July 16, 2020 | Wasted money

While I was running, I drifted off for a few minutes. I started thinking of all the money being spent in the world every day.

I thought of my customers at Cyberleads. I know that some have made x100 times their money back, but I also know some that wasted their money, as they did not use the lists correctly.

I started wondering, how much money is being wasted?
...

Even since I started working for a company, I started realizing how much money businesses throw away daily.

Employees that are not needed. Web services that are not needed. Ads that result to nothing. Stupid employee perks. Money raised that isn’t needed.

For simplicity, let's assume the market is split in three categories.
- The consumers.
- The businesses.
- The governments.

We all know the consumer market. Unless you are a web scrapper reading this, you are part of the consumer market.

We waste money all the time. On having food delivered. On Ubers. On clothes we don’t need. On getting the latest iPhone when ours is almost identical. On expensive trips to Mykonos or Ibiza. In clubs. On degrees we don’t need (shots fired)

Then comes the business market. I joined the dark side this year, as I joined a funded tech startup in January.

I was amazed..

Perks. The first day, I ordered my lunch. We have food delivered at our lunch break. I saw the receipt for the day, $400 dollars.

I received a brand new MacBook. External monitors. Wireless headphones. Paid weekly massages. Paid gym membership. Summer retreat on an Italian island.

Employees get the scraps of the meat, we know that. So this is nothing for the company. But still, it’s stupid money being wasted. I would prefer it be wired it to me, alongside my monthly salary.

Web services. Twenty five per cent of all money raised by startups goes to AWS.

I know very well from the Cyberleads lists how much money is being raised. It's tens of BILLIONS. Yet, all these startups fail. For other reasons. Not because their Kubernetes cluster wasn't configured correctly. So, wasted money.

Workforce. Twenty percent of the workforce does eighty percent of the work. This is my theory, but I firmly believe Pareto is found here as well.

The money I've received in the past six months does not justify the work I've put in.

I'm an investment of the company. Hoping that one day I'll be a member of the 20 percent club. Until then, I'm negative ROI.

Ads. My company pays a fuck ton of money for ads, yet traffic is less than what I generate with my Twitter account.

So, in general, I see a lot of money being thrown around without respect.

When the corona virus hit hard, my company had to take action. Guess what happened. All the perks? Gone. Some employees that were not needed? They were put on hold. The marketing budget? Butchered.

That's how you know what's important and what's wasted.

Let's go even higher up the ladder, to enterprises.

It's hilarious. People are being paid $300,000 per year to do nothing. Not my words, DHH's and Nassim Taleb's. Talking mainly about consultants and marketing teams.

Meetings. Coffees. Syncs. Hiring calls. People pleasing their boss. Their boss pleasing their boss. People only presenting their work in a way that makes them seem busy and productive. Politics. Business trips to the other side of the world for meetings that result to nothing. The list goes on and on.

In governments and non-profits, shit is completely broken. Corrupt. Let's not even go there.

To summarize, we all think of governments as inefficient with time and capital. But enterprises, companies and individuals are pretty inefficient as well. Most money is wasted.

...

Let's work backwards now. To what interests us.

If most money is wasted, that means that most customers are not satisfied. By design.

How many people buy Google Ads pumped up that their idea will succeed? I had a guy message me about his product idea. He had spent nearly $3k to validate it, and got zero customers. I think he had two free users that never set up their profiles. He spent $2k on google ads, $1k to niche blogs.

Google ads is just one product, but the same goes for nearly every product. Maybe that's why so many entrepreneurs have imposter syndrome. They feel bad that many customers don't get their money's worth.

I get it as well some times. I have helped customers make x100 times their money back, but I also know some that wasted their money, as they did not use the lists correctly.

I slowly want to move towards an 'annual only' product. I want my customers to make their money back. Even if it means making less money for me. I would only have to focus on annual customers, that are willing to put the work in. The number reason for lack of results is lack of consistency.

There is so much money being spent in the world. I believe most of it is wasted. Nearly all of it is fueled by triggering emotions, motivation and false promises. Like buying new clothes. Or a sexy car. Or courses that will help you "skyrocket your business". Or make "passive income" trading bitcoin.

I don't want to be like that. I want to deliver value.


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