Youth Soccer Flash Cards
I coached ~ten seasons of youth soccer. I created the flashcards below for nine-year-olds. However, I have found that most of the cards can be used with older kids.
Getting The Most Out Of Youth Soccer
We are a soccer family. I coach and all of our children play or played soccer. Our daughter captained her varsity team. Our twin boys play varsity, and they are also seasoned referees. Our youngest son plays for a local club team. And together, we have spent thousands of hours on and around soccer fields across the country.
The Hardest Problem in Recreation
If we want more people to be compelled to vigorously exercise, mixed-group scheduling combined with play space provisioning is the hardest problem (in recreation) to solve.
The Secret of Stuff
Nothing distracts one from achieving true happiness more than the pursuit of stuff. Ask anyone that can’t leave a bad job, that can’t afford the car they are driving, the house they are living in, or the credit cards they are paying off, or anyone else that’s drowning in clutter or deprived of time: “Does the pursuit of stuff lead to happiness...or not?”
Simple Money Borrowing and Lending Rules to Live By
More often than not, businesses are built upon loans. Without loans, the world of commerce would come to a grinding halt. If you plan to borrow or lend money, here are a few simple rules to live by:
The Haley Pitch Every Founder Should Know
Prior to spending a ton of time on a business plan or an investor deck, create a simple Haley Pitch. It's the most efficient way to obtain valuable feedback from advisors, mentors, and the critics you respect. You should be able to demonstrate that you have invested at least one hundred hours discussing prototypes, mockups, storyboards, or wireframes with potential users and/or customers.
Product Scaffolding
I frequently get into discussions and debates with friends and founders about the viability of new products and services. Product scaffolding makes it easy for me to rapidly evaluate the opportunity size, branding, and believability (is it possible). In my experience, if you can’t describe your product or service using simple, harmonious product scaffolding, your venture will struggle.
Big Data Can't Find Austin's Songs
You can't find Austin anywhere. He's barely on the Internet. His unmastered recordings are decaying on a hard drive in a defunct studio, and the venues that loved him have given up trying to find him.
Life Lessons From a Landscaper
My father was a successful businessman who built an auto recycling empire. Despite the fact that he spent his days amongst a sea of wrecked cars, bent metal, and burly men, my dad went home each day to his beloved trees, his blossoming flowers, and landscape designs. He was a junkyard dog with a soft spot for pansies, pine mulch, and asparagus.
Free Restaurant Pro-Forma
This post on my blog is an odd duck for me. However, I realize this post is useful to others. In 2016, I did in fact consider investing in a huge restaurant concept with some friends. If you found this post, I would love to know if the spreadsheet was useful. Please send me a note and/or feedback to brucewarila on Twitter or Gmail.
Social and Technical Phenomena That Are Making Your Music The Only Thing That Matters To Your Success
You could choose to have no website, no Facebook page, no videos, no album, no Twitter, no centralized location on the Internet, and never do much of anything on the Internet that could be called self-promotion, and that your fans can and could effortlessly do everything for you…
Have You Ridden a Windhorse?
A windhorse is not a strategy. It’s not a relationship. It’s not a routine. It’s not a drug. It’s any of the above. It’s what you ride that takes you to a place where you didn’t know you wanted to be.
Create an Elaborate Plan
The name of your brand, the URL you use, the first word you type, the sequence in which you release your songs, your lyrics, the images you feature, the videos you release, the messages you type, and everything you put into your online presence should be part of an elaborate plan to seduce fans.
The Flat Earth Conundrum
Do you believe crowds of humans will ever (or do now) sway as much control over the rate and depth of media dissemination as the established media machine does now?
The Primary Job of a Manager is to Take Care of Your Lazy Artist!
When a westerner (an American for example) walks by the office of a co-worker, and the co-worker is quietly sitting there doing nothing, the westerner’s first reaction is that the co-worker is lazy and probably slacking. On the other side of the world…
Point and Click Copyright Control
The Click Control business-copyright model is one in which rightsholders will (someday) simply and easily suspend and reclaim their copyrights. It makes sense to be able to temporarily and selectively suspend one’s copyrights to encourage adoption (including commercial usage), and then (via the click of a mouse) reclaim their suspended rights someplace along the way to becoming a classic…
Learning From Stone
If someone shows you, you will obtain confidence that the problem or puzzle can be solved. If someone shows you, and teaches you, you will solve the problem. If nobody shows you, and nobody teaches you, the stone can teach you what you need to know.
The Song Adoption Formula
The formula stipulates that for a song to obtain maximum traction, all the variables in the formula have to push up and max out. If you plug the formula into a spreadsheet and play around with scenarios, you will notice (it’s all multiplication), that a single low variable sinks a song (this is important). In other words, you need ALL the variables to work for you to maximize the conversion rate from listeners to fans.
Don’t go over the self-promotion cliff, crush your local radio station instead.
The more that I read about the latest and greatest music marketing trends, the more I want to stand up on my desk and shout “don’t go over the cliff with the rest of the lemmings!”
The End of File Sharing
The cost of acquiring a music collection is approaching zero, while the cost of listening to whatever you want is no more than a 30 second ad spot for every sixty minutes of music…