Lincoln Nguyen’s Blog

Last week:

Experimented a lot with Adwords. PPC is a business onto itself. I’m going to try to squeeze the most out of the PPC campaign and get really good at traffic before I move onto anything else. I was testing a lot of different product ideas. It will probably be best to take a deep dive on one of these ideas and get some real customer feedback through surveys. Traffic -> Conversions -> Economics and fine tuning

This Week:

Bus:

Keep testing muse ideas

Polish the PPC campaign with much more emphasis on keyword research and buying related terms

Spend an hour each day at least on senior care project

Keep the workday from 8am to 6:30pm. Nothing gets done after that time anyways. Why draw it out.

Spir:

30 minutes of meditation in the morning and at night

Practice breath meditation

Be present. Be the consciousness behind the thoughts. Observe thoughts.

Nonresistance. Nonjudgment. Nonattachment.

Be like M. Aurelius

Phys:

Get calipered

Write down weights. Do the exact exercises written down in the plan.

6 meals/day

More leafy greens and lentils

Buy milk and cottage cheese.

Rel:

Give to receive. Give value to everyone you come into contact with. Practice law of abundance.

Network.

In 6 Months:

Have muse business generating cash

Backpacking trip to Europe

Training in BJJ and Muy Thai

DJ Residency at Les Deux or other LA lounge

Review

Fit: Sucked it up big time with shitty meals towards the end of the week. Diet needs work. Good gains in strength.

Bus: Dry tested a bunch of ideas. Some progress on UI of website. Need more work on the personal health records portion of website or other tools for visitor retention

Spi: Doing really well. Watched a bunch of eastern thought videos. Meditated at least 30 minutes per day. Most days more.

Rel: Didn’t have any meetings this week.Nice break. Went to Caltech forum on saturday

Meditations

Fit:

-220+ grams protein/day

- 6 meals per day

- Green tea 6 cups

-Add 5 lbs to every major lift. Add 10 lbs to deadlift

-Surf(Sat) + Bball(Sun) + Hiking(Sun)

Bus:

-Test more Green muse ideas — product based, automated, dry testable, $50-200

-Start marketing community blog section of carecrunch (email lists, add list to front page, social media, google groups)

-Get resellers license with EMRs? evaluate time commitment

Rel:

-Network and follow up

Spi:

-Check out some of Krishnamurti’s stuff

-Be mindful. Practice breath meditation and keep using vippassana.

Biz:

Microtest new muse ideas in clean technology

Decide whether to invest or divest

Write out operations plan

Change up marketing, increase max CPC for 1 day.

Contact Angel Investors

Complete the integration of PHR into the senior care site

Fit:

6 meals/day - 200+ g protein, lean meats, 1 cheat meal

Start serious cut for 6 weeks

Add 5lbs per lift

Bball + Surfing

Spir:

Be present

Vipassana meditation 30 minutes every morning

Observe the thinker

Finish Power of Now during morning lifts

Rel:

Network with angel groups and LA startup community

Contact ppl on whose.who list

Misc.

NO TV, energy drinks, alcohol, smokes.

Meditations:

Did a lot of planning and research last week. This week is all about execution.

Things to keep in mind:

Biz:

Lean test business ideas - its not about the cost its about the time it takes

Execute!!!! Treat business like a sport. Manage your time/energy. Think of it like a 2-a-day. Gives a psychological edge.

Think big!

Fit:

Add 5lbs to lifts every week.

Track weights on chart.

BBall sunday mornings with John

Tubs of Whey arrive today, get back to 6 meals/day

Rel:

KIT

Spir:

Be present

Practice Vipassana or TM

Observe the thinker

Practice walking med

Watch GoogleTalks on Zen

Business: Had a few talks with people about the EAP idea. Still trying to figure that out for the senior care site. Struggling with keeping to one project at a time. Right now I’m planting a few seeds and seeing which ones have traction. Just frustrating. Gotta concentrate on revenue generating businesses.

Relationships: Happy with friends and fam. Been connecting with old friends and doing better at maintaining relationships.

Fitness: Feeling pretty light for this time of year. Haven’t even seriously started spring cut yet. Will have no prob hitting 10%. Current weight 155lbs. No idea of where BF % is at. Somewhere around 12-15% id imagine. Gotta ask trainer to measure. Cardio=7/10. Strength=6/10.

Spiritual: Been doing well with meditation.

Things to keep in mind for this week

Business:

-1st hour each day devoted to greentech project

-Pay more attention to customer development. Test PPC to landing page of projects

-Start marketing community site when UI is done

-Vet ideas with mentors

-Start contacting angels

Relationships:

-Check in on friends during the week.

-Run through the “Must Meet” list (2 meetings per week)

Fitness:

-Visit Nam Phan gym

-Attend Cleber Monday night session (6pm)

-Write down reps+weight

Spiritual:

-Practice Vissapana 15 minutes in the morning after shower

-Look into TM

Misc:

-Practice guitar

-Sketch

-No TV, sugars, juices, energy drinks

Books to finish:

Linchpin

Why Capitalism Will Save Us

Fountainhead

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Ready for Anything

Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Books To Read:

Rework

Note to self: Read one effin book at a time. No nonfiction before bed.

I’ve been thinking about starting a business in cleantech for over a year now. Problem is.. there is only one of me. Between the healthcare IT business and the senior care site, I’m finding it more and more difficult to do anything else.

I picked up a great tip from Leo from zenhabits, which is to block out an hour a day for a passion project. In that hour try to knock out 3-4 tasks that will push you toward that completing that project. I can definitely manage to do that.

Possible projects:

1. Home energy management app.. syncs with google E

2. Home energy audit lead gen app

3. Community organizing program for affordable renewables like One Block off the Grid in SF

4. Green retrofits program like GRID Alternatives in Oakland

5. Something in SmartGrid

Also I came across an awesome talk by the Former Chairman of AOL Ted Leonsis and a list of 101 things he wanted to achieve before he died, a lot like the one I wrote out a week ago.

Backlog:

Start on fundraising trail May 1st

Finish UI of PHR

Go through list of people to meet

Chris Larsen

Founder, E-Loan.com and Prosper.com

“Cut the lifeboats.” I heard this from Jim Collins, who wrote “Built to Last” and was the best M.B.A. professor I had at Stanford. He pleaded with the class, saying, “You’re young. You can fail two or three times, even lose all your money two or three times, and you’ll be just fine. Taking that risk puts you in the path of wealth.”

If he hadn’t said that, I probably would have taken a job, like a typical M.B.A., instead of founding a company. Starting my own business seemed so risky, but maxing out credit cards or even going bankrupt isn’t so risky if you do it at a young age. You’ll never regret taking those risks, but you might regret it if you don’t.

Gotta start doing this regularly on Sunday nights.

Meditations:

>Practice 80/20 rule

>Brain dump, organize, make into action steps

>Make list of entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors. Then go through it meeting 2 per week.

We’re changing up the business model for Salveo again. Moving to the cloud. With the Ipad out, we hope to do some creative things in the near future in terms of promotions.

There is a huge market opportunity for us in the nursing home space. Its a largely untapped market for electronic medical records.

My goal has always been to tackle big problems using business as a vehicle..ie; senior care, healthcare, energy, and education.

At some point in the future, I plan to enter the home energy management industry and develop solutions to help solve the energy problem.

I really wish I had more time to pursue all of these projects.

Meditations:

Focus on one project at a time

Heed 80/20 rule

Prioritize!

Begin with the end in mind

Find A+ players and outsource

Its all about “getting the right people on the bus” right? If theres one thing I’ve learned about 2+ years of being a Entrepreneur/Chief Slave Driver its that you’ve got to give your employees incentives to do good work. Sounds simple enough. But it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do when you are a startup and cannot match the salaries of companies that are 3X your size. So what do you do?

You evangelize the shit out of your company vision. For us it is “reforming health care through information technology”. If your company has a cause-based vision, it is much easier to make meaning of the work that you do because at the end of the day you feel that youve done work that has contributed to society in a meaningful way. If you get too far away from your cause, it definitely dampens morale and thats when companies start enforcing those complicated compensation schemes to use money as a the primary driver for good work. In my experience, I’ve found that recognition, a sense of accountability, and learning opportunities are the most effective means of recruiting A-players.