Mastermind.fm

The European investor's favorite podcast.

Episode 62 – Managing Large Teams Remotely, with Amir Helzer

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This week, Jean and James are joined by Amir Helzer, founder of WPML, which is perhaps the best WordPress Multilingual plugin. Having met abroad in Israel, Jean decided the ongoing conversations with Amir were to good not to have him on to discuss the challenges and opportunities in managing large teams remotely, this and much more in episode 62 of Mastermind.FM.

Topics Include:

  • Amir’s start and 10+ years experience in WordPress.
  • The personal journey toward making WordPress Multilingual.
  • A brief on Toolset.
  • Remote Team Management of 90+ People
    • Team Size/s
    • Managing as a digital nomad.
      • Amir’s road to digital nomadism.
    • Letting go of tasks, delegating to employees.
    • Hiring the right people is more important than having the best procedures.
    • Set up a culture that allows your employees to succeed.
    • Come up with or adopt a simple project/person management system.
      • Fiddling with this system should not be a challenge of the business.
    • Measuring results only.
    • You hire good people.
      • Nobody wants to fail.
      • Nobody is being lazy.
      • Your people aren’t broken, something in the process is.
    • Ensure everyone is enthused about success.
      • Do so by making sure everyone is involved in the vital processes.
  • Past time activities.
    • Absorbing books on psychology, HR, marketing.

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Episode 61 – Automatic Renewals & How to Write More Content

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This week Jean and James have a classic mastermind discussion about renewal rates and how one goes about writing more. From why everyone needs to implement automatic renewals, to the obstacles a writer faces, and mind over matter techniques to encourage you to write more. Expect a content rich episode, loaded with great takeaways!

Topics Include:

  • James’s newest article.
    • Automatically Renewing Subscriptions
      • From business conference epiphany to reality.
      • On renewal rates.
      • The results; reaping the benefits.
      • The magic of forecasting and predictability.
  • Article idea generation.
    • Where to start?
    • Maintaining momentum and enthusiasm.
    • Striking while the iron is hot on motivation.
      • Understanding your motivations.
    • Fighting imposter syndrome.
    • Defining why you are writing.
    • Measuring your audience.
    • Honing in on inspiration.

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Episode 60 – Growth Hacking: Create, Connect, Deploy, Succeed

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Transparency and paying forward good advice; this episode takes on a new format, based on experience and hard learned lessons from both of our hosts, as they aim to help those new to the digital playing field. This week, Jean and James have Iszuddin Ismail, of RunCloud.io, on to talk about growth hacking for startups, and take on any questions from their guest along the way.

Topics Include:

  • Easily implemented blogging tips.
  • Separating product or service updates from curated content.
    • Experiment with different types of content and capitalize on your strengths.
    • Set an example for your customers, lay an easy path for them to follow.
  • Expanding your digital footprint.
    • “Create, connect, deploy.”
  • Defining your product or service.
  • The importance of proper email marketing.
    • Use your captured email addresses.
  • Do you need funding?
  • Depending on your end goal, stay bootstrapped if you can.
  • Setting goals as a team determines the length and type of road ahead.
  • Implementing affiliate revenue.
  • Don’t get stuck believing the way everyone else has met success is the only way for you to succeed.
    • Constantly be testing and tweaking.

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Episode 59 – Sage Advice on Peer to Peer Lending with Laurence Samuels

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This week we focus on money; what we do with the money we earn, reinvesting, peer to peer lending, etc. As Jean is proudly joined by Laurence Samuels, creator of Financial Thing: a blog site full of unbiased P2P lending reviews, DIY investing guides, and home to the new Investing Essentials Podcast.

Topics Include:

  • Introductions; how and why Laurence started Financial Thing.
  • How cancer, in part, drove Laurence into the world of investing.
  • The book that made investing just click.
  • What is P2P Lending?
  • The things that have lead to the success of, and need for, P2P.
  • What interest look like on P2P platforms.
  • Weighing risk of P2P.
    • Acknowledging the subjectivity of risk.
  • Laurence’s experience based tips.
  • Recommended platforms.
  • Why Europe has a leg up in the P2P space.
  • The difficulty with American money lending.
  • Who is exactly lending to whom?
  • Criticisms of P2P.
  • Investing resources.
  • Dividend investing.
  • Calculating investment returns.

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Episode 58 – The Magic of SAAS Apps and Enterprise Work with Mario Peshev

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Topics Include:

  • Agency Work
  • Enterprise & Obstacles
  • Multisite & SAAS
  • SAAS Apps
    • Converting Plugins to SAAS Apps.
  • Contributing to core.
    • WordPress precautions.
    • Predictions

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