Fred Koehler’s Post

Dear LinkedIn, Feature request here. Could you turn off the full-blast autoplay on videos we scroll past? If we want to watch a video, we are all perfectly capable of clicking on it. The current experience is like getting punched by a stranger who then hands you their business card. Sincerely, everyone.

"I'm not playing your games. Give me a book deal or F.U." That's the email I woke up to this morning. Some people might see this as a slightly-unhinged user on our platform who needs to be shown the door. (Which is true.) But it's also a representation of how painful it is to run into brick wall after brick wall when you're trying to achieve a goal. (In this case a publishing contract.) While I don't recommend this person's approach, I recognize the pain. When you're building a solution for a pain that runs this deep, you might be on to something.

I love recognizing I'm the least intelligent person in the room. The farthest behind. With the fewest connections. It means I can learn something from everyone. Meet the next big contact. Pick up my pace by running with faster people. This is how I level up no matter where I'm at or who I meet.

I enjoyed sharing the RC1 journey with Kailah Matyas and University of Tampa students at Embarc Collective. Here's everything I've learned in a nutshell: Love the work. Layer your skills. Hire best in class. Be an eagle, not a duck. Figure out the flywheel early. My biggest obstacle is often ME. Community is the solution to my biggest obstacle.

There's an app for that. #lakeland #startups take note. If you want to learn what it really takes to build a scalable app, come join us tomorrow at Catapult Lakeland, Inc. at 10 a.m. also #orlando #tampa

The one wish I had as a young, hungry writer was to be given a chance. I was lucky. I took my shot and made it. Since then I've had a vision to create meaningful opportunities for other writers to get discovered. We looked at how it's always been done and took a different approach. Built a new kind of system. Now publishers are partnering with us. This is the first of what I hope will be many such opportunities for my fellow storytellers. If you know a writer, the opportunities don't get better than this. Let's go. Thanks to KidlitTV for hosting the big announcement!

Rich Bishop at Midgame Consulting has been such a huge help to Ready Chapter 1 as we launch and prepare to scale. Highly recommended!

Let's go!!! Building RC1 has been many things - a slog, a grind, an uphill battle. But it's also been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. And when we succeed, it's going to be life-changing. This is the workshop I WISH I'd attended on day 1. If you're considering this journey, come join us.

Not expecting superpowers to manifest, but let me know if you end up with one. We can start a squad.

This is a tale of two entrepreneurs that I met in the last two days. One is about to flush a million bucks. The other, I believe, could exit with a billion. Entrepreneur 1: I've created a product. I just need demand. Entrepreneur 2: We identified a problem that affects 50% of the population of an entire continent. Entrepreneur 1: I'm going to spend a million dollars to promote something no one asked for. Entrepreneur 2: We have an opt-in wait list of 170,000 consumers for the solution we're building. We're raising $3.5 million to build and beta test so we can deploy rapidly at scale. Entrepreneur 1: Isn't my idea awesome? Entrepreneur 2: Will you give me feedback on how I can make this better? Do you mind if I take notes? Which one do you think is going to win? 🤔