Adventures In Businessing

Introduction Rob is driving this show, but it seems like someone should have told him that before the show actually started. James celebrated his son’s fourth birthday, as well as the fifteenth anniversary of WordPress, by giving his son a video game and immediately hogging it. He tries to make it sound like his son wanted him to take all the turns, but we know the truth, James just wanted to play the old school video games. Kevin bemoans the week of meetings and product discussions that he and James both just came out of. They both seem to have needed the three day weekend. I’m not sure it made this podcast any better, but you can’t win them all. Rob talks about taking time out of his work schedule for family and plugs a family-friendly hotel/waterpark in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He had to ultimately get permission from one of his employees to allow himself to go on vacation. I was going to make fun of that, but once I typed it all out, it seems a bit sad. The Show This week, the hosts discuss ways of keeping

Introduction Welcome back to the AIB show notes! I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. If you get that reference, you’re doing better than James, who isn’t what I’d call a “Potterhead.” As you have probably guessed already, Jeremy is missing again this week. It turns out that Thanos is a comic book character created for Marvel Comics, so what he does in the Infinity War was just for pretend. I guess those rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated. This episode is all about un-business, the things that the hosts do to relax. The Show Since this is an episode about hobbies, you can bet that Kevin talks about his hobby-horse, woodworking. James has recently discovered his own hobbies of close-up magic and card collecting. Rob and James go down a very weird rabbit trail of David Blaine conspiracy theories. Well, just one theory, really, the one that says Mr. Blaine has been possessed by a Satan. Apparently his wizardry is such that Rob feels the only possible explanation is demonic possession. When he’s no

Infinity War spoilers! Turn back if you haven’t seen the movie yet. I have some bad news. It would seem that our normal show notes writer was in the half of the galaxy who turned to dust. Yup. Thanos done un-made ‘em. As the search for a new writer gets under way, let me catch you up on this week’s podcast. Major talking points: Building a brand starts with product GoDaddy as a case-study of bad brand management Actually interacting with your customers can help you learn what they need and want Being a part of your customer’s culture can be as important as what you are selling Recommendations: Jeremy recommends payroll solution gusto.com James recommends the bacon bowl, especially if you want to eat a lot of cheese and other meat. Rob suggests a really interesting game called blackbox. Kevin suggests taking advantage of telemedicine, the ability to interact with a doctor via video chat.

Introduction Jeremy just keeps breaking records by being present for a miraculous third show in a row. It’s almost like he wants to do this podcast thing! Speaking of Jeremy, he takes a turn in the driver’s seat and is at least able to manage avoiding talking about balls. He also promises to have the podcast done in under thirty minutes, but I don’t think he keeps that promise. We should probably mention the fact that Jeremy has a board of directors. Not his company, but him personally. A personal board of directors. He goes to them when he needs to make big life decisions and gets their input; it’s unclear whether or not these board members get veto power or if they own stock in Jeremy™. According to Jeremy, this group helps him keep his life on track. I only need one seat on my board of directors, and it’s filled by the big man upstairs. The Show Today’s show is all about mentoring and being mentored. The hosts assert that both being mentored and mentoring others is an important part of the entrepreneurial

Introduction Have you seen Avengers: Infinity War yet? If you haven’t, why are you listening to this dumb ole podcast. Go watch this movie! Those of you still hanging around are in for quite a treat; you get to hear THE Jeremy Moore in a record-setting two podcasts in a row. I’m not saying it’s good, but he is present! That’s right! The Vanmaster has managed to make it to two consecutive podcast recording sessions. Will he make it a turkey? I’m not holding my breath. Before we jump into the show, I want to give you a bit of an explicit language warning. Usually Kevin earns the coveted iTunes explicit tag with a random cuss, but today Rob opens the show with a pretty tawdry discussion of balls. The Show Rob takes his first turn helming the good ship AIB and immediately runs it aground in the bay of balls. As an entrepreneur, how do you make sure important tasks get carried out in your day-to-day? Thankfully, Rob switches the “spinning plates” metaphor, but I fear the damage is already done. Kevin recommends pi

Intro Buckle up for a whopper of an intro full of stories, humour, and fun. Well, at least one of those. In this episode Kevin not-so-humble brags about visiting Iceland. Apparently he’s going with a company called Adventures with Geeks, which will be mentioned again in the recommendation section. Rob sounds like he’d really like to go; look for his GoFundMe page coming soon. Rob takes a deep dive into the world of Live Action RolePlay, LARP. Apparently he desperately wants to “scare some nerds,” which makes him sound like an extra from a DirecTV sequel to Revenge of the Nerds. What drove James to become a vigilante? What terrible, unspeakable horror formed his specific hatred of LARPing? Stay tuned true believer, for this episode reveals his dark origins. (Soon to be a major motion picture written by Rob Alderman and Kevin Stover. I hear Guillermo del Toro is interested in directing) ‘Nuff said! BTW, Jeremy’s still mia. The Show Welcome to AIB Theatre. Today’s show, Why Won’t it Blend or Appliance Un-plugged

Intro While most businesses would pride themselves on producing great products, providing great services, or just generally making a profit, the good people at Saturday Drive know what’s really important, bananas. Yeah. You read that right. Rob opens this episode by describing how much the community loves the fact that the Saturday Drive crew eats bananas. The word that’s spread isn’t how great their products and services are. Nope. It’s the fact that they buy fruit. Did you know that anyone can just walk up and buy fruit? You can’t make this stuff up. The Show Jeremy’s out of town, again, and so James, Rob, and Kevin dive into the world of company culture without him. During his previous hiatus, I reported that Jeremy was in the Mediterranean, but that was a mistake. I can confirm this time, however, that he his indeed basking on the sunny shores of either Italy or Greece. Maybe both. Can I get in on the company culture that involves travelling to far-flung destinations every other week? Kevin pulls back the

Introduction Jeremy’s back! And he brought alcohol! This episode is brought to you by chocolate bourbon. If you’ve ever wanted to drink a brownie, just mix some chocolate bourbon with your cola of choice. It’s probably not a good idea to give these guys liquor that tastes like candy before they record an episode. If you pay attention, you can catch the moment it hits Jeremy. Think of it like a buzzed Where’s Waldo. I don’t know if you’re aware or not, but Jamesplaining is when James breaks something down so that you can understand it. Does that make sense? Sorry. I just Jamesplained Jamesplaining. The Show In this thrilling adventure, the hosts set out to discuss different ways of organizing businesses. Jeremy sets the stage for the hosts to talk about their experiences with different management structures and which structures they currently employ, but it quickly apparent, however, that the real discussion is about Holacracy. Do you want to know about a hot business organizational methodology from 2014? If s

Welcome to the show notes! I usually like to open with a snarky comment, but let’s face it, not even I can be on all the time. Let’s keep this one serious. Jeremy is somewhere in the Mediterranean, soaking up the sun and speaking Greek while James, Rob, and Kevin work away in the podcast mine. Fittingly, rather than being a meandering discussion about a single topic, this episode is made up of lots of advice nuggets for entrepreneurs and those that want to start their own business. Kevin and James have been up to their old tricks again: working together closely on a new business project. They both seem to enjoy it. Of course, it’s super top secret, though, and they still won't just tell us what it is. Well, that didn’t last very long. Rob has been writing a script for a university’s capital campaign. It’s hard to make a joke about capital campaigns. Rob has also decided that he’s too good for show prep. James kicks things off by suggesting that you should “do something you love, or don’t do it at all.” Great.

Bonjour! Good to have you back. Have you ever forgotten to click the “record” button when you and your friends get together to record a podcast? Don’t worry; James hasn’t, either. Jeremy introduces this episode’s topic, “How do you test and measure new business ideas or products?” He opens the discussion by stating that he’s fired some people in the last forty-eight hours. Maybe some of you took him up on the offer to hire him as a freelance executioner? If you haven’t, he seems willing and ready to fire people for you; you should get in touch. The group talks about various ways to test and experiment with business ideas. Kevin and James shared about a new product experiment that’s currently in development. Of course, they didn’t give any details, which made it a bit boring, to be honest. If you’re absolutely looking for some nuggets out of that part of the conversation, James suggests that one way of testing ideas is to see if your current user base has a problem that the idea solves. Jeremy also observes th

Fun Sized Teasers [playlist type="video" images="false" ids="171,170,169"] Show Notes Hey! You came back! I’m not surprised or anything; just being friendly. We’ve all had to deal with awful coworkers or employees. In this episode, our hosts dive into the world of employee conflict. What do you do when you don’t get along with an employee? Worse yet, what do you do when an employee doesn’t get along with the rest of your team? Those aren’t rhetorical questions, Rob seriously wants to know. Feel free to shoot him an email. Just google The Alderman Group. You’ll find him. During the discussion, James describes how he and Zach, an employee of his company, can get into talks that escalate into heated arguments. At the end of the day, James calls Zach a younger version of himself, which I guess means that he likes to argue with himself? Or he hates himself? Or he’s projecting? I’m not a licensed psychologist, so I don’t know how to properly interpret that. I can barely spell psychologist. Ok, fine, I used spell-ch

Welcome to the show notes! Thanks for stopping by. Do you like to talk about guns? Because 1/4 of the Adventures in Businessing podcast does! James, Rob, and Kevin attempt to steer the conversation about business ethics away from the second amendment, while Jeremy keeps trying to give the wheel a hard spin toward the craggy shores of political division. We briefly discuss Wal-mart and Dick's Sporting Goods' decision to not sell rifles to people under the age of 21. The crew successfully maneuvers the ship through those choppy waters and into the harbour of business ethics, where they run aground on the jagged rocks of reality. Ok. I think I've tortured that metaphor enough. Should businesses get involved in social issues? If they should, what responsibilities do they have? Is corporate activism the future of change? Do people care what their favourite soda brand does with their profits? Should they? Remember when that bakery wouldn't bake a cake for a same-sex couple? We're nothing if not topical and timely.

When you are good at something it's natural to think the next step is to start a business doing that thing. Is that the right choice for everyone? Are there challenges and caveats you need to keep in mind? In this episode of Adventures in Businessing, Kevin, James, Rob, and Jeremy explore these questions and more. Our Recommendations Jeremy Moore: InnerGuide Rob Alderman: Clear Kevin Stover: Tip - Remove Facebook... James Laws: missinglettr (aff)

James, Rob, and Kevin are at it again and this time they're discussing a some hard truths of entrepreneurship... Rob calls out the Gary Vaynerchuk gospel of hustle. Kevin questions Apple's brand strength. Rob thinks you are a terrible photographer. James makes a case for having the right idea... late. James, Rob, & Kevin discuss the weight of being the decision maker. James reminisces on the television show Wings and has a Joe moment. Recommendations In each show we've started wrapping up with some tip, trick, product, service, or resource to help you in your own entrepreneurial journey. This weeks recommendations are... Kevin: Book - The Art of Scrum Rob: App - Overcast.fm James: Book - The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together: How to Run Your Business Without Letting it Run You

For this adventure, the hosts minus Jeremy describe some of the biggest changes they’ve made in their businesses over the years. Rob gives some awesome advice using a hockey analogy, Kevin tries to take credit for James’ great intuition, and James explains how we accidentally increased our monthly revenue by $40,000. Talk about burying the lead... Recommendations Rob: The War of Art Kevin: The Forest App James: Full Story

Another fun episode where James, Kevin, Rob, and Jeremy discuss different types of entrepreneurs. Kevin and James give a shot at describing each other's entrepreneurial styles. Kevin shares the secret family business. And all four of us discuss the the Doritos product, Lady Chips. All is all it a fun listen and a special shout out to our studio mates, The Punnery Podcast.  

In this episode of Adventures in Businessing, James, Kevin, and Rob discuss their younger selves and how they started exploring this thing we call entrepreneurship. Origin stories, funny families, and epic exits from previous employment are the stops on this episodes journey and it's sure to be a fun ride.

AIB is back with a brand new cast and learning how to record all over again. Not without some poor audio artifacts, mostly some clipping here and there, we are back with some new energy and what I hope will be a great chemistry as we discus entrepreneurship from the perspective of three very different business. Get to know the players a little better as we discuss some of the topics we would like to cover in future episodes. Transcription coming soon.

Keeping up with the AIB norm, the crew takes on a hairy WordPress topic, in the future of the JavaScript Framework. Enter React. Topics Include: An awkward Ebay sponsorship. A history of Backbone. How Backbone is showing its age. What is React? What is Calypso? Advantages. Discussing criteria. Some don’t think ease-of-use should determine usage or adoption. A React compare/contrast. Measuring the barrier to entry. “What helps you make decisions for the future of your business?” (Briefly derailed by nautical terminology.) What is the mission statement for your product? How does this differ from your business missions statement? The determinate reason for having a mission statement. Anytime you create a focus, you will alienate users. Ensuring you have a scope nailed down, for your product, service, business. Your mission statement has to align with your business objective/s. As silly as it may sound, why you need a mission statement for everything. Missions Statements exist not to infer what y

In this week's Part 2 story of WP Ninjas, James and Kevin talk candidly about the stages of their business; successes, failures, and general curiosities await. Celebrating renewals and sales. McDonald’s gets frork'd! Making changes in the digital market versus the physical space. Getting your product known Branding Hiring a design team. Enter FocusLab The investment risk and reward of branding. Kevin’s move back to America, from U.K. The impact of James and Kevin finding out they would both become fathers. How that revelation translated into kicking the business into the next gear. Kevin’s plot to influence James into hiring the first employee. Transitioning to the first office space. The impact of annual renewals. How ignorance garnered experience. How Kevin’s daughter, in part, led to a hiring frenzy. The potential hires that did work out…and the ones that didn't. The 2016 office switch. Going back to FocusLab to revamp the UI The intensity and lead up to launch. Launching the 3.0 redesign, re