This is fantastic Maxim. None of the great inventors/entrepreneurs got it right the first time. You did the right thing and learned a lot with your first customer. I know it hurts but long term I think you will find the lessons learned far outweigh the costs spent in 2X materials.
There's a great essay relevant to what you're facing: Do Things that Don't Scale by Paul Graham. It talks explains the advantages small companies have (like being able to help your customer with the cows) and why you should be optimizing for rate of learning early on. By doing this work and learning directly from your customers, you may discover a bigger or more painful problem you can solve at scale that you didn't see at first.
Great update and I’m sure you learned a great deal regarding industrial drone work! From an entrepreneurial point of view, sounds like your drone company (DJI?) needs a parts hub in your area! Learned about you and your dad from Glenn Beck’s recent podcast - great info and I wish I could convince our 15 year old grandson to take the same path! I will be sending him the book for Christmas!
Bob, thanks for the comment. I think The Preparation could be great for your grandson...it's been huge for me. So, if you need help convincing him to start - let me know!
Last thing, sounds like the drone guy was being straight up with you and shared the legitimate downsides. And his experience taught him that rather than being the barber—he wants to be the guy who sells razors to the barbers. It was similar in the Gold Rush days. The prospectors didn’t always find gold. But the guys who sold them equipment always got the green. Classic business story.
Yeah, for sure. I don't know if I trust his business advice, but the info about lack of parts and dealing with Uruguayan employees is good to know. I still think that selling the services here could be big.
Plus—wow you’ve got a girlfriend who steps in and gets her hands dirty helping you! I haven’t looked at the entire Preparation book yet, but does it address relationships? Something that young people seem to struggle with more now than in the past. One aspect of relationships that is rarely talked or written about is that you will both be happier if you’re both good at being on Each Others’ Team. Life is hard. Work is hard (even if you’re rocking all your hobbies for pay!) And having a competent person who has your back and will drop what they’re doing to help you (and vice versa of course) is gold.
Yes! I'm very lucky. We don't talk about relationships at all in The Preparation. We figure that (at least for men) emphasizing the pursuit of virtue and capabilities will naturally form them into a good partner. But, if the version for women is written it will have a section on relationships since any somewhat interesting and pretty young woman will have many...many men trying to take advantage of her if the opportunity arises.
Hah! Great story dude! I’ve written about how failures/setbacks/mistakes are really just a one-room school house (or perhaps a one-student school house!). We can all learn something from our successes, but we learn way more from our setbacks. When I teach a class on gardening for instance, I assure the students that I have probably made more mistakes than all of them put together, but that’s how i know so gosh darn much about gardening! The important thing is two fold: don’t beat up on yourself (just a waste of emotional energy) and take the lesson.
For more detailed response you need to specify where you're at: triads, basic jazz chords, extended jazz chords.
Given that you're still working out fingerings, I'm guessing triads, correct me if I'm wrong.
Given that you're near Brazil and Argentina, there's a wealth of Brazilian and Argentian music that is harmonically far more interesting: tango and bossa nova.
Grab a bossa nova songbook and work your way through all the lovely jazz chord fingerings.
By far the best way to grow your chord vocabulary: fingerings and chord names.
Great foundation for then working through jazz theory.
There is a reason that any lessons learned from experience are learned the hard way. The testing that exposes the error is what causes the mess. If the lesson was learned from reading about it, then you never get to see the result of the experiment. And once or twice, the experiment works and you get lucky.
As for the music: If you want to learn how to play popular music so you can get gigs in a club, then by all means, learn the songs. But the result is you'll just have a lot of songs that you can play, and not much else. The better way is to learn the theory; it will make for easier learning of additional songs that you may learn to play by ear.
I am from Uruguay, I moved to the states 24 years ago.
One year when my family and I went to visit my family we decided to make an appointment at “Zona Franca” to see how fisable would be to have an office in Uruguay for our business (we sale surplus parts and equipment). After that appointment we realized why Uruguay is the way it is. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country till the and beyond. But they are not friendly when it comes to new business unless you know people or have A LOT of money to invest in it.
Unfortunately the people buying the drones will realize how expensive it is to purchase parts and will hack the drones however they can to make them work or you will find them laying next to the sheds.
Max......do not listen to the naysayers. The ones trying to talk you out of it are trying to steal your ideas, and do it themselves for less. SAY little and TAKE IN knowledge.....sorry, but that is just the way that it goes in the world of economy and money right now. You will have good days and bad days. Hold your head up and go forward!
This is fantastic Maxim. None of the great inventors/entrepreneurs got it right the first time. You did the right thing and learned a lot with your first customer. I know it hurts but long term I think you will find the lessons learned far outweigh the costs spent in 2X materials.
There's a great essay relevant to what you're facing: Do Things that Don't Scale by Paul Graham. It talks explains the advantages small companies have (like being able to help your customer with the cows) and why you should be optimizing for rate of learning early on. By doing this work and learning directly from your customers, you may discover a bigger or more painful problem you can solve at scale that you didn't see at first.
Great update and I’m sure you learned a great deal regarding industrial drone work! From an entrepreneurial point of view, sounds like your drone company (DJI?) needs a parts hub in your area! Learned about you and your dad from Glenn Beck’s recent podcast - great info and I wish I could convince our 15 year old grandson to take the same path! I will be sending him the book for Christmas!
Bob, thanks for the comment. I think The Preparation could be great for your grandson...it's been huge for me. So, if you need help convincing him to start - let me know!
Last thing, sounds like the drone guy was being straight up with you and shared the legitimate downsides. And his experience taught him that rather than being the barber—he wants to be the guy who sells razors to the barbers. It was similar in the Gold Rush days. The prospectors didn’t always find gold. But the guys who sold them equipment always got the green. Classic business story.
Yeah, for sure. I don't know if I trust his business advice, but the info about lack of parts and dealing with Uruguayan employees is good to know. I still think that selling the services here could be big.
Plus—wow you’ve got a girlfriend who steps in and gets her hands dirty helping you! I haven’t looked at the entire Preparation book yet, but does it address relationships? Something that young people seem to struggle with more now than in the past. One aspect of relationships that is rarely talked or written about is that you will both be happier if you’re both good at being on Each Others’ Team. Life is hard. Work is hard (even if you’re rocking all your hobbies for pay!) And having a competent person who has your back and will drop what they’re doing to help you (and vice versa of course) is gold.
Yes! I'm very lucky. We don't talk about relationships at all in The Preparation. We figure that (at least for men) emphasizing the pursuit of virtue and capabilities will naturally form them into a good partner. But, if the version for women is written it will have a section on relationships since any somewhat interesting and pretty young woman will have many...many men trying to take advantage of her if the opportunity arises.
Hah! Great story dude! I’ve written about how failures/setbacks/mistakes are really just a one-room school house (or perhaps a one-student school house!). We can all learn something from our successes, but we learn way more from our setbacks. When I teach a class on gardening for instance, I assure the students that I have probably made more mistakes than all of them put together, but that’s how i know so gosh darn much about gardening! The important thing is two fold: don’t beat up on yourself (just a waste of emotional energy) and take the lesson.
Thanks Maxim for the generous offer!! I will certainly get you linked in if I can get him to consider!!
Welcome to life! persevere! stay the path! you’ll get er done!
As a rule of thumb: songs.
For more detailed response you need to specify where you're at: triads, basic jazz chords, extended jazz chords.
Given that you're still working out fingerings, I'm guessing triads, correct me if I'm wrong.
Given that you're near Brazil and Argentina, there's a wealth of Brazilian and Argentian music that is harmonically far more interesting: tango and bossa nova.
Grab a bossa nova songbook and work your way through all the lovely jazz chord fingerings.
By far the best way to grow your chord vocabulary: fingerings and chord names.
Great foundation for then working through jazz theory.
I'll be posting guitar learning approaches on my substack so check that out: https://brazilianjazzfusion.substack.com/
Tom, thank you. That's very helpful. I'll be tuning in to your Substack page.
There is a reason that any lessons learned from experience are learned the hard way. The testing that exposes the error is what causes the mess. If the lesson was learned from reading about it, then you never get to see the result of the experiment. And once or twice, the experiment works and you get lucky.
As for the music: If you want to learn how to play popular music so you can get gigs in a club, then by all means, learn the songs. But the result is you'll just have a lot of songs that you can play, and not much else. The better way is to learn the theory; it will make for easier learning of additional songs that you may learn to play by ear.
Got it, that's very helpful. Then I'll be putting more effort to learning music theory. Thanks, Kevin!
Take it as a learning curve.
I am from Uruguay, I moved to the states 24 years ago.
One year when my family and I went to visit my family we decided to make an appointment at “Zona Franca” to see how fisable would be to have an office in Uruguay for our business (we sale surplus parts and equipment). After that appointment we realized why Uruguay is the way it is. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country till the and beyond. But they are not friendly when it comes to new business unless you know people or have A LOT of money to invest in it.
Unfortunately the people buying the drones will realize how expensive it is to purchase parts and will hack the drones however they can to make them work or you will find them laying next to the sheds.
RE guitar, this may be of interest: https://davidleviguitar.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vshGlx38eHE
Max......do not listen to the naysayers. The ones trying to talk you out of it are trying to steal your ideas, and do it themselves for less. SAY little and TAKE IN knowledge.....sorry, but that is just the way that it goes in the world of economy and money right now. You will have good days and bad days. Hold your head up and go forward!