Cold Star Project

Todd Hockenberry is on the Cold Star Project to share his experiences with growing industrial manufacturing firms through effective inbound marketing. He has many valuable stories to share about improving your results.   Being overly focused on the product results in a way of thinking about your business that stops sales from happening. There is far more going on in your buyer's mind than won...

Your organization's speed of response is critical, whether it's taking advantage of opportunities in the marketplace, delivering on a critical mission, or responding to an angry customer. Yet most companies' documentation processes are terrible. And without good, timely documentation, you won't learn anything. Tune in for examples of how poor or non-existent documentation processes have resulted i...

Verne Harnish has a great diagram in his book Scaling Up. I use it all over the place. The diagram shows 28 million firms in the USA, divided into categories by revenue. You might be surprised at just how few companies reach $50 million. And between each category, you must go through what Harnish terms the "Valley of Death"! To scale up to the next revenue plateau, you must adapt or die. How well...

Brightideas.co and flowster.app founder Trent Dyrsmid is on the Cold Star Project with Jason Kanigan to share the incredible value of SOPs in building your Amazon Wholesaling business.   Trent immediately documented his processes as he created his own Amazon wholesaling operation, and makes these SOPs available to other sellers.   Not knowing your numbers is the #1 issue he sees with bus...

"What's the best SaaS dashboard product?" is a common question I'm asked. And my answer is: the one you build yourself. No one knows your KPIs as well as you do...and the limitations in the thinking of the dashboard developers will blind you if you use their product. Talk to Cold Star about your situation: https://coldstartech.com/bookcall

Avis' Manager of Strategy & Innovation, Attila Dobai, returns to the Cold Star Project with Jason Kanigan to share his experience over the last several months causing disruption in his marketplace.    While leading an innovative program to offer truck rentals at major retailer parking lots, Attila also managed to take a Harvard Business School course on disruption, attend a live netw...

I asked Wes Schaeffer, the Sales Whisperer, back on to the Cold Star Project to follow up on his previous appearance, "What CRM Should I Get?" Turned out there were plenty of details for us to cover, so you could understand what you need to get together before you go out shopping for a new CRM.  If you don't write down the process you're using to gather leads and market to them, you'll get su...

Adam Crowl returns to the Cold Star Project to talk about a "moon-based gas station," point-to-point travel, and why many space-focused people want us to go to Titain.  To become a spacefaring society we're going to need infrastructure, and what we're discussing today could be an economically and physically practical part of that.   Adam's blog is http://crowlspace.com/    More...

Space news aggregator and educator Fraser Cain is on the Cold Star Project to discuss Elon Musk's Starlink and his experience with startups.  SHOW NOTES: First we cover the Starlink constellation:  -what is it (high speed worldwide ISP satellite network)  -compliance requirements -space junk / Kessler Syndrome problem - lowered planned altitude solution -astronomers not consulted -...

Self-educated nuclear propulsion expert Eustratius "Stuart" Graham joins host Jason Kanigan on the Cold Star Project to bring us up to speed on this topic.   Stuart is consulted by Space industry professionals and is building an online repository of history and information about nuclear propulsion for space vehicles.   Our discussion is a great primer for you to understand the historical...

In today's solo episode of the Cold Star Project, I'm sharing an example of how harsh demands force people to think outside the box. And that's often not good for you.   The brutal demands on Germany of the 1919 Versailles Treaty ending WWI prompted Weimar politicians and military officials to come up with creative means to circumvent those restrictions. These means enabled Germany to pay off...

* BUILDING a business  * RUNNING a business * Running a SUCCESSFUL business   are all different things, and Ken Moskowitz of AdZombies is on the Cold Star Project with Jason Kanigan to tell us stories that highlight the differences.   We begin with the question, "Do companies actually learn anything?", and continue with how to put the right people into the right seats.   Our di...

Daxy Perez, founder of Legacy Podcasting and the Podcasting Success Secrets group on Facebook, is on the Cold Star Project with host Jason Kanigan to talk about growing your podcast.   We discuss:   how to pick the right audience to boost your chances of podcasting success determining your conversion strategy, ie. what you as the podcast host want your listeners to do next what podcaster...

Swell System founder Derek Schmidt is back on the Cold Star Project and he's got some new stories of scaling to share. We discuss: - How business owners are using Swell to document their processes, so they can free up their own time and energy and learn - How agency owners can give up control of key tasks like bidding on jobs without fear that their people will screw up - Derek's appearance as a C...

Are Companies Actually LEARNING Anything? ("No.") Without accurate documentation, the story changes over time. And if the story changes over time, what can you say you've really learned? If you're not documenting what happens in your business, you and your people won't learn anything. Operational excellence will be an impossibility. You say, "Yeah, I know that," but I know hardly anyone is documen...

How do you sell a scaling business? Particularly a process-based, zero employee business?   Peter Hoskins of RareCurve has succeeded in multiple six and seven-figure exits and this time on the Cold Star Project we're discussing the details of how he did it. What factors were involved in this seven-figure sale?   - How did Peter get the business organized to sell?   - How did he find...

10XTS (advanced fintech and regtech solutions provider) and Founder Institute - Cincinnati prime mover Michael Hiles is on the Cold Star Project and we're talking about big thinking and capital markets. This is a conversation far above the "tips and tricks" level and could well be an eye-opener for you.   We talk about fintech software, blockchain and cryptocurrency, creating your own opportu...

On average 130 people die from opioid overdose every day [CDC.] "If I see injustice you must act": David Reeser is a leader in the true sense of the word. In striving to leverage the AI skills of his other business and harness the power of the community in Wilmington NC through opiAID, David is leading the work to over come the opioid epidemic.   The process begins with language: recognizing...

NinjaOutreach was a 4 year startup SaaS for founder Dave Schneider. He and a co-founder worked with this idea for years, developing an MVP and then improving it until the opportunity to sell the product came along.   Dave's story is unlike the typical "We're perfect and did everything right" tale you'll hear spun by most SaaS founders. In this episode of the Cold Star Project you'll hear hone...

Peter Loving is the founder of the SaaS Founders and Execs group on Facebook, and from this position he has seen the pitfalls of many SaaS founders as they try to scale.    In this interview on the Cold Star Project, Peter shares the critical problems he has seen new SaaS founders run into again and again.   If you're thinking about becoming a SaaS founder, or are one who is struggl...

I've had so many conversations with business owners and business brokers, and found:   + the owners are confused about why the brokers don't value their businesses as high as they thought they would...   + and the brokers are frustrated that the owners believe someone would give any value to a sloppy and undocumented business with no repeatable processes written down.   Just because...

What at first seemed like a straightforward infrastructure upgrade for this clipart image sales firm turned into a nightmare.    Brad Gosse of Vector Toons was stuck trying to find a way to scale the storage and delivery functions for sales of his cartoon images, and WordPress had broken. WooCommerce was no longer doing the job.    And it turned out this problem was far more co...

Jason Kanigan of Cold Star Tech is on to talk about the recent increase in the price of Facebook and other platform advertising. Prompted by past guest Ken Cesar, and the change of the marketplace as it matures, Jason shares what he believes you should be doing as a business owner to stay alive. The costs of advertising are going to increase...and the complexity and time necessary to gain an ROI-p...

What's needed next for the people of Earth to kickstart space infrastructure?  The host of what I consider to be the best "Space explainer" channel on YouTube, Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur, joins us here on the Cold Star Project to share his knowledge.   -Power production -Asteroid mining -The legalities of interactions in space -Smallsats  -Space stations  and even u...

Young founders, particularly in tech and SaaS, are turning themselves into COOs instead of CEOs.   The mistake here is this unconscious choice turns you into someone who works IN your business instead of ON your business.   I explain what the true role of the founder/CEO is, and how you can free up your time and energy by making the conscious choice to get a Chief of Staff into the COO r...