UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

by M.J. DeMarco

required a credit card before trying.

identify every value attribute in the global pool,

the business owner ignores the market and doesn’t see relative value as a success metric.

why do you exist in the marketplace? What value are you skewing? And who will yearn for your company should you close up shop?

The crowded-room appears crowded because we don’t typically think from a value skewing perspective.

If there is value to skew, there is always room.

it states nowhere in the entrepreneurial rule book that you have to be an avid user of your product in its industry.

you must believe in your product and its superiority. You must be a fan of its value to the world,

whatever the market tells you.

I hate… This sucks… I’m tired… I wish… How frustrating… I don’t like… Why do I have to…? Why is this…[dangerous, unhealthy, hard, etc.]?

Anything inconvenient is an opportunity.

When the gold rush is in full bore, sell shovels.

The best opportunities rarely come from joining the crowd, but serving it.

abandons its original value-creating mission and instead prioritizes profit—so much so that it’s disgustingly obvious.

You can’t serve two masters at once. You’re either a servant to your customer or you’re squeezing the towel and appeasing investors, shareholders, or Wall Street analysts.

Once a servant company becomes public, they no longer cater to customers first; they cater to profit, return on investment, shareholder value, and anything ensuring every last drop of cash is extracted from the towel.

If you enter a $100 billion industry and take one one-hundredth of 1 percent (.0001), you just built yourself a nice little $1 million company.

Improve something, effectively communicate it, and you will be needed.

consumers demand LESS just as much as they demand MORE.

the biggest roadblock to finding legitimate ideas isn’t your insensitivity to the concepts of needs/wants but a lack of experience—both in life and at the workplace.

If you’re not getting out of the house and encountering life, you won’t encounter life’s problems. Opportunity doesn’t ring doorbells and it certainly doesn't wait for "someday."

Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.

The big irony of passive income is it’s anything but passive.

takes months, sometimes years, of nose-to-the-grindstone effort.

ten-hour days six to seven days a week

you can’t enjoy the fruit without first caring for and cultivating its seeds.

Legacy structures are other perpetual systems that support, promote, or market your LVS, also 24/7 and separate from your time.

These interviews take about twenty minutes, and while they can garner good exposure for me and my book, I typically decline. Why? No legacy structure.

profitably impacting many

Great execution shines dog ideas and makes them profitable while poor execution strips great ideas worthless.

You don’t know what you need to know until you know.

the market cannot be forecast, predicted, or tamed.

kinetic execution is action before answers, situational and incremental problem-solving graduated to resolve a larger problem, which culminates into your business solution.

“Action” is poking the finicky cat that is the market and seeing what happens. Most of the time, the cat ignores you; sometimes you’ll hear a meow; and once in a great while, it’s every entrepreneur’s dream: the loud roar of demand.

Research, learn, solve.

A market echo is direct feedback—a reflective, unbiased, and uncensored representation of the marketmind.

Any dislike is the public square is an opportunity.

Create an AdWords account and log in to their Keyword Planner tool. Enter your product, service, or solution, and find out how many people are searching for your visionary offer.

Expect a long and lonely walk. Mud through it and let the marketmind light the way.

strangers are turned into prospects, prospects into customers, and customers into disciples.

Many users with large followings allow paid promotions on the cheap; for twenty-five bucks (or using your product as payment), you can get your product in front of thousands.

Don’t let a false flag end execution.

I’d recommend at least 10,000 impressions and/or 1,000 clicks.

reject funding unless necessary.

they commit to one business and one business only. Then after striking it big, polygamy is often the result: diffusion into multiple ventures where passions are explored and capital allocated.

Work four hours a week and the entrepreneur working ten hours a day will shellac your biz behind the woodshed.

You can’t dismiss working hard by saying you’ll work smarter. The UNSCRIPTED do both.

branding is more: it is the art of personifying a business with human qualities and characteristics so that it reflects or affirms your own customer’s identity.

brands aren’t created by website words or walled mission statements—a brand is earned. It is a reputation arising from consistent action, much like an individual earns a reputation.

Tell your audience WHY you are in business;