Got a question from one of you lovely email subscribers after my solopreneur update last week:
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“Good Morning:-)
Where can I learn more about your platform?
Are you the tech savvy guy behind it? Are you outsourcing all the build items?
Have a great day!”
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And it made me realize – I talk a lot about my tech company, but very rarely do I ever plug it.
So just in case you’re curious, you can learn more about the Canadian immigration platform we’re building here: http://visto.ai/
To answer the second question, no I am definitely not the tech savvy guy! When I was starting up Visto years ago, I partnered up with a good friend of mine who I grew up with in Ottawa who is a software developer, and he builds all of our tech (along with another full-time software developer that works with us).
What I’ve come to learn is that a great dynamic duo for a tech company is 2 cofounders, where 1 is great at tech and 1 is either a domain expert or great at sales (or both).
A domain expert is someone who knows a lot about the industry or product you’re trying to build. So in our case, Alex is our techy and I’m the immigration expert – a good match (I’m also decent at sales)!
From my experience, outsourcing tech kinda sucks.
There are SO many dev agencies out there, and it’s hard to tell which are good and which are not. They also will never have the same motivation and excitement about your product as you, because you’re just one of potentially many clients.
So my recommendation would be to either find a cofounder/business partner that can take charge on the tech side, or go vet and find a really good independent contractor on something like Upwork that can commit to just your project for however long you need.
But I highly recommend the former over the latter.
And of course, if you want any more insights on that experience or have other questions, just let me know.
I also finished a great book last weekend. About one of my favourite “entrepreneurs.”
I put the word in quotations because he’s not the traditional entrepreneur that starts and grows one big business.
At least not like in Shoe Dog (Nike), Amazon Unbound (Bezos) or The Virgin Way (Branson), as per many of my favourite books.
And that’s part of what makes him and his story so interesting. It’s a huge business success story, but with a twist.
The book is “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist” by Roger Lowenstein, and it’s a biography about none other than Warren Buffett.
I didn’t know much about him – other than what we hear or read in the news – until about 3 years ago when I started reading books about/from him, and I’ve been fascinated since (this is my second readthrough of this biography – as you know, I often re-read my favourites every 2-4 years). I’ve also read The Essays of Warren Buffett, which is basically a compilation of his annual shareholder letters organized in a meaningful way.
Here’s why Mr. Buffett is so cool, and why anyone would read a compilation of his shareholder letters:
Unlike a lot of the entrepreneurs I read about and allude to, he’s made most of his money investing in companies – not starting them. He started a few smaller ones when he was much younger, but most of his success came from investing in companies that he liked and thought were underpriced, and then benefited from their growth and appreciation.
Of course I’m summarizing here, and it’s much more nuanced than that, but he’s arguably the most successful investor of our time and it’s fascinating to read about how he evaluates companies, what he looks for in them, how he approaches investing and more.
I highly recommend the book, and the Essays too.
Maybe I’ll share some of my key takeaways in tomorrow’s daily email…
Have a great day and keep grinding.
