The Benefits of Constantly Taking Steps Back to Take Steps Forward
I recently came across a really interesting article about Apple Computer folklore. It’s a really good story about one Apple employee who would continually challenge and push himself. At this point everyone will agree that by continually challenging yourself you’ll get better and better, that’s expected. However what’s interesting is that he also pointed out another thing that most people will overlook, each new challenge for that employee will get easier and easier to accomplish.
Think of it this way. We have two basketball players. The first player has barely played basketball and the second has been playing for a while (facing many new challenges such as learning to dribble with both hands, shooting three point shots, etc.). Now, let’s say a new challenge appears, something that neither player has ever faced before. Maybe the foul line is pushed back 2 feet, maybe the hoop is heightened by a foot, maybe the size of the hoop has been decreased by a few inches. In any case, it’s easy to see that the professional basketball player will have a lot less difficulties adjusting to these new changes! The idea is that the more challenges you face, the easier each new challenge becomes to conquer!
You could also think of it as driving. When you first learned to drive, every little aspect of driving was a large challenge. Once you’ve been driving for a while, you can learn new aspects of driving at a fraction of the speed as someone who’s just learning to drive.
Let’s think about this some more. Let’s go back to the story about the Apple employee. The story goes that when the employees would get tired they would play an arcade game called Defender (a great game in its day). To quote the author’s description of the game for those of you who aren’t familiar with it: “The goal of Defender is to defend your humans from abduction by aliens. The evil green aliens drop down from the top of the screen and randomly pick up your humans, and try to bring them back up to the top of the screen. You control a ship and have to shoot the aliens, either before they grab a human, or during their rise up to the top of the screen. If an alien makes it to the top with a human, they consume him and become a vicious mutant, which attacks very aggressively. You start the game with ten humans, and if the last one dies, all the aliens become mutants, and they swarm in on your ship from all sides.”
I remember when I used to play Defender myself that I would avoid the mutant aliens at all costs. They would get me faster than anything else! For those of you who didn’t played this video game way back when, it basically meant that your turn was over.
Well the guy in the story decided to try another alternative method of playing the game. He decided to try and take a few steps back in the hopes that he could take a few more steps forward for a positive net gain. He was willing to lose many games temporarily in order to gain the advantage over the long term. And there’s no doubt he did as the story shows.
What’s interesting though is how he did it. He did the unthinkable. He eliminated all the humans right away! That means that all the aliens became mutant aliens right away! Normally this would be considered insane. However for him it wasn’t. Rather than run away like everyone else and try in vain to hit one or two each pass, hoping you didn’t yourself fall prey to them, he decided to do circles around them. What happened is the mutant aliens ended up clustering together, and rather than fighting a horde of mutant aliens, he only had one large massive target of mutant aliens, or basically one large mutant alien! What an innovative idea.
Of course at first he didn’t do so well because the mutant aliens have special characteristics. They can move faster, travel differently, etc. They very adept at what they do. But after several games, he started to get better and better and would consistently win against his co-workers.
At this point most people will think that trying new innovative ways was the key. Yes it definitely was a key element, he had to be willing to try new innovative techniques and be willing to lose some ground to gain new ground, there’s no doubt. And yes, over time he got better, again no doubt there, practice makes perfect. But what I think is much too overlooked is that from now any new technique he tried would be that much easier to master. After challenging the best the game had to throw at him, any new challenge would be easy. Anyone who could master conquering a horde of mutant aliens could do anything in the game.
The moral of the story of the Apple employee is not to be afraid to push yourself. The more often you push yourself to new challenges, the easier conquering each new challenge gets. The better you get at it. When I first learned how to write computer programs, learning any new technique or language was very difficult. I remember the difficulties I had writing my very first computer program. It was brutal! I also remember how hard it was to learn my second computer programming language. The third was easier, and each new language thereafter got progressively easier. I’ve now learned more languages than I care to remember. But you know what, it’s not the number of computer programming languages that I learned that’s helped me, it’s that now I can easily and comfortably pick up a new computer language with very little effort compared to before. I basically practiced and got good at how to learn new computer programming languages. I practiced and got good at learning how to face new challenges!
Permalink to this article Discussions (2)
LandlordMax Property Management Software v2.12 Status Update
Great news!!! We’re almost ready to release LandlordMax v2.12. The official release date is going to be March 20, 2006 (only a little later than expected). We’re currently in testing mode ironing out the last details and preparing for the release.
As a reminder, everyone who purchased LandlordMax between Jan 2005 and now is eligible for the free upgrade (if you remember from a previous entry, we’re releasing this version as though it’s December 2005 rather than March 2006). And everyone who already owns LandlordMax but has purchased it over a year ago is also eligible for to a significant upgrade discount of 50% from the purchase price! If you’re unsure if want to upgrade, don’t worry, you try the new LandlordMax v2.12 for free for 30 days before deciding to purchase the upgrade. And for those of you who are hesitant to wait for the new release you don’t need to be, remember that you get 1 year of free upgrades with your purchase so you’ll also get the new release.
LandlordMax v2.12 has a lot of new exciting features! As a teaser, here’s a short list of just some of the new features you can expect:
- You can store an unlimited number of images for any building, unit, and tenant.
- Almost all tables can be sorted by any column.
- The database engine has been upgraded to Derby to be ACID compliant.
- The table sorted orders (and column lengths) are remembered when coming back to the table (even when restarting).
- You can enter in a logo/letterhead and customize the titles of all the reports.
- LandlordMax will automatically checks for updates when started and notify you if one is available.
- You can find an “All” reports section to view the complete list if all the reports in one big list.
- There are many new reports. Here’s a partial list:
-
- Four new vacancy reports.
- List tenants grouped by building for one landlord.
- List all buildings for one landlord.
- Rent roll.
- Etc.
And many smaller enhancements such as:
- The building combo box is alphabetically sorted.
- Unit lists are first sorted numerically and then alphabetically.
- The splashscreen give a better indication of what’s happening as the software is starting up.
- You can optionally and anonymously report back to LandlordMax when an unexpected error occured (to help us increase the quality of the software).
- The reports are generated quicker (and now consume about half the RAM).
- And so on…
I hope you’re just as excited as we are to release for this new version to be released!
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
LandlordMax v2.12 Update
As you can imagine, we’re very busy here at LandlordMax Property Management Software with the new major release of version 2.12 coming out very soon! Because of this I’ve had to take a short hiatus on this blog and focus all my energies on this release. I’ll try and post a more updated entry of our progress in the next few days, but if not, please bear with me until LandlordMax v2.12 is released.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
New Affordable Aerial High Resolution Photography
I recently talked with the founder of a very interesting company, FlyByPictures.com, a company that specializes in aerial photography. Although not entirely a new idea, they’ve gone about it very differently than what most would expect. Actually, this is the first time that I’ve personally seen anything like it before.
Normally if you want to take aerial photographs of your property for advertising purposes, inspections, etc. you would hire a pilot and rent an airplane (often owned by the pilot) to go out and circle your property. Because of the flight laws and regulations, most pilots can’t get closer than 1000 feet, the lowest allowed fly zone in most cities. They will take a picture of your property as they fly by with a decent zoom and that’s what you get. As you can imagine, hiring a pilot for this can be quite expensive, often well over $1000. They will guarantee you a picture of your property, but remember this is from at least 1000 feet or more so it’s not very detailed.
Another method Yves, the founder of FlyByPictures.com, described to me is that you can take aerial photographs from someone who owns a gas powered RC (Remote Controlled) helicopter. These RC helicopters however also have limitations and restrictions because they are considered gas powered flying vehicles. Although cheaper than hiring a pilot and renting a plane, their still costly because of the price of the helicopters (generally several thousands), the fuel, the maintenance, the skills required to fly them, and especially they are bound by many rules and regulations which limit their photographing abilities.
Which leads us to Yves’ company’s new method of aerial photography. What he’s discovered is that people generally want closer images, more detailed, and don’t want to spend as much money, which makes a lot of sense. To do this, he’s taken a battery powered helicopter and modified it to take high resolution photographs as these (I won’t go into the details of his helicopter as these are his trade secrets). The advantage of using this system is multi-fold. First, because of the type of helicopter and modifications it isn’t subject to the rules and regulations of a gas powered RC helicopter. He can fly it up to 300 feet without any issues. Secondly, the costs are much lower than a gas powered RC helicopter. And thirdly, because he can fly closer as well as fly virtually anywhere, he can get some very amazing aerial photographs as you can see in the pictures (as well as with this video of an aerial flyby).
Because of all of these advantages he can offer a superior quality service for a lower price than his competitors. This is great news because it’s now become feasible to use aerial photography for many purposes that were cost prohibitive before. Yves’ informed me that the main intention of his company is to generate pictures for advertising purposes, such as aerial photographs of commercial buildings, golf course pictures of golfing holes, MLS listings to show the full property, flybys of new developments, etc. You can just imagine all the possible applications! It opens up whole new markets!
I might make it seem simpler than it is here, but I can tell you Yves definitely put some time learning how to correctly modify and fly his specialty helicopter. I personally saw him maneuver it with ease that seemed like second nature to him, which I’m sure came with a lot of trial and error. The good news is that for us, because of his investments into this new technology, we now have new tools that were before only accessible to richer clients.
All in all I can say I was thoroughly impressed with Yves’ company FlyByPictures.com. I suspect he will get very far and demand will grow quite rapidly.
Permalink to this article Discussions (4)
Great Real Estate, Business, and Marketing Websites
This week’s article will be different than usual. Instead of talking about a specific topic, rather I’ll post a bunch of links to great real estate and business websites and resources. These are sites that I’ve come across over time that I’ve personally found very beneficial. You’ll notice most these sites are mostly blog style and that I’ve avoid all the major common websites like cnn.com, yahoo finance, etc. These are specific sites about specific topics.
Real Estate and Finance
Three Pennies – This is a fairly new blog about financial freedom. I’ve gotten to know the author through my company LandlordMax Property Management Software, she was one of the first customers. I suspect that she’ll have a great blog. It’s already off to a good start!
Patrick.net Realty Parser – This site is focused on the real estate market crash. It’s been around for a while (he’s been predicting the crash for several years already). I’ve been in contact with the author and he seems to be on the ball. Lots of great news and he updates the real estate housing crash section on a regular basis with the latest and greatest news.
Oakland Real Estate – Although local to Oakland, I find there’s lots of interesting articles in this blog. Also, he’s got a page that has loads of links to other real estate related websites (including FollowSteph.com).
Counter Intelligence – Another real estate web blog with lots of interesting articles.
Business
Joel On Software (including the Business of Software discussion forum) – Probably the best site for small businesses. Loads of great articles! Although more oriented towards software companies, it provides lots of interesting information that can be used in any type of business. I can’t say enough about the discussion forums there, especially Business of Software. It’s quite a community with lots of activity. Lots of good tidbits and a great place to discuss business issues.
Paul Graham – Another great source to compliment Joel On Software. Both of these authors know each other fairly well but think from a different perspective. Although he doesn’t update his blog very often, almost every one of his articles are thought provoking. Probably my favorite is “How to Start a Startup“.
Erik Sink – Another blog from the founder of a software company (SourceGear). This one is much more technical but it does bring forward a lot of issues software companies need to deal with. For example he has an article that I found particularly interesting on how he decides which bugs/features will be in the next version and to what extent
Userscape Blog – This is written by Ian Landsman who recently started his own technical support software company. Again, lots of great information for startup companies.
MicroISV.com – Another website focused on smaller businesses with lots of good articles.
SoftwareCEO.com – This is a site for small to medium sized companies. Again, many great articles. If you become a paid member they also have lots of additional benefits. I’d recommend this site as you’re transitioning from small to medium size.
Marketing and SEO
ProBlogger.net – Darren writes several times a day on his blog. Loads of great information and tidbits on enhancing blogs, getting better search engine results, design, and of course monetizing. And of course he’s posted a link to one of my articles on FollowSteph.com
Performancing.com – Several different authors got together for this site and write about all aspects of blogging. Lots of articles from different viewpoints and perspectives.
Seo Chat – Great site for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) information. They also have amazing forums with lots of great debates on the latest SEO trends. If you want to optimize your website for the search engines, or find out the latest news, definitely visit this site.
Marketing Sherpa – Mostly a marketing related website. Again, lots of great articles, focused on marketing and sales. More often than not, I use this site as a spring board for new marketing and sales ideas.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
The Do's and Don'ts of Requesting Links
Having two websites (FollowSteph.com and LandlordMax.com) with decent traffic and respectable Google PR ratings, I find myself being asked for both links and reciprocal links quite often. Before I was the one initiating the contact, now the reverse is true.
Having been on both sides I’ve decided to compile a list of Do’s and Don’ts to help other people, businesses, and so on, get better results from their link requests. So without further ado, here’s a quick list of Do’s and Don’ts of Requesting Links:
Do’s
Concentrate your efforts on getting relevant high quality links. The more popular the site, the better rated it is (for example the higher the Google PR), the more valuable the link from it is. A good rule of thumb is that each increase in PR is an increase in magnitude of value.
People are more likely to link with you if you already have a link to them. So if you’re going to ask for a reciprocal link, first create your links before you send out any of your link request emails.
Keep the links focused to your topic, or to items your visitors will be interested in. Don’t just randomly link to other websites, you’re your visitors and the search engines will both devalue you if you do.
The more PR you have, the easier it is to get links. I know this is a catch-22, but it’s the truth. So don’t expect much at first. Aim more for sites that have lower PR’s and work your way up. Don’t expect a website with a PR of 7-8 to link with a site of a PR2-3. Odds are it just won’t happen.
Probably the #1 do, have good, unique, and relevant content that’s interesting! If you don’t chances are you won’t get many links. Getting links to interesting sites is a whole lot easier than to boring “spammy” sites.
When you request a link be personable, be specific about what attracted you to that site, explain why you’d be a good linking partner, etc. In the past, I’ve found that I’ve gotten great results when I commented on a particular text from another website that got my attention. I’d spend a few sentences explaining why I found it interesting, and relate it to something on my website. It’s very effective, people like when you notice them, and you’re genuine. Do note that if you’re faking it or if you’re sending a template letter, it will produce the opposite effect.
Keep your link requests brief. People are busy and don’t want to read long emails. If you send me more than one or two paragraphs, you’ve lost my attention. So if you’re going to comment as I just suggested on the previous Do, keep it short and sweet.
Peak the persons interest. If you send someone an email with just “reciprocal link request”, or something common like that, it will probably just be put on top of a pile of other link requests to get to when time permits. However if you draw the person’s attention by talking about something specific, like a topic they recently wrote about, or some exciting news related to their topic, chances are much higher that you’ll connect with them and get linked.
Don’t be shy about putting links to other sites in your articles. I know I regularly look through my web logs to see where the traffic is coming from. Who knows who might find you? I can tell you from experience it’s worked for me.
Have your links page close to your home page. Don’t embed it somewhere where no one can find it. I’ve seen this done often with the precept that it’ll increase your PR by not giving it away (for lack of better term). Maybe it’s true, maybe not. In either case, I personally won’t reciprocate with you if all you’re offering is the 300th link on page 10 of your links page that is 10 clicks deep.
Don’ts
Don’t participate in link farms and exchange programs. Most are completely irrelevant to your website and the search engines already know about them. If you’re unlucky enough, you might even get your website banned from some search engines as a result.
Don’t use redirects or link tricks when you offer link exchanges. Most people see through these and they quickly backfire.
Don’t make your link pages look like just a large lists of web pages. No one values these links. They generate no traffic or PR for the websites listed. Rather spend the time to create a valuable links page with name, description, and some comments. It shows that you took the time to evaluate them and you really are interested.
Very important, don’t send duplicate link request emails. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen multiple requests within minutes from the same website. I won’t go into the debate of whether or not automating link requests is good, but if you do automate it, don’t make it so blatantly obvious.
Don’t CC lots of people in your link request emails. This is even worse than sending multiple copies of the same request to the same website.
I understand that this is a catch-22 again, but I get many requests from people who have been blogging for 1-2 weeks, maybe 3-4. In any case, if you’re the new kid on the block, don’t expect links from larger sites right away. How do I know you’ll be around in another month or so? Give yourself some time to build your reputation up, and then ask for higher quality links. Like I mentioned before, start smaller and build up.
Don’t send emails with “warnings” that I’m in danger of losing my link from you. Firstly, they won’t work, secondly they tell me you’ve automated the process and I’m one of lots, and lastly, odds are that your links are worthless because of their sheer quantity. Never mind that more often than not they have no relevance to my website.
When asking for links keep your link description brief and to the point. Don’t try to seed your link requests with as many keywords as you can possibly squeeze into it. I can’t tell you many times I’ve seen linking titles that make no sense, that seem to be a dozen or more keywords randomly slapped together.
Don’t capitalize your link title and/or description. The harder you make it for someone to incorporate your links, the less likely they’re going to link to you.
Don’t try to ask for reciprocal links by falsely saying how much traffic your site gets. It’s usually pretty obvious, and if not it will be obvious within no time at all. No one likes to link to dishonest people.
All in all these are my tips. Like I said before, I’ve been on both sides of the fence and these are the simple Do’s and Don’ts that really helped me.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
Looking at the Possibility of adding LandlordMax PDA Support
My company LandlordMax Property Management Software, has had many requests over the last several years to offer PDA support. That is, people have requested that they can get certain key pieces of information on they’re PDA while they’re on-site, such as their tenant contact information.
These requests have not fallen to deaf ears. We’re currently in discussions with another company that might be able to provide us with PDA access to key LandlordMax features, such as the tenant contact information, etc.. For the first version, it would require synchronizing with LandlordMax to get and update the latest information on your PDA.
Rather than try to guess the details, I’m placing a call out to all of you who own, or are interested in owning LandlordMax Property Management Software. This is your chance to provide feedback that I guarantee will be very thoroughly reviewed. To help us decide if we will go ahead with this partnership, we need to determine three things.
1. Would you be interested in this add-on?
2. What are you looking to be able to do with the PDA version? Obviously retrieving tenant contact information is one task, and we also have several other ideas based on the suggestions we’ve received. However we’d like to know, what would you like to have the PDA version do?
3. Because of the complexity of developing this piece of software, it would be considered an add-on module. Therefore, at what price range would you consider purchasing a PDA add-on?
I’ve create a new thread in the discussion forum. Please feel free to post any comments and/or suggestions you might have, we’d love to hear your comments. If you’d like to send them directly by email rather than post them publicly, you can also email me.
The feedback we get over the next week or so we’ll determine whether or not we pursue this partnership and create an add-on today, or if we postpone it until there’s more demand. I look forward to hearing from you all.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
How to Calculate the Real Estate Market's Overvaluation
I recently had an email discussion with someone about the real estate market and trying to determine when it will be done falling. After thinking about it I realized that although we couldn’t predict when, we will be able to easily figure out how much the real estate market is overvalued when it’s done falling. That is, we will be able to figure out by how much people are overpaying for real estate properties today.
The easiest solution that most people will think of right away is to calculate how much properties drop in price. We can’t do that! It’s completely inaccurate. So how can we really calculate the premium on today’s price? Ignoring inflation for simplification, I’m going to suggest that we can only really calculate that premium by determining how much the monthly mortgage payments drop for the same size of property.
Why can’t we just say that if a property was say $500k, and drops to $400k, that the premium was then $100k, or 20%? Because of the effects of interest rates on real estate prices! As interest rates climb back up, prices have to fall, there’s nothing we can do about that. Therefore if real estate prices fall at exactly the same rate that interest rates climb (a good rule of thumb is that for each percent interest rates climb, real estate prices have to drop by 10% to keep the same monthly payment), then we can say that the market is fairly priced today.
Since I don’t believe that the real estate market is properly priced today, I also think that prices will drop faster than dictated by interest rates. I actually think the real estate market is highly inflated. For example, a general rule of thumb of real estate investing is that your yearly rental income should cover at least 10% of your total purchase price, including renovations, closing costs, etc. This is almost impossible today for the average residential properties. Getting positive cash flow is also almost impossible in today’s market. The market is overpriced, plain and simple.
But just by how much? The key to calculating this is by seeing how much the monthly mortgage payments will drop! Again, if interest rates increase, prices have to drop to keep the same monthly payments. Therefore, if the market is efficient, and the real estate market is correctly priced, we should see little to no difference in the monthly mortgage payments. That is to say prices will only fall in proportion to the interest rate hikes to keep the monthly mortgage payments the same. Cash flow would then also remain where it is.
However, if the real estate market is inefficient and real estate properties are overpriced, then the monthly mortgage payments will drop to bring properties back to profitable levels, to positive cash flow. Therefore prices will have to fall faster than dictated by interest rates alone. If the market is 10% overpriced (assuming no change in interest rates), then we should see monthly mortgage payments drop by 10%.
So for example, if interest rates increase by 3%, then prices have to drop by 30%, nothing new here. However if the market is overpriced by 10% then real estate prices will drop by not only 30% as dictated by interest rates, but by 30% + 10% (the market premium), which means real estate prices will drop by 40%.
As you can see, calculating the premium in today’s real estate market is basically determining how much monthly mortgage payments for a real estate property drop, not how much the purchase price drops.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
FollowSteph Traffic is Exploding!
Normally I write once a week because I’m so busy running my company LandlordMax Property Management Software. However today I had the chance for the first time in a very long time to look at the statistics for this website (FollowSteph.com). What a good surprise it was! It went from nothing to 12,322 unique visitors a month in just 7 months! This growth is truly exponential as you can see in the graph below.
The site went from first being registered and created in June to
397 unique visitors per day seven months later in December! At this pace I suspect it’ll get 25k-50k unique visitors a month by the end of 2006 without a problem. Apparently a lot of you out there like this site, because a good portion of you also come back and read other articles (the logging tools only give me averages, not specifics, so unfortunately I can’t really be more detailed).
The best compliment a blog can get is high traffic because traffic means that you’re providing interesting and informative content. Thank you!
Permalink to this article Discussions (4)
Biggest Inventory of Homes For Sale in 19 Years
Sales of previously owned homes have fallen for the second consecutive month, bringing the inventory supply to its largest in 19 years! The supply of homes on the market has increased by 14.3% since November 2004, a very significant increase.
To quote USAToday “Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, called the inventory figure for November a “real major warning flag for prices.” But he noted that with mortgage rates still historically low, the softening in housing will likely be “orderly.”
I personally believe that real estate prices are going to drop, and drop significantly! If rates return to their 8% range from 2000, only 6 years ago, then you can expect as much as a 20% drop in price! This is great news for real estate investors because as the market drops investing opportunities will start to increase.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
| « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE » |
