Episode 87: Focus On Your ONE Thing with David Schneider

David Schneider is no stranger to the ups and downs of following his own path. A Harvard graduate turned travel blogger, David made the leap to entrepreneurship and never looked back.

“If the project you’re working on is not taking up your full time, you’re probably not attempting something big enough.”

Knowing that his travel blog business was no longer working, David decided to switch gears and focus his time and energy on something more sustainable. Today, he’s in the trenches building NinjaOutreach.com, a blogger outreach SaaS solution which offers a variety of services for bloggers, startups, small businesses, and digital marketers.

(Update – Dave no longer runs NinjaOutreach, but can be found at lesschurn.io and daveschneider.me)

In this week’s episode, I sit down with David to discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and the lessons learned along the way.

If you’re just starting out, or feeling the strain of trying to get your new venture off the ground, David will provide you with some valuable insights that will allow you to bypass the big mistakes that he made.

Here are some of David’s favorite things:

Most Influential Book

• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco

Business Super Power

• Networking, making connections and engaging with people.

Most Effective Strategy for Growing Your Business

• Blogger outreach

Favorite Business Tool or Resource

• Google Docs

Most Recent Exciting Adventure

• David just returned from a 6-month road trip, traveling around the U.S., which was his first extended travel since his international backpacking trip two years ago.

 Show Highlights

• David talks about his decision to pull away from a lucrative career and travel the world.
• Building a profitable travel blog and then having it disappear within a couple of months.
• David shares his strategy for building a personal brand and why this is so important as an entrepreneur.
• David outlines four mistakes he made with his current business and what you can do to avoid them.
• Overcoming the challenges of working with a remote team.
• Avoid the mistake of spreading yourself too thin by throwing yourself fully into the one thing you really want to see through.
• David discusses the top 4 metrics he uses to measure progress and determine projections.
• David explains how his customer service strategy has helped to double his conversion rate since launching NinjaOutreach.com.
• David talks about his main motivation for moving his business forward.
• The importance of finding mentors and having moral support.

Links for David:

• lesschurn.io
• daveschneider.me
• Contact David
• Say hello to David on Facebook or Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:

• Matthew Barby
• Brian Dean
• A Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work by Scott Berkun
• Intercom
• SCORE

Question: What’s the ONE thing you know you need to focus on? If you went “all in” and focused on just ONE thing for the next year, what would it be?