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Why is being alone scarier than failing?
I set a goal to launch five ideas in 2021. This would atone me for failing to launch past projects and help me get over my fear of launching in public. But somehow this morphed into “launching five of my ideas with other people.”
Before the New Year, I approach someone I worked with on Gvbck to join me on my Sharescrption idea. But after two weeks, it was clear that the partnership was not working. I’ve been here before. Sadly plenty of times. I know what someone who is not committed feels like. There is a simple test…. stop calling.
And that is what I did three weeks ago. I stopped calling. If he calls me we have a different problem. But if he does not call me I’m right. Not committed.
He has not called me in three weeks. In that time I built and launched Sharescrption from scratch. And it’s making sales.
The most important question here is not why didn’t the partnership work. It’s how did “launch five ideas” morph into “launch five ideas with other people.” I’ll need to do a little soul searching to answer that one. This is a generational problem. Like my father before me, Barba’s have more success when they go alone. Yet, they do everything they can to not be alone. Why is being alone scarier than failing for us Barba’s?
Another thing COVID has forced me to accept is that I can do a lot more alone than I thought I could and it’s way faster. Going forward I’m going alone.
Keeping the thumb in the photo #Wabi-sabi. -
Facebook could be my one-stop launch shop
I spent a few hours last Friday updating old Facebook pages. Facebook allowed me to change the name on two. So I converted one page of a product I launched years ago into a page for this blog. I changed the name of another with the hopes to merge it with that Blog Facebook page. I’ll know by the end of the week if I was approved.
I then connected the blog page to personal Instagram so I can get more insights into my Instagram posts. I love the way brands are selling on Instagram. Having a professional Instagram page will allow me to open a store. I need to learn how to sell products for another project. I also connected that page to WhatsApp. I know nothing about what you can do with WhatsApp so I thought I would learn.
There is a lot to learn on the Facebook business portal too. I added a Facebook pixel to this blog to learn how their analytics works. I think you can use this to advertise to people like those who visit your site. Insights should give me an understanding of what our audience looks like.
In the spirit of restrictions and not using new software, I will also use Pages to get user feedback.
I am excited to finally take advantage of Facebook’s power. It’s possible that Facebook could be the one-stop-shop for launching, validating, and scaling an idea.
UPDATE: If I’m learning to make a Facebook Hub, why not add messenger chat to this blog, right?
UPDATE II: Merge was approved!
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The fear of people calling me out
I wanted to launch all in the family before New Years’ Eve, but I was being crazy insane. You know, like someone, who never followed through with a diet who says they are going to lose 50 pounds in 30 days. I am on track to launch on ProductHunt next week. Three weeks to launch a product is Bizzaro for me, considering I’ve not launched a product after 15 months.
I can speak in front of thousands of people with no problem, but struggle to put my work out there.
It wasn’t me who launched HeyRide, it was my partner Dennis. He got so fed up with me that he said, “Anthony on Product Hunt.” I gave him my usual bullshit excuses of why we shouldn’t do it. It’s not ready. Someone will steal our idea. We’re only in Berlin, let’s not launch worldwide. Pathetic.
This year I’m trying to redeeming myself from past failed launches. I’m learning how to quiet the lizard brain. Learning how to embrace vulnerability. Learning to live with the fear of people calling me out.
Learning how to quiet the lizard brain. -
Bundling Tweets into a blog post
While chipping away at my goal of republishing 208 old blog posts this year I had an idea for a new product.
Many of my nearly three thousand tweet posts were created by Ping.fm. Individual tweets alone don’t have much value. But seeing one month’s worth of tweets in one post paints a good picture of your life.
It took me almost one hour to manually combine a month of tweets into one post. I wish there was a service that could automatically create a post from one month of tweets.
How many people on Twitter maintain a blog. How many people would pay to bundle one week/months worth of tweets into one post?
GOAL: Republished 90 old posts, 118 to go.
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How I plan to write 104 posts
At the time of this post, I have 3,972 draft posts in WordPress. That is where I store ideas and posts that aren’t ready for the world.
I turned a lot of old posts into drafts when I rebooted this blog. Bizzaro Tony will change that. It takes seven steps to create a draft on my iPhone; Open up the WordPress App, Select the Anthony Barba site from my 3 other sites, Tap on the create a new button, Tap on create a blog post, write a headline, and a few notes about what I want to talk about, Then the 3 dots, Then Save as Draft.
This week I started saving post ideas in Apple notes. I liked it. Then I tried doing it with Siri. I love it. All I do is say, ‘Hey Siri, create a note’ and dictate the possible Title.On Tuesday, while walking to the subway station I saved an idea as a title. Then I started dictating the post that turned out to be good enough to post. I cut and paste the notes into WordPress on the subway ride home. Since I am writing as no one reads them I published it while walking to my apartment. The next morning I revisited the live post and made some edits.
I set a goal to write 2 posts a week to gain more clarity, become a better communicator, and make better decisions. Dictating posts into Apple Notes at night and editing them in the morning will help me hit my goal.
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Working on Product Hunt Post first.
Instead of spending the day working on the website and app of the idea, I focused all of my attention on writing the product hunt post. Validating the concept is more important to me than getting the solution right. If the idea is a product people want, I will have no problem building the solution.
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Just launch it.
I have an idea. I want to put it on Product Hunt to see if it has legs. Something is blocking me from doing it. Whatever that thing inside of me that stopping me has robbed me much happiness in my life.
Fuck it. I’m going spend 3 days on this idea and launch it on Wednesday.
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UPDATED: What do I do with This Week in Mobility?
I spent the past four hours working on a post about going into the forest to think instead of the office to do busywork. The post turned out to be me asking myself a series of questions about how to profit from this new idea. That helped me answer the, what do I do with This Week in Mobility question.
UPDATED: Now that I know what to do with TWiM, I’ve decided to continue what I started during the 科维德 pandemic. I will focus on helping charities raise money. I’ll revisit This Week in Mobility in 2021 once the NewCo. gains momentum.
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UPDATED: All in the Family
I’ve had an idea for a service/product in the back of my head for years. Over the weekend I spoke with an old friend of mine who needed such a service. Today I’m going to build a website and test the idea over the weekend.
UPDATE: I do believe in my idea. After asking myself tons of questions I’ve felt this would gain more traction if focused in one vertical. There are better verticals than mobility for this, but that is where I have the biggest reach.
