Cameron McGrane» Bootstrapping

Ass Whipping Across America

Cama — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:04:02 +0000

Central America is delayed. Berlin is on. Flying out from NYC posed the challenge of getting there with in budget. A problem quickly resolved via another serendipitous moment. Today I leave on an an incredible roadtrip of mammoth proportions with Jim of Dub-Corp and the beautiful Meadow Devor.

The Debacle Explained from James Whitaker on Vimeo.

See updates on our state of mind as we ass whip 50 hours straight across the USA.

So you want to Freelance in Thailand?

Cama — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:22:40 +0000

Sunset Status Update on a Beach in Thailand from Cameron McGrane on Vimeo.

With the current economic downturn, Thailand’s political instability and shoulder season approaching the price is right to freelance for a couple of months in Thailand.

Here my tips time to freelancing and playing in Thailand

Chime in on the Timing

The shoulder season is May-June when cheap flights and accommodation are available but expect frequent storms. I found December to February perfect. The weather was mild, no rain and cost of living bearable.

Note: Though I encourage Thailand, use this travel danger resource page to make up your own mind

Buy a Cooling Pad

Thailand can get real hot. Do what the locals do and buy a cooling pad for your laptop. It will keep out critters, reduce memory crashes and protect your groin from 3rd degree burns.

Don’t give your Passport to Anyone

Especially moto rental places. If they absolutely will not take a credit card, cash deposit or license instead of a passport go some where else.

Play in commercial playgrounds in moderation

I was in Phuket so Patong was the commercial epicenter . Sure, have a sniff now and then, meet friends, have a shop. But don’t make a habit of it. There is no faster way to burn through cash then bars and you will only feel dirty, ugly and likely smell of arse.

Participate in Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing is an excellent way of getting to know people in any country expect North Korea.

Frequent ThaiVisa.com

If staying longer than 30 days you will need to undertake a visa run.
Thai Visa is “the watering hole” for ex-pats with a rich source of information ranging from visa’s to local gossip

Buy Water in Bulk

Staying longer than a week? Nip the daily pilgrimage to 7 eleven to buy water and get it bulk. It is 900% cheaper and saves time too.

Challenge Yourself Physically

Being fit and strong in a developing country\ new world dramatically reduces the risks of stress, sickness and accident. It provides balance to the mental exercise completed on a daily basis as a freelancer. With a diet low in gluten and dairy and high in protein, time in Thailand is conducive to getting bloody fit.
Muay Thai is the obvious choice but do something you really like or want to do and sign up for 5 days a week.

Don’t Date Bar Girls or Prostitutes

If you want company then use the assets that got you abroad freelancing in the first place and meet an ex-pat or a local\holidaying thai person. Dating Thai’s is a high stakes game financially and emotionally. Here are a few rules to chew on.

Tell them what is going to happen and stick to it
Make sure they can afford to pay for meals too
DON’T ever buy gifts
Practice safe sex
Watch out for the boyfriend (s)

Remember: If she is the sexiest woman you have ever been near and she is interested then she is likely a lady boy.

Above are a few of the ideas that came to mind writing this post. If you have others that are important please let me know here or on twitter @cama

Some call it a standup wank station. I call it..

Cama — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:08:22 +0000

innovation on the cheap!

With all the focus on internet innovators people forget about the oldest of innovators; the craftsman, tradie, mason, DIY Handyman type individuals who come up with innovations on a daily basis.

This video is dedicated to the work of my friend Nathan from Panache Installations who made a custom stand up work station out of scrap for me in an afternoon including multiple prototyping of the the stand up mechanism.

Knowing innovators outside of the tech space has its advantages when customizable tables can easily sit above the $700+ market.

So an ode to tradies across the world who though they could not hack css (and as if they would want to) are creative in so many different levels.

Be Aware Of The Book

Cama — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:54:47 +0000

Creative Commons – http://www.flickr.com/photos/florian_b/44227093/

Cash going into your business\muse\micro-enterprise and NOT the library? Here are free books to keep you inspired and skilled up.

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book/
Here are four books go start your own X, Y and Z
http://free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf
Question your deep seeded beliefs on copyright. Now go innovate.
http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf
Our society is constructed on stories. Time to tell yours.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/bzzagent/The_Word_of_Mouth_Manual_Volume_II.pdf
It may infuriate but you should be across it.

Free to some degree book resources

http://www.gutenberg.org
Huge resource of expired copyright material

http://openlibrary.org
One web page for every book ever published.

http://freebooksource.com
Chock full of advertising but plenty of material

Thanks to Dan, Fred, Dennis and Chris Brogan for contributing one way or another to these resources.

Reverse Cold Calling – How I get business asking to stock my product

Cama — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:25:06 +0000

Yesterday, I received this message from a retailer asking to stock a product I sell purely online.

Did it make sense? Probably not.

Why? Because the guy had never heard of my business or the products I sell but strangely enough customers kept coming in hassling him for my product.

What did this business owner do on encountering this unusual situation?

Cold called the person who had what the customers were asking for!

Ok. How can you do what I did?

Identify a “Bricks & Mortar” retailer that your online customers would visit
List the retailer (with out telling them) on your website as an exclusive dealer of your product
Sit and wait for the retailer to contact you after customers repeatably come in asking for your product which they don’t stock.

This strategies success is heightened if these three key factors exist to some degree

A great product – I have a niche product, with a robust barrier to entry, that repeatably sells online.
Time sensitive – Many people want my product NOW, not 2-3 days after ordering online. Remember B&M shops still hold it over the online world when it comes to Right Now
Geographic evidence – When customers want it NOW. They ask where I am? I ask them where they are? The more geographic specific requests for pickups the more likely this strategy will work. Alternatively, place a “pickup location” page with analytics to see who and where the people are from who click on it

Happy reverse cold calling. And be super nice to your new retailers because you will have to work harder then usual to build rapport for being a cheeky little bastard.

A Simple Landing Page Template Download

Cama — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:56:28 +0000

Do you require a web page template to help make a landing page to sell a product?

Do you have basic understanding of:

HTML
CSS and Styles

If you answered Yes. Feel free to hack this HTML and CSS to suit your own needs.

The structure is a 1 column, elastic, header, footer and centered.

The content is a mix of:

elements from my own landing pages
comments to shape your own sales copy (see html)
Meta-data pre-rolled for SEO.

Nothing flash just good starting point to

avoid paying marketers and signing up to newsletters on how to make money by marketing to others on how to make money.

Prospering on the cheap in San Francisco for location independents

Cama — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:08:05 +0000

UPDATED July 2009

If you are an independent technologist\artist\media hacker\entrepreneur\etc and want to experience San Francisco and the Bay Area on the ground instead of a one week gig feeling like a tourist. Here are tips to make it happen cheap!

Below are recommendations you may find useful:

Find your crew. This is so important. If you leave anywhere after 3 months and don’t have one meaningful connection then it’s going to suck on many different levels. I don’t have to explain why. You know what it feels like to belong.
My advice is to detach from the security of the Laptop and hit events early on arrival. I met three people at Word Camp San Francisco. One happened to be a guy called Peter who introduced me to J-dub. The rest is history.

Configure your “Triangle of Work” This term was invented by Jaan Orvet of noded and means designing a personalized desk, a meeting area and alternative workspace normally a sofa. Work as quickly as possible to set this up so you can start harmonizing what you do.

Go Ramen to save money and not get fat
I am a massive proponent of being Ramen Profitable and have been practicing it for years. Going Ramen makes your business lean and you lean. My favorite Ramen meals are authentic Italian pastas that are naturally low in fat.

Get a Bike With out a doubt the best way to see SF is by bike. Find a road bike on craigslist for under $100, join the Bike Kitchen, a do-it-yourself bike maintenance co-op, and realize the joy of working on ya bike.

Add another Muse Despite how much you are a tight arse, the reality is San Francisco is expensive. More income never goes a stray. This a place holder for the muse I executed to subsidize the rent.
And updated tips….

Travel OFF PEAK

~~Peak is May to August and any holidays i.e. Christmas, Thanks Giving are peak. For cheap flights and accommodation avoid these times.~~
If you are flexible flights can be had anytime of year to LA.

Fact: San Francisco DOES get cold a~~nd foggy either side of~~ over Summer

Get a VISA (Non US Citizens)

If you are one of the 27 Countries who participate in the VISA WAIVER Program you automatically get 90 days.
There are other ways to stay longer including the E3 Visa which I have attained and will blog about another time.

Important! – 90 days includes travel to Canada and Mexico. Jetting off to Cancun for a week or two will not reset your Visa on re-entry.

Stay with locals

Accommodation will be your biggest expense. Use a travelling host site and let people stay at your house. In turn you will find it easier when you arrive in your international destination. I am a Couchsurfing.com evangelist, I cannot recommend it enough but you can check out the other services on my couchsurfing facebook app for other suggested options. If you want an extended stay the best time of year is summer because all the students leave on holiday and cheap rooms are available. Use www.craigslist.org to find your new home.

SUPERTIP: Pat Allan of freelancing-gods.com let people find him by posting a housing wanted. Counter-intuitive but from all reports effective
Get connected!

The cheapest way is to stay off plan and buy a phone that is tri-band GSM, supports PUSH (mail), MMS, browser.

~~I run a quad band I-mate SP5 running windows mobile 5.0. It cost me $250AU and is the stand out as the poor mans Iphone.~~

This time I ran a Blackberry 8700c because of my muse I had newer models but because I destroy phones regularly the 8700c with quad band + Internet was sufficient

My recommended off plan option in the U.S is AT&Ts Go Phone which comes with data options.

The combo I use:
~~5MB might not seem like much, but if you keep it for e-mail, twitter, browsing (images off) then you will be surprised.~~

If you want an I-phone it can still be run off plan using t-mobile with a bit of hacking and sacrificing default function
Go Public Transport

PT is great in SF but starts to deteriorate as you move lower towards the valley and Palo Alto.
Either way it is by far cheapest way to get around.
Be smart and remove the guess work by installing BART’s trip planners and www.nextbus.com for realtime info on PDA.
Drive using Zip Car

It is inevitable you will be heading to Mountain View or Palo Alto for an event and PT to these areas does not cut it.
Register for ZipCar and within a couple of days you can being picking up a car with in minutes from a convenient location to get you there.

Important: Internationals, bring a copy of your driving record from your home country to fast track approval
Make office

If you want to feel lonely and ineffective quickly do coffee shops for 3 months. For FREE or a modest monthly fee you can have an office space along side other talented San Francisco independents. By having your own desk and location you can build a routine, get work done and meet locals just like you. My favorite place is the HatFactory but all the co-working locations are different so find one that fits you.
Hit the FREE Events

San Francisco and the Bay Area have a phenomenal amount of events all year round.
And there is no better way to find out if you are up to par, meet people, get free food and drink and learn really cool things!
I found the events, search and scheduling using upcoming excellent.

Update: Tap into the nerve center: San Francisco Twitter accounts to follow for news, events, alerts, and more

What is your tips for prosperity when working in a new city?