Engineering The Perfect Business

I’ve joined many forums in the last 2 years when I found the online gold rush..From entrepreneur forums to blackhat seo forums..it’s been quite a ride really.

But, here’s the best community for making money online if you are just starting out, Standingstart Profits. The man behind it is Lee McIntyre who shocked the world with his Auction Profits Unleashed, Mailing Lists Unleashed and many other products that have got me more focused.

So, what has standingstarts done for me?

Not a lot of people can proudly say “I love my host” - But, luckily I can

If your current host is nasty, here’s a recommendation for you..Switch to hostgator.

I’ve been with them for more than a year, spent a couple hundred dollars with them, contacted support quite a few times, hosted about 7 projects with them, hosted a forum of 3000+ people (helping my friend while she was trying to get things sorted with her host) and I can still say Hostgator is one of the best.

Remember the time you were SO sure something would work?

And, then, it just didn’t?

Let me tell you what happened here on Boxing day. My dad saw a 1 GB DDR2 RAM for sale for about $40. Perfect! He said, he went ahead and bought it. Then, he came home..so sure it was the right one..he fit it (even when it was hard..he kept pushing) and when it was in place..he turned his computer on..AND…

BOOM!

Well, for $40, he lost his $1200 system and had to buy another one. Thankfully, it was boxing day!

2007 was a very eventful year for me, exciting, frustrating, challenging and rewarding.

Here’s a off the top of my head recount of 2007 inspired by John Szram’s reflections

So, here’s how life’s been..

The GREAT Books

The Books/articles/ebooks I read in 07 that changed me the most..

•  4hourworkweek by Timothy Ferriss - Helped me get to the point where I saw engineering and business going together rather than one being a hindrance to the other.

One of my resolutions for 2008 is to work out a bit more. Not for weight loss reasons but for energy reasons so I went around trying to find a couple tips etc..

Here’s something I found and loved..this is for those of you who are scared of the gym and love your office

Here’s to a more fit you!

Have you ever been called Engineer By the Day - Psycho by the night?

I’ll explain the reason for asking such a weird question but first…have you noticed how everything makes total sense if you are running an engineering experiment either in a lab or doing a “live” test to fix a problem? You intuitively know what to do and how to run the test even when you may not know exactly what to expect.

And, that’s the beauty of engineering. We go in, manipulate data and let the system tell us what happens.. Even “simple” experiments allow us to “discover” how a system reacts.

One thing that happened to me and surely it happens to all “newbies” is we often end up losing our confidence and underestimating ourselves because that’s what a few “successful people” do to us when we are new. Not everyone does it but if you hang out in IM forums, you are bound to meet some of these successes who are a little too full of themselves. (The kind of people you regret asking for help from..) I know it hurts and makes you feel bad. It is discouraging especially when all of us have areas of our expertise and successes. But, that just seems to be the nature of the game: People love judging others on their failures to make themselves feel good. It’s just human nature and you will find them everywhere not just in Business.

What do website hosting and car engines have in common?

I spent most of today debating whether I should move to a different host because I’ve been tempted by the cheap offers coming up lately. I pay about $10/month for my hosting from HostGator.

I saw a couple offers from reliable hosts rated pretty high for as low as $5.95 a month, Hey! That’s cutting my costs into half! Look, I am by no means evangelizing hostgator, I don’t think they are the perfect company to set foot on the earth. I’m sure there are much better companies out there but it is worth it? Sometimes, it may not be.

Allow me to make a confession will you?

The Same Old stuff is darn boring. If you aren’t being unique, you’re boring me to death.

Here’s a scenario many of us face

Scenario: Uh…well…everyone else is doing it..so it must work! YAY

Problem: You’re dead WRONG. Remember the wise old man who said “Sometimes a majority only means all the fools are on one side”?

It’s a sin to take life too seriously

So, here are the things you can tell your friends and family or yourself when things aren’t going great in your business..

Disclaimer - These “jokes” aren’t mean to make fun of anybody or any profession. They are just a way of looking at our skills or the lack of some skills of engineers and laughing at them.

1. Business requires good communication - My degree required some sacrifices, one of them is my communications skill. I are an engineer after all.