silktide Archives - Leveling Up

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Join me as I talk with Silktide founder Oliver Emberton. Oliver started his company on the cusp of graduating from University at 21-years old with $14,000£ in debt and no clue what he was doing with his life. He spent nearly a decade building up the largest design business in his city only to switch gears at the peak of his success and turn it into a software agency instead. Oliver is also prolific blogger with over 6 million visits, and accomplished writer whose novel-in-progress was launched off a Quora question he answered on a whim.

His second board meeting started with a punch in the face from his sales director.
Oliver’s design agency earned an impressively low 200£ in the first year. With the help of free baked beans from his friends to survive, Oliver kept working at his agency and kept doubling its revenues until it grew to 200 clients and 15-full-time staffers.
His first Quora response about a modern-day, evil genius taking over the world went viral. Within 5 days he was approached by publishers and producers about his book treatment.

Key Takeaways:

Despite going from clueless to wildly successful with his design company, Oliver hated the soul-sucking work he was doing and who he had become.
Why working for clients as an entrepreneur is almost no different than working as an employee, and how trading time for money isn’t scalable.
Insights on how real success comes from building and creating things, whether it’s software or high-quality content that takes hours to craft.
Busts excuses on not being confident or good enough and credits persistence and trial and error with real success.
Discusses how he accidentally does a lot of things right simply by trying different things.
Learned what people appreciate in content by trial and error, resulting in 6 million visits to his blog.
Why spending an hour on one mediocre blog post isn’t enough. Oliver religiously scraps up to 80% of his posts and only publishes work he thinks will make a huge impact.
Explains how he blocks out an entire day to spend four hours or more on a single, solid post. His all-time record is 11 hours on one post garnering 2.5 million visits in a single week.
How he uses snappy headlines to turn a lackluster topic like time management into a compelling and entertaining read.
Dishes on the two big mistakes of self-promotion and which ones can only work with the help of each other.
Illustrates why some posts will never get shared—no matter how incredibly well-written and researched they are.
Strategies behind using paid traffic for followers to gain momentum and why to pull the plug on it earlier than you think.
Discusses why blogging and writing content is necessary for entrepreneurs if you want to be taken seriously in a given profession. Forget about archaic tools like resumes that don’t speak to your real skills and talents.
Surprisingly simple secrets on how he reads 2 to 4 books every week and why the width of your browser is holding you back.
How he uses conscious internal questioning to provoke useful and dramatic changes. Don’t let yourself ask stupid questions unless you want stupid answers that don’t make an impact in changing your life.
Shares the hard truth on why you’re not asking yourself the real questions in life.

Oliver’s Recommended Resources:

“Good to Great” – Why some companies make the leap and other’s don’t.
“7 Habits of Highly Effective People” – Master the first 3, and you’re 99% ahead of the planet

Go From Hopeless to Successful Entrepreneur

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