Flow Is the Antidote for Ego

In today's world, we're always striving for more, more, more. More money, bigger companies, more market share, faster times, longer distances, heavier weights, etc. It's all testosterone, adrenaline, and a lot of ego. It's not all bad, as great things do come from it. But where does it end? How long can the effort be sustained? Often, it ends with injuries, burnout, broken relationships, or simply an aging body or mind that can't compete anymore.

Educational Game Rating and Standards Body

I recently interviewed André Thomas, founder and CEO of Triseum, an educational game company. He’s also the founder and director of LIVE Lab in the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University, as well as a professor of game design, game development, and interactive graphics techniques at Texas A&M.

In this interview, conducted for my column at Learning Solutions Magazine, we discussed several topics related to the development and distribution of educational video games. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fit it all into one article, and many of the questions had to be cut from the final piece. However, the discussion about creating a game rating and standards body was too important to leave on the virtual cutting room floor, so I’m publishing it here.

Your Video Game Will Fail

In July I wrote my least popular Metafocus article yet, an explanation of the Unit Economics of making an educational video game. Granted, learning to crunch the numbers of a business opportunity isn't everyone's cup of tea, especially educators. I won't write another article on Unit Economics for the column anytime soon.

Still, I'm quite proud of the piece. I'm certain it's the only piece of its kind anywhere, online or off. Perhaps a few entrepreneurs out there will find it useful.

SXSW 2018 Panel Picker Submissions

Here's Jenn's and my geeky and fun SXSW Panel Picker submission for a project we call Bird Feeder 3000.

Bird Feeder 3000: 3D Print a VR/AI/IoT Bird Feeder
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/75106

Watch the video, create a SXSW account if you haven't already, and then upvote us! Votes from the public help us get selected to speak at SXSW 2018. The voting period is from Monday, August 7, 2017 to Friday, August 25, 2017. Feel free to pass it along too.

We both submitted to be speakers at SXSW Edu as well. The voting period for SXSW Edu is the same as above. Here are our SXSW Edu submission links.

Pandora's Headset: The Ethics of VR in Education
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/75305

Letters to a Young AI: Be an Ethical Educator
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/75047

Thanks a ton!

More Metafocus Articles

Here are links to my most recent articles at Learning Solutions Magazine:

Is Virtual Reality Safe for Kids?

Seven Ethical Dilemmas of VR in Education

Don't Break the Spell: Creating Presence in Virtual Reality

Skills Needed to Create a Serious VR Game with a Game Engine

Serious Games: Three Questions About Unit Economics

Let me know what you think!

Revisionist Me

In the 2000s, I built several businesses--all within the mortgage and real estate industries--and bought several commercial rental properties in Colorado. I was worth millions... on paper at least. In 2007-2008, the American mortgage and real estate markets tanked. In 2009, I filed a personal Chapter 7 bankruptcy, lost everything, and applied to grad school. Those are the basic facts of the story of my late-20s to mid-30s. How I've told this story has evolved quite a bit, becoming a story of its own.

Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read at Least Twice

I teach a course in entrepreneurship fundamentals, and I also work with many small businesses and startups as a management consultant and executive coach. I frequently recommend must-read business books to my students and clients. These entrepreneurs desperately need to absorb the books' lessons given the chronic and common problems they're each facing in their own businesses. 

The list below is the best of the best. I'm including the list here so I can easily refer my students and clients to one list instead of haphazardly referring books as I remember them. If hundreds of my students and clients will benefit from this list, other entrepreneurs may benefit as well.

Unit Economics: Cost Types and the Stages of Business Growth

As I've written before, start-ups should use variable costs whenever possible, growth stage companies should shift to using fixed period costs as revenues stabilize, and mature companies with lots of cash on the balance sheet should invest in primary sunk investments. But why is this true?

Unit Economics: Lifetime Value and Customer Acquisition Cost

Another common way to think of Unit Economics (i.e. instead of the method I've described in my prior posts) is to use Customer Lifetime Value (i.e. the Gross Profit of all purchases made by an average customer over the lifetime of the customer's relationship with your company) instead of Price, and to use Customer Acquisition Cost (i.e. how much you spend in marketing and sales efforts to acquire one customer) instead of Variable Costs. This method is often used for subscription services such as Netflix and tech start-ups, partly because software does not have any variable cost except Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

Learning the Five Leverages

As a young man, I decided that if I were to make a difference in the world, and I don't mean a small difference, but put a real dent in the world in some positive way, then I'd need leverage. The world is too big and its momentum too strong for one person to create much lasting change without leverage.

I also realized that five kinds of leverage have much more power than any other in today's world: communication, technology, entrepreneurship, capital, and politics.

Opportunity Funnel for the Soul

Hope is a virtue... to have it, we must work at it.
- Mary Berry quoting her father, Wendell Berry

Entrepreneurship is hard. It sometimes destroys lives and livelihoods. This is precisely its greatest value, the best argument for doing it.

I'm not saying that failure builds character or any such trite nonsense, though it probably does do plenty of that. What I mean is a little more nuanced.

Unit Economics Explained - Part 6: Summary

Unit Economics are the most important quantitative tool for opportunity analysis. Having even read this chapter, you’re in the company of an elite group of savvy entrepreneurs and investors who actually understand the basics of Unit Economics. Reading about it, however, is not enough.

Unit Economics Explained - Part 5: Common Mistakes

Even though basic Unit Economics and the four formulas are simple, novices often make mistakes when calculating Unit Economics. Here are a few of the most common mistakes people make:

Don’t Confuse the Types of Costs. 

Many entrepreneurs don’t understand Unit Economics or even how much it costs to make their products simply because they confuse the various costs, often lumping them together. This creates confusion in the best case scenario, and in the worst case, causes entrepreneurs to go bankrupt without understanding how it happened. Here are some common examples of how costs could end up being miscategorized.

Unit Economics Explained - Part 4: Advanced Unit Economics

The Unit Econonics in some businesses can be quite complicated. Airlines and schools are good examples. Airlines must understand how many tickets they must sell to Break Even, but each plane has limited numbers of seats. Therefore, the airlines must also understand how to Break Even on each individual flight. However, each route – with Austin to Denver being one route and Austin to Des Moines being another route – has limited flights that can be taken each day, so they must understand the Unit Economics of each route.

Unit Economics Explained - Part 3: The Formulas

Unit Economics are calculated using four separate formulas that build upon each other and use the various cost totals as detailed in Unit Economics Explained - Part 2: Units and Costs. The first formula calculates Contribution. Once you calculate Contribution, then you can calculate Break Even, then Pre-Tax Cash Flow, and lastly Payout. Below, we'll dig into each formula and run through an example business's Unit Economics from start to finish.

Unit Economics Explained - Part 2: Units and Costs

Units 

When calculating Unit Economics, you must first decide what unit you will use as your base unit for the calculations. If you’re a pizza restaurant, you could run the Unit Economics based on one slice of pizza as your unit, or one whole pizza. You could also consider one new customer as a unit, one customer visit, one table, one restaurant location, or even one whole city that you’re thinking of opening locations in. It’s not a bad idea to

Unit Economics Explained - Part 1: Why Unit Ecomics Matter

The single best tool for analyzing a potential entrepreneurial or investment opportunity is Unit Economics. Unit Economics answer three basic questions, perhaps the three most important questions to ask when analyzing a new opportunity: 

1. Break Even – How many units must you sell in order to pay your monthly overhead? 
2. Pre-tax Cash Flow – How much profit is this business likely to make every month? 
3. Payout – How long will it take to recoup the up-front capital investment? 

There are plenty of other financial questions you could, and should ask, but many are more relevant to more established businesses. Other questions require different tools. 

Why These Three Questions?  

If Break Even is too high, then it’ll be hard to get the business off the ground, and the business will be at risk from

Unremarkable Me

I’m not remarkable. Not lately anyway, and certainly not at Acton. I’m not the top student in grades, top third at best. My team didn’t win the sales challenge nor any of the Operations course simulations. I won’t likely be the teachers’ selection for Student of the Year or whatever they call it. My business wasn’t selected by my classmates for the opportunity pitch project. Perhaps my most lasting impression on the program itself will be my recommendation of Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life, which was added to the Life of Meaning course reading list, or, more dubiously, my all-time top scores in several of the Pre-Mat simulation games. Big whoop.

How to Win at Connect Four

Today I and five other Acton MBA classmates volunteered to spend time hanging out with old folks in a rehab nursing home (i.e. old people who are sick or recently had major surgery). Specifically, we helped in the Alzheimer’s and dementia ward.

I’m really behind on my homework this weekend and was up way too late studying last night. The “smart” thing to do would have been to sleep in a bit and tackle my homework all day. Plus, I’m usually more moved by environmental causes than social causes. That snooze button looked soooo inviting. I went anyway, because I knew at a gut level that this was important too, possibly more important than any single homework assignment ever could be. Important to me, to the residents, and to my classmates. I went, and I was right.

Puppy Power

Blog consolidation: I write other blogs with some interesting posts that fit this blog's themes. In the interest of simplifying my life and providing better and more consistent to my readers. I'm combining all my blogs here. This and the next few posts are oldies but goodies from my other sites.

I almost died on Wednesday. Well, not completely died, as in all the way dead, but I did get really worried that maybe I was about to die. I told you in the first post that I'd share some colossal failures, so here's the story.