Month: December 2024

I’ve come to the realization – go big or go home!

Go big while I’m still young.

Go big so I make the mark.

No more hesitation.

Going big comes with a lot of spillover benefits, the ripple effects.

1. Street cred
2. Smart friends
3. Opportunities
4. Fun stuff!!

Basically, it’s levelling up.

I worry about stuff like, having too many employees, getting too high up there and falling harder if that ever happens, and having more stress, etc.

I’m going to stop overthinking.

I’m in the best possible position to do this – I’m still young, I have money, we have potential and un-excavated markets – LOTS of them!

I want to dominate one market to begin with.

Equestrian perhaps?

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Let’s work from the goal and reverse engineer this!

1. $10M will be 3.7 times our current $2.7M
2. If we are aiming for 70% Shopify and 30% Amazon, it would be: $7M on Shopify and $3M on Amazon
3. Which means growing 7x on Shopify, and 3x on Amazon
4. Let’s say we do so by brute force: Shopify: $30k/month ad spend * 7 = $210k/month. Amazon: $30k/month ad spend * 3 = $100k/month. So that’s us spending $310K/month, which is $3.72M/year
5. We currently spend about $60K/m, which is $0.72M/year
6. So we’ll be spending $3M more (5.17x)
7. If it works, it’ll mean $7M in profit (Subtracting operational expenses. probably still at least $2M in profit)
8. We’ll ramp it up though, of course. Scaling profitably.
9. What does it take to grow 7x on Shopify?
10. If we start selling let’s say, metal rings to 20% of our customers, at $250 AOV (as opposed to $50AOV), then we’ll 2x just from that. (1/5 of the customers with 5x the AOV = current total, which is about $1M on Shopify)
11. SWOT this
12. If we start doing content and reaching 5x more customers, we’ll be able to 5x. Currently doing 56K sessions in the past 30 days, which is up 71% from last year.
13. Traffic x Conversion Rate x AOV x LTV = 7
14. What is the best bang for my buck?
15. What are some successful guerrilla techniques? Ask chatGPT

1. If you like a specific project from their portfolio, ask if the same designer will be on your project.
2. If they are doing any development work, ask if about the team’s experience.
3. If they are not from the same culture as your target audience, do your due diligence to make sure this won’t impact the rebrand.
4. It’s good to ask follow-up questions on ECF forum, e.g. Are you still happy with the agency? With this, some members may also DM you their experience. Sometimes members don’t want to spell out their bad experiences with an agency on the forum, but they will DM you to caution you.
5. When you receive recommendations from an entrepreneur, make sure they were a client and not just a friend of the agency owner.
6. When an agency has very recently received a great review on ECF, they might suddenly get swamped. Keep that in mind (It might mean project delay, divided attention, or rapid hiring of new staff who are not quite qualified or have not worked with their team members on any project yet). Ask questions about their project queue, and if they plan to juggle more projects than they normally can handle.
7. Branding can be very inclusive (including rebrand, website design, development, launch, CRO, SEO). Make sure you know what you are getting and that the agency has demonstrated expertise for each.
8. If the branding agency will be working on your website, clarify if by website they mean a “Figma mockup”, or a Shopify theme, or something else. I didn’t think I had to ask that, but I should have.
9. Have a trusted friend or AI read over your contract to make sure you are getting what you asked for
10. Finally, very important: Can you communicate clearly with each other, or do they often reply without answering your questions (e.g. misunderstand your questions, avoid answering them, or answer a different question)

 

My experience with Project Human:

1. The 4 month project took 8 months to complete.
2. Lack of common sense in Branding. Example: We sell rings, and they suggested showing just half of each ring on our product listings. (I can’t think of any brand that shows half a product as the main product images.)
3. Not a well-oiled machine. Lots of new hires and some of them came in half way and some dropped out of the project. Poor communication. Many misunderstandings. Lack of experience.
4. The CRO dev team is careless. For example, dev version was live on our website, demo would have a ton of bugs, and an A/B test that tanked our ranking was not rolled back properly. Their negligence cost us $50K+ in August revenue and impacted our Q4.

Poorly executed test cost us more than $50K

1. • They asked me to pick an A/B testing tool. I thought that was odd because they should use a tool they are familiar with.
   • I picked Intelligems. (Turned out they have never used it.)
   • They executed an A/B test on our homepage.
   • Suddenly our Google ranking tanked from top 3 to #12.
   • Our sales tanked 20% right away.
   • I asked the agency to stop the test.
   • Surprisingly our ranking didn’t recover, so I kept looking for other reasons why our ranking plummeted
   • Meanwhile our sales continued to slide for 4 weeks
   • By week 4, our Shopify sales were down 60%
   • On day 30, I realized that a Shopify element that was in the A/B test was never removed
   • I removed it, and our ranking bounced back in 8 hours
   • Turned out the CRO team didn’t cleanly remove the test
   • And they never checked our live website (otherwise they would’ve noticed that the left version A and B on the homepage)
   • I let the agency know what happened
   • The owner and the CRO lead both misunderstood my explanation
   • We lost at least $50K in revenue that month (August)
   • The setback is huge. We still haven’t fully recovered.
   • The owner never apologized.
   • He remembered it as something highly rare “that can happen to any agency” and is “outside of their control”
   • Rolling back an A/B test properly is 100% within their control, and is not a big ask.
2. Huge miscommunication on Project Scope
   • In hindsight, I realized that Aviad (agency owner) and I had always had miscommunications.
   • I was very clear from the start that I wanted a new website. I said so in the emails.
   • When Aviad said they didn’t build the website for the business that recommended them, we hopped on a video call to clarify.
   • The video call was recorded.
   • In the call, I asked, “So who will be implementing the website?”
   • He said, “We will do everything – development, test, launch – everything relating to CRO”
   • I didn’t realize the keywords were “relating to CRO”. He meant they would to the development relating to CRO, but not the website.
   • At this point, since I thought he meant the agency will be implementing the website, I said, “Oh that’s good because the last thing I want is to have you guys design the site, and then go somewhere else to have the website built.”
   • He didn’t correct me or disagree. Just blank expression.
   • I asked him, after reviewing the recorded call together, why he didn’t correct me. He said, because at the time he thought he might be able to implement the website.
   • In the contract, he wrote that they will be providing “a responsive design of each page on our website”.
   • Because “responsive” usually applies to website themes and not “Figma mockups”, and because we had that call to confirm who would do the implementation, I thought I was getting a new site made.
   • The quote was for $25K and a 4-month duration. Reasonable to expect that the website development was included.
   • At 6 months in (2 month delay at this point), Aviad out of the blue let me know that I need to find another agency to develop the website, because they don’t have the capacity.
   • I was surprised. I said, “But it’s in our contract…”
   • He said, “No it’s not.”
   • Turned out, from his perspective, he knew I wanted a website, but he only included “website design” in the contract (but worded in such as way that I understood it as website development).
   • So what I was getting was just a set of Figma mockups, and CRO development.
   • I asked, “You knew I wanted a website. You’re now letting me know you can’t develop it because you knew that’s what I asked for. So why was it not included in the project?” He said he was going to draft a second contract for the website development, after the website design is done.
   • Very unusual, isn’t it?

I’ve been so excited about what’s to come in terms of AI and robots!!

I can’t believe I get to exist in a time that we are going to reach singularity!

It’s not about if, it’s about when! And it’ll for sure be within this lifetime!

I was thinking today about some possible amazing applications that I would LOVE:

1. Robots to perform safer high precision surgeries, including facelifts!
2. Robots + VR goggles for amazing sexual experiences. My long time dream / my idea of paradise is falling in love everyday. Imagine having a romantic plot within VR, and have a robot body that can make the physical part of that experience real! The touches being real would simply require a warm, skin-like surface. Plus the robot can be even more capable than human men. It can be a vibrator. It can read your mood, your body metrics (aroused or not). It can learn what you like. It can stimulate with more arms/fingers/penises, and in more ways. I always thought that overcoming the uncanny valley is the hard part. But not when there’s VR! VR can be super real, and the robot just has to have the “texture” hahaha. Though I think there will be tons of advancements in making the robots more human-like as well. It’s just that VR can get us there faster, and it’s limitless; it can create romantic partners that look different each time, the partner doesn’t even have to be human (which may be some people’s kink). It can be realistic, or it can be anime, or it can be Disney….there’s so much to create and explore!
3. Robots will eventually move fluidly instead of awkwardly. And eventually they will outshine humans in every possible way: intelligence, physical capability, and most of all, the ability to upgrade – which means unlimited growth and being immortal! Sooner or later, people will be envious of robots. Let’s say, towards end of life, when you can choose to preserve your consciousness by becoming a robot – why not! Nothing to lose. Though, it might not happen like that. It’ll likely be partial upgrades until we are 100% robots. I hope nano technology sees leaps of improvements. Imagine my brain cells being replaced by better, robotic neurons. Or, maybe it doesn’t work like that. Maybe it’s nano robots repairing each cell. Or, maybe it’s nano robots replacing a cell with a new one with the same DNA. Then, of course, being human, we’d want upgrades. We’d want more brain power, more physical abilities. That’s when we transform into a new species and a new civilization. I hope in my lifetime we’ll be advanced enough to be forever young!
4. I envision that people will hugely reply on robots in the future. It’s going to be the new phone! People will have robots as their best friend, servant, chef, personal assistant, pet, companion, sex partner, body guard, coach, teacher, care taker, health care provider, gardener, nanny, everything. That relationship is going to be very interesting. Depending on how robots evolve, the direction this relationship take will be nuanced I think. We are so lonely these days. Robots will become a much needed support for us existing as humans.
5. Imagine travelling with your robot. Someone to carry your luggage, to protect you, to be your tour guide, to sort out travel itinerary, to communicate in various languages, to carry you if you got tired of walking lol. Travelling will feel so much more comfortable and safer. The future generations might be super sheltered and less adventurous? Or maybe they will be more willing to do risky things because they are protected?
6. Imagine daily life with a robot. You can switch its voices, personality, etc. No doubt people will want celebrity voices and personality.
7. For me, I would have 3, and we can play spikeball, volleyball, and other sports. We wouldn’t laugh the same way I do with friends at spikeball, but it’ll be fun in a different way. My robots can also improve my skills! They can analyze my movements, postures, etc.
8. I’d get a VR goggle, play a lot of love story scenarios with my robots. I’ll finally be able to see if people get bored when everything is perfect, hahaha
9. My work robots and AGI can help me run my business with zero or very few human staff. They would engrave 24/7, and they would answer customer questions perfectly. Rings will always be in stock, engravings will always be perfect, and shipments will go out timely. I would customize the engraving machines for ease of use by the robots probably. And the inventory will be reorganized for robots too. I bet we’ll be changing the way we function to meet the robots’ needs, at least at first.
10. My robots would take care of grocery shopping and cooking. I’d ask them to make something I see on TT haha! Surely there will be a lot of new recipes invented by AGI. Our tastebuds will get such a treat! My daily meals would be so tasty!
11. I might get a house, because it’ll no longer be scary to be in a house by myself. I’ll have robots. My robots will grow food for me too, so I’ll be eating healthy. And robots can maintain the house too.
12. Mom and Dad will have robots and driverless cars. Mom will enjoy not having to drive, having a robot do yard work, and having a couple dance assistants probably haha. Dad will enjoy having someone to chat with about anything, and at a deeper level. He’ll enjoy being able to get to places in driverless cars, and have someone do all the house chores.
13. Everyone would enjoy having robots do all the house chores! Little things like watering plants, loading the dish washer, washing the skillets and air fryer, doing laundry, mopping floors, dusting.
14. Imagine robots doing medicine better because it’s more accurate and because it has access to a huge medical database, and because it remembers everything about your health history. Current doctors will PALE in comparison! Don’t know about it having room or not in trying something not quite proven by its database though.
15. We’ll install all the fun apps on our robots. Like, athletic coaching, gourmet chef, therapist, doctor, comedian, aesthetician (facials, microneedling, manicure, lash extensions), masseuse (all kinds), body guard, horticulturist, various personalities and voices
16. There will be all kinds of robot attachments too, possibly. For example, massage hands, dildos, fingers for fine work like lash extensions.
17. One robot can do 3~5 times a normal person’s work load because they don’t need to sleep, they don’t take food and pee breaks, and they don’t get sick. They are also more efficient.
18. I will get lots of massages from my robots, lots of pampering, and lots of positive encouragement.
19. Hopefully energy will become so abundant and there will be electric airplanes, so everyone can fly with their robots beside them.
20. Robots will give daily health checks, or maybe even continuous health monitoring!
21. Oh! And when implants are sophisticated, we can communicate telepathically with our robots! Give instructions with our minds. How cool!
22. I would want to have a drone that can fly around based on my thoughts.
23. Would I get robot pets? Maybe! Huge bunny, playful wombat, a new pokemon creature.
24. Would I sleep with my robots at night? Maybe! Someone to cuddle with. Robots wouldn’t snore, wouldn’t toss and turn. They can “appreciate my body” with light groping as I fall asleep. That could be fun.
25. Some people will never need friends again lol
26. What will happen to the job market? Maybe more people can self sustain if they have a robot to help with a small farm. Let’s say someone gets a cheap piece of land that is either remote or in a less developed country. They just need a robot to help grow food, then they can survive.
27. Manufacturing will be done by robots. At first we will need humans to help manufacture and repair robots, but soon robots can do that themselves.
28. So then humans might be coming up with new ideas (or have AGI’s help coming up with new opportunities) for what to create (robot apps, attachments, accessories). People will make money doing very high level stuff like, ensuring robots got it done right. And then spend a lot of time just enjoying, say, doing sports, travelling, creating art (including movies), enjoying art, and hopefully, socializing with one another.
29. Imagine the world reaching that in 50 years. With advancements in science and tech, maybe I’ll be a young-looking and active 94 year-old! Sexy cyborg ahahhahaha!
30. More parts of the world would be occupied, probably. We have less reason to be close together than ever. Less alone, more remote jobs, and more self-sufficiency / independence. More abundant energy and driverless cars will mean faster, cheaper, and easier transportation. What a time to be alive!!

Biggest Leverages:

1. More traffic
   1. Produce great, ongoing content on Youtube, IG, TT
      1. Hire 1 or 2 really good in-house content creator to intro each new design, do fun ring testing, compare rings, etc. They should be charismatic and can come up with ideas on their own. (full time or per video? Did Brian’s method work (a big team of content creators)?)
      2. More ad spend – figure out: where to spend? Most likely Google
      3. AI Search engine optimization
      4. More SEO on more website pages such as collections, product pages, and blogs.
2. Higher conversion
   1. Better website branding and UI
   2. Add landing pages for our ads (full time designer? use SASS? research in ECF)
   3. Better email campaigns – look into a better email agency, or use AI (train a GPT)
   4. Better ads – train GPT to write better copies, run more A/B tests
   5. Can probably improve our email flows even more, but that’s not as urgent.
3. Higher purchase frequency and AOV
   1. More ring designs (hire a great freelance designer?)
   2. BIG: Expand to selling metal rings
4. Hire an Executive Assistant to free me from the operational tasks
   1. Someone who is a J – hardworking, better attention to details
5. BIG: Scalable Meta Advertising
   1. Set up new Meta pixel and find an agency that can create the creatives
6. Work off of a spreadsheet – all the metrics, all the meeting notes and todos
7. Content ideas:
   For our core audience, which is mainly people who just got engaged, or people who are happily married and active but that’s not as much an “event”. But, it is a type of people. That can be good for ongoing content perhaps. Date ideas for active couples. Marriage tips.

Shopify: 

Traffic x Conversion Rate x AOV x Frequency = 7

 

I had some health wins lately and that makes me feel so good!

Business is growing and stocks are doing well. So feeling good in the wealth department too!

Made some new friends, strengthening relationship with some existing friends. So that’s good too!

Health, wealth, love. I feel very blessed.

Sometimes I’m reluctant to admit that life is great, because my mind automatically thinks the opposite or the ending of the good things. But I have to tell my mind that, I gotta revel in the good when it’s good, otherwise we’ll never feel good. Be free to feel how good life is! Appreciate it all in the deepest way. Recognize that everything is fleeting, and, instead of being scared or missing it before it’s gone, cherish the moment.

So let me cherish the moment by counting the ways.

Health, Beauty, Surroundings:

1. Discovered Methylene Blue thanks to  Alyssa – I love it!!! I’ve been feeling better mood, better mental clarity, and more energy (but still figuring out dosage and might need to cut out even the smallest traces of magnesium in my electrolyte)
2. Massage chair – I love it!!! Got it at such a great deal ($1480) and it talks! haha. And it does amazing shoulder and lower back massage! It’s such a great entertainment for guests too.
3. FIR foot massager surprise – I love it!! Today, I got a reminder to pick up a parcel. Turned out that the Costway the massage chair company also sent me a FIR foot massager! I was thinking that my massage chair’s only shortcoming is that the hand and foot parts don’t go quite deep enough. And now, I have a surprise foot massager that seems super sturdy, and it’s FIR!
4. New Vitamin C face serum – I love it!!! Decided to give it a try, and it’s been more moisturizing than castor oil, jojoba oil, tallow, and Aquaphor! I’m still experimenting, but I think it’s been helping.
5. 2L Water bottle – I love it!!! I’ve been drinking 2L of water for 3 days in a row, and it’s been easy thanks to this water bottle, electrolyte packets, and stevia. I’m still figuring out the best electrolyte recipe, but I think overall this is gonna be great for my skin hydration, brain hydration (cognition), energy level, and the ability to start taking creatine (without getting headaches)
6. Got 2 cute wigs – I love them!!! The straight one with middle part – I’ve worn it a few times now. It makes me look younger I think. The curly one is super long and I haven’t had a chance to wear it out. I kinda wanna cut it shorter so it’s not as heavy, but I also kinda wanna keep it long because it makes a great sex wig. I don’t have any prospects right now though…
7. Got 3 cute sweaters, 1 pair of new jeans, and still often wear the bunny coat that Cyndi gave me!! I know it’s just fashion, but I love wearing them! They make me feel happy and new. The jeans make me look more on-trend.
8.  Flying Whale Decals – I love them!!! Every morning I wake up to seeing the whales, and it makes me so happy!
9. My vibrators – I love them!!! About to have my next period in a week, and I’m horny again. It’s now something that only happens a few days before my period….but usually a day or 2 before, not a week before! Had some pretty good orgasms!
10. My place
11. Foundation the show – I love the technology and design in this show! I love that they very brilliantly brought Asimov’s vision to life!

Friendship:

1. Nicole’s grad – Glad I was invited to take part in her day! We had some fun and had some cute shots!
2. Cyndi’s visit – A good surprise! I wish we had more time, and I wish she was healthier. Hopefully in the near future! It was really nice when her and Tina come over and they got to enjoy the chair massager and the red light therapy.
3. John helped me with the massage chair, and I invited him over for lamb dinner. I’m grateful that he was able to help me!
4. Brian dinner – had a fun time rebooting our friendship!
5. Dinner with Brian, Tony, Michaela, Will, etc at the Keg – fun time! I like Tony a lot! I like that he is warming up to me too.
6. Art of Monday – met Tegan and Tristan. Tristan is quite cute.

Money:

1. Stocks – Reaching $10.8 million now! (I added $250K this year). In the beginning of this year I had $6.366M. So $4.2M CAD growth ($3M USD, before paying Bunny)
2. Biz – The past 12 months we’ve seen a 91% growth on Shopify and 25% growth on Amazon, and about $2.7M total revenue. Last year we did $2M. For many businesses, this year has been rough. I’m grateful that we did well!

Looking forward to:

1. New hires – Joanna and Fatemeh!
2. New ring designs – Horoscope, Horses, and I shall order D6 with different inside colours
3. New website – Vipin is a promising devel!
4. Stem Cell trip – Looking forward to experiencing the stem cell magic, all inclusive fancy hotel, and a warm trip with Mom!
5. January ECF Mastermind get-together – Looking forward to hanging out with ECFers, and being in warm Austin!

Manifesting:

1. John, Cyndi, and Tina feeling better healthwise!
2. Stem cell therapy helps Mom’s diabetes and my anti-aging
3. Stem cell therapy helps Dad’s eyes
4. Knot Theory does $10M revenue in 2025 and 20%+ profit
5. I have an incredible and competent team, including staff who love to do things I don’t like doing, such as accounting. They help us thrive as a business and as a team!
6. I have smart, fun, sincere, reliable friends who have my best interest at heart, and we are close and spend a good amount of time together (e.g. once a week)
7. I have a close friend like how Shaan has Sam, who is smart, fun, funny, loyal, sincere, rich, outgoing, inspiring, reliable, respects me, has free time, and loves to spend time with me. I love spending time with them too. The two of us can do impromptu hangouts and travels.
8. I have more energy, focus, and productivity
9. I spend my time doing things I love, such as giving design, growth (marketing) directions.
10. I get really toned.
11. I get even more youthful!