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:
- 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
Links:
Sponsors:
Special thanks:
- Editing by Josh Armour, from ArmourPod Productions.
- Podcast logo cover artwork by Courtney Carman
- Theme music from “Ghosts I–IV” by Nine Inch Nails, used under a Creative Commons licence.
- Ad music is called “Going Higher” by Bensound, 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.
