[Note: Walter Yu co-authored this post.]
A couple of good friends of mine, Walter Yu and Sean Neprud share my interest in developing passive income streams. We’re all smart, hard-working and ambitious, but making the transition from active income (work-by-the-hour) to passive income (log in, count your money) isn’t as easy as we think it ought to be. Then again, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it!
In any case, in late December, we were tossing ideas around on Twitter and decided we should hang out for a whole weekend and get some work done instead of just talking about it. We felt we needed to gather in the same physical space for an extended amount of time to hash out features and conceptualize our various projects (hence the name “incubation”). We picked the first weekend in January, from Friday Jan 2 to Sunday Jan 4, and met at Dos Palmas (that’s my place!)
Stirfry Startups is born!
Our first-ever “weekend intensive” work session focused on affiliate work to monetize our websites. Attendees included Dave Doolin, Walter Yu, Sean Neprud, Rowena Ip and Joshua Hurst.
1/2-1/4/09: Websites affiliate “Incubation”
Walter was the first to arrive, on Friday afternoon around 5 pm, laden with huge bags of produce and groceries from 99 Ranch.
I stir fried gai choy Friday evening, a great excuse to break into a jar of fermented bean curd.
Friday night focused on Adsense affiliates, which we tackled from a practical, implementation point of view. We set-up our Google documents to take down info, and the Stir-fry Google Group (http://groups.google.com/group/stir-fry-start-ups) went live the following week.
Walter stayed over Friday evening, and we got right to work Saturday morning, after a big breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, and humongous mugs of coffee laced with heavy (whipping) cream.
Saturday was devoted to Amazon affiliates, which we again implemented rather quickly after working as a team and grinding out the details. We got our widgets setup with reading lists, and Walter also added a Pandora widget to http://walteryu.com.
By mid-day Saturday there were 5 of us: Sean, Rowena, Josh, Walter and myself. Sean worked on content for several of his many blogging ventures. Rowena learned some Wordpress configuration and set up email for a new domain. Joshua outlined a documentary film project.
Then, more gai choy, coffee, and lots of hot spicy tea. I have a several sizes of stovetop espresso makers, a French press and coffee cone. Everyone gets it how they like it!
Sunday consisted of broader topic research, mainly web marketing. Walter and David stormed the El Cerrito Plaza Barnes & Noble with notepads in hand to jot down relevant sources and ideas.
Highlights of Stirfry #1
- Items implemented: Google Adsense banners, Amazon Affiliate widgets
- Items refined: Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, WP plug-ins
- Grub: Peet’s espresso w/heavy whip cream, gai choy stir-fry, chicken-curry noodles, eggs/bacon/oatmeal breakfast
- Tunes: Lots of electronica and related: Ben Watt, Bassnectar, Chilled C’quence, Tripswitch. Good stuff for cranking out work!
Yes, there was stir fry!
What We Learned
The weekend intensive was a great success. Here are the lessons we learned:
- Clear agendas: setting work session agendas very clearly before it starts, then holding to that structure during the weekend.
- Documentation: getting all our notes on the collaborative work we’re doing during and post-session
- Follow-up items: following up the agenda with action items to do in our areas of work after the weekend.
1/9/09: Mind-mapping Friday Night Incubation
Walter and I followed up the next weekend Friday evening 10 Jan to brainstorm some new website projects. We hashed out ideas and implementation using Freemind, which is a mind-mapping software with potential use on our various projects. Walter gained familiarity with the program as I plotted out some website structure. We discussed additional ideas for our upcoming “Stir-fry Seminar”, which is in the works.
I also learned that the Thai dish Larb is ridiculously easy to make, provided you have the fish (or shrimp) sauce and some limes. I also roasted some leeks, something I learned from FOAF Simone Fung at her recent BBQ & oyster roast. (Lightly brush olive oil and herbs on leeks. Cook at 350 for 30 minutes, then broil for 5 minutes.)
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