Joel Comm's Blog, page 23

This 14-Year-Old Is on Track to Be a Millionaire in 2 Years

“I’m going to be a millionaire by the time I’m … ” We’ve all said those words. We’ve all ended that sentence with an age when we were going to be rich and comfortable, and dedicating our lives to charity work and a Hawaiian beach house. That age might be 30. Or 40. For Caleb Maddix, it’s a bit less than that. It’s … 16. And he’s already on the way. At just 14 years old, Caleb is already addressing audiences about success and motivation. His first business was called Kids With a Mission, and took the lessons Caleb learned on more than 50 mission trips to bring kids together to help the homeless, children with cancer, and children in fatherless families. He’s since written a book helping kids to find focus, set goals, and create achievements. And his Kids 4 Success coaching business helps children boost their self-esteem, improve their grades, and create habits that will stand them in good stead throughout their lives. And I mentioned that he’s just 14, didn’t I? Caleb’s focus is on helping other children follow in his entrepreneurial footsteps, but he agrees that much of his advice applies to adults, too. Asked to name the three most important actions for children to take to become successful, he starts by recommending that they determine their goals and define their dream, and then set their “daily three:” three things they can do every day to work toward that dream. “When I was younger I had a dream to build my own business,” he says, “and to be a shortstop with the New York Yankees. So I studied on YouTube about baseball. I hit every single day, had a bunch of hitting drills. And I’d field every single day. When I started in the success industry, I’d read every day, post on social media every day, exercise and work out to stay in peak performance.” Finally, with advice that will warm the heart of every parent, Caleb also recommends that children educate themselves. “There’s so much information at the tips of our fingers. I am where I am because of the books that I’ve read. It’s the K.E.Y. to success: Keep Educating Yourself. The more you learn, the more you will earn in return.” Caleb, whose father is a motivational speaker and has provided him with help and support to land gigs and promote his business, has already started addressing audiences, sharing a stage with Gary Vaynerchuk among others. Audiences tend to respond one of two ways: Some, Caleb says, question his experience and his age, but others pay more attention to the message. “Some are like, ‘This kid’s awesome. He’s super inspirational.’ They take it well, and they look for the good.” For now, in between doing his schoolwork, meeting his friends, and doing all of the other things that teenagers get up to, Caleb is focused on building his mentoring company. He’s formed partnerships with leaders including Kevin Harrington of Shark Tank, and he’s working toward his goal. “The definition of success is to hit a target,” he says. “I don’t think kids realize how much they can accomplish.”

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Mountain Climbing in Virtual Reality

Ever since receiving my Oculus Rift this summer, I’ve enjoyed participating in a number of experiences. Whether passive experiences that behave like a movie an immersive film or games that put you in the center of the action, virtual reality is coming of age and there’s a lot to like about it. I enjoy installing a number of different games and experiences, but I wasn’t prepared for what I would face when I installed The Climb. Utilizing the brand new Oculus Touch hand controllers, The Climb simulates the thrills and vertigo of mountain climbing. And the experience is truly amazing! What’s it like to hang by one hand from the top of a mountain? I’ll never know for real… I’m terrified of doing such a thing. But with this game I was able to put myself in the action and scale mountains without risk. In this video I demonstrate the experience and you get to see what I am seeing through the Oculus goggles. Hold on tight. It’s a long way down!

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Facebook Messenger App Tries to Knockout Snapchat with Latest Update

The world of live video and messaging is changing at the speed at light. For several years, Snapchat has been growing in popularity and relevance as the leader in personalized messaging and storytelling. But with their 1.6 billion user base, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are not happy about their $2 Billion dollar offer being turned down a couple years back. And now, Facebook is going head-to-head with Snapchat in the latest release of Messenger. While Snapchat is typically known for it’s fun and free-wheeling lenses and filters, Messenger is taking several pages from the Snapchat book and bringing great fun to their app. Will this be the knockout punch? Watch as I demonstrate the new Messenger app for the first time.

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Are You a Victim of Visual Hacking?

Do you remember when you were a kid and you thought the kid sitting next to you was peeking at your test paper? You’d try to put your arm all the way around the page and you’d lean in so close your nose was almost touching the table. You’d block out so much light you’d practically be writing in the dark. I used to do that way into my fifties. Not on tests. I’m very happy to say those days are far behind me! But I’d be sitting in a café with my laptop or I’d be on a plane on my way to give a talk, and I’d find myself trying to sit so that no one could see what was on my screen. I might not have been able to throw my arm around my computer, but in a café I’d look for a seat next to the wall then try to tilt the screen down so that no one could see what I was writing. If had the window seat, I’d turn my body so that my iPad faced the wall. And if I was next to the aisle, I’d make the font small so that people walking past couldn’t see. (If I was in the middle seat, I’d be too busy crying about my rotten luck to work anyway.) Of course, that doesn’t stop me from peeking at everyone else’s screens. If someone opens their laptop at the table next to me, I’m going to look. I’m not proud of it, but it happens. I don’t stand behind them and point out their typos but I’ll see them looking at their Facebook page or reading a document or compiling some code. It’s just natural curiosity. I’m sure you’ve done the same thing… and I’m sure the same thing has been done to you. Computer experts call it “visual hacking” and in a series of studies by 3M, an undercover white hacker was able to visually hack information 88 percent of the time. In almost half the trials, the hacker was able to capture information in fifteen minutes or less, and was only stopped 30 percent of the time. In each trial, the hacker saw an average of five pieces of sensitive information including corporate financials and confidential employee and customer information. I don’t have any great secrets on my laptop or on my tablet that absolutely no one can ever know. I don’t know what the nuclear codes are, and the secret ingredient in my top secret mac n’ cheese recipe is… cheese. (There, it’s out now.) But you just don’t want people sneaking a peek over your shoulder when you’re trying to get some work done. So I’ve started using 3M’s visual privacy filter. It’s a screen protector that sticks to the screen of your tablet or computer. When you look at it directly, you can’t notice it, but anyone sitting next to you at an angle of more than 30 degrees sees nothing but black. (Or gold. Donald Trump probably uses that one.) You can’t tell I’ve got a 3M Visual Privacy filter on my iPhone 6 until… … you turn it sideways, making it difficult for a snoop to see my screen! Sure, if I was looking at “top secret stuff” while I was in a café it would make it a lot harder for people to see what I was doing. But even when I’m just checking Facebook or writing a tweet, it makes me feel a lot more comfortable. So far, it’s been great. Now, if they could just make a version that fits onto test papers… This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of 3M. The opinions and text are all mine.

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There’s One Area That I Don’t Trust To Luck

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Carbonite. All opinions are 100% mine. I’ve been really blessed in my business. I now get to make a living doing something I really love: helping other entrepreneurs and businesses grow and develop. It’s a great thing, and I love doing it. Of course, I’ve had ups and downs on my way here. We’ve all got our small business stories. There have been ideas that didn’t take off and (probably didn’t deserve to take off). And while most of my downsizing has been voluntary, that wasn’t always the case. But there’s one area where I’ve always been blessed. I’ve worked with some great people. I know not everyone has had that luck but I’ve managed to build teams of people who were talented, hard-working and full of great ideas. We had a lot of fun. But while working with great people can help your business to grow, it brings risks. When I had a big team, I didn’t just have to worry about the salaries I’d have to pay and the office space I had to rent. I also had to worry about data backup. It would only have taken a team member one click on an email link on a company computer to expose all our data. The email list that I’ve built up over the years and which I protect so carefully, could have been swiped by hackers. They could have sent everyone spam which would have annoyed thousands of people. Or they could have held the list to ransom, or even deleted it entirely. It would have been a disaster. Of course, we had anti-virus software and a firewall to protect our borders but a mistake inside the company was always something that concerned me. People have given me their email addresses on trust. I have a duty to look after them… and people make mistakes. We all do it. Now that I’ve mostly slimmed back down to a company of one, I still worry about that. I’m not a giant corporation with piles of user data to protect. I’m not Facebook or Google. But I do have information that’s valuable, and I’ve made enough mistakes to know that it doesn’t take much to expose and experience a data loss that can’t be replaced. The fact is that data protection is essential. And if you’re not using a back-up service, you should be. I use Carbonite. It’s got temperature-controlled data centers and its staff have to use biometric scanners to get to work. (It sounds like the sort of thing that only Tom Cruise could break into.) But what really matters to me is that I can just set and forget it. I know if I have to upload everything manually or struggle to download everything again, I’m going to get in trouble. With Carbonite, everything happens automatically. I know that my email lists and other data are tightly secured, and that if I happen to hit a link in an email promising to reveal some shocking new discovery I can restore everything quickly. We all have a thousand reasons to feel blessed in our lives. The fact that I’ve never had a data breach is one of them… but I’m not relying on that luck lasting and neither should you. Be sure to protect your data. 

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Why Twitter Isn’t Going Away

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the death of Twitter. This year’s Q3 Letter to Shareholders announced a 9 percent workforce reduction and the shuttering of “non-core” features. Vine, Twitter’s six-second video platform loved by fans of stop-motion photography (and almost no one else), will close just three years after launch. With 85 cents in every dollar spent in the US on online advertising now swallowed up by Facebook and Google, Twitter’s chances of becoming a digital media giant look remote. Google, Salesforce and Disney have all been reported to have turned down the chance to buy the company which has lost 40 percent of its value over the last twelve months. These look like grim times for the microblogging platform and for the people who love it. But look a little closer and the picture looks much rosier, and not just because it’s impossible now to imagine a world without hashtags, @usernames, angry tweets posted directly by presidential candidates and breaking news reported in 140 characters before they make the news channels. Look away from Facebook, and the financials aren’t terrible. Twitter’s Q3 revenues of $616 million beat analysts’ predictions of $606 million. Helped by an increase of 4 million monthly active users since the second quarter, to reach 317 million users, the company’s share price rose by 4 percent at the end of October. Investors understand that Twitter might not be as spectacular a success as Facebook has turned out to be but it’s doing fine. The company aims to be profitable in 2017 and some experts are predicting that when Twitter hits the right price, a media company will snatch it up. The company is already in the right place for that to happen. Twitter’s partnership with NFL Thursday Night Football is turning a spectator sport into a participation sport. Viewers with smart TVs can watch comments posted on Twitter on the side of the screen and can join the conversation about a shared experience in real time. The company has reported audience growth week-by-week. The live streams of Bloomberg Politics’ presidential debates were also a success. Viewing figures increased by 30 percent after the first debate and reached 3.3 million unique viewers. Periscope has been around longer than Facebook Live and is in a prime position to make the most of the rise in live video content; for the last two quarters, video has been Twitter’s top revenue generating ad format. Able to offer premium live content and conversation with a large audience targeted with precision, Twitter has seen strong advertiser demand across both video and live streaming ad formats. “This is just the start of what we believe will be a long-term shift away from desktop video to premium mobile video,” the company said. I believe Periscope should just be called Twitter Live, and Twitter should make a push to become a broadcast channel that encourages people to engage with shows, brands and personalities. Of course, the current conversation should continue. The world needs a place where everyone can congregate and share their views with hashtags and @replies. Brands need a forum on which millions of users discuss their marketing messages and talk about their products in real time. And one media company will eventually decide that it can benefit from owning the platform on which those live discussions are taking place. Twitter isn’t going anywhere.

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A Review of Fine Line Relocation Movers in Dallas, TX

Are you considering using Fine Line Relocation Movers of Dallas, TX to handle your move? Wait. I encourage you to read the entire story before you hire this company. Read my honest review based on my family’s experience with this “moving company”. We were moving our daughter from Oklahoma City area to a town in California not too far from San Jose. The price from Fine Line Relocation seemed reasonable to move her small apartment, which would include a bed, a nightstand, a chest of drawers, a television and about 20 boxes. The estimated volume was 200 cubic feet, to be charged at a rate of $4.90 per cf. The basic estimated price I was provided with for the move was $980, and I was fully aware that in all likelihood the company would be hiring contractors to handle the move. I was also told there would be an upcharge of $75 for each flight of stairs on the delivery end. Knowing my daughter was in an apartment, I allocated for this as well. I’m not going to mention the names of the various people I dealt with at the company as they are just following policy. I don’t hold them responsible for what happened next. The agreement was signed on July 28th, 2016 and I placed a 10% deposit on my credit card. I was told the movers would arrive at her place in Oklahoma on the 11th or 12th of August. (The dates ARE important.) I asked the customer rep how long the move would take and was told that 5-10 business days was normal. My daughter’s mother flew from Colorado to Oklahoma to help with this move, planning to drive with our daughter on the 12th or 13th once everything was secured by the movers. I received a call a few days before the move alerting me that the move would not take place as scheduled. A truck apparently broke down and it would be the 20th of August before another would be assigned. We were given the option of cancelling, but at this point it wasn’t really an option. A family member was already on location to help with the moves and there were already expenses. We knew this would also delay our daughters’ transition to a new location and would likely cost her a week of income. How did Fine Line Relocation respond? By offering us $75 for the inconvenience. I was livid. And I demanded to speak with a supervisor. I was told that I was speaking to the supervisor and this was the best they could do. It was then I realized that I had chosen unwisely. When I asked for the name of anyone, including the owner, whom I could appeal to, I was stonewalled. There was no getting to anyone. And there wasn’t time to find another moving company. I just wanted my daughters’ things picked up and brought to the new location as per the contract. It also pays to note that most of the phone calls to the office were met with no answer. Voicemails were left and calls weren’t returned. That is, once a contract was signed. Fast-forward to August 20th. The movers finally showed up. They determined that my daughers’ stuff actually took up 526 cubic feet, not the 200 cubic feet that was estimated in the contract. While I cannot confirm, reviews of others who have used this company would indicate that they may underestimate the volume of the contents. It would seem a perfectly simple scheme for then charging more when on location. Regardless, without a real alternative, we agreed to pay the difference. The mover on hand told us he was giving us a break because of the scenario. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. All I know is the cost of the move was going to be twice as much as we were planning for. They would NOT take a credit card for ANY payment. Later, it became clear to me that they might be accustomed to chargebacks. Certainly, if I had the means to do so now I would. So they demanded $392.00 in the form of a cashier’s check on the move-out date of 8/20/16. Then, they demanded an additional $483.00 in the form of a cashier’s check on the move-out date of 8/20/16 And then the lead mover demanded an additional $260.00, to be paid in cash, before they would move The van was packed and it should have arrived in California by the very last day of the month, if the statements of the company representative were to be believed. I was skeptical. Now I understand that a budget moving company like this is going to used shared space on the van, managing multiple moves and routing them in a way that is most expedient. What I didn’t expect was the complete disregard for how these delays were impacting our family. My daughter slept on an air-mattress and changed between the same three shirts for the days that followed. It was September 11th (one full month AFTER the pickup was supposed to have taken place!) that her stuff finally arrived at her apartment. She was instructed to provide the movers with a money order in the amount of $798.40 upon arrival. And then they decided that she also needed to cough up an additional $225.00 in CASH in order to cover the cost of moving her items up the stairs. What started as a total moving estimate of $1055 turned in a total of $2,158.40 paid. What should have taken 5-10 business days to manage turned into a 30-day debacle. And what should have elicited empathy from the moving company responsible for helping a young lady start a new life in a strange place turned into an incredibly insensitive, irresponsible, unprofessional experience. In my opinion, I cannot fathom how Fine Line Relocation is still in business at all. I should have stopped to look at the reviews online a […]

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3 Entrepreneurs Who Gave Away Free Content to Build Multimillion-Dollar Businesses

Years ago, savvy entrepreneurs learned there was an opportunity to make a lot of money selling information online. While that opportunity still exists, many top marketers have chosen to make their information available to the masses for free… and have profited wildly as a result. Online information comes in many forms. There are blog articles, social media posts, white papers, videos, webinars, and e-books. Just as the marketers of the past learned how to turn this information into dollars, a new wave of marketers have learned to offer their information in exchange for something more valuable: authority. Being an authority figure in your niche comes with many perks. One such perk is media attention. When a journalist is writing an article on a particular subject, he or she often looks for the leading authority in that subject to interview or even just mention in the piece. This can create a snowball effect. The more media mentions a marketer gets, the more media want to quote or interview him. This is the type of brand recognition that money simply cannot buy. Another perk is loyalty. Consumers have long looked to authority figures for answers. Those who give away quality information build a fan base of grateful followers. It’s not difficult to convert these followers into paying customers. Gary Vaynerchuk is one such marketer who has been wildly successful with this game plan. While working in his father’s wine store, Vaynerchuk learned the art of exchanging valuable content for more sales. He spent the better part of a year in online chat forums, answering thousands of questions about wine buying. Eventually, he took to YouTube and created an online wine TV show, where he tasted and described several different wines on each episode. As the show grew in popularity, so did Vaynerchuk’s public profile. This eventually led to an appearance on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, further boosting his recognition as a wine authority and growing the family business into a $60 million-per-year enterprise. In 2008, E. Brian Rose was selling hearing aids online. He discovered that nobody was filling the role of an authority figure in that marketplace, so he took it upon himself to occupy the position. A series of free videos and e-books on the subject quickly catapulted him to the role of the go-to person. This led to a significant increase in sales. After selling the hearing aid business, Rose (or EBR, as he is known to his friends and followers) began teaching the art of marketing to entrepreneurs wanting to make a living online. Using the same blueprint he used in the hearing aid sector, EBR published a series of free e-books, webinars, and videos that were shared throughout the marketing community. When it came time for EBR and his partners to launch JVZoo.com, an online platform for buying and selling digital goods, the following he’d built came along for the ride, quickly turning the startup into a multi-million-dollar business.

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How to Create Your Own Live Video Show with Crowdcast

With a number of web tools providing options for creating and broadcasting live video shows, I’ve had a chance to try most of them. And with Blab.im closing their doors, many are wondering where to go to broadcast their content now. I’ve discovered that Crowdcast.io stands out as an exceptional service. In this tutorial, I take you through all the tools and functionality to show how you can use Crowdcast to create your own live video show. To follow me on Crowdcast, go to http://www.comm.us/crowdcast. Use coupon code “joelcomm” with any plan to save 20%!

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How the Future of This African Country Affects Your Smartphone

You’d think that $24 trillion would be enough for anyone. Even $300,000 would be a good sum, which is what the 80 million citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo would receive if all of the minerals in their country were sold and the money shared between them. And if that were to happen, they could receive something even more valuable. They might just get peace. Congo is a major source of four minerals that you use every day. Tantalum helps your mobile phone to store electricity. Tungsten makes it vibrate. Tin is used to solder the components, and gold (yes, gold) coats the wiring. The problem is that those four minerals are dug out of mines in the Congo that are controlled and taxed by armed gangs. They’re then smuggled out of the country along routes that are also controlled and taxed by armed gangs. Those gangs act like mafias that use rape as a weapon and employ children in the most dangerous jobs. From the coasts of Africa, the minerals are shipped to smelters in Asia where they’re mixed with minerals from other countries and later turned into components used in mobile phones, tablets and computers, including the one you’re using now. So the phone that you bought from the Apple Store or some other electronics shop could well have helped to make the worst people in Africa rich and regular folk in one of the world’s poorest countries even more miserable. And you wouldn’t know anything about it. There’s no way that any of us can know how much “conflict minerals” were used in our phones. The minerals are usually untraceable and there’s no certification for conflict-free components. Things may change in Congo. Elections are due to take place in November. The main contenders are Moïse Katumbi, a tycoon with his own soccer team and the former governor of one of the country’s most important regions, and Joseph Kabila, the current President who may change the constitution in order to stay in office. Also running, however, is Emmanuel Weyi, the CEO and founder of Groupe Weyi International, a fairtrade mining company. Based in Denver, Colorado for the last twenty years, Weyi also has a background in non-profits; he founded the Colorado Sickle Cell Foundation in 2005. Some organizations are also trying to make sure that at least their devices won’t feed money back to Congo’s warlords. Fairphone is a Dutch social enterprise that makes a mobile phone whose materials are traceable. The parts are modular so that they can be replaced easily, and the specifications are comparable to a high-end Android device: a Snapdragon 801 processor; 32 GB internal storage, expandable with an SD card; two sim slots; a five-inch screen; and an 8 megapixel main camera. The device costs just under 530 Euros (about $590) so it’s not cheap, but even at that price, it’s already managed to sell more than 60,000 units. The question for entrepreneurs is how much should we be aware of the sources of our products? Apple and Samsung occasionally have to answer questions about the conditions of their workforce but few of us are grilled that intensively. We can’t expect customers to research every component that we use. They trust us to do that for them, and we have a responsibility to do so. I’m always telling entrepreneurs that they should “do good stuff.” That doesn’t just refer to the quality of the product; it’s a mantra for how we make our products and how we run our businesses.

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