that a Muse has to run smoothly on its own.
Fourth, minimize your financial risks. Chris Guillibeau, explains how on 1,500 responders to his survey, a staggering 36% started a business with $100 or less! Why is it crucial to minimize your financial risk? Simple, if your Muse won’t work you will have to let it sink. By reducing your financial risk, not only you are making your life easier if things won’t work out. But also feel less pain for your failure. Also, you will shorten the amount of time to recoup financially and mentally, and try out a new muse. Keep in mind that it may not work out the first time.   

In conclusion, if you have a Muse, which is simple, automatic and has the little start up costs, you are almost ready to go.   

Step Three: Praemeditatio Malorum 

If you never picked up a philosophy book, I can understand that. Most of them seem only a bunch of useless fluffing that brings you nowhere near to your life’s goal. There is one exception to that, and it is the stoic philosophy. In fact, stoics where the only philosophers that used clear, understandable and practical anecdotes, useful in life. Here Tim Ferris gives a crash course in stoicism.

In the last decades, “positive thinking psychology” became hugely successful. Everyone started to believe that to be successful one must always be an optimist. But there is a huge drawback to that. Life is unpredictable and dangerous things happen quite often. When those bad things happen, your paper’s castle may be swept over very quickly. Instead, we want to build a solid psychological foundation. How?

Through the stoic “Praemeditatio Malorum” (or negative visualization).

In short, instead of closing your eyes and visualizing yourself as successful, you will take a counterintuitive approach. You will imagine what if your Muse will not work. What consequences would this have on your personal life? How would that look and feel like?

Imagine as many details as you can. Why will this approach empower you?

For few simple psychological reasons. First, it will lower your expectations. Our mind is way faster than our body. The mind is not bound to time and space. It can travel farther away. By practicing negative visualization, will be like attaching a leash to your mind. It will keep you focused. Second, it will empower you. Why? Often we do not take action because we fear the abstract consequences of an event. But when those results become concrete we do not fear them as we thought we would have. In short, what stops us is not the concrete, the known. But rather, the abstract, the unknown.

Once you take this last step, you will be ready to go!

If you don’t feel comfortable yet, below a bunch of case studies on Tim Ferris’s Blog:

The Four-Hour-Work-Week Muse Examples

 

From Influence to Pre-Suasion: A Scientific Breakthrough of How Subtle Clues Powerfully Influence Our Behavior

The article is inspired by the writings of Robert Cialdini. For those who don’t know him, Cialdini is a psychologist that a few decades ago put together the most brilliant book (Influence) about how persuasion works. In fact, he laid down a framework based on few basic principles that go along these lines:

if you sell a pencil or a Ferrari, those six principles will apply: reciprocation, social proof, commitment&consistency, liking, authority, and scarcity.

At that time Cialdini’s book was revolutionary. In fact, the working of persuasion was popular only among successful sales professionals. For the first time, Cialdini popularized “the science of persuasion.” A step-by-step process that if mastered can lead to a high rate of compliance.

How Is It Possible That Six Basic Principles Can Get Applied to Any Practical Situation?

If you genuinely think about that, it is not so different from the way our society works. Each of us is not aware of all the laws, regulations, courts’ precedents existing in the legal system. Yet we are pretty successful in not getting in trouble with legal enforcement. Why? Because we have internalized few core principles that tell us how to behave within our society.

In short, if we take U.S., for example, I would guess that very few people know the Constitution’s Articles and Amendments by heart, yet day by day most of US citizens live a peaceful life.

The same applies to influence. The people that internalized the six levers of influence became the most successful in the business world. But this is not the end of the story.

In the last decades, the scientific understanding of our brain has grown exponentially. Nowadays through technologies such as the fMRA (Functional magnetic resonance imaging) we can track the physiological changes of the brain as we see, hear, touch, and feel. Also, we can understand the brain processes that lead us to seeing, hearing, touching and feeling!

In this scenario, we also understood that there is even more about persuasion that we missed all along. There is a subtle, almost invisible and counterintuitive aspect of it that is almost shocking.

On this premises, Cialdini’s second book, “Pre-Suasion” shows us some mind-boggling facts.

From Influence to Pre-Suasion

If I had to describe Cialdini’s book in few words, it would go something along these lines,

It doesn’t matter what weapons of persuasion you are using. If you don’t prepare the soil, they will be far from successful.

In short, if “Influence” answers to the “how” “Pre-Suasion” answers to the “when.” Paradoxically, Influence was written a few decades before. But when it comes to the procedural aspects Pre-suasive techniques and principles come before anything else.

The key point is about understanding, channeling and using the attention of the target’s person or audience to dramatically improve the compliance of that person or audience to the desired outcome. How is this possible?

The brain is not a perfect machine. Or at least it is a perfect machine for the environment in which it has been shaped. But our modern society evolved at such fast pace, that made most of our biological adaptations incredibly obsolete.

And although it is hard to admit we are animals and as such, we are still extremely influenced by a bunch of “invisible” clues in our environment. In other words, even though we are so good at explaining why we made certain choices or decisions; on the other hand, we have been influenced by factors that didn’t even appeared in our consciousness.

What? Really?

The Power of Openers

Let me give you a practical example. Cialdini in “Pre-suasion” mentions an experiment performed in France, where an attractive young woman asked middle-aged men to put themselves in a risky situation for her. For instance, she could ask things like getting back her phone stolen by a group of young fellows not far away.

So far, you may have understood where this is going. But stick with me for few lines, and you will understand how far from understanding you were.

Nothing new here, an attractive young woman ask a middle-aged man to put himself in a risky situation for her and as it turned out only 20% of those people complied. Yet there were few other samples for which compliance skyrocketed and doubled. Can you guess what the main persuader was?

Was it because she said something different to him? Maybe she proposed? Nothing like that. As it turned out by having another young woman asking the middle-age about “Valentine Street” just before the second girl, made them way more compliant.

In short, the word “Valentine” seemed to have evoked in the man a “romance or sexual feeling,” which went unseen but highly influenced his action afterward (Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini, Chap. 4,  page 68)!

It means that if you want your strategy to be successful, you need “an opener.” Not only that but also the fact that what gets drawn in our “attention’s field” becomes causal even if it is not (like in the case of a young woman asking about Valentine Street).

This and many other examples are given by Cialdini, which is a master storyteller.

What Does This Case Tell Us?

Frist, to be extremely careful in how your attention gets channeled. Especially if someone is trying to manipulate you. Even though it is impossible to control our environment, awareness is the first step.  Second, if you decide to use Cialdini’s techniques, you are better off if you do it ethically.

Image Credit: http://www.stockunlimited.com

Spectacular Crowdfunding Fails And Their Impact On Entrepreneurship

Guest post BY NERMIN HAJDARBEGOVIC – TECHNICAL EDITOR @ TOPTAL

Before I proceed, let me make it absolutely clear that I have nothing against crowdfunding. I believe the basic principle behind crowdfunding is sound, and, in a perfect world, it would boost innovation and provide talented, creative people with an opportunity to turn their dreams into reality.

Unfortunately, we live in the real world, and therefore it’s time for a reality check:

Reality /rɪˈalɪti/

noun

The state of things as they actually exist.
The place where bad crowdfunded ideas come to die.

While most entrepreneurs may feel this mess does not concern them because they don’t dabble in crowdfunding, it could have a negative impact on countless people who are not directly exposed to it:

We are allowing snake oil peddlers to wreck the reputation of crowdfunding and the startup scene.
Reputational risks extend to parties with no direct involvement in crowdfunding.
By failing to clean up the crowdfunding scene, we are indirectly depriving legitimate ideas of access to funding and support.
When crowdfunded projects crash and burn, the crowd can quickly turn into a mob.

Meet the four horsemen of the Crowdfunding Apocalypse

This is my argument: Entrepreneurs, developers, and enthusiasts have to be committed to weeding out bad apples in crowdfunding, for the greater good of our industry.

But Wait, Crowdfunding Gave Us Great Tech Products!

Indeed, but I am not here to talk about the good stuff, and here is why: For every Oculus Rift, there are literally hundreds of utterly asinine ideas vying for crowd-cash.

Unfortunately, people tend to focus on positive examples and overlook everything else. The sad truth is that Oculus Rift is a bad example of crowdfunding, because it’s essentially an exception to the rule. The majority of crowdfunding drives don’t succeed.

How did a sound, altruistic concept of democratizing entrepreneurship become synonymous with failure? I could list a few factors:

Unprofessional media coverage
Social network hype
Lack of responsibility and accountability
Lack of regulation and oversight

The press should be doing a better job. Major news organizations consistently fail to recognize impossible ideas, indicating they are incapable of professional, critical news coverage. Many are megaphones for anyone who walks through the door with clickbait.

The press problem is made exponentially worse by social networks, which allow ideas to spread like wildfire. People think outlandish ideas are legitimate because they are covered by huge news outlets, so they share them, assuming the media fact-checked everything.

Once it becomes obvious that a certain crowdfunding initiative is not going to succeed, crowdfunding platforms are supposed to pull the plug. Sadly, they are often slow to react.

Crowdfunding platforms should properly screen campaigns. The industry needs a more effective regulatory framework and oversight.

Realistic Expectations: Are You As Good As Oculus Rift?

Are you familiar with the “Why aren’t we funding this?” meme? Sometimes the meme depicts awesome ideas, sometimes it shows ideas that are “out there” but entertaining nonetheless. The meme could be applied to many crowdfunding campaigns with a twist:

”Why are we funding this?”

This is what I love about crowdfunding. Say you enjoyed some classic games on your NES or Commodore in the eighties. Fast forward three decades and some of these games have a cult following, but the market is too small to get publishers interested. Why not use crowdfunding to connect fans around the globe and launch a campaign to port classic games to new platforms?

You can probably see where I’m going with this: Crowdfunding is a great way of tapping a broad community in all corners of the world, allowing niche products and services to get funded. It’s all about expanding niche markets, increasing the viability of projects with limited mainstream appeal.

When you see a crowdfunding campaign promising to disrupt a mainstream market, that should be a red flag.

Why? Because you don’t need crowdfunding if you have a truly awesome idea and business plan with a lot of mainstream market appeal. You simply need to reach out to a few potential investors and watch the money roll in.

I decided against using failed software-related projects to illustrate my point:

Most people are not familiar with the inner workings of software development, and can’t be blamed for not understanding the process.
My examples should illustrate hype, and they’re entertaining.

That’s why I’m focusing on two ridiculous campaigns: the Triton artificial gill and the Fontus self-filling water bottle.

Triton Artificial Gill: How Not To Do Crowdfunding

The Triton artificial gill is essentially a fantasy straight out of Bond movies. It’s supposed to allow humans to “breathe” underwater by harvesting oxygen from water. It supposedly accomplishes this using insanely efficient filters with “fine threads and holes, smaller than water molecules” and is powered by a “micro battery” that’s 30 times more powerful than standard batteries, and charges 1,000 times faster.

Sci-Tech Red Flag: Hang on. If you have such battery technology, what the hell do you need crowdfunding for?! Samsung, Apple, Sony, Tesla, Toyota and just about everyone else would be lining up to buy it, turning you into a multibillionaire overnight.

Let’s sum up the claims:

The necessary battery technology does not exist.
The described “filter” is physically impossible to construct.
The device would need to “filter” huge amounts of water to extract enough oxygen.

Given all the outlandish claims, you’d expect this sort of idea to be exposed for what it is within days. Unfortunately, it was treated as a legitimate project by many media organizations. It spread to social media and eventually raised nearly $900,000 on Indiegogo in a matter of weeks.

Luckily, they had to refund their backers.

Fontus Self-Filling Water Bottle: Fail In The Making

This idea doesn’t sound as bogus as the Triton, because it’s technically possible. Unfortunately, this is a very inefficient way of generating water. A lot of energy is needed to create the necessary temperature differential and cycle enough air to fill up a bottle of water. If you have a dehumidifier or AC unit in your home, you know something about this. Given the amount of energy needed to extract a sufficient amount of water from air, and the size of the Fontus, it might produce enough water to keep a hamster alive, but not a human.

While this idea isn’t as obviously impossible as the Triton, I find it even worse, because it’s still alive and the Indiegogo campaign has already raised about $350,000. What I find even more disturbing is the fact that the campaign was covered by big and reputable news organizations, including Time, Huff Post, The Verge, Mashable, Engadget and so on. You know, the people who should be informing us.

Just because something is technically possible, that doesn’t mean it’s practical and marketable!

I have a strange feeling the people of California, Mexico, Israel, Saudi Arabia and every other hot, arid corner of the globe are not idiots, which is why they don’t get their water out of thin air. They employ other technologies to solve the problem.

Mainstream Appeal Red Flag: If someone actually developed a technology that could extract water from air with such incredible efficiency, why on Earth would they need crowdfunding? I can’t even think of a commodity with more mainstream appeal than water. Governments around the globe would be keen to invest tens of billions in their solution, bringing abundant distilled water to billions of people with limited access to safe drinking water.

Successful Failures: Cautionary Tales For Tech Entrepreneurs

NASA referred to the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission as a “successful failure” because it never executed a lunar landing, but managed to overcome near-catastrophic technical challenges and return the crew to Earth.

The same could be said of some tech crowdfunding campaigns, like the Ouya Android gaming console, Ubuntu Edge smartphone, and the Kreyos Meteor smartwatch. These campaigns illustrate the difficulty of executing a software/hardware product launch in the real world.

All three were quite attractive, albeit for different reasons:

Ouya was envisioned as an inexpensive Android gaming device and media center for people who don’t need a gaming PC or flagship gaming console.
Ubuntu Edge was supposed to be a smartphone-desktop hybrid device for Linux lovers.
The Kreyos Meteor promised to bring advanced gesture and voice controls to smartwatches.

What went wrong with these projects?

Ouya designers used the latest available hardware, which sounded nice when they unveiled the concept, but was outdated by the time it was ready. Soft demand contributed to a lack of developer interest.
The Ubuntu Edge was a weird, but good, idea. It managed to raise more than $12 million in a matter of weeks, but the goal was a staggering $32 million. Although quite a few Ubuntu gurus were interested, the campaign proved too ambitious. Like the Ouya, the device came at the wrong time: Smartphone evolution slowed down, competition heated up, prices tumbled.
The Kreyos Meteor had an overly optimistic timetable, promising to deliver products just months after the funding closed. It was obviously rushed, and the final version suffered from severe software and hardware glitches. On top of that, demand for smartwatches in general proved to be weak.

These examples should illustrate that even promising ideas run into insurmountable difficulties. They got plenty of attention and money, they were sound concepts, but they didn’t pan out. They were not scams, but they failed.

Even industry leaders make missteps, so we cannot hold crowdfunded startups to a higher standard. Here’s the difference: If a new Microsoft technology turns out to be a dud, or if Samsung rolls out a subpar phone, these failures won’t take the company down with them. Big businesses can afford to take a hit and keep going.

Failure in the tech industry is not uncommon.

But, failure is a luxury most startups cannot afford. If they don’t get it right the first time around, it’s game over.

Why Crowdfunding Fails: Fraud, Incompetence, Wishful Thinking?

There is no single reason that would explain all crowdfunding failures, and I hope my examples demonstrate this.

Some failures are obvious scams, and they confirm we need more regulation. Others are bad ideas backed by good marketing, while some are genuinely good ideas that may or may not succeed, just like any other product. Even sound ideas executed by good people can fail.

Does this mean we should forget about crowdfunding? No, but first we have to accept the fact that crowdfunding isn’t for everyone, that it’s not a good choice for every project, and that something is very wrong with crowdfunding today:

The idea behind crowdfunding was to help people raise money for small projects.
Crowdfunding platforms weren’t supposed to help entrepreneurs raise millions of dollars.
Most Kickstarter campaigns never get fully funded, and successful ones usually don’t raise much money. One fifth of submitted campaigns are rejected by Kickstarter, while one in ten fully-funded campaigns never deliver on their promises.
Even if all goes well, crowdfunded products still have to survive the ultimate test: The Market.

Unfortunately, some crowdfunding platforms don’t appear eager to scrutinize dodgy campaigns before they raise heaps of money. This is another problem with crowdfunding today: Everyone wants a sweet slice of the crowdfunded pie, but nobody wants a single crumb of responsibility.

That’s why I’m no optimist; I think we will keep seeing spectacular crowdfunding failures in the future.

Why Nobody Cares About Your Great Idea

A wannabe entrepreneur starts chatting to a real entrepreneur:

“I have an awesome idea for an app that will disrupt…”

“Wait. Do you have competent designers, developers, funding?”

“Well, not yet, but…”

“So what you meant to say is that you have nothing?”

This admittedly corny joke illustrates another problem: On their own, ideas are worthless. However, ideas backed up by hard work, research, and a team of competent people are what keeps the industry going.

Investors don’t care about your awesome idea and never will. Once you start executing your idea and get as far as you can on your own, people may take notice. Investors want to see dedication and confidence. They want to see prototypes, specs, business plans, research; not overproduced videos and promises. If an individual is unwilling or incapable of making the first steps on their own, if they can’t prove they believe in their vision and have the know-how to turn it into reality, then no amount of funding is going to help.

Serious investors don’t just want to see what people hope to do; they want to see what they did before they approached them.

Why not grant the same courtesy to crowdfunding backers?

This article originally appeared on Toptal.

How to think like a Flawless Investor

You may have heard many times people such as Warren Buffet saying things like “Investing is not rocket science.“

Even though investing is not rocket science many still find it hard. But what is about investing that makes it so difficult? 

The most striking aspect relies on the psychological framework used by “flawless investors,” which is different from the average investor.

In fact, in the last decades, Investing has become increasingly concerned about our innate ability to make decisions and less interested to the technical baggage needed.

Both those aspects are crucial and need to walk hand in hand if we want our investing strategies to be successful. In the long run.

This book is not about how to get rich in a week or month. This book will show you the path toward self-discovery. 

If you thought of yourself as a perfect individual “The Flawless Investor” will show you why we are such bad decision-makers and what you can do about it.

Indeed, not only your brain is affected by a set of biases that screws you up, but in most cases, those biases are unknown to you.

We have many cases in the financial history of incredibly smart and talented people eventually blowing up due to their inability to understand their biases.

Behavioral finance and the new discoveries in cognitive psychology need to be integrated by “the flawless investor.”

Consequently, you will have a robust framework for investing. Also, included in the book there is a free coupon available (for those who want to learn more about finance), for the course “Flawless Analyst” (worth $99!)

What are you going to learn?

– How to read, interpret and build financial statements

– How to use ratio analysis

– How to gather financial data

– How to perform a financial report

– How to use Excel like a finance professional

Indeed, the online course will give you the technical framework, through the book you will gain the psychological understanding.

Technical and psychological knowledge walk hand in hand. If you miss one, you are screwed. In fact, the success equation in the financial world states:

Technic x Psychology = Success

Why the “x” sign?

If you have one but lack the other, your success would still be zero. In other words, if you are technically strong but lack the mental framework, you will fail.

Also if you have a mental framework but lack technical training, then again you will fail. Success in the financial world is the result of those two frameworks that sustain each other.

Grab your copy below:

The Flawless Investor

Digital Nomads Can Manage Teams, And Manage To See The World

BY NICK MCCREA – TECHNICAL EDITOR @ TOPTAL

You always read about those individuals who travel the world, freelancing their tanned asses away, enviously concluding that it is easy for them; they must be alone and well off, while you have a spouse and a dog, or a kid or two, along with a whole team of people working with you. You can’t imagine how it would even work if you didn’t come to the office every day and have your daily stand-ups with the team, and then have lunches together and gossip about the latest developments in the endless iOS vs Android battle, debated in comments beneath a Techcrunch article.

OK, if you have a kid and a dog (or maybe a cat), I agree you might have a few more obstacles to overcome, and in the end, digital nomadism might not suit everybody, although, anything is impossible when you really want something, right? Besides, you might not like moving that much and going through the ordeal of adapting to a new culture and new sets of rules. Or, on the other hand, you might get so distracted by all these new, exciting things and forget that you actually need to work your 8 hours a day, and not just roam the streets, exploring.

Anyone who has ever worked from home knows that you get shedloads of work done without constant interruptions. However, many bosses still view remote work differently. Even if you really are at the beach, chances are you are super focused and productive, inspired by the waves and the sun. If conditions around you are relaxed and calming, isn’t that the best situation for doing a super neat job? Not to forget that you might even feel a bit guilty that you are having it too good in your life, so you put more effort into your work, to compensate for not being with your team.

If you are not there yet (at a beach, that is), this article is for you. It explains how you can also achieve the luxury of working while traveling the world in four easy steps, as a freelancer or as a part of a team, maintaining the same level of communication and productivity.

A Change Of Pace Often Helps

Some people like the known and predictable. They freak out when their daily routine gets disrupted. But, I’ll bet if you are doing any kind of creative work like programming or design, you are not one of those people. You like humanity’s evolutionary advantage of being able to adapt to new circumstances and actually get a kick out of it.

Remove yourself from toxic environments and into working remotely. Your sanity will thank you, even though clients will be demanding.

Ordinary day-to-day office work will kill you. It will eventually strip your motivation, creativity or flare for what you do. I’ve been there. It’s not that you don’t like your job, your colleagues or your office, it’s just that you don’t like it every day. You are a creative being and you strive to gather new experiences, learn new things, get inspired by new situations, new people, and new cultures. Two weeks of vacation a year just doesn’t do it. The good news is that you don’t need to be on vacation to travel or to change your daily routine.

Think no-one wants a remote worker? Ask any of the many freelancing sites what they think about that!

I know, I know. Your current job is your safe place. You don’t have to worry about anything. You don’t have to put yourself out there and find work yourself. Your bosses are doing that for you. They are taking care of operational stuff and making sure that you get your paycheck. The step of quitting and finding clients yourself seems as terrifying as Mount Fuji spewing lava all over you. Besides, you know your mother would throw a fit if you came to her with such nonsense ideas. If you like to play it safe, then you should definitely take a gradual approach. Try it out by doing some side jobs via one of the freelancing sites and see where it takes you. See if you are able to fight your own battles, bake your own bread, sleep with the wolves, and so on. If you manage to gather a team, even better. There is strength in numbers, and you will be able to find and complete jobs quicker.

Technology Makes Remote Work Efficient And Affordable

Technology, nowadays, provides everything you need as long as you have a good internet connection. There are no excuses left.

There is Skype, and Slack, and Viber, and Hangouts, and a myriad of other tools designed to make your life easier. There are tons of collaborative tools, project management tools, and virtual conference tools. You just need to pick the ones that best suit you and your team and voila! You are ready to go anywhere in the world there is a reasonably stable internet connection.

It is true that many things get solved and clarified faster when you are sharing an office with your team, but even if you are 2,000 miles away, you are just a video call away. I do believe that it is important to be able to look at a person, not just hear their voice, especially when important discussions are in order. For more routine meetings or short questions, you can still use chat. You will be even more efficient because if you are in the same office, you would ask that question, thus interrupting everyone. But remotely, you ping your colleagues on Slack and they can quickly reply.

Here is a useful link with a list of top tools for remote workers.

No, you don’t have to win the lottery to travel.

You usually read about couples (even with kids!) who sold all their belongings and hit the road. They sold their house, their car, their furniture, even little Suzie’s teddy bear! I never cared much for such radical moves, which seems to be more common for people from in North America. We Europeans seem to be more in touch with our roots and rarely decide to leave everything behind; perhaps most Europeans who were in the mood to leave everything already emigrated to the Americas.

This doesn’t change much in the scheme of things. You might like the place you live, but still want to see the world. There may come a time when you’ll want to settle, so you might not want to sell your condo or your grandma’s house by the sea. Good. You shouldn’t! You can rent your apartment while you travel. If you fall in love with another place and decide to settle there, you can take care of your affairs later. Basically, if you have real estate, it can be a huge bonus in becoming a citizen of the world.

Recently I tried house swapping and that was the best discovery. I live in Zagreb, Croatia, but thanks to house swapping sites, I spent a month in Bali. We had a house to ourselves, all for free, pool included. These were some crazy times, I tell you. So, if you own real estate, try that and maybe save a small fortune. Also, traveling to countries with lower relative incomes is a good idea. There is a reason why Asian countries are the top choice for many digital nomads.

Good Management And Work Ethic Will Get You Anywhere

Having written all this, you probably noticed that I couldn’t decide whether to focus on freelancers or on remote teams. I believe all I’ve said applies to both, plus it applies whether you would be traveling alone or with your significant other.

You may also have noticed I didn’t make any difference between pure remote working, and remote working as a digital nomad. The only difference (admittedly, not a small one) is your location and how often you change it. Speaking of that, maybe we should redefine what a home is? Is home where your laptop and charger are? Add to it a WiFi connection you named, and you can definitely feel at home. Is home not a place, but a feeling? I’d agree with that.

I am not a freelancer. Sure, I get clients from Toptal sometimes, but I am actually the CEO of Mašinerija, a small shop developing mobile and web applications. Still, running a company did not prepare me to be location dependent. Managing my team and projects isn’t much different when sitting with my team in the same office or halfway around the world. I still get a business analysis of requirements the same way. I still discuss obstacles with my team the same way. I still plan tasks and delegate the same way. A project can easily fall apart having your teammates sitting across the room if you don’t communicate with each other often and thoroughly, and if you don’t organize your work well.

Productivity has nothing to do with miles, locations, or time zones.

You can be a full-time digital nomad, hopping around the world for several years, working remotely for your clients, or you can stay put and have clients many miles away and do your work for them remotely. You can be a sporadic digital nomad, as I am, meaning that sometimes I work closely with my team in our Zagreb office, or I manage my team remotely. Our clients reside in UK and US, so, for our clients, it doesn’t really make a difference whether I travel around or stay put. There is a time zone issue, but that can be managed with good organization.

There are a few things you will do differently as a digital nomad than as a home/office-stay remote worker. When traveling, you need to be practical, you need to think about SIM cards, internet connections, power outlet compatibility and reachability, so there is some planning involved, but hey, not that much different than planning a vacation! There is plenty of good advice from traveling digital nomads. I’ll help you with the first link, and you should try googling for more.

So, there-there are no excuses left for keeping your butt in your comfy office chair, longingly looking at your friends’ photos from faraway places. The only thing you really need for this endeavor is good health. Even partners come and go (well, it’s the truth!), but good health takes you places. And when in bad health… who wouldn’t like to be in a familiar place with loved ones taking the pain away? On the road, it might not be easily accessible. But not to invoke bad things, let me get back on track. Let me remind you why you shouldn’t put this decision off anymore! We – developers, designers, marketers, managers, basically anyone who can get their work done on a laptop – live in a digital era in which the world really is our oyster. Since my team is working remotely with clients anyway, I realized that my physical location doesn’t mean anything, not with today’s tools and means of communication.

The only regret I have now is that nobody told me sooner about remote working. If you follow the above-listed rationales, I’m sure it won’t be long before I meet you somewhere along the way. For me, the next stop is London.

Potential Remote Work Issues for Digital Nomads

While I am an advocate of remote teamwork and digital nomadism, I have to conclude on a cautionary note: It’s not for everyone.

A lot of people find travel stressful enough, without the added burden of having to work 8 or 10 hours a day. Many others may find their productiveness goes down when the are in perpetual tourist mode, so to speak.

A nomadic lifestyle can also have a negative effect on personal relationships. While an extrovert full-time nomad will get to meet a lot of interesting people, there is no substitute for having a social safety net comprised of friends, family, and colleagues.

This, of course, is entirely subjective. Some people are bound to enjoy the new, nomadic lifestyle, made possible by technology. Others may not cope with it nearly as well, or may not be interested in spending year after year traveling the world because they miss the comforts of home.

This article was originally posted on Toptal

The Art of Storytelling: How to Think Like Yuval Noah Harari

Humans have dominated the world thanks to their cognitive abilities. Humans have bigger brains that allowed them to overcome adversity and thrive. Humans conquered the world thanks to their individual intellectual superiority.

Would you agree with these statements? I bet you would. Yet this is not the thesis of History’s Professor, Yuval Noah Harari, also the author of “Homo Sapiens,” and “Homo Deus.” In fact, as he explains in his Ted Talk, individually, humans are not that smarter or stronger or better than other animals, or mammals in particular. Yet humanity took over the world.

How is it possible then that humans dominated the world? The answer, according to Harari is ‘cooperation.’ Yet other animals cooperate as well! What makes us special? Are we more peaceful, compassionate or smarter than other mammals? Not really. For instance, among our closest cousins, the bonobos, are way more peaceful and almost as much smart as we are. Then, again, what is special about us?

The Rise of the Story-Listeners  

According to Harari, we are the only species on earth, which believes in stories, myths, and narratives. In short, if you ask a monkey to loan you a banana in exchange for a banana and a half in a year time; the monkey will not only eat it but also throw you a stone. Why? Because the monkey does not believe in the “interests’ myth.”

This ability to believe in stories, allowed us to form huge and complex societies. In fact, our brains allow us to cooperate at the small-scale level. This is because there is only a certain threshold of information that our brains can handle before plateauing. According to Harari, if we did not have the ability to believe in stories, it would’ve been impossible to form groups of more than 150 individuals.

Therefore, this ability carried us forward. Yet, if we ask ourselves “are we happier, healthier, and more intelligent than we were when living in the Savannah?” Although there is no definitive proof, according to Harari, the answer may be a “big no-no.“

Why? Often we are so compelled to believe in stories. Yet those narratives, bend our reality and make the world take a strange turn. In other words, when those stories became mere propaganda this can lead to big troubles. Therefore, each time we come up with a new “myth” we should also place a label on it, which says “handle with care,” to avoid troubles.

What does this have to do with the business world?

How Storytelling Moved from the Historical Stage to the Business Arena

So far we can say that among the greatest inventions of humankind there is not the wheel, the steam machine, or the space shuttle. Rather, the corporation, the state, and the church.

From Emperor Augustus to Steve Jobs; from Alexander the Great to Elon Musk; storytelling and the ability to “fabricate” new myths had played a massive role. For instance, Emperor Augustus understood that to keep the Roman Empire compact, he had to create the “Roman myth.” How could he otherwise glue together the consciences of millions of individuals? He did so through a story, which became known as “The Aeneid,” written by the greatest storyteller of that time, Virgil!

Successful businessmen understood this concept and made it work in their favor. Would anyone love Apple if it didn’t believe in “Steve Jobs’ Myth?” Would anyone trust Tesla or SpaceX if it didn’t believe in “Elon Mask’s Myth?“

You may say, “well, these are persons, not myths.” Yet this is only in part true. Take Steve Jobs. Although he doesn’t have a physical existence anymore, he is still alive in the conscience of millions if not billions of individuals. We can say that in the “inter-subjective reality” (the stories shared by millions of heads) he is alive than ever.

Don’t get me wrong, both Apple and Tesla are great companies. Yet a great contributor to their success was the ability of those companies to carry out the so-called “founder’s myth.“

There is nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, when the fabricated stories start to bend reality, by creating a huge gap between the “real world” and the “mythological world” things may get out of hand. What would happen to Apple or Tesla if people suddenly stopped to believe in the founders’ myth?

An Ethical Code for Storytelling: The Art of Finding the Sweet Spot

We saw how important storytelling is to create a business that sticks in people’s mind. On the other hand, we want also to make sure to find the sweet spot. How? By answering three main questions:

Is your story authentic? 

Howard Schultz (Starbucks’ Founder) tells the story of his father, which broke an ankle when he was only 7 years old and the whole family lived in New York City housing projects. Since his father had no health insurance, to pay for the expenses they were left with no income.

In the moment in which Howard Schultz told this story, he fabricated the corporate responsibility myth. In fact, companies are abstract entities. How can a company be responsible? Yet, when people associate Starbucks to the responsibility they think to Schultz’ story and that is how the Starbucks brand grows into the imagination of millions of people around the world. The story works though because it is authentic!

Would people be enthusiastic about sharing your story?

When Blake Mycoskie tells the story of how he founded TOMS SHOES people wants to be part of it. Therefore, when you buy Tom’s shoes you are not only buying cool shoes but rather the story behind it. As Mycoskie recalls in his book “Start Something that Matters” people are so excited to share Tom’s story, that there is no need of marketing the product; it sells itself. Once again, Mycoskie “fabricated” such an exciting story that people are compelled to share. And once again the story is authentic.

Is the story in line with your business? 

When Elon Musk’s story of how he founded his companies  spreads like a virus, his companies automatically acquire an aura of heroic entities, operating for the “greater good.” Therefore, even though Musk’s companies get $4.9 billion in government support none raises an eyebrow. Why? Because once again the story is authentic, compelling, and in line with Musk’s business ventures.

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How to Think Like Yuval Noah Harari

Humans have dominated the world thanks to their cognitive abilities. Humans have bigger brains that allowed them to overcome adversity and thrive. Humans conquered the world thanks to their individual intellectual superiority.

Would you agree with these statements? I bet you would. Yet this is not the thesis of History’s Professor, Yuval Noah Harari, also author of “Homo Sapiens,” and “Homo Deus.” In, fact as he explains in his Ted Talk, individually, humans are not that smarter or stronger or better than other animals, or mammals in particular. Yet humanity took over the world.

How is it possible then that humans dominated the world? The answer, according to Harari is ‘cooperation.’ Yet other animals cooperate as well! What makes us special? Are we more peaceful, compassionate or smarter than other mammals? Not really. For instance, among our closest cousins, the bonobos, are way more peaceful and almost as much smart as we are. Then, again, what is special about us?

The Rise of the Story-Listeners  

According to Harari, we are the only species on earth, which believes in stories, myths and narratives. In short, if you ask a monkey to loan you a banana in exchange for a banana and a half in a year time; the monkey will not only eat it but also throw you a stone. Why? Because the monkey does not believe in the “interests’ myth.”

This ability of believing in stories, allowed us to form huge and complex societies. In fact, our brains allow us to cooperate at the small-scale level. This is because there is only a certain threshold of information that our brains can handle before plateauing. According to Harari, if we did not have the ability to believe in stories, it would’ve been impossible to form groups of more than 150 individuals.

Therefore, this ability carried us forward. Yet, if we ask ourselves “are we happier, healthier, and more intelligent than we were when living in the Savannah?” Although, there is no definitive proof, according to Harari, the answer may be a “big no-no.“

Why? Often we are so compelled to believe in stories. Yet those narratives, bend our reality and make the world take a strange turn. In other words, when those stories became mere propaganda this can lead to big troubles. Therefore, each time we come up with a new “myth” we should also place a label on it, which says “handle with care,” to avoid troubles.

What does this have to do with the business world?

How Storytelling Moved from the Historical Stage to the Business Arena

So far we can say that among the greatest inventions of humankind there is not the wheel, the steam machine, or the space shuttle. Rather, the corporation, the state and the church.

From Emperor Augustus, to Steve Jobs; from Alexander the Great to Elon Musk; storytelling and the ability to “fabricate” new myths had played a massive role. For instance, Emperor Augustus understood that to keep the Roman Empire compact, he had to create the “Roman myth.” How could he otherwise glue together the consciences of millions of individuals? He did so through a story, which became known as “The Aeneid,” written by the greatest storyteller of that time, Virgil!

Successful businessmen understood this concept and made it work in their favor. Would anyone love Apple if it didn’t believe in “Steve Jobs’ Myth?” Would anyone trust Tesla or SpacEx if it didn’t believe in “Elon Mask’s Myth?“

You may say, “well, these are persons, not myths.” Yet this is only in part true. Take Steve Jobs. Although, he doesn’t have a physical existence anymore, he is still alive in the conscience of millions if not billions of individuals. We can say that in the “inter-subjective reality” (the stories shared by millions of heads) he is more alive than ever.

Don’t get me wrong, both Apple and Tesla are great companies. Yet a great contributor to their success was the ability of those companies to carry out the so-called “founder’s myth.“

There is nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, when the fabricated stories start to bend reality, by creating a huge gap between the “real world” and the “mythological world” things may get out of hand. What would happen to Apple or Tesla if people suddenly stopped to believe in the founders’ myth?

An Ethical Code for Storytelling: The Art of Finding the Sweet Spot

We saw how important storytelling is to create a business that sticks in people’s mind. On the other hand, we want also to make sure to find the sweet spot. How? By answering three main questions:

Is your story authentic? 

Howard Schultz (Starbucks’ Founder) tells the story of his father, which broke an ankle, when he was only 7 years old and the whole family lived in New York City housing projects. Since his father had no health insurance, to pay for the expenses they were left with no income.

In the moment in which Howard Schultz told this story he fabricated the corporate responsibility myth. In fact, companies are abstract entities. How can a company be responsible? Yet, when people associate Starbucks to responsibility they think to Schultz’ story and that is how the Starbucks brand grows into the imagination of millions of people around the world. The story works though because it is authentic!

Would people be enthusiastic of sharing your story?

When Blake Mycoskie tells the story of how he founded Tom’s shoes people wants to be part of it. Therefore, when you buy Tom’s shoes you are not only buying a cool shoes but rather the story behind it. As Mycoskie recalls in his book “Start Something that Matters” people are so excited to share Tom’s story, that there is no need of marketing the product; it sells itself. Once again, Mycoskie “fabricated” such an exciting story that people are compelled to share. And once again the story is authentic.

Is the story in line with your business? 

When Elon Musk’s story of how he founded his companies  spreads like a virus, his companies automatically acquire an aura of heroic entities, operating for the “greater good.” Therefore, even though Musk’s companies get $4.9 billion in government support none raises an eyebrow. Why? Because once again the story is authentic, compelling, and in line with Musk’s business ventures.

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The Black Swan Mindset: How to Think Like Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In a recent commencement speech at the American University of Beirut, Black Swan’s author, Nicholas Nassim Taleb used a clear definition of success. Rather than a set of rules to follow Taleb uses a simple heuristic:

You look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.

Taleb’s definition of success is based on the idea of “antifragility,” a term that he coined. The novelty of Taleb’s way of thinking is based on what I like to define “the black swan mindset.”

What does that mean?

According to Taleb, the world can be divided into three categories. There is the fragile, the robust and the antifragile. These three categories exist in any domain. What is the difference between the three? Let me introduce you to three characters: Mr. Fragilista, Mr. Robusto, and Mr. Stoico. 

The Three Characters 

Mr. Fragilista is a successful academics. He devoted his life in formulating economic theories. Yet he never tested them in the real world. He spends his days lost in thought. Anything he sees is an opportunity to draw conclusions and create new models of the world.

He is a strong supporter of the efficient market hypothesis and anywhere he goes he brings with him a bunch of newspapers that give him the impression of having a deep understanding of the economy, political system, and society. Mr. Fragilista is extremely rational and he blindly believes in science.

He thinks that the world works linearly and he developed a consistent model to find patterns anywhere. In fact, he dispels advice to anyone. From investors to politicians he has a say about anything.

He doesn’t care about money but only about recognition. The worst thing that could ever happen to him in life is hearing anyone saying to him, “you are wrong.” When this happens Mr. Fragilista gets pretty aggressive in public but extremely depressed in private.

Mr. Robusto is a stock investor. He is incredibly smart. Even though he only has a diploma he learned to value stocks at an early age. He is now a millionaire. His capital is all invested, as he believes that the key to eliminating risk is diversification.

Coming from a poor family Mr. Robusto became obsessed with wealth since a very young age. He enjoys sophisticated food, such as caviar, accompanied by Champaign even though he only learned to like them recently and now he cannot live without them.

To be part of the establishment Mr. Robusto built relationships with aristocrats. To feel accepted he became part of an exclusive club that although costs him several thousand per month makes him feel important. Mr. Robusto has gone through many crises in his life and this created an unshakable optimism.

There will be no event able to break him. He believes that financial markets are not efficient, yet he feels safe in investing in stocks. In fact, he likes to invest in huge companies, which according to Mr. Robusto are “too big to fail.”

Mr. Stoico is a former options trader. Since childhood, he didn’t show a particular intelligence. On the other hand, he strived to understand the real world as much as he could. He didn’t like theoretical finance or sophisticated financial models.

Yet his thirst to understanding real world problems, made him become an expert in probability theory and applied mathematics. Mr. Stoico never liked sophisticated food or people. He gets along with normal people.

He often makes friends with the cab drivers and the doormen. Mr. Stoico believes that the world is too complex to be fit in a model. Also, he thinks that often reality tricks us. For such reason, he studies the most advanced psychological advancement, related to human biases.

He knows for a fact that people often see causality where there is only randomness. Based on that he doesn’t like stocks. Therefore, he invested 90% of his money in Treasury Bonds, while he uses the remaining to speculate on rare events through options.

The Montecarlo Simulator Test

We don’t live in a deterministic world. In short, the past becomes predictable only after it unraveled. And the ones that are tricked to believe that things were supposed to happen that way they did, fall into an insidious trap called “hindsight bias.”

How can we avoid this trap? We have to live our reality like we would in a Montecarlo Simulator. What is that? It is a tool that allows us to see all the possible outcomes once a set of variables is taken into account. Take for instance this example: we have two individuals, both flipping a coin but with a different degree of probability of succeeding.

In fact, person A has a 51% chance of winning, while person B has a I chance. What does it really mean? It means that at each turn if we flip a coin, Person A will win 51 times out of 100, while Person B will win 49 times out of 100.

This is not a sure thing in the short term. For instance, we make them bet 100 times. It may happen that person B will do slightly better compared to person A. Why does it happen? This is due to the law of small numbers. In short, probability tells us how the world works in the long run.

In this scenario, we may be tricked to think that person B has a better strategy compared to person A. Yet, person B is doing well out of pure luck!

If we change the scenario and make them bet 10,000 the incredible will happen. In this case person B, would be surely broke, while person A would be doing extremely well. Why? This is due to the law of large numbers.

In short, in the real world, we tend to judge people based on their success. Yet their success may be due to pure luck. Therefore, we fall into the so-called “survivorship bias.” To avoid that, we must think like a Montecarlo Simulator and ask, “In other parallel worlds, how many chances of success would that person have?”

If in most of the worlds that person is not successful as it is in the “real world” we must deem that person as extremely lucky. If we run this simulation in our head through the day we will discovery a new incredible reality. Things don’t seem as certain and concatenated as they seemed before.

Who Will Survive?

Going back to our three characters. Who do you think will survive in a Montecarlo Simulation? Well, chances are that Mr. Stoico will be the one who thrives. Why? Because he is antifragile.

In short, if we take Mr, Stoico and place him under the Montecarlo test, he will come out intact if not successful in most of the cases. While the other two characters will easily blow-up in the long-run.

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How to Think Like Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In a recent commencement speech at the American University of Beirut, Black Swan’s author, Nicholas Nassim Taleb used a clear definition of success. Rather than a set of rules to follow Taleb uses a simple heuristic:

You look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.

Taleb’s definition of success is based on the idea of “antifragility,” a term that he coined. What does that mean?

According to Taleb the world can be divided in three categories. There is the fragile, the robust and the antifragile. These three categories exist in any domain. What is the difference between the three? Let me introduce you to three characters: Mr. Fragilista, Mr. Robusto, and Mr. Stoico. 

The Three Characters 

Mr. Fragilista is a successful academics. He devoted his life in formulating economic theories. Yet he never tested them in the real world. He spends his days lost in thought. Anything he sees is an opportunity to draw conclusions and create new models of the world.

He is a strong supporter of the efficient market hypothesis and anywhere he goes he brings with him a bunch of newspapers that give him the impression of having a deep understanding of the economy, political system and society. Mr. Fragilista is extremely rational and he blindly believes in science.

He thinks that the world works linearly and he developed a consistent model to find patterns anywhere. In fact, he dispels advices to anyone. From investors to politicians he has a say about anything.

He doesn’t care about money but only about recognition. The worst thing that could ever happen to him in life is hearing anyone saying to him, “you are wrong.” When this happens Mr. Fragilista gets pretty aggressive in public but extremely depressed in private.

Mr. Robusto is a stock investor. He is incredibly smart. Even though he only has a diploma he learned to value stocks at an early age. He is now a millionaire. His capital is all invested, as he believes that the key to eliminating risk is diversification.

Coming from a poor family Mr. Robusto became obsessed with wealth since a very young age. He enjoys sophisticated food, such as caviar, accompanied by Champaign even though he only learned to like them recently and now he cannot live without them.

To be part of the establishment Mr. Robusto built relationships with aristocrats. To feel accepted he became part of an exclusive club that although costs him several thousands per month makes him feel important. Mr. Robusto has gone through many crises in his life and this created an unshakable optimism.

There will be no event able to break him. He believes that financial markets are not efficient, yet he feels safe in investing in stocks. In fact, he likes to invest in huge companies, which according to Mr. Robusto are “too big to fail.”

Mr. Stoico is a former option trader. Since childhood he didn’t show a particular intelligence. On the other hand, he strived to understand the real world as much as he could. He didn’t like theoretical finance or sophisticated financial models.

Yet his thirst to understanding real world problems, made him become an expert of probability theory and applied mathematics. Mr. Stoico never liked sophisticated food or people. He gets along with normal people.

He often makes friends with the cab drivers and the doormen. Mr. Stoico believes that the world is too complex to be fit in a model. Also he thinks that often reality tricks us. For such reason he studies the most advanced psychological advancement, related to human biases.

He knows for a fact that people often see causality where there is only randomness. Based on that he doesn’t like stocks. Therefore, he invested 90% of his money in Treasury Bonds, while he uses the remaining to speculate on rare events through options.

The Montecarlo Simulator Test

We don’t live in a deterministic world. In short, the past becomes predictable only after it unraveled. And the ones that are tricked to believe that things were supposed to happen that way they did, fall into an insidious trap called “hindsight bias.”

How can we avoid this trap? We have to live our reality like we would in a Montecarlo Simulator. What is that? It is a tool that allows us to see all the possible outcomes once a set of variables is taken into account. Take for instance this example: we have two individuals, both flipping a coin but with a different degree of probability of succeeding.

In fact, person A has a 51% chance of winning, while person B has a I chance. What does it really mean? It means that at each turn, if we flip a coin, Person A will win 51 times out of 100, while Person B will win 49 times out of 100.

This is not a sure thing in the short term. For instance, we make them bet 100 times. It may happen that person B will do slightly better compared to person A. Why does it happen? This is due to the law of small numbers. In short, probability tells us how the world works in the long run.

In this scenario we may be tricked to think that person B has a better strategy compared to person A. Yet, person B is doing well out of pure luck!

If we change the scenario and make them bet 10,000 the incredible will happen. In this case person B would be surely broke, while person A would be doing extremely well. Why? This is due to the law of large numbers.

In short, in the real world we tend to judge people based on their success. Yet their success may be due to pure luck. Therefore, we fall into the so-called “survivorship bias.” To avoid that, we must think like a Montecarlo Simulator and ask, “In other parallel worlds, how many chances of success would that person have?”

If in most of the worlds that person is not successful as it is in the “real world” we must deem that person as extremely lucky. If we run this simulation in our head through the day we will discovery a new incredible reality. Things don’t seem as certain and concatenated as they seemed before.

Who Will Survive?

Going back to our three characters. Who do you think will survive in a Montecarlo Simulation? Well, chances are that Mr. Stoico will be the one who thrives. Why? Because he is antifragile.

In short, if we take Mr, Stoico and place him under the Montecarlo test, he will come out intact if not successful in most of the cases. While the other two characters will easily blow-up in the long-run.

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How Not To Manage Your Remote Team

BY SENAD BISER – FREELANCE SOFTWARE ENGINEER @ TOPTAL

As a developer and small business owner, I’ve had insights from both sides, I’ve worked as a remote developer and managed remote developers for different projects and with different teams.

In this post I’ll share some of my experiences in the hope that it will make life a bit easier for all parties in remote projects. When it comes to do’s and don’ts of remote team management, I tend to focus on “don’ts” – because unlike “do’s” they tend to apply to practically every team.

When entering the remote developers’ world, the biggest obstacle that managers must overcome is to change their mindset by accepting that the developer will not be in plain sight, and where they can manage and follow the work being done. This new paradigm requires businesses to implement a number of mechanisms to track progress and avoid a redundant workload. Such mechanisms will help both manager and developer be more productive, which is in everyone’s best interest.

To make it clear, all these mechanisms should not be used to control or micro-manage the employee.

Don’t Believe In Remote Team Myths And Misconceptions

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of managing remote teams on a single project, by starting with communication.

Business has gone global, and the advent of vast, multinational organisations has created new challenges for millions of professionals around the world. The complex and intertwined nature of global teams demands a more thorough and thoughtful approach to internal communication.

In such organisations and teams, many individuals don’t have the luxury of working in familiar surroundings or speaking their native language. Teams working on the same project might be separated by oceans, rather than offices and cubicles. Team members come from different cultures and work across the globe.

These professionals shouldn’t have to worry about communication, but they must be able to cooperate with multinational team members. All parties need to be proactive. Corporate culture must reflect this paradigm and help foster a productive environment in which remote, multicultural teams can thrive.

Our own Scott Ritter busted the top five myths about remote teams in a recent blog post, which you may find useful if you are interested in the subject. Toptal CEO Taso Du Val also elaborated how our network operates and how we stride to create the ultimate remote team culture.

Don’t let common misconceptions and prejudice cloud your judgement.

Don’t Forget To Embrace And Encourage Diversity

The first step toward a sound remote-team communication strategy begins with the acknowledgment that multicultural teams transcend national and cultural borders, putting them in a unique position to offer insights hard to attain with centralised, monolithic teams.

But don’t worry; diversity is good for business!

According to a survey carried out by The Economist Intelligence Unit, multicultural teams are favoured by big organisations; many executives believe they help foster innovation because of their broader knowledge of global trends. Further, they are less likely to suffer from “group-think” mentality; their diversity helps them tackle problems from different perspectives, thus producing a better range of solutions tailored for specific regions and markets.

It can be argued that managing remote employees may be more productive by virtue of not being at the same place. It may sound counterintuitive, but such remote teams simply spend less time chatting, socialising and discussing trivial matters.

While physical separation can lead to more productivity, it can also create misunderstandings, tension, alienation, and greater stress and anxiety. Consequently, it becomes necessary to mitigate these negative side effects with initiatives that foster positivity and collaboration on a personal level. Improving communication in remote teams can be a daunting task, and building personal bonds among team members tends to be challenging. That’s why a human touch is necessary.

Finding something that can improve engagement, regardless of background, is a relatively simple way of boosting morale and cooperation. This effort can take many forms, depending on the size and composition of your teams. Ideally, it should be centred around a stress-free, leisurely activity that team members will enjoy, ranging from work-related competitions, entertaining projects, or discussions that are not work-related.

Taking part in such activities, at the organisation’s expense, may sound like a less than ideal allocation of financial and human resources, but bear in mind that rallying teams around a common cause usually leads to a better work environment, stronger personal ties and improved productivity.

Don’t overlook or ignore cultural and language differences. They can make or break a team.

Don’t Take Recruitment And Training Lightly

In order to make the most of managing remote teams, you need to be mindful of cultural differences and compensate with adequate training.

Improving language skills is just one piece of the puzzle since communication skills are affected by cultural differences. It starts with good recruitment policies that favor individuals, especially those who will be in managerial positions, prepared to work in multinational environments. Experience in remote projects obviously comes in handy, but should not be a prerequisite. Just because a remote developer won’t be in your office every week doesn’t mean that recruitment should not take personal traits into account. You and your team will still have to communicate with remote developers on a regular basis, so ask them the same questions you would ask any on-site worker – remote or not, they still have to fit in.

While it is possible to address some issues with additional training, it may not always be practical, but in any case, good training is the next logical step. Training should develop existing positive traits, while at the same time mitigating shortcomings and addressing previously identified weak spots.

Managers dealing with remote teams routinely have to assume new roles on short notice, take over projects they are not necessarily familiar with, and spend a lot of time catching up. In such situations, internal communications do not tend to be high on their list of priorities, even though they may now be leading teams that have spent years collaborating on one or more projects. Time is a valuable asset, but so is good teamwork; managers must take time out of their busy schedules and learn more about their teams, individual team members, and problems likely to crop up.

Emotional distance between remote managers and their subordinates can also pose a problem, since team members may be reluctant to confront new team leaders, or even approach them in either formal or informal settings. A good remote employee manager needs to recognise this and insist on more personal engagement – as I said, “Be proactive.” – what’s the point of having a team of talented remote developers if they don’t share their thoughts with you?

Don’t forget that remote developers should be equal team members.

Don’t Use A Complicated Information System

Do not miss a chance to implement an effective information system that includes a Source Code Management (SCM) system, issue tracker (not too complicated, please) and possibly some Wiki pages where all parties can document things, or sketch ideas and proposals. All these collaborative tools will make development-and-release management much easier to achieve.

It is important to keep things as simple as possible here, because this information system will be used on a daily/hourly basis. If it ends up too complicated, it will take time that should be used on implementation and/or design. The process may also need to be simplified for new team members and freelancers who do not have time to learn the ins and outs of an organisation’s policies.

My long-time favourite project management application is Redmine, an open-source, cross-platform and cross-database system. This platform is highly configurable and you can integrate your own SCM, different plugins, and service hooks.

If you don’t want to go through the trouble of maintaining your own server with Ruby and setting everything up yourself (Redmine can be complicated for inexperienced sysadmins), another good choice is GitHub, which features not only the git CMS but also GitHub Issues, which integrates well with your commit messages, pull requests, etc.

Once we have our information system set up and ready, we can start integrating our remote developer into our project.

Don’t use a complicated information system. It can do more harm than good in a remote team.

Don’t Micromanage

Many managers have a hard time letting go of their responsibilities, especially if they themselves come from a developer background. Instead of focusing on communicating the problems and project goals, they find solutions for those problems and provide implementation details, so the only work left for the developer is to code what he has been told to code. This is not a good practice when managing remote employees.

On one side, managers lose too much time on stuff they hired the remote developer to do. The developers may be unsatisfied with this situation, either because they feel undervalued and left without a chance to be creative and innovative, or simply to prove themselves. After all, problem solving is exactly what developers study for years, so taking it out of the equation and turning developers into automatons does not make sense!

Like everything else in life, it is all about finding a good balance.

Don’t micromanage remote teams. You will stifle innovation and initiative.


Don’t Worry About Time Zones, Use Them To Your Advantage

Good remote developers tend to be self-sustaining and independent by nature; they need freedom and responsibility to organize their time. Overlapping working hours are useful, though not mandatory, when you have a good information system and good communication with your developers.

Working in different time zones can be of benefit to the business since you may be able to achieve “round the clock” efficiency when developers in different zones take over various aspects of the project. If your developer is ahead of your time zone, it gives you the opportunity to review his work the same day and you can immediately assess and coordinate the next big thing. On the other hand, if you are ahead of your developer’s zone, this gives you the opportunity to prepare everything the developer needs in order to complete the task.

Remember, a good manager is nothing more than a service to his employees enabling them to get the work done, not the other way around!

Don’t bee too worried about different time zones. Use them to your advantage instead.

Don’t Force Day-To-Day Goals, focus on Mid- Or Long-Term Goals

Day-to-day goals are a form of micromanaging the project. Instead, try to communicate the overall picture to your developer and, together, set clearly-defined priorities. If you get the developer to understand the project as well as you do, the developer is likely to be more useful.

For example, the developer may have insights into the newest technologies, or implementation details that affect the prioritization of different tasks, or the determination of the Minimum Valuable Product (MVP). Both of you need to define clear goals and milestones, and get work done step-by-step. It is your responsibility to make sure that all these milestones fit into the big picture.

In my opinion, the Agile manifesto (methodologies) is the best thing that has happened in project management over the last few years.

It enables you to do exactly what is needed, to delegate responsibility to those who actually implement things, and to force common sense into every party involved in the process. You define your mid- to long-term goals and tasks with some high-level estimates on difficulty, and in those weekly (or bi-weekly) sprint planning meetings, you let the developer determine the exact workload and difficulty for completing those tasks.

Like every good thing, it takes time to build good Agile teams. Don’t expect to have a working team within three months. Agile is all about learning by doing, and growing together as a team.

Don’t overburden you remote team with superfluous goals and timetables.

Don’t Hide Business Details

Well, this one is tricky. Some projects are sensitive by nature, and leaking information can be harmful. Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) may address the problem, but they are not bulletproof.

However, the more the developer knows, the more effective he can be, not only in solving predefined tasks but also in solving, on the fly, all these annoying small issues and hiccups. In the end, this will make the developer more productive and make your life easier.

The Agile development process comes in handy here, as well. It enables knowledge-sharing between parties (stakeholder, tester, developer, etc.) by removing any hierarchy and by considering those parties as equal team members, with the same responsibilities, and thereby encouraging them to work as transparently as possible. Another benefit of transparency is that problems are “escalated” quickly, and can be picked up by any part of the team.

Don’t keep anything secret unless it absolutely has to be secret.

Don’t Ignore Remote Team Members

Remember, when managing remote workers, you are a service to your team, and if the team needs your input, you should not be too busy to support them. If the developer can’t solve something on his own, he will get stuck and lose valuable time.

As a developer, usually when I ran into a dead end, I turned to my SO for advice, plus, I tried to offer advice, as well. Do not totally ignore the developer’s advice, since it could be insightful, or it could solve a problem you weren’t even aware of.

If something is unclear, or if you think it’s not necessary to address the problem, argue your position while being open-minded and allow the developer a chance to convince you that he is right after all.

Again, this will build communication skills and improve trust.

Don’t ignore remote team members simply because you don’t see them every day.

Quick Remote Team Management Tips

Since I’ve already summarized the main points in tweets and illustrations, here are a few more quick tips and thoughts.

These general rules can be applied to remote and on-site developers.
If you micromanage, you will miss the opportunity to learn and let learn.
Be open-minded and trustworthy, as this is the only way to build a good remote team.
Keep in mind that an estimate is just an estimate; you will encounter under- and over estimates.
All who work make mistakes, and if you don’t forgive other’s mistakes then yours won’t be forgiven, either.
Most importantly, the greatest motivation for any developer (besides the satisfaction of accomplishing a difficult task) is money. So, do not delay payments and consider instituting bonus policies, as well.

Source: Toptal