Abstract Job Hunting - Using Google Adwords to land your Dream Job
Vinay Patankar · 03 May, 2015 · Business
As an ex recruiter I know a thing or two about how to get a job. I've seen a whole bunch of crazy techniques people have used to land themselves their dream job. Some pretty cool, like creative web-pages, some completly idiotic like calling everyday saying "I have job". I came across this video the other day of a SUPER-EPICLY-AWESOME way to get your next job. The guy was looking to get senior job at one of 4 or 5 firms, working for one of the executives. What he did was create a Google Adwords campaign, with the keywords targeted to the names of the Executives he wanted to work for. If you dont already know, Google Adwords are the sponsored advertisments you see on the top and side of a Google search result. Its basically how they make all their cash. Take a look at the example below: The areas in the red are the areas you can "rent" from Google for a price per click. Usually in the 10c - $2 range. Oh and sorry about the funky language, I'm in Budapest at the moment and Google tracks your location to display advertisments close to you. This guy bought the space for the executives names, so when they Google themself, his advertisment popped up on the top of the search and took them into his website of some sort, which I am guessing was a sales page / resume of him asking for a job. Check the video he made of the experiement: (click here if you cant see the video) For all his efforts (probably 1 days work) and money invested ($6) he ended up with two job offers! Genius! Think of all the cool stuff you could use this for. Tim Ferriss used it for choosing the title of his book. Next time your struggelling to get past that gatekeeper consider the option of putting up a Google ad and see what happens. Now thats abstract living! Related read in Business: Abstract Income: How to Support an Abstract Lifestyle.
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Mexican Story - Four Hour Work Week
Vinay Patankar · 02 May, 2015 · Business
This story kicks ass. Its from the . I don't think the lifestyle is for me I'd probably get bored, but the story has stuck with me. The perspective is the complete opposite to my capitalist mindset so I like to think it brings me closer to the middle somewhere. Enjoy! > American consultant was at a pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. > The Mexican replied only a little while. > The consultant then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? > The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. > The American then asked the Mexican how he spent the rest of his time. > The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.” > The American consultant scoffed, “I am business consultant and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. > “You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.” > The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?” > To which the American consultant replied, “15-20 years.” > “But what then, senor?” asked the fisherman. > The consultant laughed, and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public. You’ll become very rich, you would make millions!” > “Millions, senor?” replied the Mexican. “Then what?” > The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.” For another Business angle, read Startup Idea: Work and Workout Space.
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A Simple Tip for Socialising while Travelling Solo (or How to Have Mind Blowing Nights Out when you’re on your Own)
Vinay Patankar · 02 May, 2015 · People · Travel
Travelling alone is one of the best things I've ever done. It opened my eyes to both the external world and internally into my own personality and mind. One of the changes I had to quickly adapt to was that if I wanted any type of human interaction I had to go out and find it. Moving about constantly means you need to be able to make friends quickly or else you may find yourself eating dinner alone, which is no fun. While there are hundreds of ways you can go about meeting people while travelling, with hanging out in a hostel being one of the easiest, I want to share a simple strategy that I used all the time in every country with a 90% success rate (I just made up that number but it basically works all the time). It’s also a strategy you can use if you are staying in a nicer hotel or on a business trip so don’t worry if you don’t plan on going backpacking any time soon. ## The Bar Strategy Sounds like a pretty unique strategy right? Just read... If you're travelling on your own (even if you're in your own city really) and feel like meeting someone new and not spending the evening alone, here is what you do. Spend your day sightseeing or in your meetings. While you're going about during the day look out for bars that you feel are your kind of style. When I say a bar, I mean a place with a bar. Not a lounge, not a club and not a beer garden. You want somewhere that has an actual bar, around the bar tender area with stools you can go and sit on. Plus they should serve food. If you see a place during the day, pop in quickly and chat to the bar tender. > You: “Hey, I’m new in town and looking for somewhere to hang out tonight, what’s this place like? BT: Its good / Its bad. \If it seems like somewhere cool that you could hang out at, and it seems like it gets a little busy follow up with this.\ You: Awsome, sounds cool. I think I’ll head back here later. Thanks so much for helping me out. What’s your name? BT: No problems, I’m Julie. You: Julie, nice to meet you. I’m Vinay. Are you going to be working tonight? BT: Nah, I finish at three. You: Ahh, too bad. I wanted to see you again so I could give you a HUGE tip for helping me out. Do you know who is going to be working tonight? BT: Yeh its Dave I think. You: Dave hey, what does he look like? BT: (blah bla description) You: Ok cool. Thanks again Julie, it was nice talking to you. I may see you again tomorrow. What you have just done there is properly sussed out a venue. It’s only a 1 min conversation but if you jump into 5 different bars throughout your daily venturing, it can seriously help out the quality of your night. Plus, now you have something to talk about when you go back in later. It works just as well if the bartender is still going to be working that evening. Come back into the bar, ideally earlyish. 6 or 7. With the plan to eat dinner and get a few drinks (or not if you don’t drink). Sit down at the bar, in the middle of the bar. Next to other people and ideally near the section where people come and buy drinks. Strike up a conversation with Dave telling him how you met Julie earlier. Tell him you’re new into town or on holiday. Ask him what is happening in the area tonight. Talk LOUD (but not obnoxiously) so that others in the bar can hear your conversation and contribute. As soon as you get chatting with the people next to you, introduce yourself. Find out what they're up to (if they're staying for a few or about to leave is all you need to know). If they're staying for a while, offer to buy them a drink straight away. Don’t worry, you will get one back. Tip the bartender big the first time. You now have a whole bar full of friends. When people (read girls) come up to the bar to order their drinks, bring them into your conversation. Introduce the girls to the bartender and to your new friends. Can you see the snowballing effects here? Don't worry if the bar isn't the coolest place in the world. You can always move on later in the night. Also, don't worry if you don't get a chance to check it out during the day. If its fairly busy and has a bar, it still works fine. I can’t tell you how many crazy nights I have had that have started off in this exact manner. I've ended up being taken out by the bar tenders, the people next to me and the girls that walk up. To all sorts of crazy places, in different countries. You never know where you'll end up. As a closing rule, if you are travelling and out to experience. Try Do not to say no to anything. If some old dude invites you to his kids birthday: Yes. If two seedy guys invite you to a strip club: Yes. If two beautiful girls invite you back to their place... Life can be awesome if you let it. If this People topic resonated, continue with Working while Travelling: Distractions and the Zone.
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The Power of the Done List
Vinay Patankar · 14 Dec, 2014 · Business-process-management
This is a cool post from the iDoneThis blog where they talk about how todo lists just don't work for some people. You can take a look at the post here: The Power of the Done List It is about a 5 min read. Enjoy! Related read in Business Process Management: Wedding Checklist Template.
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Embedded Checklists
Vinay Patankar · 18 Nov, 2014 · Business-process-management
We have recently launched the ability to make checklists public in Process Street and embed them into any page on the internet, we are super excited about this feature and have some really cool upgrades coming to it shortly. Below is an example embed of one of our checklists: A strong follow-up in Business Process Management is Actual Proof that Checklists Work.
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Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores
Vinay Patankar · 17 Nov, 2014 · Business · Technology
One liner: TailSearch: Search for retail stores. User experience: - iPad / Touchscreen TV positioned at front and around the store with a search bar / filters to filter down all items in the store. - There is a real-time map of the store with all the items in the store, and as you filter down, they break down and show you the location in the store of the item so you can easily find what you are looking for. - You can filter down men/women, colors, style, type, size etc… select tags, type in search etc… - User can easily search for any item in the store and be guided straight to it. - User can also download an app to their own phone and use that as a map around stores. - User can also search for all stores in area using the tech to see if items are available in other stores, can search from any device. Store experience: - Store purchases “security tags” similar to the ones that beep now. Tags are smart tags with geo locators. - Store sets up a geo fence so no need for expensive alarm beepers. Tags beep when taken out of geo fence, also alert is sent to store / security. - Store set up iPads around the store so people can search, store also entered into wider search network. - Store scans barcodes of items and then attaches tag. Users can access that data through search. Monetization: 1. Selling security tags 2. Selling monthly recurring to store for software / support 3. Making advertising / affiliate commissions from wider search network 4. Transition into POS and merchanting, take a commission on all sales. Opportunities: - Could crowd fund the product since its hardware (maybe? as its b2b) - Clear acquisition targets (Google/Amazon/eBay) Costs: Lots of hardware bullshit to deal with Selling won’t be easy Medium-High switching barriers exist For another Business angle, read Start-up idea: Marketplace for mechanics to help buyers purchase used cars.
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Best 5 Talks from #500Distro
Vinay Patankar · 28 Aug, 2014 · Business · Technology
If you are interested in getting traffic for your startup, you should definitely watch the videos from the recent 500 Distro. 500 Distro is a conference where they gathered some of the greatest minds in customer acquisition, retention and growth hacking to do 20 min sprint presentations on a number of different topics. Below are my favourite 5 talks from the day. For another Business angle, read Tools to Build you a New Life.
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Hiring VAs for Startups
Vinay Patankar · 21 Aug, 2014 · Business
Check out this article on Entrepreneur about hiring a VA for your startup or small business. They give Process Street a shoutout :) How to Hire a Virtual Assistant For another Business angle, read Step by Step Guide to Hiring a Virtual Assistant (or How I Hired my First VA).
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Startup Explainer Video How To
Vinay Patankar · 31 Jul, 2014 · Business · Technology
If you are looking to make a startup explainer video, make sure to check out this guest post I did on the Startup Chile blog: How to Make a Startup Explainer Video It's a detailed post covering what we did to make our startup explainer video for Process Street on Knowledge Management for Small Business. You can check out the video below, or visit the above post to see the details of how we made it. Related read in Business: Start-Up Chile Application Video.
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Long SaaS Ramp of Death
Vinay Patankar · 17 Jun, 2014 · Business · Technology
Posting this here to remind me to watch it again. Amazing story from the CEO of Constant Contact. Related read in Business: The Death of Broadcast Advertising....
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Wedding Checklist Template
Vinay Patankar · 06 Jun, 2014 · Business-process-management
Marriage, the union of man and woman, is considered as a personal yet not private, relationship but with a much greater public significance . Marriage is a good decision for a couple to make and preserve in their lifetime. It provides a legitimate way for procreating and raising up children. Marriage contributes to the common good of the society. To get more information on the advantages of marriage, please click the link below: Best Wedding App You may also be interested in this - If this Business Process Management topic resonated, continue with Checklist Template Software.
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Travel Checklist App
Vinay Patankar · 04 Jun, 2014 · Business-process-management
Traveling is definitely a high priority area within my life, and I encourage everyone to do the same, too. However, when deciding to perform some arrangements for my travel plans, I usually have that enthusiasm to have exciting trips to beautiful tourist destinations. I strongly believe that money is best spent on gaining various travel experiences, thus those are the benefits I have obtained from travelling abroad. Perform that decision to travel somewhere where you have never been before. Decide to do something amazing to your travel plans. Try to live out a lifestyle consistent with your travel plans. Travel Checklist Related website link - For another Business Process Management angle, read Wedding Checklist Template.
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