The Week Of Settling In To Granada Life

This Week:

Finally beginning my user feedback reachouts for my early-stage SaaS for YouTubers.
My first couple days living at 1M House Granada.
The results from my second pace of aging test!

August 2024

Su	M	T	W	Th	F	S
28	29	30	31	8/1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Where In The World Was I?

🇪🇸 Granada, Spain

Live Travel Map 🌎

Metrics From The Week

Been crushing it this week. That said, I feel like my recovery is the least controllable of the three. I don’t quite know what’s been contributing the most to my recovery stats improving, but I’ll take it.

YouTube use wayyy down this week. Been feeling a little less motivated to sit down and watch videos. This could be a result of my environment, similar to inspiration and accountability I felt at the coworking hostel in Bali last year (The Life Of A Digital Nomad In Bali, November 5th, 2023).

Business Progress Update

So the big domino I’m waiting for here is the approval of my YouTube API quota increase application. But… it’s been over a week now and I still haven’t heard back.

I added some things in the meantime…

Added the details card to the hot videos page’s videos.
Added top resonating topics to the audience explorer page.
Added better searching/filtering/sorting to the audience explorer page.
Updated the offer phrasing and tweaked the copy of my landing page.
Crafted and settled on an appropriate reachout message script.

However, towards the end of the week, still with no word from the API team… I realized that I just can’t keep waiting around and need to take action. I had enough quota that I could validate what I need to validate, so I finally started reaching out to people to get user feedback.

One of the other guys staying at the house this week (more on that later) runs a coaching business and uses YouTube as his funnel. He gave my software a try and I got some great feedback from him.

Some of my takeaways:

The way he uses YouTube is as a hyper-specific funnel to his coaching program, rather than posting videos to grow his channel and get more views, so he’s not exactly my target customer. It was also good to learn that is a way people use YouTube.
The generated titles are really good… like, “This is probably one of the best title-based tools I’ve ever seen” good.
Some of the UI and process is a bit confusing at first, needs more handholding, and could use an update to make it look less like a tool and more like an experience which is something VidIQ does well.
There’s a good opportunity to add a feature to help with solving the thumbnail inspiration problem.
The biggest pain for creators is in the confidence of a video idea and/or title, it’s the cost benefit analysis and risk of putting out a title that flops.
Finding Skool communities and people in Skool communities is a big opportunity to find YouTube creators who DO want to grow their channels.

I was a bit nervous going in, fearing that what I had created wasn’t good enough, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well the feedback session went. Sure I would’ve liked him to be an early adopter, but the feedback I got and the direction he helped me with was maybe more valuable.

By the end of the week, I’ve started reachout conversations with ~11 guys, 10 of which are from the network group I’m in. The name of the game for me right now is to just keep firing off messages, getting feedback, gathering testimonials and social proof, and finding those early adopters.

Exploring Granada

I went for a run up around the Alhambra. It feels amazing to run here honestly. It’s hot but it’s dry, which has been a lot nicer than I thought it’d be. Also, the Spain heat wave had passed this week and now the temperature is, dare I say… perfect here

(yes the sign says 46ºC but it’s black and baking in the sun, it does NOT feel like 46ºC)

I moved hostels this week and the only place to work was their kitchen table. I spent one morning working there amongst everyone chatting and eating their breakfasts, then thought yeahhhhh I’m gonna pass on doing that again 😅

I actually found a great coffee shop to work from the next day which was a surprise! I’ve gotten the impression that working from cafes and coffee shops isn’t really that big of a thing here…

One evening after my Anytime Fitness gym session (still can’t believe there’s one here), I walked over to the Nevada Shopping Mall.

Well I tried walking… until the sidewalk ended at this big highway interchange.

The mall was literally on the other side of the interchange but there was no way to get there without walking IN the road 😂

I almost did it, but I eventually decided against it and backtracked a couple minutes, got on the tram, and took it literally one stop 😂

It wasn’t a big deal, but just with all the experiences I’ve had with varying levels of pedestrian friendliness around the world, Europe is generally very good, and it wasn’t what I was expecting.

I thought, ahhhh this must be what it’s like to have to walk everywhere in the U.S… now I understand 😬

Moving to 1M House Granada

I checked out of my second hostel and moved to the house this week.

and WOW, I feel very grateful to be here.

Sure it’s not without some quirks, but honestly it’s been amazing so far. It reminds me of the coworking hostel I stayed at in Bali… but better.

Waking up with an espresso on the balcony, watching the sun rise over the mountains, getting a meditation in just listening to birds chirping and leaves rustling.

Working outside, shirtless, warm enough that you’re comfortable, but not sweating, with this incredible light, cool breeze.

Chatting with the guys here about business and life. Then taking a stroll/run in the afternoon.

Then coming back to hit a workout outside, sauna, then jump in the pool

Cook some dinner, then watch an insane sunset.

And do it all again the next day.

I’m really not sure how life can get much better than this. Like I said, I feel super grateful to be here and I’m just trying to make the most of my time here.

Saturday afternoon we went into Granada for lunch and get gelato.

I’ve gotta say, this gelato may be the best I’ve ever had… SOO creamy.

Thoughts From The Week

# 202408150851 The goalposts are shifting a bit

#journal #goals 

I just came across [[202207280858 What would be the highest possible life goal I could conceivably imagine]] this morning and related it back to my current mindset and goals right now that I haven't really documented.

I've been quite interested and passionate about systematizing and solving these YouTube creator problems that I'm facing with [my software] and excited about the idea that I have something valuable, that I've (hopefully) solved _other people's_ problems as well, and could scale this to make money in a way that fits my ideal business of [[202312101420 My criteria for a bootstrapped lean startup scalable business]].

[...] There's a lot of purpose pushing me to use this to make money right now. It's exciting, but it also feels sustainable in the long term because it's scalable.

I had a little chat with [one of the guys here] yesterday at 1M House before I left. He's been changing his coaching offer to more of mindset and performance coaching for online coaches. He briefly showed me his skool community and all the modules he's created and will make videos for. I swear it was like 50 modules. I saw that and thought "holy sh\*t that's a lot." He was saying how this takes the most time, but the calls are pretty easy because it's just jumping on a call and chatting with someone for an hour.

And as I was taking a shower last night I remembered how I didn't like lecturing in computer science classes, but I did like the 1-1 tutoring.

So anyways, fast forward to just now, rereading [[202207280858 What would be the highest possible life goal I could conceivably imagine]]. I've seen a glimpse of what it's like to be on calls with people, and what it's like to specifically create an online coaching business... It seems like a _lot_ of work that don't feel comfortable or confident doing.

I think if I could design the ideal scenario, I'd have just the coaching calls, but without having to create all the material.

And that, I think, is still the path I'm taking: build software sites, make money solving problems, grow my personal brand as I go, wait a while..., then once people are asking me for advice, lean into that and start jumping on calls with people.
- [[202406220754 My current high-level business path]]

This week I also got the results from my second pace-of-aging and biomarkers test. It’s rewarding to see the lifestyle and health changes I’ve made over the past year actually show up in the data.

This puts me just 0.10 behind Bryan Johnson, the guys spending millions to reverse his aging (best pace: 0.64). Coming for you bro 👀