This is awesome. Does anyone have a tutorial they recommend for building something like this (preferably in Python)?
https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com is awesome and it looks super easy to use - but any tutorials if you wanted to learn it the harder way via OpenCV or Darknet?
I'm an Amazon consultant and I wasn't aware that super urls were black hat until recently. Even today, "gurus" or big Amazon software companies promote urls and launch services.
I think Amazon usually catches on and starts suspending sellers after 6 months to a year after an exploit is discovered but that is a really long time. Even then a lot of these issues are probably small beans compared to the major abuse I see on their platform from Chinese sellers. I can't imagine what kind of counterfeit problems they might have but they have been making changes so I'm sure they'll figure it out within the next year or two. Changes like more seller suspensions for manipulating sales rank, TOS updates, requiring photo ID for new sellers, vendor central updates, and more.
In the long run, it won't matter what third party sellers do because Amz will probably sell directly themselves the 20% of the catalog that makes 80% of their sales whether through their own secret private label brands or their vendor program.
Also want to add that Amazon's customer service/return policy is great and their marketplace makes comparison shopping and thus competition easy ensuring cheap pricing for their customers.
This is crazy but Peter Thiel and Blake Masters' book Zero to One changed the way I thought about everything. Thiel's thoughts were so contrarian to everything I had learned or thought I knew that it literally changed my reality.
It was kind of like when I learned how to program - what I read in his book - gave me a new lens to interpret how or what I saw in the world. It created a crack that made me wonder what else I wasn't seeing or able to see.
There was a page in there about secrets in plain sight and it bothered me for years because I couldn't understand what he meant until I finally read Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday.
I'm doing the basic concrete actions of the eco-friendly conscious like consuming less, avoiding plastic, etc.
I don't think that will do much so I have a bigger dream of eliminating menstrual poverty. I read a book that said if we could educate more women, it could have a significant impact on climate change, and I think menstrual poverty is an easy way to access and help educate the women that probably need it the most. So I am working on creating free resources to help eliminate menstrual poverty in the USA to start with reusable products- and also building a company that sells reusable products but whose mission is to eliminate menstrual poverty. It's not much but it makes me feel better.
Drawdown is the book I read that lists 100 potential solutions to climate change to reverse whatever is happening now, if it's possible. Maybe you can check out the website and see if any of the solutions look interesting to you, and see if there's any way you could help people with them. Volunteering should make you feel happy like you're making a difference. Maybe you will feel a lot better when you can donate your skills to a cause that could move the needle. I am sure you have more skills than planting trees that any organization needs and could appreciate.
I am too optimistic about humanity. I think there are billions of humans on Earth and not all are as stupid as some people might presume. In fact I would say if there's any humans that survive, it will probably be the 1% that many people hate. I think even then being in the USA easily increases your survival chances.
At the same time, I have absolutely no doubts what is to come. If this is the end of humanity then so be it. It would be irrational to feel bad because I can't do much to stop a disaster like that. I accepted last year that I will die, everyone I love will die, and even potentially all of humanity will die perhaps in my lifetime, and I have made my peace with it.
I have spent a significant amount of time reading all the ways the dominoes will fall and how people will die. People are dying right now.
Happiness comes from within, not from outside. What happens outside should not affect what you feel inside. That's the mindset I learned from stoicism and reading Victor Frankl. "The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance."
If you are too emotional and depressed, you will be unproductive/not be able to do much to help, and do you also want to spend the little time you have like that? I choose to enjoy the little life I have with the people I love but not in ignorance. I will do everything I can but I will not let it darken my life and my disposition. I hope that makes sense.
I used to feel this way and I found that it wasn't productive. What can you do? If you can do something, do it. If you think you can't change the future possible destruction of our ecosystem or millions of people, then you also need to make peace with it.
I think you can either do or not do things without the negativity. I found that the negativity made me think emotionally and not rationally or productively, and also sometimes came off in my conversations with people which was also not helpful-because I was clearly very emotional about the issue.
My thought process is whatever happens, happens. I can't do much to prevent whatever systemic collapse that might happen or not happen. But whatever I can do, I will. When I first learned about this, I thought it meant the future that I took for granted could be nonexistent - the dying happily carefree of systemic collapse part after having a family and growing old. It made me bitter and resentful. What's the point of doing anything if the world's going to go to shit by 2030? I decided to be more optimistic or maybe stoic. Make sure I can do what I can or all I can and not let some potential apocalyptic future darken my life. Sorry if this is a trash comment.
I've been selling on Amazon for the past few years and there is money still to be made. However the landscape is always changing whether the economy or Amazon's own internal plans so for how long, I'm unsure. It's a great place to easily and quickly find customers, build a brand, and launch a company though.
I helped turn a sinking Amazon small business around last year. They did a little over $2m revenue. One of our promotions became so viral that we had $2000+ in orders with less than $20 in ad spend within a few hours. In this sense, things are always changing but I don't think it has ever been this easy to start a business with so little.
Information changes quickly so you can burn a lot of money on outdated information or pure ignorance. For example, my $2m+ client would probably have failed or were on the verge of failing because they weren't able to adapt to Amazon's increased competition in the last year. They had no idea what keyword ranking was, how to identify keywords, drive traffic, or launch products because they never needed to in the past. Because things change so quickly it is very hard to find experts who maintain their expertise... However once you understand the fundamentals, learn how to surf, riding the Amazon waters gets a lot easier.
If you can learn quickly and adapt, Amazon is still a gold mine, some risk involved, but with great payouts.
Do you have any recommended books or resources by Taleb or another author on how to identify or avoid methodological flaws like p-hacking, understanding correlation vs causation, and more?
I'm currently taking a data science course on Udemy and learning about chi squares, regression, and decision trees, but I'd love more information on best practices especially for experimental design.
I think the key question you're trying to ask here is what to do if you're having issues with a freelancer or vendor who aren't living up to your expectations. And in that situation what communication style works best.
I just let people go and try to terminate those types of relationships as soon as possible when I know it's not working. It's not worth it to focus on any communication style in my opinion. Sometimes you just have to cut losses quickly and professionally.
I try my best to learn from these situations and get a lot pickier about who I work with. If you're having lots of issues with people who aren't meeting your expectations I would check whether there's miscommunication or whether you need to increase your standards whether for freelancers or vendors. You should be picky with both the people you hire and your clients. I learned that the hard way. :(
I do the things that scare the shit out of me consistently.
The things that you wouldn't even consider an option and that many people might consider impossible.
When things get really hard, I lean into the pain.
Sometimes the pain will be overwhelming, but it will pass.
Eventually you'll get used to the pain and things will get boring, you'll plateau, and then you pick the next mountain that scares the shit out of you to start the cycle all over again.
I think life might be a little like a video game.
You need to make sure you conquer all your base mountains first- things like good mental health (stoicism), physical health, and healthy relationships. If those 3 are covered you can bounce back from anything. At least from my experience and my experience includes 2 suicide attempts, starting my own business, and surviving a bunch of bad stuff.
It is really really easy to develop mental toughness from physical exercise. The two go hand in hand. You can't push your body without pushing your mind. Many physical boundaries are mental boundaries. Physical exercise is the easiest way to challenge your mental boundaries if you can.
I love long-distance running. It's an easy way to see and test your boundaries and get fit at the same time. Once you hit your redline or hell when you're running- being able to push through hell and finish is key. Slowly and surely you'll be able to run through longer distances of hell. Remembering that pain, knowing that you can meet your boundaries and surpass them, can help you deal with almost everything. It's a confidence-builder. It translates to mental toughness- doing the things and confronting your personal demons, each personal demon you conquer brings you to a bigger demon, but all the small demons you conquered along the way become your allies.
Whenever I face a tough situation, it's like lol this is nothing compared to the shit I've been through. Or almost like an anime cliche, I've conquered everything that I've come up against so far, I'm not quitting now.
What doesn't kill you, literally makes you stronger. Do all the things that you irrationally think might kill you or that makes you figuratively want to die when you think about it. Your "I'd rather die than do x, y, and z".
In my experience, the figurative dying in "I'd rather die" often feels like failing. So die/fail often. I don't know if you ever get used to it, but you start to like it after a while. It feels like progress. Growth pains that you lean into I guess.
I've heard good things about DigitalMarketer and the Traffic and Conversion (T&C) Summit.
I don't know if there's a course for all of digital marketing. In my experience, what works on email won't work for Facebook or Amazon etc. Digital marketing channels are different and require different strategies. So I like to stay updated by following the "gurus" of whatever marketing channel I'm interested in.
There are gurus for email, landing pages, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, funnels, and pretty much every marketing channel. I think the T&C summit highlights the best.
Good primer books?:
- Ogilvy on Advertising (Dated but timeless advertising principles)
- Copywriting: CA$HVERTISING: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone
I've heard a lot about the Clickfunnels book - Expert Secrets, but I have not read it yet.
I recently read this HBR article on listening and I found it very insightful. The article talks about how conventional business management listening advice may not be the best and suggests what great listeners actually do.
Thanks so much for sharing, this is exactly what I was looking for. I would love to see some of the things you've built so far. I've searched a lot of tutorials but I'm always a little disappointed when the lengthy tutorial lacks a live demo of what they built.
I wouldn't consider that theft because it's common dealing with China knowledge that kickbacks are involved especially depending on who you work with. Being paid by both parties are not uncommon for an agent.
https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com is awesome and it looks super easy to use - but any tutorials if you wanted to learn it the harder way via OpenCV or Darknet?
I found this tutorial from fast.ai but haven't been able to check it out yet: https://course.fast.ai/videos/?lesson=1