Maneesh Sethi is a serial entrepreneur and a serial troublemaker. He’s the founder of Pavlok, a habit-changing wearable wristband which gives you electric shocks. His career is pervaded with shocking (no pun intended!) stories … like the time he bought his own private island; the story of how he wrote a best-selling book at 14 years-old; or when he had a heated argument with billionaire Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. Maneesh has spent time working with some of the all-time best business thinkers, and in this episode of MATE he shares the business advice he personally received from the likes of Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin and Richard Branson.
Topics and links:
- Maneesh Sethi is the founder of Pavlok, a behaviour company which helps people change their habits. They released the Pavlok wearable device, which helps people form good habits and break bad habits using operant and classical conditioning.
- At 14 years-old, Maneesh wrote a best-selling book called Game Programming for Teens. The book took-off and became one of the top computer books in America and featured on the Amazon best-seller list. It even became a textbook in Poland (and was translated into 4 languages)!
- The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss.
- How Maneesh’s character flaws have kept popping up throughout his life and stymied his productivity
- Digital nomading, and pursuit of passive income.
- Maneesh tracks his productivity with the time-tracking app RescueTime
- Why Maneesh hired a Craigslist slapper to hit him every time he went on Facebook (and how it quadrupled his productivity).
- (P.S. Aussie listeners, Craigslist is a classifieds website popular in the U.S.)
- Pavlok won the Shopify ‘Build A Business’ Competition in 2015, and were subsequently treated to a trip to Necker Island with Richard Branson, Daymond John, Tim Ferriss, Marie Forleo and Seth Godin.
- The story of how Maneesh bought his own private island
- How Maneesh became a famous DJ in Berlin in 90 days
- The Pact app (formerly known as GymPact), which lets you bet the community how many times you’ll work out each week.
- People respond much more strongly to a negative stimulus than they do to a positive one
- Maneesh’s blog is called: Hack the System: Cheat Codes for Life.
- “Everyone thinks that I’m trying to build [Pavlok] a product that really helps people. [They think], “I like that you’re testing it with other people and with yourself to see if you can help others.” And I’m like, “No, no, no … you don’t understand. I’m trying to build a product to get me to fucking get my shit done, so I’m testing it on all of you so that I know the perfect solution to solve it for me!”” ~ Maneesh Sethi
- “Behaviour is really just a manifestation of all of our decisions. So the way you act is based on what’s going on in your head.” ~ Adam Jaffrey
- The list of cognitive biases on Wikipedia
- The case study of the print + digital subscription of The Economist, from Dan Ariely’s TED talk (skip to 12:29 min).
- What is Pavlok and how does it work?
- When you use Pavlok manually it’s a classical conditioning tool, an aversive therapy device. It helps you create a negative association with a bad habit by doing them at the same time.
- The other method of using Pavlok is using operant conditioning, buy interrupting and breaking the trigger-action-reward habit loop system.
- Maneesh tells us what it was like going on Shark Tank and having a heated argument with billionaire Mark Cuban and angry investor Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary.
- VIDEO: Maneesh gets accused of being a con-artist by Mark Cuban on Shark Tank:
- What is bootstrapping a company?
- The Outsiders, by William N. Thorndike, which analyses unconventional CEOs and what made them successful.
- Maneesh explains why Series A parties are bullshit. You’re buying drinks with borrowed money.
- Pavlok follows the growth philosophies outlined in Scaling Up, by Verne Harnish.
- Hear the best business advice Maneesh ever received from Seth Godin
Special thanks:
- The guest on this episode: Maneesh Sethi, founder of Pavlok.
- Editing by Josh Armour, from ArmourPod Productions.
- Podcast logo cover artwork by Courtney Carman
- Music from “Ghosts I–IV” by Nine Inch Nails, used under a Creative Commons licence.
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MATE podcast is a show about Marketing, Advertising, Technology and Entrepreneurship. Hosted by Adam Jaffrey: Digital Strategist and Entrepreneur. Made with ❤ in Melbourne, Australia.
MATE podcast is a production by branded podcast agency Wavelength Creative.
