FINDING HIDDEN ASSETS

When I am starting a business, the first question I ask myself is, “What skills do I have that can get me to profitability the fastest?” (And this same question should be asked whether we’re trying to build a business or any other part of our life.) The answer doesn’t have to be perfectly aligned with your beacon in the fog, just something that is close enough and is an inch or two up from where you currently are. (Remember, we’re zigzagging.) While I was in college majoring in electronic engineering, I found a job at a computer repair shop. It certainly wasn’t where I wanted to end up, but I was able to get cash for my family and also learn skills that would bring me closer to my goal of graduating in engineering.

When my partner, Ron Porter, and I started CastleWave, I had a knack (for which I had been well paid) for getting key words to the top of the search engines on the Internet. I had sworn I would not share any of my search engine optimization (SEO) secrets and mental knowledge with other people because I was done making other people rich and I was in the mode of creating my own businesses. But in the earliest days of CastleWave, I realized that the fastest way to cash was to fill the need other companies had for SEO work.

I had some contacts in New York City who I knew wanted to get their own websites to the top of the search engines. So Ron and I flew to New York and sold these contacts on search engine optimization. We were almost instantly profitable because I was willing to do what I regarded as the equivalent of going out in the street and dancing in a tutu. I did not initially do what I wanted to do; instead, I zigged to the fastest source of cash I could identify because I understood how important that first zig is.