Jesse Meijers

How to identify great business ideas

You are going into business with a partner, who has developed 2 fantastic products. The first product is a prevention against cancer, that people have to take every day. The second is a cure for cancer, which you take once when you have cancer and heals you. If you have only enough money to market one of these, which would you choose?

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Getting Real – The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application

A friend of mine recently recommended this book to me. The book discusses the down to earth methods that the people at 37signals used to build their massively popular web applications, used by hundres of thousands of users world wide. With only three people!

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How to perceive with your Mind’s Eye

"Wealth can only be perceived with the mind's eye" is a quote I read in a book recently. This is very true, it takes visualization to perceive a situation as an opportunity. This doesn't only apply to wealth, it actually applies to all opportunities. In order to create something, it first has to be perceived with the mind's eye (i.e. visualized). So how does one perceive with the mind's eye then?

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How to accept yourself

Every year at the end of December, I sit down and go through my agenda of the last year. I revisit all the events that have taken place, because while they were happening, time seemed to fly by without slowing down. In all fairness, time seems to go by faster and faster these days. Reflecting back on the achievements of a year slows time down again. It is a great technique. Please note that I am not one to boast. The reason I am reflecting is because I need to feel good, but I don't. I don't think that I have achieved much, if anything. Every day I think about where I want to go, instead of accepting that where I am is actually the best place to be!

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The 4 Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss

The Four Hour Work Week (4HWW for short) has been a New York Times and Wallstreet Journal bestseller, and isn't doing too shabby worldwide either. This book was recommended to me by a friend when we were working together for a big project of mine. I remember thinking 'well, sounds lame' and actually almost forgetting all about it. But I decided to pick up a copy anyway because he so highly recommended it. Well that turned out to be a total winner of a choice!

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Biggest entrepreneurial opportunity of the century

Fossil fuels are going to become increasingly expensive as less crude oil is easily available. Extracting crude oil will become ever more expensive, which ultimately means there has to be an alternative to using fossil fuels and oil. One of the big factors in the equation is of course our use of fossil fuels to power cars. Millions and soon billions of people are driving their cars to work every day. And we all agree that a new fuel must be found. Does this smell like the biggest entrepreneurial opportunity ever?

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Using your knowledge creatively

I felt like a caveman last week. A friend of mine, let's call him Jack (because well, that's his name), introduced me to this great website called Ted.com. I can't believe I have never seen that before, because they host some very interesting material. There was a specific video in particular, which caught my attention. It is a presentation by Robert Full, who talks about what he calls biomutualism. Knowledge mutualism is the blending together of two fields of science, in this case Biology and Robotics, hence the term Biomutulism. But you can use knowledge mutualism too, on a personal scale.

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Be more creative in 4 easy steps

Back in the days when Walt Disney started to make animated cartoons, there were a lot hurdles to overcome. Each animated second was made up of 24 hand-drawn images. Each image takes a long time to draw, which makes drawing a minute of animation into a multi-day project. If he wanted to change even the slightest thing, chances were he had to redo all the drawings. One day a reporter asked Disney how he managed to make so many good animations while the process took so much time. Disney explained to him that he used a simple 4 step process before he would even let his pencil touch the paper. This process is where Disney's creativity started and would take form.

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The Ballbarrow

Probably everyone has used a wheelbarrow in their lives. Operating a wheelbarrow is not always as easy as it sounds. Sure, if it's empty it is a breeze. But load 'er up with bricks and it becomes a completely different story. The wheelbarrow can tip over to either side due to the high center of gravity it has. Furthermore, when used on a construction site, don't put it on any wet concrete. It will stick to it. Then there's the problem of the wheelbarrow being made of metal. Most wheelbarrows therefore tend to rust. And rusted wheelbarrows are prone of breaking...

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