I'm back and I'm finally beginning to feel caught up. Part of this is a post-FinCon letdown and part of it is the fatigue (and viruses) that you encounter during 4900 miles of airplane travel.
I just clicked "Mark read" on about a thousand threads-- literally-- and I've searched for keywords. If you're still awaiting my response to your post then please point me to it.
Four days of FinCon (and another 2+ days of New Orleans liberty) was even more impressive than my elevated expectations. If today's blogging and FinCon had existed while I was on active duty, then right now I'd be signing my resignation letter for the Reserves. I met more than 20 bloggers/entrepreneurs who have quit their day jobs in the last couple of years, and today they're all earning a lifestyle wage for themselves. Several are into six figures. A couple are pushing seven. Two others (J.D. Roth and Jim Wang) cashed out their blogs several years ago for ~$1M and $3M respectively yet continue to create new projects (and new income streams). These are just among the 100 or so people who I know relatively well, and there were over 500 bloggers at the conference. I would say that a couple hundred million dollars will change hands among the attendees over the next year. It's a gold rush out there, it's still growing, it is not a bubble, and we're all selling picks & shovels.
Part of FinCon was fun just because of shipmates who live nearby. We've stayed in touch but this was the first time we've seen each other in a decade. Part of it was fun just because of the people I met for the first time in person-- and kudos to the poster here who arranged a FinCon networking meeting with me just because you recognized my name from the forum and wanted to say hello. Well played, sir!
Another fun part of FinCon was spending lots of time with a friend and our spouses. He and his spouse have been hosting our daughter during her last three months of training in a Mainland Navy port, and we had a great time comparing our experiences with our young adult. (Luckily she made us all look good.) He just passed his CFP exam so he helped our daughter with a thorough review of her new Navy finances ("My Dad says I'm supposed to do it this way. Is that really the right answer?!?") and he even showed her an afternoon of counseling indebted sailors & officers at the local Navy Relief office. I wish I'd had that help when I was her age. His spouse is another powerful role model for our daughter, and now she has several mentors to stay in touch with. And, of course, our two spouses were greatly amused by our geeky FinCon personal-finance behavior.
I really enjoyed the end of FinCon when we closed down the bar after the awards ceremony. A half-dozen of us (including MMM) were still busily chattering around a table when we noticed that the hotel staff were taking the other tables & chairs out of the room, and physically closing down the bar and rolling it away. We finally broke up our group 20 minutes later. MMM
went out to the after-parties in the French Quarter caught up with Mrs. MMM & family while my spouse and I just went back to our room. I collapsed under the aftermath of four days of talking ourselves hoarse, hyperstimulation, excess caffeine, and social overload.
There were four keynote speeches during FinCon, and I missed three of them because I was too busy
yakking networking with other attendees. Farnoosh Torabi gave a good talk but I'll have to catch up on the other three when the FinCon videos are posted. I turned in pretty much the same attendance for the presentations... I think I only sat through three of them during the 2.5 days of the schedule. One was the MMM couple mentioned above and another was Ellie Kay (EllieKay.com). Frankly, Ellie gave the best talk of FinCon (she's been doing this for nearly two decades) and I hope to see her anchor a keynote next year. The third presentation was a panel discussion of editors giving tips to freelancers. By virtue of my military background (augmented perhaps by my aloha-shirt ponytailed surfer-dude branding) I made a connection that led to a freelance gig which is more valuable than my FinCon ticket. I'm still donating all of my writing revenue to military charities, but if this keeps up then my freelancing could fund my Roth IRA. Perhaps my spouse's Roth IRA too. Imagine where it could go if I really applied myself and treated it like a full-time career.
On the statistics side, my Twitter followers are up over 10%. My FB friends & followers have shot up 20%. My book sales took a big spike last week. I did several video interviews (which will lead to more media interviews) and I've been invited to a couple of podcasts. The good news is that all of this activity is likely coming from bloggers who have huge audiences of their own, and those audiences include military readers. You can't leverage that networking and outreach anywhere else.
Speaking of Mustachian resources, take another look at NEFE.org:
http://www.hsfpp.org/ for high-school students
http://info.cashcourse.org/ for college students
http://www.onyourown.org/ for everyone else
and finally, MoneyTips.com for their "Retiree Next Door" eBook as well as their network of advisors who will answer your questions for free.
I spent quite a bit of FinCon time with the MoneyTips team, and I'm going to do more videos and print interviews with them. I'm going to help with their eBook projects, too, although they're still coming up with ideas for their next one. They're practicing what they preach-- the video camera operator turned out to be quite a bit more than he seemed. He spent three happy days shooting professional video because he likes to do that, but he's a co-founder and a serial entrepreneur with several multi-million-dollar exits on his record. We'll get together next time he's on Oahu, maybe he'll spend some time with Hawaii Angels or Blue Startups, and there will be surfing.
I've been mentoring bloggers online for the last 18 months through BlogMentoring.com. During FinCon I did a dedicated one-on-one session with BlogMentoring and EliteBlogAcademy, and I did another 1.5 days of mentoring during the pre-FinCon blogger camp. If you feel that you really want the advice & support to get your blog up and running, please look into one of these programs. You don't "need" them, but you may prefer to have the help. The really
alarming gratifying thing about these mentoring programs is that by the time you've been blogging for four years you're in the top 10% of the longevity bracket. (In blogging years, you'd be well into your 80s.) The sad news is that 30% of today's bloggers abandon their sites every year (for various reasons). The good news is that three of the bloggers I've mentored (and finally met in person at FinCon) are turning into monster entrepreneurs. One of them is already nearly financially independent, the other one will be there in five years, and the third has an amazing story of overcoming six figures of student debt.
If you're a blogger who is even thinking about making money on your blog, then you should attend a FinCon. The FinCon15 location/dates will be announced next Feb/Mar but will probably be a mid-size mid-America town in Sep/Oct. Until then, get a head start by applying to join the Facebook FinCon group. The entrepreneurial activity (and the shared advice) is incredible. I think the next generation will do just fine at earning their financial independence.
The weather in New Orleans was cooler than Hawaii. Visiting the French Quarter when you're sober... well, it's just a waste of time.
Maybe Preservation Hall, but I there are reportedly dozens of other jazz venues outside the French Quarter offering more music and better deals. After the obligatory pilgrimage to Cafe Du Monde for beignets and a tour around Jackson Square, we were pretty much finished with that region. Huck Finn's is a nice place to drop in with 14 people for lunch, and their alligator sausage po' boy is good. (Well, I wouldn't know whether or not it was really alligator-- but it was some sort of yummy spicy meat. Nobody appreciated my humor about grass-fed free-range alligator filets.) The Canal Street Marriott is a nice place to host a conference, and it has incredible views of the Mississippi merchant traffic, but otherwise I'd only go there to cash in rewards points.
Other questions?
