Craftsman Founder with Lucas Carlson and Eliot Peper

Life unfolds in unexpected ways. Eliot Peper has been a frequent guest, and at times, even a co-host of the show. We've followed his story since his first novel came out. First Novel Interview - Jun 18, 2014 Second Novel Interview - Dec 3, 2014 Third Novel Interview - Jul 29, 2015  And today, Eliot's 8th book has been released: Bandwidth Listening back to those early interviews, it's really amazing to watch Eliot's path unfolding. So many times in life, it's easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and connect the dots after the fact. But to listen to those interviews captures a journey in a way that's otherwise impossible to predict. And where he's currently ended up is quite impressive. His latest novel reached #4 in the ENTIRE AMAZON KINDLE STORE. Not just the category of science fiction, but the whole store. And now he's signed a 3 book deal with Amazon to publish his latest trilogy. It's an incredibly impressive track record Eliot is putting together. And incredibly difficult to have predicted ahead of time. If people could have predicted, they would have been lining up in 2014 to represent him. So if you are currently unable to get anyone to notice your great work, take this story as inspiration. Your story hasn't finished yet. So much lies ahead if you just keep at it.

One of my mentors has just written a book on entrepreneurship... and it happens to be a damn good one too. Listen to this podcast for just a snippet of his wisdom and buy his new book: The San Francisco Fallacy to learn more from this really amazing man.

This week, Adam Cheyer talks to us about co-founding Siri and the future of AI. Yes, that Siri. ;) Adam's background is fascinating. He didn't even start to try to be an entrepreneur until his 40's. In a world full of bright-eyed 20-something entrepreneurs trying to make it, but instead ending up in a rat-race of their own creation, it's refreshing to talk to Adam.  Adam created Siri (and Viv) through a methodology that he will teach you in this interview. You can apply it today. It's his unique twist on goal-setting, and is tempered by the fact that life is unpredictable and things often turn out different than you might first imagine. You will also learn about the two big practices in AI today, and see if one or the other might be a good fit for you. So take a listen and learn more about the fascinating man behind a revolution in voice control.

How do you start a company? Most people think they know, but they get it all wrong. David S Rose has been an entrepreneur and investor for decades. He's seen it from both sides many times and lives to tell the tale. In his first interview with us, he told us all about his background and how he turned into an investor. This time, he talks about the nitty-gritty of how to start and grow your business. If you want to see the Gust Startup Checklist, visit gust.com/checklist.

Ryan Holiday discusses his new book, Ego Is The Enemy.

Patrick McGinnis has a new book out called The 10% Entrepreneur. It's a novel idea that has the same roots as Nassim Taleb's barbell investing approach. Nassim Taleb suggests putting 10% of your assets in high-risk high-reward assets that could multiply enormously and the other 90% of your assets in plain old cash. That way you can never go bankrupt, because only 10% of your assets are exposed. Similarly, Patrick McGinnis suggests investing 10% of your time in entrepreneurship and 90% of it doing something safe like a day job. Only when your idea proves itself viable do you quit your job and start looking for venture capital, if you even want to go that path. James Altucher talks about this all the time. He didn't quit his job until his side project could pay for his lifestyle. This week, we talk to Patrick about this idea and much more.

Josh Maher is a Seattle-based author and angel investor who is written a book recently called “Startup Wealth: How the Best Angel Investors Make Money In Startups” about how to create personal wealth by investing through startups. He’s interviewed many great angel investors including Chris DeVore who wasalso on this podcast and invested in my startup. Josh recently joined us on the podcast, not only to talk about his new book but how understanding angel investors is a lot different than understanding venture capitalists. In my book, Finding Success in Failure, I talk a lot about how reading is a fantastic way to have proximity towards people you might not otherwise have access to. And I think that the key to raising venture capital from angel investors is to first understand the people behind the money. And if you don’t have a large group of angel investors that you already have relationships with, this book is a fantastic way to start understanding the people behind angel investing. Listening and watching podcasts is another way to have great proximity. So please join Eliot Peper and me in this wonderful conversation and start to get to know Josh Maher.

Today we talk to startup thriller author Eliot Peper about his new book finishing the Uncommon Stock trilogy.

What does it take to motivate your employees without necessarily changing compensation structures? Kevin Kruse has turned this into a science in his book "We: How to Increase Performance and Profits through Full Engagement" where he talks about steps you can use to engage and motivate your employees today. Most startups don't think about startup culture very much, they assume that they will be acquired before there are enough employees for that to matter. But that's absolutely the wrong way to think about things. You should be laying the groundwork for a great company culture from day 1. And that means understanding how to build an engaged team. Listen to this interview for concrete steps that anyone can put to use today.

These 21 heard-earned lessons Andrew has learned along the way to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

This week I am excerpting a chapter from The Craftsman Founder Manifesto. There is a siren’s song inside all founders that can lead you into the rocky cliffs of depression. It’s an inner voice that frequently says mean and terrible things. It’s an inner bully. You might think: “You are too stupid to start a company. Plus, your idea sucks and nobody wants to use it. How long have you been trying to get attention for this? Can’t you just give up now? Call it quits. Just do what everyone else does. Everyone’s laughing and making fun of you behind your back. Stop embarrassing yourself.”

Fortunes come and go. Building startups is a long game. It is not long on money. You might win money in one startup, then invest it all and lose it the next startup. Startups are long on character. This is the dirty little secret nobody tells you up front: the spoils go to those left standing.

The Underwriting: Get Rich, Get Laid, Get Even is Michelle Miller's new book. It is described as The Social Network meets The Wolf of Wall Street, as it takes you behind closed doors into a post-recession world of sex scandals, power plays, and underhanded dealings.

Josh Turner (author of the new book Connect: The Secret LinkedIn Playbook To Generate Leads, Build Relationships, And Dramatically Increase Your Sales) teaches us how to leverage LinkedIn for startups and side projects this week on the podcast. Josh also runs LinkedUniversity.com which has been teaching people how to effectively use LinkedIn to get more business. This week we talk about simple things that can make a big difference with your LinkedIn profile.

Andy Weir, bestselling author of The Martian and The Egg talks with us this week about how he writes, how he comes up with ideas, and what inspires him. Andy’s story personally inspires me because I am trying to finish my first novel right now and Eliot has written two novels with another on the way. Moreover, he used to be a computer programmer (just like me). Now he gets to live a life focused on writing entertaining-as-hell novels that millions of people will read. <p style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 35px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;

Mike Belsito wrote a new book called Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of Us. Here's the description: You have aspirations for creating a startup company that will change the world, but need startup capital in order to make that happen. Where do you start? How can you raise serious funding when you don't have many connections or live outside of a major startup community like Silicon Valley. This week we also discuss this great concept and cover interesting topics like privacy and security for your iPhone, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

There has been a surprising amount of progress in the area of memory tools in the last 10 years. Memorization techniques aren't nearly as archane and complicated as they used to be. This week I will be teaching you how to memorize any phone number in just a few seconds, and you will be able to remember it forever. If you have ever been interested in memory retention and haven't looked into it for a while, definitely check this week's episode.

Finding Success in Failure has been a personal journey of a book, and I am proud to be producing it as an audiobook. Today's podcast gives you a free sample from the audiobook which will be available on Amazon, Audible and Apple. In every field, from chess to gymnastics, we can make bigger gains by reducing mistakes than by making winning moves. This is especially true in business. We study the greats, trying to extract valuable lessons, when avoiding a few key blunders would be more valuable.Fortunately, advice on what not to do is universally applicable. The ways to fall down the mountain are shared by all climbers, no matter which path they've chosen.This book is here to teach you how NOT to fall down the mountain.How can you be an entrepreneur that beats the odds? How do you build a successful business that not only changes the world for the better, but creates generational wealth for you and your family? You simply need to avoid mistakes -- and this book will show you how.What Other Entrepreneurs Are Saying"Lucas imparts the sound tactics of a seasoned veteran. Invest wisely in your company's most valuable asset: you."  ~Oliver Lade, Entrepreneur"Packed with insight, witty humor and approaches to difficult situations. Lucas shares truths that have an audience beyond the entrepreneurs for which the book is intended. His experience shines through the book as he draws the reader in to explore a mindset of what it means to be a founder." ~Brandon Dube, Founder

Dr Sean Wise, author of the new book Startup Opportunities: Know When to Quit Your Day Job, professor of entrepreneurship and innovation for the Ryerson University Entrepreneurship Program, producer of the Canadian entrepreneurship show The Naked Entrepreneur TV and consultant for Dragons' Den (like the Shark Tank) is an expert at entrepreneurship and we are thrilled to have him as a guest on the podcast this week.

When I read the following words, I nearly peed my pants. I’ve been an entrepreneur for, oh, half a century or so, and I’m still making most of these mistakes! (And yeah, these are mistakes…his list is bang on target). When I grow up I wanna be Lucas or Jason, who not only know the pitfalls, but don’t keep falling into them [sigh]. It wasn’t the words themselves (which of course was very kind), but who wrote it that I couldn’t believe. David. S. Rose. When I saw the name I could hardly believe it. I have watched David’s TED Talk about raising investments about a thousand times. I’ve watched it so many times that I nearly have it memorized. I am certain it helped me raise nearly $10 Million from investors. What makes David’s talk so special is that it gives you unique and actionable insight into the mind of an investor. If you have ever wondered what investors are really thinking and really looking for, there has never been a better explanation. Whenever founders ask me for advice for raising funds, I always send them to David’s talk. I have recommended the video over a hundred times. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw these words coming from a man I personally considered a legend and guru. <p style="margin: 5px 0

Entrepreneurs are perpetually interested in M&A and Venture Capital topics, but often have little direct experience themselves. The math behind this is pretty obvious: if an entrepreneur starts 3 or 4 startups in his career, there are only so many opportunities that an entrepreneur gets to learn about these kinds of deals. On the other hand, the people who work inside of Corporate Development (those who do M&A deals as their job) and Venture Capital see hundreds of opportunities a year. To an entrepreneur, it is a big deal. On the other side of the table, it is just another day on the job.  This week on the podcast we talk to Tim Porter (@tmporter), managing partner at Madrona Venture Group and former investor in my startup, AppFog. Before that, he worked at Microsoft doing M&A and Corp Dev which gives him a lot of perspective that many entrepreneurs don't have. We pick his brain and try to learn as much as possible this week.

Eliot Peper is pioneering the idea of startup fiction and has just released his second novel in the Uncommon Stock series. This week we get an exclusive behind-the-scenes view into the life of this author and his inspirations and motivations. Uncommon Stock: Book 1 Uncommon Stock: Book 2 NEW JUST RELEASED!!

Espree is very honest about her fears of asking for money in this show and we discuss ways to manage and conquer that fear. In the pre-show, Lucas and Eliot discuss Tony Robbins and wonder if he has any fears before his big talks. Tony Robbins just interviewed some of the worlds top money managers all around the world. He spent hours recording interviews, taking notes and learning from them. He asked their secrets and asked what the common person can do, when it seems the whole deck is stacked against you. He talks about what he learned in Tim Ferriss Show with Tony Robbins (View on iTunes) about his new book, Money: Master the Game. Lucas and Eliot discuss investment portfolios and talk about the book. Don’t miss this episode to hear all of the money conversation. We then discuss the importance of investing in yourself. It can be through education (reading, courses, mentorship) or even by writing books. Monetizing books doesn’t have to be directly be selling them, the simple fact that you wrote a book could change your career. Most people underinvest in themselves after college is over. Having a bachelor degree is not a competitive advantage anymore. Investing in yourself allows you to have some control into whether it achieves success or not. If you own Google, you can’t control how well it does. But if you start a business making sculptures and sells them on Etsy, and invest the money you wo

This week’s interview is with Espree Devora. She is doing amazing work in LA helping startups get off the ground and we talk about one of her specialties: outsourcing. It is also a landmark episode, because it is the first show with co-host Eliot Peper. Eliot was on the second episode of this show. He is an awesome guy, a great thinker, a lot of fun and he writes startup fiction thrillers. He is about to come out with his second book. Lucas and Eliot have a fiction bond with each other and it goes a lot deeper. We discuss a book that has really caught my imagination lately: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb I herd of the book before, but after hearing an interview with James Altucher, it really drew me in to finally pick up the book. Audio Podcast Here is just the audio for those who are interested in listening: <ul style="margin: 15px 0px 20px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 18px; vertical-align: baseline; list-style

Ryan Orbuch’s not your ordinary teenage kid. Ryan built Finish, an iPhone app used over a million times. It is known as "the to-do list for procrastinators” and was featured #1 in productivity in the app store.  After he received an Apple Design Award in 2013, it was covered on New York Times, TechCrunch, Forbes, CNET, The Huffington Post, and more. Ryan was also featured on Bloomberg TV and Fox News. Ryan gave a TED Talk and was hired at Techstars Boulder. He is also deeply passionate about education reform. This week we get into his mind a bit and get to know what makes him tick and what gets him excited.

A few weeks ago, we interviewed online marketing guru Neil Patel. This week I talk to his other half, product guru Hiten Shah. Together they are responsible for epic great tools like KISSMetrics and CrazyEgg, and Hiten's focus is on growth hacking and product engineering... how to create a great product. Hiten just started a weekly newsletter that covers SaaS topics: SaaS Weekly (http://hiten.com)  that you should totally check out. In the mean time, here's my interview with this great man.

Joanna Penn, NYT Bestselling Indie Author and popular podcaster, has a masters degree in theology from Oxford. Joanna then spent 13 years working in IT consulting. She would implement accounts payable into large corporates.  Like many cubicle slaves… she was paid well, traveled lots, had what you are “meant to want” in life and was miserable. She tried everything to get out of IT. Like starting a scuba diving company in New Zealand (which tanked). She did property investing in Australia, which she couldn’t care less about. She tried lots of things and always went back to her day job. Three years ago she left her day job to become a full time author and professional speaker.

Brand building isn't just for big companies. Any time you are interacting with a customer or user, your are building your brand. If you aren't doing it intentionally, then you are doing it implicitly. Jeremiah Gardner and Brant Cooper just wrote a book The Lean Brand, that gives you step by step instructions for how to build a great brand for yourself or your company. Learn their secrets in this week's podcast.

Learn from a real working venture capitalists in action, why does he invest and what does he invest in?

Always wanted to know why investors go cold sometimes? Find out why in this candid conversation with a professional seed investor and mentor of mine.

Tucker's New Blog: http://www.tuckermax.me Tucker's New Startup: http://bookinabox.co Tucker Max has sold millions of copies of his college humor books and is known for stunts like attempting to donate $500,000 to Planned Parenthood in order to decrease his tax burden and promote his new book. In this episode of the Craftsman Founder Podcast I ask Tucker if any of his past decisions still haunt him. We also go into big ideas like the future of publishing and talk about some disruptive technologies Tucker is working on now. Finally I ask Tucker what the best advice he has ever received is and what common mistakes he sees founders making every day. This is a great episode jam packed with awesome perspective and advice. Don't miss it!

Are you paralyzed with fear of failure and rejection? Or do you have dreams of getting rich with startups? This week is a special episode where instead of Lucas interviewing one of his mentors, you will hear Lucas be interviewed about what it's like to start a company and how to manage yourself through the process. We talk about a little discussed topic of founder psychology and the crazy things that go on inside an entrepreneur's head while starting a business and how to break out of short-term thinking to build more successful businesses. We will also reveal the big secret key behind fundraising, sales, marketing, recruiting, leadership and every other aspect of running a startup.

Neil Patel is an online celebrity and entrepreneur. He has been a prolific blogger on QuickSprout and the KISSmetrics blog since 2006. He has contributed to Entrepreneur Magazine, TechCrunch, Mashable, Business Insider, SEOmoz, and Geekwire. He has also mentored and advised endless numbers of entrepreneurs over the years, including myself. Neil is a true Craftsman Founder of multiple companies: ACS (SEO), Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics which all have generated many millions of dollars a year in revenue. I am lucky to call him a friend and thrilled Here is just the audio for those who are interested in listening: iTunes Stitcher RSS Feed Show Notes Your startups, KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg both use data to tell you stories of how people use your websites. Why is that important? When people build websites, they tend to focus on traffic. A million visitors a month to your site doesn’t guarantee success if those visitors don’t convert into customers. Understanding the entire story path of your users from where they come from to when they buy is critical for long-term success. Many decisions are gut instincts and opinions, do you have any examples of how measuring data lead to surprising results? Yes. It is “common knowledge” that you need to reduce friction to get people to sign up, therefore you are supposed to minimize the things you ask a person to tell you up front. For example, you usually don’t ask for the person’s URL during signup. But using data, we found that asking for their URL first actually INCREASES SIGNUPS. How did you discover this? Through data–Using Google Analytics, KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg Qualitative feedback–SurveyMonkey, Qualaroo, Promoter.io Peers–We saw other smart people we know trying these ideas How does thinking like your customer help you make more sales? Think of a website as a first date. If someone lands on your site, let’s get married is: give me your email, password and credit card… that’s a really tough sell. But if you say: Good to meet you, what’s your name or URL? You start building a relationship with your audience which will make it easier for deeper engagements with your customers. How can you use data to piece together the stories about how customers find out about you? Do it in bite sizes. Figure out and o

New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Entrepreneur, Patrick Vlaskovits, talks about how to apply lean startup principles to your company to find product-market fit and avoid common mistakes and pitfalls many entrepreneurs fall into. From coming up with startup ideas to evaluating them and marketing them, Patrick brings his wealth of expertise to bear in this great interview.

Many founders hope to one day take their company public on the stock market and have it be worth over $1B+ in market cap. To Dave Hersh, this dream is a reality with Jive Software, a company he founded and lead for 8 years and through 3 different business models. Dave also happens to be one of my personal mentors and friends. This week we have the honor of interviewing Dave, who runs a brilliant startup blog and often talks about founder's impatience. I ask Dave many tough and interesting questions this week like: You were involved with Jive for 8 years and stepped out right before it went public. Can you tell us why? What did you learn about work/life balance? Can you tell us about any bad startup ideas you had before Jive and how you knew Jive was different? What are the top 3 most common mistakes that you see startup founders make? What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received about starting companies? A few years ago, you became a Venture Capitalist with the top VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. What has being a VC taught you about startups and founders that you didn’t realize while being a founder? How has the way you approach and think about startups changed over the years?

If you got a Stanford MBA and then worked as an investment banker... what would be your next career move? Michelle Miller decided to write a novel called The Underwriting. But she didn't just write a novel and hope to get traditionally published, she treated her novel as a startup. She raised investment, secured brand sponsorships, created screen savers and playlists, made a video trailer and serialized her novel (a modern Charles Dickens). This week, I interviewed Michelle in the Craftsman Founder Podcast and ask a bunch of questions: Tell us about your background What is The Underwriting? What’s worked and what hasn’t worked well in promoting your novel? With your Stanford MBA and then investment banking background, how is writing a novel like doing a startup? What can entrepreneurs learn from authors and vise-versa? How does an author promote and do marketing for her work today? Are you a plotter or a pantser? What writing apps do you use? Who inspires you? Have you considered traditional publishing? What attracted you to self-publishing? Is fiction a viable investment for venture capitalists? Should more fiction authors consider trying to raise venture capital for their novels? What do you like best about writing? So what’s next for the Underwriting?

Eliot Peper is an entrepreneur, an investor, an advisor… and now an author of startup fiction. His first book, Uncommon Stock (published by Brad Feld’s new publishing company FG Press) at its surface seems like an uncommon next step for most entrepreneurs. However if you treat a novel like a startup, you can understand the decision better. This week, I spend some time interviewing Eliot around a few topics: How is writing a novel like doing a startup? What can entrepreneurs learn from authors and vise-versa? How does an author promote and do marketing for his work? Are you a plotter or a pantser? What writing apps do you use? Who inspires you? You were originally going to self-publish? What attracted you to self-publishing? Was it hard to decide between FG Press and self-publishing? Was it harder than you expected to write the book? What do you like best about writing? What’s next for you?

Chris Tacy is one of my startup mentors and close personal friends. He is not only a brilliant strategist, but he has had 4 successful start experiences in a row with 4 successful exits and no (major) failures. A rare occurrence in startups. He has some surprising advice to share, so find out his secrets.