Worth knowing – Code Year

The good people at Codeacademy have dropped an educational truth bomb on us all with Code Year.

Code Years a very cool thing. It is basically a a week by week on line lesson to learn how to code computers. It also priced at most peoples favourite price – Free!

Now, I’m not saying that everyone or anyone should become a programmer. I am a strong believer in doing what you do well – expertise. Especially in the entrepreneurial field where I think we create more value organising the factors of production, than we do being them. But the point is it pays to know about the world around us. It might help us understand ‘how’ to make our on-line projects a reality.

As far as Codeacademy are concerned there’s nearly another 400,000 people who know about them thanks to their generosity.

Startup blog says: Get on Code Year!

Property Investing 101

A startup blog regular – Josh Moore has been asking for as post on Property Investing. Which like anything can be treated like a startup. It’s a big topic with a million books on it. But I have had a side interest in it for some time. So here are some tips on stuff that I think is worth knowing when investing in property. A bit of a 101 guide:

• Property returns on average about 10%. Which is quite similar to the share market on.
• Banks will lend much more money for property investments due to lower volatility than shares.
• You should buy investment properties that you, yourself would like to live in.
• Land goes up in value. Concrete and air does not increase in value.
• Period buildings (unique styles, historical) have higher capital growth than the average property.
• Rental returns are usually below 5% per annum.
• Property investment can be a quicker path to wealth than shares due to leverage (borrowing money).
• Getting someone to manage a property costs about 7% of the rent per week. (so you wont have to fix toilets)
• You should always allow for 6 weeks a year vacancy on rental properties.
• High capital growth properties & areas, tend to have lower rental yields.
• High yield properties tend to have low capital growth.
• Areas going through gentrification usually have greater capital growth.
• A rental guarantee is a lie – the rent for the guarantee period is usually built into the selling price.
• Auctions are invented by real estate agents who want it to sell quick to get their money.
• Homes on busy roads have a higher turnover of renters and reduced yield.
• Homes near water (river, beach, lake) grow faster and fetch a premium.
• Tax benefits of property investment in Australia are a significant advantage.
• You can draw out profits (capital gain)  from a property that has grown in value and not pay tax on it
• You can buy insurance against tenants in case they damage your house (Landlord Insurance).
• Investors should choose between yield or capital growth when investing.
• Capital gains tax on selling is 50% lower if you’ve held the property for over 12 months.
• Property investing is very dependent on government policy, technological change, and infrastructure.
• The key to investing is compound growth. Trading removes the power of compounding.
• Trading properties & developing, is not investing, they are more like running businesses.
• Trading properties is expensive – acquisition usually costs between 6-9% of market value.
• Disposing of property usually costs around 3-5% of market value.
• The property market can go through long periods of sustained stagnation, 10% returns is 100 year+ average.
• Buying properties off the plan is risky. The saving in stamp duty can be a false friend.
• Mortgage insurance is for the bank, not the mortgage holder.
• The word mortgage is French, meaning; An engagement until death.
• I believe that property is a get rich slow category
• The biggest land holder on earth is ‘The Catholic Church’

Hope this helps getting you off and running in your property ventures. Good authors on the subject include; Jane Somers and Dolf De Roos.

Will you?

It’s a matter of will. Everyone can, but not everyone will – Jim Rohn.

Will you?

I don’t know

Most of the most important projects I have ever done, I didn’t really know how to do them before I started. Some I didn’t even really know how I did it after I completed it.

I feel one of the most important insights to this new era of entrepreneurialism, is that knowing the answer is not really that important – if at all important. We instead just need to make it up as we go along. Ask a lot of questions and be honest with the people in the process that there is quite a lot that we just don’t know, at least until we build it.

Windows = Screens

If you think my raving on about screen culture is just a little too much. Then, get ready for more. In fact, look around at all the places in your life where you see glass and windows. Now imagine all of those panes as actual interactive screens which are web enabled as well as, well simple normal see through glass. Because this is coming, and it is coming much quicker than we thought it would.

The only job left to do now, is dream up the best data mashups based on the context of where the window is, because the technology evidenced below needs entrepreneurs underneath it to create real meaning and purpose.

Why Statigram rocks

A few days ago I blogged about the serious advantages of embracing an open API. And just recently I’ve come across another great example of an startup using it to full advantage. The tiny idea, yet mobile app phenomenon Instagram has been mashup up by the uber rad Statigram. And I love it.

What Statigram does:

- It provides statistics on your instagram feed (hmm obvious)

- It shows who we interact with the most

- Timelines on our usage patterns and filters

- Churns your stats into really cool infographics ‘about us’

- Allows us to send private messages to followers

- Details on our tag patterns

- It even has photo printing capaibilities

… in fact, here’s a little photo essay of some of the cool stuff it does from my @sammartino instagram feed so you can get a good feel for it. There is no doubt in my mind that Statigram will end up being acquired by the API forefather assuming it continues its rapid growth trajectory.

Philosophy, Attitude & Activity

One of the most inspiring Business coaches I listen to is the late Jim Rohn. While he comes from the old school of American Motivation, he does have some very sensible philosophies worth paying attention to. I usually listen to him while jogging. And the other I was doing just that when he said these 3 words. He went on to talk about why they were important, but by this time my mind was already wondering into my own interpretation of what they mean, why they matter and why they are actually in order. And here’s is what I think.

Philosophy: The first thing that has to change is how we view the world. We need to embrace of philosophy of self responsibility. The first thing that must change is our mind. But this on it’s own is not enough. How many smart people have you met who can talk a good game, but never do anything about it?

Attitude: It’s no point knowing about something valuable unless we truly believe it is possible, and that it is possible for us. I actually find the word attitude interesting as it is referred to in aviation. The attitude of an aircraft is its angle of flight, or orientation in reference to the ground. Basically, the direction it is headed… While flying, attitude is something which requires constant attention and maintenance.

Activity: It all means nothing if it is just mental. We’ve got to act on the two above factors, or we’ll just end up as another one of those people know the path, but never actually walk it.

The lifecyle of awesome

As far as I can tell the life cycle of awesome is in perpetual decline. Every day we all get sent something that’s awesome. Something that’s great. Something that’s shareable. and every day we make a judgement. A decision whether this piece is worth sharing. There are so many things to share, and so many places to share them, that the stakes get higher and higher for what qualifies – it has to. Which means that when we see something amazing, it’s only amazing for a little while. It means the window is very small and getting smaller.

Today I saw something awesome. A simple video projection come moving art, come installation, come viral video. It was very next level. In fact the guy show sen it to me (Rohan) said it was ‘off chops’. You can see it below. But what I’m really wondering is, for how long can we keep going to the next level until there is nowhere left to go?

The open API secret

The biggest flip the technology age has done on the industrial era is the open API. For the uninitiated, an open API (Application Program Interface) is a word used to describe sets of technologies that enable websites to interact with each other. It is also a system where web companies ‘open up’ their platform for external non affiliated software developers to create applications on. Facebook most famously did this with their ‘Facebook Platform‘.

While this sounds like some kind of nerd nirvana, it is actually a counter intuitive move that forms a large part of the marketing genius of social web 2.0 applications. And that is outsourcing the R&D to total strangers. That is, entrepreneurs who have new and interesting ways to mash up their content. It is quite revolutionary in fact. Corporations from the pre-web industrial era would rarely let people use their logo, let alone open up part of the factory for hackers to come in and try and build something interesting. But this is exactly what is happening, the most amazing stuff is usually coming from external organisations and the entire ecosystem is the beneficiary.

• Existing web companies get their new product development for free
• Entrepreneurs get a shot at being acquired by the firms whose API they focus on

The open API idea has to be one of the major reasons why technology companies are eating the world. The only question remaining is why don’t old world industrial companies open up their doors to some new, fresh and external innovation?

Why failure is scary

While technology and lifestyles has shifted radically in the past few hundred years, the human DNA hasn’t evolved very much at all in the past few thousand. It’s one of the reasons why we are becoming obese. Our bodies are just not designed to have some much access to food, and so much automation and leisure time. Another interesting quirk of our DNA is the fear instinct. An instinct which is totally vital for survival, until a a few hundred years ago. In a pre-civilised world, failure could mean being killed while gathering food.

The problem with the fear instinct is that it gets in the way of us doing our best work in a modern world. It can stop us from proposing amazing ideas, and disrupting old outdated methods. The fear we have is not of death, but these days usually only of embarrassment or financial loss, neither of which will kill us.

This fear robs us of our best chance to make a difference, and generate the momentum we need. The best way to overcome this fear to remind ourselves that the fear we are facing is emotional and not physical. And almost every circumstance, what we are afraid of will not stop us from having a second chance.