Tim said his business had "critical mistakes." What were they?

[patriot29]

From the book, page 41:

"Critical mistakes in its infancy would never let me sell it. I could hire magic elves and connect my brain to a supercomputer- it didn't matter. My little baby had some serious birth defects."

What were these "critical mistakes" and "birth defects" and how can we avoid them?

[Marcie]

Hrm, it says he was making $70k a month at the time, so I think he is referring to the 15 hour days being the defect???

[final_id]

My understanding of this portion of the book was, that he was micro-managing the supply chain. Each order went through him, each product production run went through him, each charge-back went through him, etc. The remainder of the "automation" his book, therefore, is an extrapolated discussion of what steps to take to NOT be a bottle-neck. The "birth defects" were the bottlenecking phenomena, is how I read it.

[Dons]

Two things came to mind when Tim mentioned a fatal mistake.

1. I thought Tim was talking about the long hours and 7 days a week he was putting in on it.

2. At the time I didn't yet know what his business was and also thought he may have put his own name on it. Like "Tim Ferriss XXXXXXX, Inc." Having your name on a business makes it difficult to sell, especially if it is a personal service business, it also should make a seller very cautious about to whom he/she sells.

I wish I had known this 37 years ago.

Don

[patriot29]

thanks a lot for that don, especially the 2nd piece (I'm starting a business right now).

[Peter Bowen]

Being the business is a common mistake - pretty hard to avoid too.

[bargaindoctor]

Yes but having read Duncan Bannatyne's autobiography- he said if you really believe in your product/service sticking your name on it is just an indication of that investment.

[laniers]

I personally think that the flaw exsist in how the business was structured to begin with. I don't see Tim's name or picture anywhere on the BrainQuicken site so I'm not sure why people would think this was the issue.

[Dons]

At the time I didn't yet know what his business was and also thought he may have put his own name on it. Don

Once I figured out what his product is, that became a moot point.

Certainly having my name on my business personalizes it and says, "I'm proud of what I do," but again to sell it would be easier if it didn't have my name on it.

Don