Fwd: RESENDING: how to build an app with the crowd...

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	RESENDING: how to build an app with the crowd...
Date:	Tue, 1 Jul 2014 16:13:06 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
To:	stevescott@techacq.com

Steve,

Just making sure you saw this. It's essential reading for today's App-centric world.

-P

I have at least 7 really cool app ideas... but I have no time, and I frankly couldn't program them to save my life. Could you?

I started looking into how I could design and make an app quickly and cheaply... Normally what I'd do is go out and hire an in-house developer (or a freelancer). But that is so linear.

There is a better way... And ultimately, now I'm doing it.

How am I building an app?

I recently met with Narinder Singh, the president of a company called [topcoder], when he presented to the CEOs in my Abundance 360 community (here).

[topcoder] is the "world's largest crowdsourcing development, design, and data science platform. Their community gathers the world's experts in design, development and data science to work on interesting and challenging problems for fun and reward."

For reference, they have over 640,000 developers, designers and data scientists on their site right now, waiting to build your app.

With [topcoder], rather than a single designer, you actually get a group of designers and coders all competing to concept and build your app, on a rapid development cycle.

Why is this important?

• Incentive competitions work! There's a lot of latent talent that wants a chance to prove themselves. People are looking to earn money; people are looking for significance. They want to earn a reputation. People want a challenge, and oftentimes they want to solve your problems. Incentive prizes play into these desires.
• The crowd is immensely powerful, giving you multiple ideas to choose from. Why have one person pitching you app designs or concepts when you could have 50? Now you have dozens of options to choose from. Many may come up with variations and improvements that are meaningful and valuable. The amount of creativity increases exponentially with each contributor you add, especially when they are competing against each other. The development speeds are higher and the cost is often lower in the long term than traditional methods. And, when you use the crowd, you tap into a diversity of talent and levels of expertise that would have been impossible to reach otherwise.

Let's break down the step-by-step process for developing an app using the crowd.

Getting Started: Step By Step, Using the Crowd

1. The Napkin Sketch: You don't need to know how to code. You just need to be able to describe what you want. Try to understand the ins and outs of what you want to build. Begin by writing down your goals. Sketch out a basic interface. Think about user experience and flow. Think literal napkin sketches.
2. Design Competition: Next, the [topcoder] team will convert this and launch a design competition. With their help, you create basic wireframes, design a prize, and press Go. Designers then compete to design your app for you. Here's an example from the Innovation Partnership Program, delivered by XPRIZE and Singularity University.
3. Feedback and Iteration: Throughout the process, you get to give feedback and iterate your idea. Predetermined checkpoints let you interact with the designers before locking in a winner.
4. Development Competition: Once you have a design, it's time to develop the software. Again, with [topcoder]'s help, you'll outline your specific needs and platform requests (e.g. iOS, Android, HTML5, responsive website). Developers join the competition, and each code different pieces of the app. You can even elect to have the competitions done under NDA in secret.
5. Pick the Winning App: After a few more rounds of iteration and downselecting, you pick a winner and you have your new app.

If you want to get started with [topcoder], send an email to topcoder@appirio.com. The time for developing an app will run you two to six months depending on the level of complexity, and the cost is probably around $12,000 per month, but if this app is central to your business and your revenue flow, it's worth your time and money.

Some examples:

[topcoder] does data science competitions as well. At Planetary Resources, we partnered with TopCoder to run an AsteroidZoo challenge. We took all of the data that's come out of the Catalina Sky Survey, millions of photographs, and are working with their crowd to build the algorithms and capabilities to find asteroids in these images of the sky.

A company called MESH01 just developed their entire app using [topcoder]. Here are some stats to show you that these aren't just small simple apps (and a video). These are large-scale, complicated projects with lots of moving pieces. Stats: 80,000 lines of code, 130+ challenges logging 7,500 hours of development time, $130,000 in available prizes, 30% labor cost savings, 1/2 time savings. The software built by [topcoder] is powering nearly 100% of this company's revenue.

What's the bottom line?

It's time to tap into the crowd. This is just one of many examples of the power of the crowd. If you want to learn exactly how to incorporate these tools into your business, join me here in January 2015.

P.S. Every weekend I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to www.AbundanceHub.com and sign up for this and my Abundance blogs.

P.P.S. Please forward this to your best clients, colleagues and friends -- especially if they've ever wanted to build an app.

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Fwd: evidence of abundance #2: maternal & infant mortality

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	evidence of abundance #2: maternal & infant mortality
Date:	Tue, 1 Jul 2014 12:54:24 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
To:	stevescott@techacq.com

Steve,

100 years ago, child birth was risky and infant mortality rates were horrific.

How would you feel if 30% of infants died? Or if 900 expectant mothers out of every 100,000 died giving birth?

But thanks to technology, the reality today is far different.

Today's Evidence of Abundance is perhaps THE most important topic I could offer.

***Evidence of Abundance: Maternal & Infant Mortality***

This week's topic is very personal to all of us. It's the life and health of your mother, your wife, your children.

Giving birth today is a happy occasion, but for centuries and millenia, it was a risky endeavor. Let's look at the data.

If we look back over the last hundred years, a mother's chances of dying in childbirth were as high as 900 deaths per 100,000 births.

As sanitation and modern medicine have improved, those mortality rates have plummeted. Today, a pregnant woman expects that she'll give birth and live through it.

Let's look at infant mortality next. I divide this into two parts: (i) infant mortality at birth; and, (ii) having your child living past the age of 5.

This graph shows the death rate per 1,000 live births in the world, starting in 1900 through today. In 1900, the average infant death rate was 18%... and in some parts of the world, this death rate is as much as one-third.

Imagine having one out of three infants dying?

We see another precipitous drop when we look at children who die before the age of 5. Through improvements in technology, medicine, and even reduction in local conflicts, we're now able to keep children alive into adulthood -- feed them, take care of them, protect them -- and this is changing the world.

As we create this world of abundance, we're able to build tight family bonds as mothers and children both live longer, better lives.

Best,
Peter

P.S. Please send your friends and family to AbundanceHub.com to sign up for these blogs -- this is all about surrounding yourself with abundance-minded thinkers. And if you want my personal coaching on these topics, consider joining my Abundance 360 membership program for entrepreneurs.

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PHD Ventures Inc.
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United States
(858) 952-6578

Fwd: This board game has a freakish relationship to your wealth!

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	This board game has a freakish relationship to your wealth!
Date:	Tue, 17 Jun 2014 22:04:50 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Wealth Dynamics | John Abbott <john@johnabbott.me>
To:	stevescott@techacq.com

Hey there Steve, Do you remember playing the board game Snakes & Ladders as a kid? As you play you advance forward steadily towards the finish, turn after turn. Sometimes you land on a ladder, and get to jump ahead 2, 3 or 4 rows. But sometimes you land on a snake, and then you slide backwards even further. All of those steady gains wiped out, in an instant! In fact, the phrase "back to square one" originated from the troublesome snakes in that game. If it wasn't for the snakes the game would be super easy, in fact it would be no challenge at all. The number of ladders you land on would determine how fast you finish the game, but you'd always finish pretty quickly. Building your wealth is a lot like a game of Snakes & Ladders. Regular turns in the game represent incremental steps that you take: contributing to your super, paying down your home loan, saving for an investment. Well-chosen leveraged investments, like buying property, are the ladders when it comes to building wealth. A wise property investment will jump you ahead in the game of building wealth. In fact, without a few "ladders" it's nearly impossible to win the game - at least in the time you have left before you retire and stop earning an income. You simply have to make some wise investments in leveraged assets like property if you ever want to be wealthy. But then there are the "snakes" in the game... Bad investments will take you backwards in the wealth building game. In fact, you can slide backwards even further than square one. Yikes! But building wealth is not like "Snakes & Ladders" in one important way": it's not based on luck. You get to choose whether you land on a snake or a ladder. You just need to be able to tell them apart. This is where being part of the right community really helps you win the game. I've often said that you're more likely to succeed as an entrepreneur when you're part of a community. When you learn from others with different knowledge & experience and when you work with people with complementary skills, then your business is destined for huge success. Building wealth is just the same. The right community of investors will guide you to avoid the snakes and choose ladders instead. That's exactly why my friend Phil Anderson created a buyers group for property investors. He is passionate about helping people succeed at building wealth through property. Phil sees many people stuck on the treadmill, not making any progress: Go to work –> money in –> bills in –> money out –> go to work –> money in –> bills in –> money out –> and on and on it goes. But then there are other people in the same circumstances - busy lives, bills to pay, average incomes - and yet they're able to build large amounts of wealth in just a few years. Phil himself retired a multimillionaire at age 38, even though he only earned an average income his entire life. Since then, hundreds of people in his buyer's group have built substantial wealth through property using his strategies. Why is there such a huge difference results, for people whose circumstances are so similar? It's the community effect. The people who became wealthy started by joining a community of successful property investors. Before long the success of the group started to rub off on them. They absorbed the knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the community by association. Once that happened, their own success at building wealth was inevitable. When you see the sort of results that ordinary Australians are getting through this community, you'll understand why the idea is taking off and the group now has over 960 members. See some fantastic results below. 5 members of his Phil's buyers group have been featured in national magazines this year as investor success stories. Here are 3 of them: Phil is running some live events soon to show how his buyers group works, to let people meet some of the team and ask questions. The first 3 free live events are coming very soon, Newcastle June 23, Sydney June 24 and Perth June 25. Go here for the full list of 11 cities where Phil and the team are running events. That web page also has a great video which explains how the group buying system works, and why it's the best way to ensure you don't land on a "snake" in your own game of building wealth. It's a brilliant new approach to property investing - take a look. Book your seat today, this is an idea you'll want to check out for yourself. Hope you're doing great and making magic, John and Roz Abbott From our home in Bali Results Platform Foundation Contribution | Family | Health | Business | Wealth Representing and Recommending: Wealth Dynamics Australia - Roger Hamilton (Business|Wealth) Conscious Lifestyler - Tyler Tolman (Health) Green Supercamp Bali (Family) Buy1 Give1 (Contribution) P.S. After you watch the video, you can download an A3 poster titled, "28 Do's and Don'ts of Property Investing". That's the best quick-reference guide I've seen, definitely worth putting up on your wall.

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Results Platform Foundation | Mandurah, Perth, Western Australia 6210, Australia

Fwd: The 3 things that separate GOOD traffic from GREAT traffic

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	The 3 things that separate GOOD traffic from GREAT traffic
Date:	Tue, 17 Jun 2014 13:57:18 -0400
From:	Andy Jenkins & Mike Filsaime <training@marketinggenesis.com>
Reply-To:	training@marketinggenesis.com
To:	stevescott@techacq.com

(WARNING: This email is incredibly long yet I promise worth reading from begining to end - in fact I guarantee it!)   So here's the deal...   Getting traffic is EASY...yet it's COMPLETELY worthless unless it's GREAT traffic.   In fact - the difference between the two is MONUMENTAL.   I mean, it's like the difference between tomato juice and a bloody mary, orange juice and a mimosa, lime juice and a margarita...(hmmm I'm feeling thirsty)   I think you get the point.   The AWESOME news is that it doesn't take that much to go from "Good" to "Great."   First...   It's about putting the right message in front of the right audience.   This means you need to know who it is you want to attract to your business.   You've got to get specific. I mean EVERYTHING down to the nitty gritty details.   Flesh out everything you can possibly think about - their life, their family, their interests, their fears, and what problems they have. Put yourself in their minds, walk a day in their shoes, visit the places they go, read the magazines and books they read...   ...Leave NO stone unturned!   And if you are struggling, then start spying on your competition and use the tools mentioned in this video to shortcut the entire process.   Once you've got a grasp on who you want to attract, then it's time to focus on casting the bait.   Now, by far the fastest, easiest, and most effective way that we have found is with Facebook.   I mean with 1.28 billion active daily users, it's probably going to have a few who fit the bill for folks you'd like to work with.   And their ad platform lets us drill down to the exact people we're looking for.   Next, we have to craft our message.   And there are 3 CRUCIAL STEPS to doing this.   1. The Image   This one should be simple, but most people royally screw this up BIG time.   And...it's the most important part, because it's literally what stops your audience dead in their tracks.   Think about it...   ...most people are non-stop scrolling their news feed looking for something worthwhile to look at.   Seriously, next time you're out in public, take a look at what someone is doing on their phone.   Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, pause, scroll, scroll, scroll.   We want to be that pause. We want to be the thing that catches their attention enough to stop and take notice.   So what is it that's causing them to stop - PICTURES.   And this shouldn't come as a surprise. I mean - there's a reason Facebook bought Instagram for a BILLION dollars.   And here's what pictures people are looking at...   Selfies Pictures of random things people find interesting Food Inspirational images and quotes Pets, babies, and other utterly cute nonsense   What you don't see very much of is crappy stock images, boring product images, or anything else that looks remotely like it should be there.   All you gotta do is think outside the box a little and get creative with your smartphone, take a few snaps, and presto, you've got yourself a winning image.   Kinda like this one...   Next up...   2. The Headline or Title (as it is referred to by those over at the book of faces).   Instead of talking about all the different ways to write a headline, I'm going to give you the formula that works for us...   "Incredibly GOOD without Incredibly BAD"   This is based on TWO Mindsets that just about everyone has - Pursuit of Pleasure and Avoidance of Pain. Lets see it in action...   Sample Headline:   "Quickly Melt 16 Pounds of Body Fat Without EVER doing Cardio"   Okay - The Incredibly Good part (i.e. Pursuit of Pleasure) is "Melt 16 pounds of Body Fat." Right? Assuming that we're marketing to people that want that result, getting rid of 16 pounds of body fat would bring them tons of pleasure.   And here's the key about that "Incredibly Good" part - it has to be something that your audience has "Future Paced."   What that means is, at some point in their existence, they have envisioned what the upside of being 16 pounds thinner would mean to their life. They've imagined the new clothing they would buy or could fit into again. They've imagined going from one squishy mid-section to being able to see 2 or even 4 abdominal muscles. They've had fantasies about how the opposite gender would treat them without the extra jiggly-bits. And they've role-played what their friends would say when they see them all kinds of svelte and skinny - "Wow - you look amazing!"   So - Incredibly Good with "Future Paced" Results - that's the first part. Check.   The Second part "...without Incredibly BAD," is the hook.   Ya see, psychologically speaking (Disclaimer: I'm totally making this part up - This is really only how I think - I can't speak for normal, non-neurotic humans), I think we already spend a LOT of time imagining that we are in BETTER CIRCUMSTANCES - ya know, the grass is always greener if things were just a little different, blah blah blah.   Meaning, the "Incredibly Good" part - the HOPE - is just a way to MEET your audience at a point of self-awareness that they are already at.   Sure, it's nice to imagine, but that's NOT enough to get them to take action.   --> The HOOK that gets the TAKE ACTION is "…without Incredibly Bad."   The thing is - if we really and truly (for real) WANT the Incredibly Good part, why haven't we already GOT IT?   The answer is simple - because we ALL have Limiting Beliefs.   We have been programmed that we CAN NOT get Incredibly GOOD without making a HUGE sacrifice. And sometimes - in fact - MOST of the time, the sacrifice that we are conditioned to expect to endure in the pursuit of Incredibly GOOD is TOO much to pay. We can't handle it.   Think about it - in that example above - WITHOUT the Hook - one of the answers to   "Quickly Melt 16 pounds of body-fat" COULD be…   …Starvation.   LOL!   That's why, in order for this formula to work, you need the Hook - you need the "…without Incredibly Bad."   And last but not least...   3. The Body or Description   So you've got them to stop and pay attention to you, they've read your headline, and now for the most important part...getting that click!   Here's the BIG SECRET though.   According to Facebook, shorter posts receive 60 percent more likes, comments, and shares.   This means you should have about 3-5 lines of text max that carry on the conversation from the headline and leads them to the next step, which is clicking your link.   Example: "Quickly Melt 16 Pounds of Body Fat Without EVER doing Cardio"   Never step foot on another boring cardio machine again thanks to this newly discovered fat-melting 15 min workout   Click here to see for yourself!   You'll notice there that I used a clarifying statement that backs up the headline, but at the same time clearly shows what is coming once they click-through. This is going to push away anyone who doesn't want to actually work out and pull in anyone who's the right fit. Quality over quantity!   Now that's what we talking about. :-)   We've got more awesome Traffic-getting tips posted here if you want to really dial this in, but hopefully you're feeling a little more confident when it comes to getting GREAT traffic.   Talk soon,   Andy & Mike           Marketing Genesis LLC 7660 Fay Ave. #H184 La Jolla, CA 92037

You're receiving this newsletter because this email address was submitted to an opt-in form on one of our websites. When you no longer wish to hear from us, we'll be sad, but we'll always welcome you back when you're ready to work on your business again.  Just Click Here to Unsubscribe. ~Andy Jenkins & Mike Filsaime. Please read our Affiliate Disclaimer: From time to time, we will promote, endorse, or suggest products and/or services for sale that are not our own. Our recommendation is ALWAYS based on our personal belief that the product and it's author will provide excellent and valuable information or service. This may be based on a review of that product, our personal or professional relationship with that person or company, and/or a previous positive experience with the person or company who's product we are recommending. In most cases, we will be compensated via a commission if you decide to purchase that product based on our recommendation. In some cases, we will receive the product for free for review purposes, or just to use. In some cases, we have used that product to our personal satisfaction in our own businesses. IMPORTANT: Always Always ALWAYS do your OWN due-diligence before making any purchases, whether we recommend them or not. Never, EVER purchase anything that you cannot afford. Avoid purchasing products that do not have a clearly stated Guarantee, or that promise ridiculous results, like "Getting Rich Quick". Most people don't do anything with the products they buy, and most of the time, their results are zero - kind of like that Bowflex that I bought that is now serving as a clothing rack... No, there is no such thing as a "Free Lunch". Don't do drugs, stay in school, etc. Be safe out there!

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