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Business opportunity evaluation matrix
In a span of a few days, I got two referrals for potential in-person group training here in Luxembourg.
On the surface both seemed interesting so I organised discovery calls to better understand what those were about.
One would be a series of short, tailored Teams training sessions for a 200-employee insurance company, and the other is multiple 1-day Artificial Intelligence awareness training sessions organised by the official chamber overseeing all employees in Luxembourg.
The Teams training is more in my alleyway plus allows me to charge my normal rate and would allow a short-term cash injection, however there would be a lot of upfront customization work that I know will take an amount of time that is hard to determine.
The AI training isn't really technical and the imposed hourly rate is about 30% lower than my normal rate, however it would require minimal work to prepare the material (since a baseline would be provided) and the organiser has already planned 2 sessions per month for the next 4,5 years, starting October 2024.
Not sure what to do, I took a step back and decided to work on a system that would give me a somewhat objective way to make a decision.
I've brainstormed about 10 criteria that are important to me, as the business owner, and would allow me to determine how aligned an opportunity is with respect to my vision for the future.
Each criteria has different options with scores between 0 and 10 (the more aligned, the higher the score):
- Alignment with my life mission (Yes=10 / No=0)
- Alignment with Macpreneur (Yes=10 / No=0)
- Freedom to work when I want (High=10 / Medium=5 / Low=0)
- Session length (Full days=10 / Half days=5 / 2h or less = 1)
- Session repeatability (High=10 / Medium=5 / Low=0)
- Whether sessions will be remote or not (Yes=10 / No=0)
- Daily revenue potential (More than 1000€=10 / Between 500€ and 1000€=5 / Less than 500€=0)
- For how long it could generate revenue (More than 2 years=10 / Between 1 and 2 years=8 / Between 6 months and 1 year=5 / Less than 6 months=1)
- How frequently I will be able to invoice (Weekly=10 / Monthly=8 / Quarterly=5 / Twice yearly=3 / Yearly=2 / One shot=1)
- Knowledge expansion (High=10 / Medium=5 / Low=0)
After playing with it a little bit, I decided to add a weight factor (between 5% and 15%) associated to each criteria based on how important they are to me right now.
After evaluating an opportunity, a score between 0 and 100 would be calculated and I decided that anything above 85 would have a green light, between 70 and 85, an orange light, between 55 and 70 a red light and below 55 a black light.
Here's what the Teams training opportunity turned out to be:
Based on this and my gut feeling, I declined that opportunity and referred a training institute that I collaborated with in the past and which would be a better fit for the prospect.
The AI training opportunity resulted in this:
Even though it didn't give me a green light, my interest for the field of AI combined with the allure of repeatable income over a span of 4,5 years made me say yes to this opportunity, despite the lower hourly rate and the need for physical presence.
And although it's not directly aligned with Macpreneur, I anticipate that facilitating this training will give me valuable insights applicable to running a solopreneur business in a world more and more influenced by Artificial Intelligence.
I'm curious, what do you think about this method?
Have you already implemented something similar and if so, what's your method?
And if you'd like to receive a copy of my template, what's your preferred format: Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets?
Podcast guest appearances
Jason Willis-Lee (aka The Entrepreneurial Translator) interviewed me on his podcast and the episode aired on April 9th.
The conversation covered Mac productivity, digital security, Apple's innovation process and Artificial Intelligence, of course.
You can listen to that episode on Apple Podcasts, on Buzzsprout or watch the video version on Youtube.
My guest appearance on the Smashing The Plateau podcast aired on April 29th.
The discussion I had with the host, David Shriner-Cahn, centered around my transition from full-time employment to entrepreneurship.
Here are the key points from our conversation:
- The trigger that led to my decision to quit my nine-to-five job
- Why I started my business as a side hustle and my experience with part-time work
- Adjusting my financial goals and saving strategy to facilitate my transition
- The role of patience and impatience in making the move to full-time entrepreneurship
- How community and networking were instrumental in shifting my business from B2C to B2B
- The strategic decisions and personal reflections that guided me to focus on B2B training
- My experience with mentorship and the impact of COVID-19 on the evolution of EasyTECH
You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or directly from the Smashing the Plateau website.
SamCart to Gumroad Migration
Since the beginning of 2024, I've been looking more closely at EasyTECH's expenses, especially the online services that I barely use.
Earlier in the year, I dropped Wufoo that was costing EasyTECH about 275€ per year to actively host a single form.
In the past, I was actively using more forms, some of which because I needed more advanced features that only Wufoo offers, but the contact form on EasyTECH's website is dead simple.
As a consequence, I was able to use the form capability of Podio (my CRM) to replace Wufoo and even simplify my workflows along the way.
Another significant yearly expense was SamCart (about 350€ per year), which I used extensively in 2022 to sell VIP packages associated with the iPhone Security webinars that I organised back then.
After a quick look, I realised that the only purpose it served was to offer "lifetime" access to the replay videos of the February 2022 webinar, and only for 3 people who purchased the VIP package.
In case you didn't know, SamCart offers an online course hosting module that integrates well with its marketplace feature allowing seamless course enrolment after purchase.
At the time, it made total sense to go that route, however since SamCart doesn't act as merchant of record and only supports a single currency, I've since decided to stop using SamCart for selling online courses.
Long story short, I had two options for the migration: Teachable or Gumroad.
Given that the "course" consists in a PDF workbook and 3 videos (already hosted in Vimeo) and that I needed a way to generate discount codes, which requires a paid subscription for Teachable, I chose Gumroad.
I forgot to say that the Gumroad store for EasyTECH was already fully set up, so the "only" thing I needed to do was to create a product, embed the PDF and the videos and create coupon codes for the existing customers.
Configuring a product in Gumroad is very simple:
- Page 1: Product name, description, URL, cover, thumbnail, call to action, summary and product details
- Page 2: Course content with the ability to embed files and video players (YouTube, Vimeo, ...)
- Page 3: Sharing options, including the ability to appear on Gumroad Discover
All in all, the process was quicker than expected and so I'm extremely happy with my decision.
After that, I created the coupon codes and I informed the 3 people who purchased the VIP package.
At the time of writing, one of them already accessed the course in Gumroad.
If you'd like to get your hands on those replay videos, I've created a 50% discount code especially for you: VVHMK2P
⚠️ This coupon expires on May 7th at 8pm CET, that's 12pm Eastern and 9am Pacific.
Mac tip
To keep our Mac tidy, we sometimes need to move a bunch of files into a brand new subfolder.
The usual process consists in creating and renaming an empty folder, then dragging & dropping the desired files into the new subfolder.
But did you know that there are easier and faster methods in macOS?
Once all those files are selected, you have two options:
- Option 1: Right-click then choose "New Folder With Selection"
- Option 2: Keyboard shortcut CONTROL+COMMAND+N (⌃⌘N)
Neat, isn't it?
A few picks
Revoldiv
I discovered Revoldiv in episode 13 of the "AI Inside Show" (Apple podcasts / YouTube), a podcast hosted by Jason Howell and Jeff Jarvis.
Revoldiv started as an online tool allowing podcast listeners to have a quick transcription of any podcast, and later on added the ability to edit the transcript like in Descript and export it in various formats.
Best of all, it's entirely free to use and doesn't even require us to create an account. The only reason for doing so would be to keep a history of the transcriptions and access to paid capabilities including access to a more accurate model.
The free version offers much faster transcriptions and many more exporting format options than Descript and MacWhisper.
On the flip side, Revoldiv lacks the audio processing and video editing capabilities offered by Descript and the privacy offered by MacWhisper.
In other words, I'll continue using Descript to edit and publish the Macpreneur podcast, as well as MacWhisper when I need on-device transcription.
If you want the transcript of any podcast fast or if you're producing an audio-only podcast yourself, I'd suggest to give Revoldiv a try and let me know what you think of it.
Setapp
Before discovering Setapp, I was losing a significant amount time managing software licences and subscriptions.
On top of that, every time I wanted to upgrade the operating system of my Mac, I needed to check every vendor to see if the version I had was supported natively and if I needed to purchase an upgrade licence or not.
At one point, I said to myself: "Enough is enough. There must be a better way!".
And indeed, there is, it's called Setapp.
In case you don't know, Setapp offers a collection of 240+ trustworthy paid apps under one subscription.
It takes away the pain of looking up, comparing, buying, and managing separate apps.
If you're tired of that too, then you ought to give Setapp a try.
They offer 3 plans, each allowing you to install applications on a different number of devices:
- 1 Mac for $9.99/month
- 1 Mac and 4 iOS devices for $12.99/month
- 4 Macs and 4 iOS devices for $14.99/month
I've chosen the latter to be able to install apps on my iMac, Macbook Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPad Air 4.
Normally, you can try Setapp only for 7 days, but I made a deal with them so that you can test it free for a full 30 days, using my affiliate link.
After clicking on this button:
- you'll access a page where the 'macpreneur' promo code will be pre-populated
- you'll just need to click on the 'Continue' button
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you'll have three signup options:
- your Apple ID or
- your Google account or
- your name, email address and the password of your choice
After that, simply download the Setapp app on your Mac and start exploring the various apps available in its catalog.
Here are all the apps that I've installed on my iMac and that make my life much easier:
If you're doing a lot of Zoom meetings, you should try 'In Your Face'.
This app will literally fill your Mac screen with a reminder about any upcoming online meeting, giving you the ability to join it or snooze the reminder for a set amount of time.
I love it!
Macpreneur episodes
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Episode 91
In this episode, you'll discover the tools that Susanna Reay, Roland Hüse, and Anna Lundberg use to streamline how they serve their clients.
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Episode 92
In this episode, you’ll discover innovative ways to manage your invoicing process more efficiently using web-based services, saving significant time and reducing stress.
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Episode 93
In this episode, you’ll discover how to automate the process of managing supplier invoices, aiming to save you time and enhance your efficiency.
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Episode 94
In this episode, you’ll discover different ways to efficiently manage your solopreneur’s business expenses on your Mac
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We're almost at the end of season 4 which focuses on process efficiency, and this last segment covers the finance side of a solopreneur's business.
Season 5 will be all about digital security so if you're concerned about protecting your business data and online presence, you'll love the next wave of episodes.
